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maintained at anything like their old levels, and that increased trade has not brought with it a return to the prosperity-of five or ten years ago. This is attributed to the sugar duty, which has increased the price of the raw material beyond any increase of price of the finished product which has yet been obtained."

For the reasons given your l'etitioners trust that Ilis Majesty's Government will reconsider their decision, and continue to adhere to a Convention which your Petitioners consider to be vital to the existence of the sugar refining and allied industries of this country.

And your Petitioners will ever pray.

2.

71

I also chiclose a copy of a resolution passed on the same subject by the House of Assembly.

I have, &c.,

S. W. KNAGGS,

Acting Governor.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

6

PT PT LT mimimmimi C.O.885

18 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

SIDNEY HUMPHRIES,

President. G. PALLISER MARTIN,

Vice-President. W. J. HILLIAR,

Secretary.

Signed and Sealed at Bristol, 7th August, 1907.

28650

No. 85. QUEENSLAND.

TOWNSVILLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE to COLONIAL OFFICE.

(Received August 12, 1907.).

[Acknowledged through the Governor, August 14, 1907. Miscellaneous.]

Townsville Chamber of Commerce, Townsville,

June 29, 1907.

SIR,

I HAVE the honour by request of this Chamber to address you in support of the request made by the West India Committee that the Sugar Bounty Convention of 1903 should not be denounced.

The State of Queensland is the principal sugar-producing State of the Common- wealth of Australia, and it produced last year some 184,377 tons, and that New South Wales (the only other State of the Commonwealth in which cane sugar is produced), produced some 20,000 to 25,000 tons, and I can confidently say that am voicing the opinion of the sugar producers of Queensland when I state that they are opposed to any idea of the denouncement of the Brussels Convention.

I have, &c.,

Enclosure 1 in No. 86.

RESOLUTION passed by the BARBADOS AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. Resolved that the Barbados Agricultural Society desire to place on record their disappointment and indignation that His Majesty's Government have decided to withdraw from the Brussels Convention. The Society regards the action of the British Government as an abandonment of those engaged in the sugar industry to their fate; inasmuch as their withdrawal is calculated to destroy the stability which the Convention has without doubt renewed, and to place the West Indian Colonies at the mercy of foreign sugar-producing countries, who may now, if they think fit, re-introduce bounties and cartels and reduce the sugar industry to the level of adversity unanimously deplored by the Royal Commissions in 1897.

Enclosure 2 in No. 86.

RESOLUTION passed by the HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY.

Resolved that the House of Assembly regret that His Majesty's Government have decided to intimate their withdrawal from the Brussels Convention.

The House, with a deep sense of their responsibilities, having to no purpose fully represented the effect of the withdrawal of the Government on the future of the inhabitants of this Island, in a petition* to His Majesty the King, dated 19th of March, 1907, now desire to emphasize the convictions expressed in the petition, and are of opinion that all future responsibility now rests on the Imperial Government.

29693

29024

No. 86.

BARBADOS.

H. B. MARKS;

Secretary.

THE ACTING GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE. (Received August 14. 1907.)

[Copy to Foreign Ofice and Baard of Trade, August 25, 1907.] [Acknowledged August 28, 1907, Nà. 106.]

(No. 153.) MY LORD,

Government House, Barbados, July 30, 1907. WITH reference to your Lordship's despatch, No. 51, of the 6th of May,* I have the honour, at the request of the Barbados Agricultural Society, to transmit a copy of a resolution adopted by that body relative to the decision of His Majesty's Government to withdraw from the Brussels Convention.

No. 47 in Miscellaneous No. 206.

No. 87.

LEEWARD ISLANDS.

THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE. (Received August 19, 1907.)

[Copy to Foreign Office and Board of Trade, Angust 28, 1907.] [Acknowledged August 28, 1967, No. 245.]

(No. 319.)

MY LORD,

Government House, Antigua, July 23, 1907. WITH reference to my despatch, No. 277, of the 2nd instant. I have the honour to forward to Your Lordship, for the consideration of His Majesty's Government, a copy of a resolution passed at a General Meeting of the Antigua Agricultural and Commercial Society, held on the 5th instant, as to the disastrous effect on the sugar-producing Colonies of the West Indies, and on this Presidency in particular, of the denouncement by His Majesty's Government of the penal clauses of the Brussels Convention.

2. If the denouncement of those clauses is followed, as others who are more competent to judge in this matter than I am are agreed, by the ruin of the sugar industry in Antigua and St. Kitts-confining myself to this Colony only-His Majesty's Government must be prepared either to lower the whole standard of administration in those islands, which are some of the oldest possessions of the Crown, so that they would become a discredit even to a fifth-rate Power, or else to continue indefinitely the system of annual doles. If a compromise could be effected under which His Majesty's Government would agree to adhere to the Brussels

• Enclosure in No. 8 in [Cd. 3565]; also in No, 2ú in Miscellaneous No. 206.

↑ No. 70.