Sir A. Evansasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he has any information as to the price received by the Cuban producers of sugar for each year of the war; the average price paid for the corresponding number of years before the war; and to what extent this price is higher than that received by any British colonial sugar producer.
§ Colonel LlewellinI have been asked to reply. The price received by the Cuban producers for each year of the war is 2249W given in the following table, together with the price received in each corresponding year by British Caribbean producers. The prices include all preferences in both cases.
Cuba. British Caribbean. per cwt. f.o.b. per cwt. f.o.b. 1940 7s. 7d. 11s. 6d. to 12s. 10½d. 1941 9s. 6d. 12s. 10½d. 1942 14s. 9d. 14s. 0d. 1943 14s. 9d. 14s. 6d. 1944 14s. 9d. 16s. 0d. 1945 not yet fixed 18s. 0d. The official average price for Cuban sugar for six years from 1934 to 1939 inclusive was equivalent to 7s. 1½d. per cwt. f.o.b. The corresponding average f.o.b. price received by British Caribbean producers in the same period, as near as it can be calculated, was 9s. 6d. per cwt. f.o.b. No other British Colonial sugar producers received lower prices than indicated, except in connection with freight adjustments agreed with them to place them in the same relative position to other colonies as they held pre-war.