Let us just look at the history of the sugar trade,—we shall soon see how well protection has worked. In 1824, the duty on sugar was— West India 27_s._ per cwt. East India 37_s._ „ Foreign 63_s._ „ In 1830, the West India duty was reduced to 24_s._, the East India to 32_s._, which, as the editor of the _Economist_ has well remarked, was “just so much more put into the pockets of the producers, so long as the 63_s._ on foreign sugar was continued.” In 1836, a slight change was introduced. The duty on East India was equalised, so that the duty was— British possessions 24_s._ per cwt. Foreign 63_s._ „ In 1824, we imported— West India Sugar 3,935,549 cwts. East India and Mauritius 271,848 „ Foreign 205,750 „ 4,413,147 The duty on East India being equalised, and that on foreign remaining as before, we imported in 1840— West India Sugar 2,217,681 cwts. East India and Mauritius 1,043,737 „ Foreign 774,427 „ 4,035,845 * * * * * In 1824, the revenue from sugar was £4,641,945 1840, 4,449,035 Between 1824 and 1840, the population had increased five millions, and yet there had been an actual falling off in the consumption of sugar of no less than 377,302 cwts. and a loss of revenue of £192,910, to say nothing of the consequent loss of employment which the five millions would otherwise have enjoyed, resulting from the impulse given to manufactures and shipping, by an increase in the sugar trade. The cost, exclusive of duty, of 3,764,710 cwts. retained for home consumption in the year, as calculated by Mr. Porter, at the _Gazette_ average prices, was £9,156,872. The cost of the same quantity of Brazil or Havanna sugar, of equal quality, would have been £4,141,181, so that in one year we paid £5,015,691 more than the prices which the rest of the inhabitants of Europe would have paid for an equal quantity of sugar. In that year the total value of our exports to our sugar colonies was under £4,000,000, so that we should have “gained a million of money in that one year by following the true principle of buying in the cheapest market, even though we had made the sugar-growers a present of all the goods which they took from us.” {31}