TEA AND SILK FAEMING IX NEW ZEALAND. 241 



machinery, and that of the rudest construction, is employed. 

 The work is done, however ; but, like the erection of Egypt's 

 pyramids and other vast monuments of antiquity which for 

 centuries have taxed the ingenuity of experts to explain, is 

 acomplished simply by numbers, where, with the aid of suit- 

 able machinery, far fewer human hands would suffice. The 

 Indian tea planters early became alive to the value of proper 

 mechanical appliances and adopted them, thereby enabling them 

 materially to reduce the number of their employes. In Ceylon, 

 where the conditions for tea culture and preparation are on the 

 whole not superior to those possessed by India, the result has 

 been, considering the short period the industry has existed there, 

 even more encouraging. Wiser in her generation, and profiting 

 by the errors of her big neighbour, Ceylon has without excite- 

 ment, gambling in bogus gardens, or at any sacrifice wdiatsoever, 

 quietly added tea planting to her older avocations of producing 

 coffee and cinchona, and is now intent in pushing her products 

 into the various markets of the world. From the mistakes of 

 India there would be no excuse if Xew Zealand failed to keep 

 clear. On the contrary, having the united experience of China, 

 India, Europe, Ceylon, and Australia to guide her, with a magni- 

 ficent climate and every other advantage to boot, there seems good 

 reason to predict success. We have already given expression to the 

 antagonistic opinions wdiich prevail regarding the likelihood of 

 getting the Maoris to work for reasonable wages, or indeed to 

 work at all. Without leaning to either side in the meantime, it 

 is satisfactory to know that there are many hundreds of indus- 

 trious Chinese already settled in Xew Zealand whose co-operation 

 in congenial industries might be had, and whose services and 

 experience — acquired in many instances, doubtless, at the great 

 centres of tea and silk production in their native country — could 

 scarcely fail to be eminently valuable. As an extreme measure, 

 resort might be had to the importation of labour direct from 

 China, as experience has taught that the offer of a few pence per 

 day over the sixpence or ninepence tlie Asiatic has hitherto been 

 toiling for at home, is not one likely to remain long neglected. 

 The dithculty with the sons of the yellow race has not hitherto 

 been to induce them to leave their homes for places where, under 

 strong legal protection, fair wages were to be earned. Kather 

 has it been to keep them away, or, having swarmed like locusts, 

 as in California and some parts of Australia, to prevent and 

 quell the riots occasioned by their underbidding tlie American 

 and European workman, and threatening to drive them alto- 

 gether out of the labour market. Of such a contingency, how- 

 ever, tliere is no near prospect, as the New Zealand Oovernmcnt 

 have decided to place a tax of £10 a head upon every Chinaman 

 landing on the islands, which will probably weed out from 



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