HC Deb 31 May 1907 vol 175 cc173-4
SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)

To ask the Secretary of State for India if he can explain to the House the reasons given by the Government of India for the apparent failure of measures defended as likely to improve the trade with India of Mauritius, and the decline in the importation of Mauritius sugar from £1,550,000 in 1904 to £1,174,000 in 1906, compared with the rise in the import from Gorman v and Austria-Hungary from £1,013,000 to £3,090,000 in the same period.

(Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) I presume that my hon. friend refers to the remarks made by Mr. Baker, the finance member of the Viceroy's Council, in the Budget statement of last year as to the effects of the experimental imposition by the Government of India of countervailing duties on bounty-fed sugar. The duties ceased to operate at the end of 1903, as Austria-Hungary and Germany, the chief competing countries, had joined the Brussels Convention. I do not find that the causes of the fall in the import of Mauritius sugar were specifically treated by Mr. Baker. In the Government of India's Trade Review for 1905–6, the failure of the beet crop of Europe in 1904, and the abundant yield of 1905 and 1906, are mentioned as explanatory of the import figures of the last three years.