July i, 1882.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



35 



to receive with a uniform duty of 53 lOd a gallon. 

 But ever since that time the duty upon wine has 

 been receding in a much greater proportion than other 

 revenues from alcoholic lii|Uors. The total of thc:>e 

 revenues fell from £3I,02;),000 to about £28,500,000, 

 01- roundly aliont one-eiglith ; bnt the duty on wine 

 fell from £l,719,00il, tn il,3t)6,000, or hy more than 

 one-liith. Uowevei-, there la the fact that there is a 

 greit diminution, notwithstanding the la>ge increase of 

 population bebweeu 1807 and 1881— an incre:ise in the 

 population -ivhich could not be less than 4,000,000 

 people. Toe gro^s reyenue from these sources, which 

 had risen to £31,020,000 iu 1874, fell by more than 

 £2 500,000 with an increase of population bit-veen 

 1874-75 and 1881-82 of considerably over 2,000,001) 

 people. It is also rather curious to take the pro- 

 portion in which we have been dependent on this 

 source of the revenue of the country, and, in order to 

 show that I have compared the liquor taxation of the 

 o.uutry, as I would call it. with the nou-liqnor tax- 

 ation — meaning by the uon-liquoi' taxation all the tax 

 revenue of Ihecouotry except Che income-lax, which I do 

 not includ" on account of its fri-qufot variation— but I 

 put on one side tlie taxation derived from alcoholic 

 liquors and on the other side the taxes derived from 

 all other sources except the income-tax. Taking the 

 percentages on that basis, they staud as follow ; — In 

 the six years from 1859 to 1865 we levied 37i piT 

 cent on our taxatiun from alcoliolic liquors and 62 

 from non-alcoholic liquors. In three years from 1866 to 

 1868 we levied 42 per cent from alcoholic liquors and 

 57i per cent from all other sources. In five years, 

 from 1869 10 1873, we levied 46i per cent from al 

 coholic liquors au<l 53 per cent from all other sources. 

 In 1874-5 to 1879 80 we levied 51 per cent, of our 

 whole taxes, except income-tax, from alcoholic 

 liqunrs, and 49 percent, from nil other sources. That 

 is a very enrioua stale of facts. Since that came the 

 reaction! I have carried you thus far down to the year 

 1879-80, when we may say Ihat one-half of our taxes came 

 from alcoholic drinks and the other half from other 

 sources. But during the last three jears a read ion had 

 begun. Alcohol had gone down to 47| per c^-nt. and 

 non-alcohol had risen to 53 per cent. But, then, you 

 may say : "It this diminution of consumption is going 

 on, and you have shown it to be so considerable, and if 

 a main cause of this diminution is the foundation of those 

 valuable and nseiul institutions known all over the count- 

 ry — ^I bi-lieve, ill all the great towns or in most of them 

 and even in many country pluees—as coffee and cocoa 

 houses, we ought to see a large increase of revenue, at 

 least, from other sources." But that increase we do not 

 find. Tiiat is a curious fact. I am not going to inelurle 

 lea, because tea, after all, is not uiuch used in these public 

 places. ("Yes.") The revenue derived iu 1867-8 jointly 

 —I will not give all the details — from chicory, coe.ja, 

 and coffee, was £523,000. The revenue derivel from 

 the same sources in 1874-5 had fallen ti £3 0,000 ; but 

 then, in the first place, the miveiuent adv- rao to alcoholic 

 liquors had not then commenced, and, in the second |ilaco, 

 a very larg- r»due ion had been made on the coffee duty, 

 which, in 1867, jielded £390,000, bat it was reduced in 

 1872 fro ill 3tl to l^fl per lb and in 1874 it only yielded 

 £207,000. But while this greit riioveinent adverse to 

 alcohol, whielt has been so eminently favourable to both 

 coffee and chiciry, has been at work since 1874-5, it 

 has not produced the slighest rally in the revenue 

 from coffee, but, on the contrary, during the la"t seven 

 years, iliere has been a further diminution on coffee. 

 Iu 1874 the coffee duty w>s £207,000; in 1881 it was 

 only £189,000; and, althouj;h toe chicory duty had been 

 slightly increased, it only increased hy £8,000 and 

 did not make up the whole difference. The cocoa 

 duty had iucreaTeu somewhat, from £40.000 to £46,0 ; 

 but the joint yield of ihese three articles, which in 

 1874 was £3111,000, was only £306,000 in 1881. When 



we turn to tea, the case is very different. There it is 

 not in the tea houses, but the donietic use of tea that 

 is advancing at such a rate that there you h've a 

 powerful champion able to encounter alcoholic drink 

 in a fair held and to throw it iu fair fight. The 

 revenue on tea, which in 1867 was £3,350 OnO, had 

 riseu in 1874 to £.3,875,000, and in 1881 to £4,200,600. 

 The increase of the i opulation during that period 

 of 14 years was 4,900,000. But there was no cor- 

 responding augmentation in the revenue from coffee 

 ard chicory- 1 am bound to say there is a peculiar 

 state of the law to which 1 ought to invite the House 

 to apply a remedy, and I shall lay a resolution on 

 the table of the Committee this very evening with 

 that view. At, present every description of admixture 

 with coffee is permitted, and we have long proceeded 

 on the principle that the admixture of chicory with 

 coffee was not an adulteration — that it was an admixt- 

 ure rooted in the habits of many countries so that 

 people would not drink coffee without it. But of late 

 a practice has grown up of producing all kinds of 

 'ubstitutes under the name of coffee (Hear, hear), and 

 that I cannot but think, must in some degree account 

 for the strange and singular state of the figures I hat 

 1 have laid before the Committee. We shall not 

 attempt to interfere withthe admixture of chicory with 

 coffee, but we propose that it should not be allowed to 

 introduce other miscellaneous admixtures with coffee. 

 (Hear, hear.) 



JAVA CIiN'CHUNA CULTURE. 



The following is a translation of Mr. Moens' report 

 for the first quarter of this year ; — 

 Repokt on the Government Cinchona Enteepbise 

 IN Java for the 1st Quarter 1882. 



The weather during the past quarter was favorable 

 for operations. The continuous wet weather permitted 

 the regular carrying on of the partial stripping of 

 trees ; only in March the interval of two weeks drought 

 obliged us temporarily to discontinue that work. There 

 were put out in the open 30,000 Ledgtriana and 9,000 

 succirubra plants. The harvest obtained so far reached 

 45 UOO Amst. lb,, of which a quarter was dispatched 

 to' Tjicao— 31,575 A. lb. In January, simult-'ue- 

 ously with the original trees, many of the two year 

 old t-rafts began to blossom. Although this might have 

 I een expected, it caused some uneasiness, as it was 

 feared that the blossom might exact too much from the 

 strength of these young trees. These were there- 

 fore carefully observed, and it is already clear 

 not only that have they borne the blossoming well 

 but that it is even very probable that they will also 

 brinf to maturity the fruit also, without harm to 

 the plants. This last would be a great gain, as on 

 the Tirtasari establishment, where these grafts are 

 planted, there are no other varieties of cinchona but 

 pure C. Ledgeriana. The flowers of these trees cannot 

 therefore receive pollen from other cinchonas, and the 

 seed ought to give exceptional plants. Among the 

 grafts examined, in which the choice of stock was 

 generally very limited, there are .some which, although 

 not yet one year old, are already blossoming profusely; 

 it is to be feared that some of them will succumb to 

 this. The chemical analyses which were performed 

 during this quarter had still for their object the determ- 

 ination of the quinine yield of young Ledyerianas, 

 produced from seed of different parent trees. The most 

 valuable results of these investigations will be given 

 in the next report. J. C. ISernelot Moens, 



Director Govt. Cinchona Knterprise. 



Bandoiig, 4th April 1882. 

 It will be observed that Mr. Moens evidently con- 

 templates propagating Ledgerianas from seed obtained 

 from grafted trees of only two years old. But it 



