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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[August i, 1883. 



WHAT BRITISH CAPITAL AND ENTEE- 

 PRIZE HAVE DONE FOR ASSAM 



was thus forcibly stated at "the Assam dinner" in 

 London : — 



Surgeon General De Eenzy, 0. B., in proposing the 

 toast of ''Prosperity to the Tea Industry of Assam," 

 spoke as follows : "Of the many benefits which British 

 rule has conferred on India there are few more re- 

 raaik.'ible or likely to be of more permanent value than 

 the creation of the I ea ludusiry. This industry has 

 already conferred immenfe advantages on the Govern- 

 ment and the people of India. Fifty years ago Assam 

 was as little known in the commercial world as Cen- 

 tral Africa is today. The Tea Industry has made it 

 one of the most productive and flourishing provinces 

 of the Empire ; a waste of jungle and swamp has been 

 converted iut ; a fertile garden. Considering the dif- 

 ficulties that had to be surmoun'ed, the rapid pro- 

 gress of the industry has bren astonishing. Forty 

 years ago there was no traffic whatever on tue Brahm- 

 aputra. The noble river knew only the dominion of 

 the alligators that fwarmed on its banks. The scanty 

 populations of the province hardly held its ground 

 liefore the terriblf unhealthiness ol the climate. There 

 being very little labour available in the province, the 

 task of clearing away the jungle and fitting the 

 ground for tea had to he done by imported labour, and 

 the food required by those labourers had to be im- 

 ported. Who couid believe that, with such enormims 

 difficulties to be surmounted, when just forty-Hve Tears 

 ago Assam sent to Englmd its first smail consitin- 

 nient, consisting of twlv-e chests of tea, we should 

 now be within me sureable distance of the time when 

 the Province would be in a position to contest the 

 supremacy of the tea market with China, a country 

 in which the cultivation of tea ba^ been carried on 

 for thousands of years? The tea industry, like r.tlier 

 industries, has had its ups ai d downs. In 1866 it 

 seemed for a time •m if it would end in disastrous 

 failure; and it is mainly owing to the oourag' and 

 shrewdness of Mr. Koberts, now the managing dir'ctor 

 of the Joihat Company, v.lio will r>ply to this toast, 

 that the industry weathered the dangers of that period. 

 The prospects of the industry at present look very 

 bright. The taste for Assam tea has become widely 

 diti'used in liutiland. Large sections of the papulation 

 1 ill use no o^her tea. The population of the province 

 lias grown immensely, and, with the improvement 

 effected in the public health, promises to increase 

 very rapidly ; food staples are largely produced in the 

 ;»rovincp, and the communications by land and T^att^r 

 lave in.proved inimenetiy. Thirty years ago Diiru- 

 1,'arh was a th'-ee months' journey from Calcutta T-^- 

 ■ iay it is a fi[t»;en dajs' journey. The openirg of the 

 Dibrugarh rsilwaj' this year will undoubtedly mark 

 :i new era in the history of the industry. This en- 

 tirprife will not merely supply cheap carriage for the 

 ' roduce of the gardens through which it passes to 



he Brahmaputra highway ; but by opening the Makum 

 i:oalfied, it will provide coal of the very best quality 

 at the head of that great river in unlimited supply 

 at very cheap rates. Consider what this means. It 

 means cheap carriage of produce to the sea board ; it 

 means reduction in the cost of manufacturing tea, by 



upply ng coke to be used instead of charcoal, thus 

 Hindering available for cultivation the establishments 

 now employed in making charcoal. It probably means 

 the final solution of the labour difficulty by facilitat- 

 ing immigration for the over-popnlated districts of 

 Bengal. And here mention may be made of the im- 

 raense benefits which the tea industry has conferred 

 I'U the congested districts by affording an outlet for 

 I he surplus population of Bengal.' The Surgeon Qen- 

 ( ral went on to say that he Lad seen, in the course 

 of bis inspeotions tn sanitary comuiiBeioner, thousands 



of coolies who had risen, since their arrival in the 

 province, from a state of extreme poverty, having 

 hardly a rag to cjver theru, lo comparative affluence 

 and comfort, many of them having become the owners 

 of large droves of cattle. It is very gratifying to 

 note the improvement that has occunedin the health 

 of this class within the last few years— a change due 

 to the intelligent forethought and kindly care of the 

 planters. A few years ago the death rate of the 

 coolies ranged frum 6 to 9 per cent. It is now 

 actually lower than that of the village po|ulation of 

 the old Settled provinces, and is little over 3 per cent. 

 There can be no doubt that wheu the improvements 

 in progress have been completed tiieir condition will 

 be still better, and will be far superior to that of 

 the population of Bengal. 



Then. — ilr. WilliauiEoberts. iu responding to thetoast 

 of the Tea Industry, said : Our thanks are due to 

 Surgeon General i-ie Kenzy tor the very able and 

 eloquent speech in which he has proposed the toast. 

 When I look back some thirty-five year- age, when 

 I first became interested in tea cultivation in Assam 

 and compare the state of the industry ihen with what 

 it has attained to at the present time, I can realize 

 the V'lst progress thai has ben made. In those bye- 

 gone days the old Assam Company was the pioneer 

 and only tea company. We had to periorm a tedious 

 journey of two months from Calcutta to Gauhati, and 

 proceed on by dug-out boats to the remote district of 

 Sibs.igor. Almost everythi»g in these days belonged 

 to the Assam Company, and for many years it was 

 believed by many ol tlie lead ng men connected with 

 that company that it possessed a nioaopoly, and that 

 the cultivation of tea conhl not be undertaken by 

 others. (L:.nghter and ci.eers ) What vast strides 

 have been maoe in the cultivation of the plant since 

 that remote period. We b/ive seen it extended through- 

 out Assam; it has been established in Cachar and 

 Sylbet, in the Darjeeling district, the Tei-ai and Doars 

 in the remote Korrh Westwrn Provinces in B itish 

 Burmah, in the Neil^hcrio-s, and in Ceyhn, a' d as far 

 bs these va-^^t e.'C 'n.-ious are coujidered it must be 

 admitted that prcsperiiy has followed the industry 

 for many years past. iut. Sir, I ftar it will not be 

 so readily odnnitted that the pecuniary re.tnlts have 

 b. I n equally prosperous. There have been "leaps and 

 bounds." great prosp-rity and great depressiou. But 

 probably it we were to lake a fr.ir average of the 

 whole, the result \ionld be consideri d satisfactory by 

 ni.\:;y men ol moderate idtas. (Cheers.) Stea.o oom- 

 !r,!,';ication between Calcutta and tue tea districts, and 

 bctv jn i.'aleutta nnd London, has a sisttd most mat- 

 er -jy in developing ti e indus ry, and «i:h equitable 

 law,^ in India, and the preservation of . ur birthright 

 tf trial by our own couutrymeu— (loud cheers) — viiere 

 is no douot, but that the great Indian tea industry 

 will continue to flourish. (Cheei:'.) 



Mt. Burnett proposed the toast of "The Minino 

 and Railway Industries of Assam," and cojpled with 

 it the name ol Mr. Benjamin Pieicy, il. L C. E. 

 the E'igiueer-in-Chief of the Assam Raiiwais and 

 Trading Company. 



Mr. Piercy, in responding, spokt as follows: * * • 

 From the b.nks of ihe Brahmaputra, wiiich yon know 

 is navigable through that ri.-ing capital Dibrugarh, 

 and the intervening succession of villages and tea 

 plantations to D oui Dooma, some fifty miles the 

 rails have been laid ; and locomotives with tr.-iin3 

 of passnger carnages and goods trucks are run- 

 ning over it. (Cheers.) Ou to Talup, the end of the 

 main line, the formation is complete, excepting one 

 bridge ; and the rails are being laid upon it. The 

 fork to Makum and on to the coalfields of the 

 Kaga Hills is progressing with great rapidity from 

 its junction, south of Doom Dooma, with the 



