September i, 1884.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



r/i 



THE SEASON IN TEAVANOOKE. 



A correspondent writes from South Travancore : " I was 

 rather surprized to see a para iu your paper statiug that 

 the rainfall on the west coast is almost equal to the average 

 of last year. If this refers to Malabar and South Oanara, 

 of course people in Travancore will have no cause for com- 

 plaint. Hut in Travaucore, from the district in which I 

 write, we had 25 inches of rain-up to the end of June last 

 year ; in tho corresponding period this year we have had 

 5 inches of rain ! Near hilly places there may have been 

 an inch more, but on the sea coast it has been considerably 

 less. We have not had a single monsoon shower. The paddy 

 crop of Nunganad has been reared by the water from the 

 hill streams. As for fodder for cattle, there is none. Eice 

 is coming in from the east in carts and quotations havegone 

 up— the present price is five Madras measures for the rupee, 

 a rate suihcieutly high to induce the authorities to look 

 at matters more seriously than they are doing at the present 

 time. It is the opinion of many that the unfavorable cond- 

 ition of the season iu Travancore has created such a demand 

 for grain in the British stations near by that scarcity 

 threatens and grain will soou be dearer there than here. 

 It is certainly time that the British Government advised 

 the Travancore authorities to delay no longer iu accepting 

 the project for laying down of the railway from Tinne- 

 velly to Travancore. It is in tho interests of both the 

 British and Travancore Governments that this should be done. 

 It is the impression here that owing to influences brought 

 to bear upon the Maharajah's Government, the Tinnevelly 

 railway will not be undertaken, but the other and dearer 

 route. It would be a fatal mistake if the Travancore Govern- 

 ment accepts the advice of interested parties, and puts off 

 indefinitely the carrying out of a work that will be of the 

 greatest advantage to the people. The Tinnevelly route will 

 pay ; it will bring Travancore in direct railway communic- 

 ation with the grain producing tracts in Southern India ; 

 it will be the cheaper of the two routes and there will be 

 less engineering difficulties in the way. Instead of the 

 Dewan and the Maharajah giving attention to this important 

 matter, they have reorganized departments, ordered com- 

 missions to sit, raised taxation, raised the salaries of the 

 better paid officers, while the poorly paid, those on the 

 receipt of a few chukrams a month, are allowed to put the 

 screw on as tightly as they can on the poor ryots and thus 

 eke out their existence. This is following the old saying, — 

 To him that hath shall be given. Eeform iu spite of all 

 that people may say of Travancore, is wanted, and the 

 sooner it is carried out in the right direction the better 

 for all concerned." — Madras Standard. 



THE DEPKESSION IN THE TEODIJCE MARKETS. 

 The following interesting article, slightly abridged from 

 the Statist uf June 7th, does not touch on Mr. Goschen's 

 theory tint, the current low prices for produce are largely 

 due to the present relative scarcity of gold. He argues 

 that after the great increase in the yield of gold caused 

 by the discoveries in California and Australia, prices 

 throughout the world rose for a series of years. The yield 

 iu tho.'' places has now In-come small, and indeed the 

 strange circumstance of an export of gold to Australia 

 was recently generally noticed. Goldisat the Bame time 

 iu more demand owing to several leading countries hav- 

 ing adopted i gold standard. Mr. Goschen thinks that if 

 the relative abundance of gold, a generation ago, caused 

 prices to rise, a relative scarcity now makes them fall. 

 In other words when sovereigns are very plentiful they 

 buy less, because other commodities become dearer ; when 

 sovereigns become scarce they buy more, because com- 

 modities become cheaper. To some of those connected with 

 Eastern trade, it appears likely that the effect, if auy, 

 of the so-called " appreciation : ' of gold iu depressing 

 prices, is helped by the simultaneous "depreciation" or 

 fall in the value of silver. That precious metal is pr<>- 

 duced in increasingly great quantities, and owing to its 

 demonetization in several European States, it is poured 

 into tin' Eastern world, where a gold standard is unl 

 The first effect of the influx of silver in India, China, 

 tee., was similar to the effect of the gold discoveries in 

 Australia and California. Prices rose, and as they did 

 so more rapidly than wages, production was enormously 

 Stimulated and experts increased. Tho larger supplies 



were poured into Europe, when tho intricate oper- 

 ations of the exchanges and the interplay of the 

 greater scarcity of gold here, and of the greater abundance 

 of silver in tho East, were unconsciously set to work 

 to equalise matters. The temporary effect may be to supply 

 Europe with more Eastern produce than is required, and 

 if so, part of our plethora of stocks may be due to this 

 cause, which, however, can only be a temporary one, to 

 be set gradually right by a rise in wages in India and the 

 East, and a fall in the exchanges to the point that may 

 discourage production. Tin: questions of the effect upon 

 prices, of the appreciation of gold and the depreciation of 

 silver, are far too weighty to be dealt with in a few sen- 

 tences, and it may indeed be doubted whether any mortal 

 mind be subtle enough to solve them. The questions are 

 only named here as an introduction to the article in tin 

 Statist, where improved communications are laid most stress 

 upon as a cause for the existing depression : — 



(Abridged from the Statist.) 

 "Tho financial stability, we might almost say stolidity, 

 of English commerce could have few better proofs than 

 the, to outward seeming, easy way iu which the extreme 

 depression in the produce markets, technically so called, 

 has been borne. The ctxwr leger, none the less, has had 

 to bear up against many a sorely-taxed banking account ; 

 little reading between the lines is required to tell us that, 

 while the strain has come heavily upon those best, able 

 to bear it, the grand old clays of the Anthony Hamblins 

 have gone, never to return. Many things have happened 

 since John Company died, a quarter of a century ago, hut 

 noue mere strange than the complete revolution that has 

 overturned all old business traditions and customs. 



" Anyone can see at a glauee that the prices of produce 

 are woefully depressed ; but it is not so readily recognized 

 that the depression is permanent, and that all business is 

 transacted upon a lower plane. It could be easily shown 

 that this shifting of the level is universal, that the whole 

 commercial stratification has been displaced by an irre- 

 trievable cataclysm ; but it will be convenient to restrict 

 ourselves to produce proper, which may be roughly defined 

 as either the natural produce of the soil, or such produce 

 as is cultivated or extracted with a minimum of labour. 

 That the market quotations of such articles will ever per- 

 manently rise to their former level, we cannot predict, 

 even if we would. Whatever the inconvenience to individ- 

 ual firms or corporations— and no great change can avoid 

 causing such — a state of things which cheapens almost 

 every article of necessity and even luxury cannot hon- 

 estly be deplored. Cheap food in a manufacturing coun- 

 try such as ours implies the capacity for putting up 

 with lower wages, and consequently confers increased 

 strength to endure the competition with other nations. 

 And though some suffer, others are acute enough to discern 

 and agile enough to accommodate themselves to the 

 altered conditions. Wealth is not diminished in amount 

 by more impartial distribution, and such spreading of the 

 waters is fertilizing aud in every way beneficial. 



' Tho serious lowering of values is concurrent with an 

 enormous increase in production, and in the resulting 

 stocks held iu the main depots. These results are uni- 

 versal ; the examination of a few typical eases will help 

 us to discover the common cause. Sugar is a valuable in- 

 stance in point. It has the peculiarity of being produced 

 from two vegetable growths totally different in their 

 character, peculiarities, and mode of cultivation. It is 

 consequently to a greater extent even than such an article 

 as coffee — which, though widely distributed, is confined 

 to tropical climates — independaut of failures of crop in 

 any one region of the globe, while its universal consump- 

 tion raises it beyond the influence of the cup. 'ices of fashion 

 or taste. Prices have become lower and lower, until a 

 point has been reached whereat some assert it were better 

 to throw the land out of cultivation. We do not agree 

 in the opinion, but undoubtedly profits must be of the 

 scantiest. The stocks of sugar in tliis country alone run 

 fully l(in,000 tons above those kept four or five years ag i. 

 The total imports last year exceeded a million tons, and 

 while the consumption per bead of the population also, 

 as was natural, ruse above the stationary point of recent 

 years, it is incontestable that consumption cannot kcip 

 place with production. 



" Tea is more liable to be affected by good or bad 



