of her old sugar plantations which France still possessed, had been long complaining that the benefits they derived from the Pacte Colonial had entirely ceased, since the protection which their sugar used to receive in the French market against foreign sugar, and against that manufactured in France, had been withdrawn; and that nothing remained of that system, except the hardships they had to endure from the exclusion of the foreign trade and flag, and the difficulty they had in getting rid of their produce, which the French shipping was not sufficiently numerous to export.
In consequence of these and other[1] representations, a law, passed on the 3rd July, 1861, enacted (Articles 1 and 2) that all the foreign commodities allowed to be imported into France were to be admitted into Guadaloupe, Martinique, and Bourbon, under the same conditions and duties. Article 3 broke down the barrier which had hitherto shut out foreign shipping from freedom of access to those islands. It allowed the importation of foreign goods under every flag, without distinction, subject, however, to the
- [Footnote: and Solferino. I had, subsequently, frequent occasion to see the
Emperor on the subject of these laws; and I gave evidence, for the same purposes, before the Conseil Supérieur he appointed to inquire into them: in the report of these proceedings there will be found a copy of my letter to his Majesty, and also a copy of one addressed to M. Fleury on the same subject. (See Appendix to this volume, No. 5, p. 591.)]
- ↑ The dates were:—Address of the House of Commons, and debate upon it, 29th March, 1860; brought under the notice of the Emperor, 10th January, 1861; Report of the Minister of Commerce of France to the Emperor relative to the state of the French Mercantile Marine, published in the Moniteur 2nd May, 1862; Conseil-Supérieur of Commerce commenced its inquiry, 10th July, 1862.
