ABSTRACT
PEEL had set in motion a revolution in Imperial commercial policy: one of the principal tasks of his successors was to complete it. One solitary measure of the Whigs—the lowering of the duties on all colonial wines from the general rate of 5s, 6d. to the Cape rate of 2s. 9d. per gallon, desired by Australia—carried on the principle of colonial preference. 1 The general tendency was to sweep away one by one the relics of the old colonial system. The change in the sugar duties had so profound an effect upon the position of the West Indies that it will be treated in a separate chapter. Of the other commodities admitted into Great Britain at preferential rates coffee and timber were the most important. The Budget of 1851 proposed to abolish the coffee preference and to reduce the timber preference by half. Whereas in 1846 the amount of colonial coffee entered for home consumption was 23,795,000 lb. and of foreign coffee 12,998,000 lb., in 1850 the amounts were 28,893,000 lb. and 2,335,000 lb. respectively. The production of the West Indies was steadily declining, but the rapid extension of coffee-growing in Ceylon was more than supplying the deficiency. The case for the change was in fact overwhelming. It was desired to check the adulteration of coffee with chicory by lowering the price, and Ceylon coffee held so strong a position in the British market that only by equalizing the duties could this object be attained. 2 Mr. Stanley, who had visited Ceylon, argued that it was at a disadvantage in comparison with Brazil: but the loss of the preference seems to have been accepted there with equanimity. The coffee industry enjoyed twenty more years of prosperity before it was ruined by a fungus. The reduction of the preference on timber attracted little attention in the House, but elicited the usual protest from the Board of Trade of Quebec and another from the Canadian Assembly. The Quebec petitioners urged that the Act of 1846 had been based upon true free trade principles, for it took into account the cheaper freights enjoyed by the Baltic countries: ‘the proposed reduction of js. per load on timber and 10s. on deals would operate as a direct bonus to the foreigner’. 1 The Assembly estimated that the timber trade directly employed 35,000 men and four-fifths of all the tonnage visiting Canadian ports; but the real object of the petition was probably revealed by the reminder that the timber was virtually shut out from the other possible market, the United States. 2 The Council and Assembly of New Brunswick also protested against the change. Not unnaturally Lord Grey replied to these petitions by pointing out that despite the reductions already made in the preference the consumption of colonial timber had not diminished, and that there was therefore every reason to believe that the particular kinds and qualities of timber grown in the British Colonies would continue to be used for the purposes to which they were peculiarly adapted. 3 The Act was passed without more ado. When the Protectionists came into office in 1852 the belief professed in the principle of colonial preference by Stanley and Disraeli when in Opposition was conveniently forgotten. Gladstone in his Budget of 1853 abolished the preference on cocoa and on numerous other articles; and on butter, cheese, spirits, tallow, and certain other commodities he reduced the rate. 4 In 1860 these all disappeared and the preferences on wine and timber with them. The old colonial system was thus at length completely swept away.
