§ Captain TERRELLasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the fact that this country is dangerously at the mercy of foreign sugar rings, he can make any statement as to the efforts being made by the Colonial Office to stimulate sugar-growing in all British overseas countries, in view of the need for a concerted and large-scale policy in this direction?
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREThe Secretary of State is of course anxious that as large a proportion as possible of the sugar required by this country shall be produced on British territory, and hopes that the preference accorded to British grown sugar will result in increasing that proportion. It is the constant effort of the Colonial Office to place the best scientific and technical advice at the disposal of the sugar growing Colonies through the local Departments of Agriculture and such institutions as the West Indian College of Agriculture. It would however be beyond the functions of the Colonial Office or of the Colonial Governments to attempt to influence planters in their choice of crops to be grown.