October i, 1884.] 



THn TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



?93 



black teas of China. We cannot help sympathizing 

 with the poverty-stricken peasant producers of tea in 

 China, bnt the "inevitable cannot be helped. It is 

 not in war alone but in the arts and products of 

 peaceful industry that the Western nations are so 

 unquestionably superior to the inhabitants of the Far 

 Bast. European planters cannot certainly compete iu 

 cheapness of production with the Chinese, if it be 

 true, as stated by Mr. Colquhnun, that for a tea 

 which sells for Is per lb. in London the producer 

 receives only one penny ! We have read of the 

 frugality of the Chinese and of the smallness of the 

 number of "cash" for which in ordinary times a 

 meal can be purchased, but, with all that, it is utterly 

 impossible that a penny for a pound of made-tea 

 can nearly repay the labour of the producer. But 

 let our readers just look at the fact, that ou this 

 product, fi.r which the man who has toiled in grow- 

 ing, and partially at least preparing it, is paid one 

 penny a pound, is taxed very nearly 75 per cent of 

 the selling price in the shape of duty by the Govern- 

 ments of China and Britain. For the tea-growers of 

 China are placed at the serious disadvantage by their 

 own Government that their produce pa.vs an export 

 duty ot 2^1 per lb., an addition of 6d in the shape of 

 import duty being levied ou it by the British Govern- 

 ment ere it can go into consumption. The producer 

 pocketing Ins wretched penny and the Governments 

 of China and Britain making a levy of 8|d, there 

 remains the magnificent sum of 3^d to supply profits 

 to purchasing merchants in China and brokers and 

 wholesale and retail dealers in London ! But surely 

 Mr. Colquhoun is mistaken in supposing that even 

 the lowest quality of China tea, which has paid 2jd 

 duty on export from China and Gd impi rt duty in 

 England, can be sold, even wholesale, for one shilling 

 per lb. ? One thing is certain : that, as stated by a 

 writer from Foochow, quoted in our columns today, 

 the position of the China tea trade is wretched, Had the 

 country a Government worthy of the name, the export 

 duty of nearly 3d per lb. would have been remitted 

 as soon as it became evident that Indian tea had 

 broken down the long-standing tea monopoly of China, 

 and was not only competing with but rapidly dis- 

 tancing the best orange pekoes of " the flowery land." 

 The action of China gives the Indian planters an 

 advantage of 2jjd per lb. over their Chinese com- 

 petitors, apart from the presence of labour-saving 

 machinery and the absence of those unauthorized but 

 no less onerous " squeezes " to which the poor Chinese 

 peasant tea grower is subjected. In India there are 

 no export duties, and, deficient as means of com- 

 munication still are in some of the remote dis- 

 tricts of Assam, the lot of the Indian tea planter 

 is immensely better than that of his Mongolian com- 

 petitor. In Ceylon there is a trifling export duty levied 

 on tea, but it is for a specifio object and in lieu of 

 a tax which was previously levied ou acreage. Here, 

 on the other hand, there is an import duty of 6d per 

 pound' on tea, which, now that our export of the 

 article has reached 2,000,000 lb. iu a year, has 

 assumed the. aspect of a protective tax, which will, 

 doubtless, be removed, as we feel it ought to be, at 

 he approaching revision of our tariff. The quality 

 of Ceylon tea is too high to require any bolstenng- 

 up ol this sort. Our fellow-subjects in India as well as 

 the Chinese will have reason to complain if the Ceylon 

 duty of 6d per lb. is retained. The sacrifice of revenue 

 will be but trifling, us the duties collected on im- 

 ported tea have fallen off greatly and are diminishing 

 year by year. We have now the evidence of Mr. 

 Colquhoun against what we always fell were the 

 grossly-exaggerated estimates of the amount of tea 

 grown iu China, calculated on the supposition, con- 

 trary to fact, that tea was in universal use as 

 a beverage by the three hundred millions of China. 



As a great many natives of India and Ceylon 

 seldom eat rice, but have to content themselves with 

 millets and root , so there are millions upon millions in 

 China who never drink anything more nearly resembling 

 tea than hot water. The terrible poverty of the masses 

 cannot be more vividly represented than by the fact 

 that they cannot afford to use at home a product for 

 which, in order to be exported, the producer consents 

 to receive only one penny per ) omul. ( in every 

 possible ground, we have reason to hope that the 

 war now waging, however disastrous in its immediate 

 results, mny tend, with other causes, to such changes 

 in the Government of China as shall vastly improve 

 the condition of the masses of this industrious but 

 down-trodden and now for ages unprogressive people. 

 With railways and roads radiating over her surface, 

 ( hina would be amongst the wealthiest and happiest, 

 instead of oue of the poorest and most wretched of 

 nations. 



Having thus fully discussed the subject in which 

 we in Ceylon are chiefly interested, we may add, that 

 according to Mr. Colquhoun, 



The decrease in silk is owing mainly to competition from 

 Japan, where crops have lately been excellent, and partly 

 to disease in the silk-worm. The trade for some time was 

 upset by the operations of a Chinese banker in Shanghai, 

 who kept buying constantly and maintaining- high prices' 

 notwithstanding the depressed state of the London and 

 Lyons markets. The total held by this operator at one 

 time was 14,1 00 out of a total of 18,000 bales, the usual 

 stock being five to 6,000 bales. The venture collapsed, 

 and the market has again resumed its normal condition! 

 The silk producing power of China is enormous. In 1813 

 not a bale left China, in 1845 over 10,000, in 1855 over 

 50,000 and iu late years between 50, and 100,000 have been 

 exported. 



In 1863 nearly the whole was shipped to Loudon even 

 the Lyonese industry being in the hands of Knglish agents. 

 Now the French silk industrial centre receives more°than 

 double the amount shipped to London, and the work is 

 carried on by French tirms. 80 greatly have the French at- 

 tracted the trade, that the P. & O Company has, within 

 the last year, been compelled to resume its line from China 

 to Marseilles. Filature factories in China have been started 

 for the most part with Chinese capital under English or 

 American management. For these, skilled workmen from 

 the valley of the Rhine, the home of the silk industry, 

 have been brought out. The attempt has not hitherto sue- 

 cei led, but serious competition will yet arise and deserves 

 the attention of the home industries. From Shanghai is 

 exported four-fifths of the amount annually exported from 

 China, the balance coming from Canton. But Southern 

 China is a sealed letter, not only as regards silk, but 

 trade generally. Both in the southern provinces, and in 

 Tonquin when opened up, a considerable silk industry may 

 be confidently expected. 

 And then as to the trade with Britain : — 



The average balance of trade, which from time to tame 

 varies greatly, was, for the four years previous to 1882, 

 62,750,000. "While the imports have increased 350 per 

 cent, and the exports 400, since 1S54, the ratio of the 

 balance of trade in 1882 has increased only some 40 per 

 cent. The progress made since 1860, the time of the last 

 European-Chinese war, is by no means commensurate with 

 the expeetatious which were reasonably entertained, and 

 it is noticeable that the foreign trade has been at a stand- 

 still during the last dozen years. 



The most marked feature, and the one which concerns 

 us most — foT it involves the loss of an income of £6,000,000 

 sterling to England— is the decrease in the import of Indian 

 opium. There cannot be auy doubt but that the foreign 

 drug will be driven, slowly perhaps, hut steadily, by native 

 competition, from the China market. 



Mr. Colquhoun then gees on to show, what other 

 writers have proved over and over again, that the 

 Chinese Government is anything but sincere in its pro. 

 fessed desire to put down the use of opinm altogether. 

 On the contrary, the internal growth of poppirs has 

 been eucouraged. Mr. Colquhoun does not tee how 



