HC Deb 04 December 1902 vol 115 cc1308-9
MR. GIBSON BOWLES

To ask the President of the Board of Trade can he give the reference to any passage either in the Brussels Sugar Convention itself or in any of the proces-verbaux, or in any other document, showing that where any doubts exist as to the interpretation of a Clause in the Convention, reference is to be made to the proces-verbal.

(Answered by Lord Cranborne.) Where a Treaty is the result of a Conference the instrument is always interpreted in the light of the proces-verbaux. But I must not be understood to suggest that any doubt arises on the text of the Sugar Convention itself, that we are in any circumstances under any obligation to penalise sugar from a British self-governing Colony.

MR. GIBSON BOWLES

To ask the President of the Board of Trade is he aware that on the 17th December, 1901, the delegate of His Majesty's Government to the Sugar Conference at Brussels declared that even if bounties on sugar were abolished the Cartels with the surtax would re-establish their inconveniences; and will he state what steps His Majesty's Government propose to take in order to procure the abolition either of the Cartels or of the surtax.

(Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) The declaration refered to related to the operation of Cartels in the absence of any limitation of surtax. Article III. of the Convention provides for the limitation of the surtax to an amount which the Conference considered would not permit of the re-establishment of the inconveniences resulting from bounties.

MR. SYDNEY BUXTON (Tower Hamlets, Poplar)

To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the statement by the Danish Minister of Finance that, in his opinion, England would be obliged, by the terms of the Sugar Convention, to levy countervailing duties on bounty-fed sugar for her self-governing Colonies and India; and what steps he proposes to take, before ratifying the Treaty, to secure that no such obligation will rest on the British Government.

(Answered by Lord Cranborne.) The hon. Member probably refers to the proceedings in the Dutch Second Chamber. As already stated, in the opinion of His Majesty's Government no such obligation rests upon His majesty's Government.