The reports have been published of the West Indian Sugar Commission headed by the Labour peer, Baron Olivier, and Sir Francis Watts, formerly Government chemist and superintendent of agriculture for the Leeward Islands, on the Mauritius sugar. industry. It was on these reports that the Government's policy was based when, on March 14, the Secretary of State for the Colonies telegraphed the Governors of the West Indies, and Mauritius that the British Government was prepared to shoulder half the colonial governments' losses up to £300,000 in respect of the West Indies, and £200,000 in respect of Mauritius, if the colonial governments will guarantee lenders in respect of half of any losses on advances to assist the next sugar crop.
The Commission recommends single purchasing agency to purchase all sugar for the United Kingdom: Imperial sugar at £15 a ton c.f. and other sugar at the market price. It also recommends that the preference given by the British Government on Imperial sugar should be raised as soon as possible to ds. 8d. per cwt.
Sir Francis Watts recommends for the Mauritius Government a grant, for at least five years, equal to the difference between the general cost of production—estimated £13 a ton—and the average selling.
'A Government statement, issued simultaneously with the reports, declines to anticipate the Budget, but declares that while there is a duty on' sugar, the preferences in favour of sugar grown within the Empire will be maintained.
The statement adds that the Government is not prepared to impose on Britain the burden of contributing millions of pounds annual ly to colonial sugar industries, which would be the case if the reports were acted upon.—Reuter,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.