Sto 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



fjANrARV I, 1884, 



THE CINCHONA ENTEEPEISE. 

 Deae Sih, — In the present state of crisis in all that con- 

 cerns bark growing, selling and manufactni'ing, it seems 

 to us that a little information as to actual state of things, 

 and an attempt, however crudely made, to disentangle 

 effect from cause and to lay bare the actual facts of the 

 case, will be useful to the planters of cinchona in youi- 

 Island, and the facility you always give for ventilation and 

 sifting of all matters in dispute, emboldens ua to hope that 

 yon will assist us, by the publicity your colunms give, in 

 this our attempt. 



We wiU try then and fathom the mystery of the rapid 

 evanishment in Ceylon of the idea of cinchona growing 

 being an Eldorado, and of planters accepting now prices 

 which for some qualities must have ceased to be remuner- 

 ative. We tliink we cannot begin better than by attacking 

 the very widely-spread and too commonly received idea 

 that the quantity of cinchoua grown is absolutely and in 

 itself beyond the requirements—in other words that the 

 quantity of bark, now groivn in the world, will provide 

 more than sufficient Quinine and other alkaloids to supply 

 the needs in these articles of the whole world. 



Now we think that no fairly educated man, with a map 

 of the world before him, vdih some slight knowledge of 

 the area of inhabited land in tropical and swampy regions, 

 will attempt to argue that the quantity of bark actually 

 grown is sufficient for the absolute requirements of the 

 globe. 



Now that being the case— and who will dare to deny our 

 assertion that the present production of bark is not nearly 

 sufficient for the needs of the world, — we think that the 

 gi'owers have a right to enquii'e whether the manufacturers, 

 whose only raiaon rfV-Z/'C is their turning out as much of the 

 manufactured article as is possibly consistent with gaining 

 a fair liveliliood for themselves — we say the pl.anters have a 

 right to kuow whether these men as a body are fulfilling their 

 duty, and we think that in pursuing this thought we shall 

 come across the real root and cause of the present state of 

 stagnation aud crisis. 



We should like to kuow where the Quinine trade would be 

 now if the old-fashioned legitimate manufacturers of 14 years 

 ago had argued on those lines, when, with a supply of bark 

 only a sixth part of that which we receive now, Quinine 

 was well nigh unsaleable at 4s peroz. Had they then acted 

 in accordance with the same short-sighted policy as that 

 being pursued now, and said that the then consumption re- 

 presented the requirements of the world, where would five- 

 sixths of those who now take C^uiiiiue get it from, or rather 

 where would those manufacturers be who had as misiuter- 

 preted their work and its rcsponsibilties ? We venture to 

 to think they would have been superseded by auotber class 

 of men more in accordance with the requu'emeut.s of the age 

 and according to the inexorable and unalterable law that any 

 species that ceases to serve some use or purpose dies out. 

 Bui those manufacturers <lid not act so, they accepted their 

 bad times, and were very soon rewarded by seeing the un- 

 varying result of low prices, in increased consumption and 

 they shortly reaped a rich harvest as a consequence of legit- 

 imate aud reasonable trading. 



For many years past during the period of prosperity, when 

 the apparent consumption of Quinine ad\anced with those 

 will-o'-the-wisp " leaps aud boimds" that deceive so often in 

 other matters besides quinine selling ; in those days some 

 large manufacturers turned out the manufactured article re- 

 gardless of where it would find its real consumptive demand 

 content to sell to speculators, who manipulated the markets 

 so as to get their profit out of the real di&tributer, who alone 

 really fulfilled a useful office in pushing the sale of the article 

 in regions where it was not known or not fully appreciated. 

 But what is the state of things now 'i These large mami- 

 lactiu'ers (we are not for a moment speaking of the whole 

 body, for there are still among them all those men of 14 

 years ago, who acted wisely then, aud who nearly all 

 pursue the same steady trade of supplying the demand and 

 extending according to the requirements of the trade, dis- 

 com-aging speculation and encouraging all opening up of 

 new districts, we are only speaking of such men as have 

 acted rather as speculators than mantrtaeturcrs), these men 

 now Bud that their speculative buyers have no longer a 

 trade, they, the speculators, could oidy live upou the work 



of others. The real distributers foresaw the droj) in prices 

 which extended production of bark must bring, and they 

 advised all their under-buyers to reduce their stocks and 

 wait for the low prices to increase their trade, consequently 

 the speculators had a large stock in hand wliich they could 

 not dispose of except at a very large sacrifice, but these 

 large manufacturers, instead of allowing this logical effect 

 to work itseif out, intervened, bought back to a large ex- 

 tent theii' o'wn make from the speculators, aud proceeded 

 to form a syndicate to keep up the price, aud to enable them 

 to get out of the mess that their own over-anxiety to pro- 

 duce had got them into, and the most extraordmary fact 

 of the whole is, that they managed, by protestations of 

 poverty, viz., the enormous loss they would have to make 

 by saying that it would steady the market and that it 

 would not reduce the consiunption of Quinine, by threats 

 of destruction to the timid, and by appeals to the mercy of 

 those whose business they had much injured in the past, to 

 get practically all the manuf acttirers to agree to form a 

 syndicate. 



Aud now let us consider the action of this syndicate. Not 

 being in the confidence of the prime movers of the syndic- 

 ate, we may not be exact in detail, and if so, we are 

 open to be set right as to detail, but as to the main prin- 

 ciple we beUeve we nre exact. 

 The main provisions are these ; 



The manufacturers calculate the consumption of the world 

 at au arbitrary figure fixed by themselves, and divide this 

 among themselves pro rata ot their previous make, no maker 

 to make more than the quantity allotted to him, but with this 

 important difference that those makers who had been over- 

 trading had to reduce their make pro rata very considerably, 

 whilst the legitimate manuf.'icturers' make was not reduced. 

 No manufacturer tn accept less than the syndicate prices. 

 Certain restrictions as to the members buying any large 

 quauti ty of bark. 



Certain members of the syndicate have deposited large sums 

 of money to be forfeited in case they do not act up to their 

 eugagenient", but with others their word has been considered 

 sufiioient security. 



This being roughly the programme of the syndicate, wc 

 may now turn to the effects already produced by it. The 

 planter has only to refer to the price per unit he obtained be- 

 fore the syndicate was formed, and when foreign quinine 

 was selling at under Cs per oz., viz., about 9d to lOd per unit 

 whereas now, when the syndicate has fixed an arbitrary price 

 7s 6d for quiuine, it only pays the planter 4d to 5d and just 

 at present perhaps Gd per unit. This will show you how 

 much consideration you may expect. 



We think it will be patent to anyone that (the manu- 

 facturers having agreed not to make more than a certain 

 amount of quinine) — 



They do not require a greater quantity of baik than that 

 necessary to produce the quantity of quinine which they 

 agreed to make. 



That the quantity of bark actually produced contains a 

 larger amount of alkaloid than the arbitrary amount fixed 

 by the syndicate, and that consequently the syndicate 

 does not want all the bark produced. 



That the planters of CeyloU' being mostly in want of 

 money and all anxious to get in first and sell the syndic- 

 ate has the Ceylon planters at its mercy so long as they 

 each try to be the first to sell, and could, if it choose, 

 compel them to take 2d iastead ot 4d to Gd per unit. 



And most important of all that every pound of bark the 

 planters sell to the syndicate at syndicate prices goes to 

 strengthen the positiou of the syndicate, to enable them to 

 make a fund of profit out of which they will later on be able 

 to carry on their warfare which is alike against the interest 

 of the grower ot bark and the consumer of Quiuine. 



For example, all the large quantities of bark sold in the 

 last year or two in Ceylon direct to the Continent enabled 

 tho.-e manufacturers to depress the London market by ab- 

 staining from buying, and frightening London agents into 

 accepting low prices ; the London low prices re-acted on the 

 Ceylon market and made it sell at again lower prices to the 

 Continent, thus enabling the Continent to continue the ab- 

 stention policy in Loudon, and consequently a fresh drop iu 

 London, followed by a fresh drop in Ceylon, aud so action 

 and rc-actiou following each other, all at the cost of the 

 planter and to the profit, principally of that manufactory with 

 which is connected the name of the man who is above all 

 others answerable for the present deplorable state of affaiiB, 



