The Sugar Duties Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vict) was a statute of the United Kingdom which equalized import duties for sugar from British colonies. It was passed in 1846 at the same time as the repeal of the Corn laws by the Importation Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vict. c. 22). The Act, combined with the recent abolition of slavery had a devastating effect on Caribbean economies, which had previously enjoyed preferential treatment in relation to import duties from the West Indies. There were in fact two Sugar Duties Acts in 1846 (c.41 and c.63), one being a replacement for the other.
With no cheap labour force and no preferential tariff protection, the plantation-owners in the British West Indies could not compete with Cuba and Brazil, where sugar was still produced using slave labour. The rise of European sugar beet as a cheap alternative to sugar cane further worsened their position. Plantation owners in the West Indies felt a sense of betrayal in relation to the legislation, as they had taken understood it to be implicit in relation to their agreement to the abolition of slavery eight years earlier that the tariff protection would remain in place as a quid pro quo.
Famous quotes containing the words sugar, duties and/or act:
“They give us a pair of cloth shorts twice a year for all our clothing. When we work in the sugar mills and catch our finger in the millstone, they cut off our hand; when we try to run away, they cut off our leg: both things have happened to me. It is at this price that you eat sugar in Europe.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Old age equalizes—we are aware that what is happening to us has happened to untold numbers from the beginning of time. When we are young we act as if we were the first young people in the world.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)