November r, 1882.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



M3 



INDIAN TEA COMPANIES. 

 The working of thirteen Companies has been analyzed 

 and tabulated by the Planters' Stores and Agency 

 Company, Lmiitcd, and is published in the Indian 

 Ar/ricultiirixt. Of course dividends depend not so much 

 on the result of particular years, but on the capital 

 expended from first to last, and others besides the 

 Assam Company may have got their property for a 

 mere song, at the expense of previous shareholders. 

 This premised, we may say that the highest yield of 

 tea is shewn by the Borelli Company, whose yield 

 per acre over old and young cultivation was 470 lb. 

 in 1880 and 524 in 1881. The cost per lb., includ- 

 ing all cliarges, was Is 2Jd in 1879 ; Is 2d in 1880 ; 

 and lUd in 1881. The gi-o.ss prices (including sales 

 of tea seed, etc.) were Is 7id, Is 4d, and Is 4jd. 

 Profit per lb. 5Jd, 2d, and S^d. The dividends varied 

 10 per cent, 4, and 10. The Assam Company, on the 

 other hand, which divided 35 per cent in 1877, fell 

 to 10 percent in 1879, taking 2 per cent of this 

 out of the reserve fund ; the rate being 7 per cent 

 in 1880 and 10 in 1881. The yield per acre of tea 

 was 4001b. in 1880 and the same in 1881. The tea 

 cost for the .S years 1879-81, Is uid. Is l^^d, and 

 Hid. The profit per lb. was Ijd, 1(^1, and 4^d. It 

 is possible that extensions may have been charged 

 against revenue instead of capital ? Looking at the 

 figures for prices in the past three years the course 

 has generally been downwards with them, while, in 

 consequence of lower cost of production, the result, 

 no doubt of enforced economy, profits were higher. For 

 instance, as the figures we have quoted shew, the 

 Borelli Company had .'jjd profit in 1879 out of Is 7id 

 per lb , while in 1>^81 Is 4|d gave SJd profit. The 

 case of the Darjeeling Company was exceptional, shew- 

 ing rising prices and increasing profits, thus : — 

 1879. 1880. 1881. 

 Price per lb. ... 1/6A l/6g l/7i 

 Profit ,, ... 3J 5 6" 



The lesson taught is that of the most rigid economy, 

 for the following note, referring to four leading com- 

 panies, shews how prices have tended downwards 

 generally since 1876 : — 



Average gross price proceeds sale of crops inchidiiig all 

 receipts by gain iii exchange and sale of tea seed : 



While 524 II5. per acre was the highest bearing rate, 

 it was so low as 192 in the case of the British India 

 Company. This Company made no profit in 1879 and 

 1881 and incurred a loss in 1880 of O^d per lb. Ex- 

 cluding this case, the average of 10 companies was 

 365 lb. per acre. 



The following, which we take from the Indhjo 

 Planters' Gazette, shows that the average cost of 

 producing tea on some of the largest concerns in 

 India in 1881 slightly exceeded one sliilling per lb. 

 What is the average in Ceylon? Of course it will be 

 lowered as experience is gained, larger quantities 

 made and as machinery is introduced : — 



The following is a list of cost prices of 1881 : — 

 Assam Co. ... ... ll'Sd I Lebong ... ... 12"5d 



Borelli ITSd | Jorehat ... 1312.5d 



Doom Dooma 12-125d | Darjeeling ... I2-72d 



Scottish Assam ... 12'25 ] Land M. Bank 13'12od 



Jhnnzie ... ll-125d | Dejoo ... 12-25d 



The average qJ these is I2'22ad. 

 4S 



QUEENSLAND AND COOLIES : THK PROS- 

 PECTS OF TBOPICAL AND SEMI- 

 TROPICAL AGRICULTURE IN. 

 .-VUSTRALIA. 

 The fact that not only European directors of labour 

 are seeking new homes in the great Island Continent 

 of the south, but that, for the first time in their 

 history, the Sinhalese are seeking 



"fresh woods* and pastures new" 

 for their labour, more than justifies us in furnioliiiig 

 our readers with such further information as is within 

 our reach. When in Australia, we frequent!}' dis- 

 cussed with friends there the relations between south 

 and north, involving questions almost as burning as 

 those which finally led to civil war between the 

 northern and southern States of what only now can 

 really claim the title of the American Union ! Although, 

 happily, the iniquity of slavery does not exist and is 

 never Ukely to exist iu Australia as a curse and a 

 complication, from which only a terrible internecine 

 conflict fi-eed the Americans, yet the parallel as 

 regards the two countries is curiously close in 

 the matter of aboriginal races which are melt- 

 ing out of existence in the presence of the energetic 

 land-tilling and manufacturing, navigating and trading 

 Europeans who have taken possession of their hunting- 

 grounds. There is, of course, no comparison of 

 physical vigour and lively intellect between the red 

 Indians of America (about whom, however, too much 

 of the halo of romance has been thrown) and the 

 miserable blacks of Australia, but the fate of both is 

 alike, in that they are doomed to perish. The lands 

 which once knew them shall speedily know them no 

 more. Neither for themselves nor for the superior races 

 will they work, except in very rare cases and within 

 narrow limits of employment, and as their hunting- 

 grounds are fast being converted into sheep and 

 cattle runs, farms and orchards, cities and manufactories, 

 and their fishuig pools and rivers utilized for 

 watering flocks and herds, sluicing of mines and 

 U'rigating fanns, they must give up the earth to 

 those who can properly develop its resources; who 

 have come up to posse.«s the land and to increase 

 and multiply on its surface. The disappearance of the 

 aborigines in the temperate portions of Australia, 

 where the white man can work and enjoy life, would 

 be merely a matter of sentimental regret to the few, 

 while to the many — the working classes — the removal 

 of an inferior race, individuals of which did occa- 

 sionally coinpete with them in the management of horses 

 and as police troopei-s, — would be h.niled with rather a 

 sense of relief , we fear. But the ends of the world are 

 coming together, and as one etlmic problem is solved by 

 the disappearance of a race to wliijm civilization was 

 fatal, another smarms on the scene (that is the true mode 

 of expressing the phenomenon) in the shape of the 

 ubiquitous and irrepressible Mongolian, who flourishes 

 on the crumbs of civilization and often by combined 

 industry, sagacity and enterprize takes his place amidst 

 the amenities and the luxuries of the higher 

 ranks of life. Witness the wealthy and hospitable 

 Mr. Kong Jleng of Melbourne, the late Hon. Mr. 

 Whampoa of Singapore, and others. As " fossickers" 

 of dirt heaps from which Europeans have extracted all 

 the visible gold, and even as market gardeners (utiliz- 

 ing manure and water and growing cabbages, cauli- 

 flowers, peas, potatoes, and other \ egetables, but for 

 whicli many a white man's board in m id Australia would 

 be but scantily supplied with anti-scoi-butic food), 



The true reading. — Ed. 



