§ MR. DAVID MACIVER (Liverpool, Kirkdale)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, with 586 reference to the undertaking given by the British delegates at the Brussels Sugar Conference that no preferential treatment should be accorded in this country to sugar imported from British Colonies, whether His Majesty's Government will decline to ratify the Convention, so far as it relates to any agreement which would tie our hands as regards making our own terms with our own people in respect of the duties to be levied upon importations of whatever kind from our own Colonies, Dependencies, or Dominions.
§ SIR M. HICKS BEACH (for Lord CRANBORNE)Unless my hon. friend intends to suggest that when the bounties on sugar now given by foreign nations are abolished, we should at once proceed to give bounties ourselves on sugar coming to this country from the Colonies. I do not think there is anything in this Convention open to the objection he raises. But as we shall, as soon as possible, lay Papers on the Table which will explain the whole matter, I would suggest that any Questions on it should be deferred.