the supply of the consumption of coffee to this country, that we should resort to this mode of indirect importation?—There is no doubt of the fact of it being imported to England in that way to supply consumption; the consumption is evidence of the fact.
'893. Chairman. Do not those greatly increased expenses keep up the price of coffee in this country?—They have two effects. The expense of sending coffee to the Cape of Good Hope is about 1d., and consequently it arrives in this country at about 5d. less duty than if it came direct from the countries of its growth; but if the duties were reduced to an equitable fiscal principle, the article would be cheaper and the consumption of coffee in this country would no doubt increase enormously.'
Another striking example of the absurdity of preference is to be found in the preferential treatment accorded to Cape wines. Here is a lesson which I hope will be borne in mind by those who are inclined to lend a favourable hearing to any scheme for giving Australian wines a preference over foreign wines. During and after the Napoleonic war we thought it better to make the Empire 'self-sustaining' in wine as in other things. By an Act passed in 1818 Cape wine was admitted here at one-third the duty on Spanish and Portuguese wines. The result was, of course, a great stimulus to the Cape wine trade; and even in 1846, when the duty on Cape wines was only half that on foreign wines, the importation of Cape wines almost equalled that of wines from France. But the trade was a purely artificial one. When differential duties were abolished and the importation of Cape wine fell to its natural level, the trade almost disappeared. This was in fact the most ridiculous preference of all. It chiefly benefited the fraudulent wine merchant in Britain, for it supplied him with cheap and inferior grape-juice wherewith to adulterate good foreign wine. It did not really benefit the Cape winegrower. It did not encourage him to improve his methods of manufacture. It only gave him a safe market for a bad product.
Before leaving this part of the subject, it may be worth while to give the actual figures of the Colonial Preference as they stood in the year 1840. Here is the list quoted verbatim from the Blue Book of 1841:
