576 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[January i, 1885. 



greater ; and the exports were 2,000,0001b. heavier. Against 

 these very strong figures a considerable increase in the 

 supplies from India and Ceylon may be expected for the 

 current season, but, on the other hand, it appears to be 

 generally thought that unless great changes take place in 

 the market, many of the recent shippers of tea from China 

 will be forced to discontinue their operations. Their own 

 capital must be much reduced, if all that is currently ru- 

 moured as to the heavy losses on tea this season be correct ; 

 and the banks and others who have financed hitherto 

 and who have been so heavily hit this year, will not so 

 readily afford the facilities that have been recently 

 customary. It will be therefore useless for those who have 

 been losing hitherto, but still have something left, to 

 attempt to take up the business of those who have given 

 up the trade, and to attempt gigantic operations on bor- 

 rowed money, so that the extent of turn-over should 

 reduce the proportionate expenses, and thus lead to a profit, 

 instead of a loss. Under these circumstances, with the 

 low prices here, the strong statistical position, and the 

 probable diminution of competition by the banks and others 

 with legitimate mercantile business — for that is one way 

 of looking at recent events— with all these causes at work, 

 it is thought by no means improbable that some of the 

 old China houses will again take up the trade they 

 have recently abandoned to more enterprizing or more 

 reckless rivals. If so, it will certainly be satisfactory to 

 see a certain element of solidity restored to the tea trade, 

 which has been sadly wanted of late. 



" The home trade also has been in a most unsatisfac- 

 tory state, for, owing to the fall in prices, brokers and 

 dealers alike have been unprosperous, and, as has been 

 done in China, the bolder or more reckless members have 

 taken to financing and pawning, in the endeavour to make 

 up for lost profit by increasing the turn-over. This also, 

 it is to be expected, will receive a severe check, through 

 recent revelations. In the meantime there is a general 

 feeling of mistrust, which is no doubt embodied in the 

 recent statemeuts in the Press which have created so much 

 annoyance. In details those statemeuts were erroneous, 

 but their general tendency fairly enough sums up the 

 uneasiness prevalent in the produce markets of late. 

 Among others the wholesale tea dealers have their own 

 special subject for disquiet in the deposit question. 

 Unless a broker intervene and give credit for a con- 

 sideration, as is very commonly done in these new- 

 fangled days, it is still the remarkable custom in the tea 

 trade to g'ive credit to the seller, and to pay a deposit 

 amounting to about titty pur cent of the value of the en- 

 tire parcel, after the weight-notes are given to the buyer. 

 Sometimes this deposit is paid to the original selling broker 

 through an intermediate broker, and in case of the latter's 

 failure to hand over the money received, it appears very 

 doubtful whether the dealer could not be compelled to pay 

 ever again. In the ordinary way, when deposit is paid to 

 the original broker, another class of risk occurs. In cases of 

 advance, the hanker, under the Factors' Acts, has a prior lien 

 which conies before all others, and it is at present exceed- 

 ingly doubtful whether, in case of the failure of a merchant 

 or a broker who had pawned warrants, the banker could not 

 call upon the dealer, nut only to pay the di posit over 

 but to pay the full sum which the banker may have advanced, 

 which may be very much more than the. true value of the tea. 

 This subject -is now under discussion, hut enough h. 

 said to show that the importing and distributing tea trades 

 have of late been in a very unsatisfactory position.— Home 

 and Colonial Mail. 



•♦ 



Tea in Natal. — It is reported from Natal that a tea 

 estate near Durban is doing remarkably well, and that 

 the proprietor, Mr Hulett, counts on getting 800 1b. of 

 tea per acre, at a cost of 6rl a lb.— Pall Mall Gazette. 



The Manufacture of 1'apek in Ciiina.— The China 

 Overland Trade Report states.— Extensive paper mills 

 have been erected on the Yangtsze-poo Road, which poss- 

 ess the best and newest machinery, and as unlimited 

 supplies of old rags are obtainable in China and a 

 good market for the paper secured, there is every pros- 

 pect of the venture proving a great success. It is 

 not impossible that a similar undertaking may before 

 very long he launched in Hongkong. 



StJGAK, in Java.— The Java Bode of the 10th December, 

 affirms that in the opinion of maDy people at Batavia 

 there is every prospect of the sugar crisis, disastrous as 

 it is. now becoming worse next year. Asa relief measure 

 to planters iu the present hard times, the Governor. 

 General has passed an ordinance, to be in force for 

 one year, enabling them to hypothecate their growino 

 crops. It is, however, generally held that to save the 

 planters from ruiu, the native population dependent 

 on the sugar estates from impoverishment, and the 

 estates themselves, when sold off for debt, from pass- 

 ing into the hands tf Chinese and other foreign Orien- 

 tals, this enactment should be followed by others 

 securing sugar growers relief or exemption from 

 taxation, and lowering railway freight rate. The 

 long established firm of Dorrepaal & Co., at Samaraug, 

 winch does an extensive planting business, has been 

 relieved of difficulties arising out of the sugar crisis by 

 raising money amounting to several millions of guilders, 

 thus enabling it to carry on operations for the present.' 



Tea in Ceylon. — A Colombo correspondent of the 

 Indian Planters' Gazette, writes : — Scarce eighteen 

 mouths ago to give the planting community partial 

 relief, a couple of merchant brokers endeavoured to 

 hold weekly sales of tea by auction in Colombo. 

 The sales were so badly attended, and the bids so 

 poor, that the plan was dropped after a month's trial. 

 .Now it is hard to get material enough for local tea 

 sales, though bidders are plentiful aud the local con- 

 sumption ia not met. Ship, ship, is the order of the 

 day, and the effect of so doing regardless ofthe make 

 or quantity in a break, is just beginning to show in 

 the recent account sales. The facility for shipping in 

 Ceylon is very great, and may be judged from the 

 fact thi't one estate 85 miles by rail from Colombo, 

 put its tea on board on the 8th day from the date 

 of .picking ! It was done not as an experimeut, but 

 eeri fusly to make up a proper break for despatch 

 by a certain date. Colombo presents little or no signs 

 of a rising industry like tea, save carts loaded with 

 ehooks for tea b 'xes, going to the lailway station for 

 despatch up-country, aud carts returning from the 

 station to the wharf laden with tea chests. That 

 there are millions of pouuds of uncut timber in Coy- 

 Ion none can doubt, but strange to say the local 

 demand for ordinary wood caonot be met fast 

 enough aud a great deal of it is being imported 

 from Burmah chiefly. The timbtris sawn iu several 

 mills in Colombo into suitable dimensions. Luckily 

 for the Ceylon planters excellent Sinhalese carpenters 

 are plentiful, and are now obtainable ou low pay, though 

 at oue time they were the most expensive set of 

 artizaus to employ ; b sides, being possessed of pro- 

 perty aud means, they could not be iuduced to work 

 under a rupee to two-and-a-half rupees per diem ! 

 They g»ve, aud still g ve much annoyance, and any 

 attempt to punish makes them decamp to their villages 

 in the far interior. It has been found the best in 

 the end to give them vork on contract, a headman 

 amongst them being responsible for the rice supplied 

 and sums advanced while the work is in progress. One 

 enterprizing planter who has not been a gainer by the 

 coffee enterprize has hit upon a happy idea. He 

 leaves Ceylon selling all his lands there, for Ireland 

 and taking with him large orders for tea shooks, which 

 he means to carry out by sawing Canadian timber 

 in Ireland, and shipping it to poor Ceylon ! The scheme 

 promises to be a success and has the substantial support 

 of no less than five of the most successful tea planters. 

 If the Ceylon Government was an enterprizing one, 

 it might make up for the loss of Colonial rupees by 

 supplying the Russians with tea, Odessa is l.o distance 

 to ship to. [But a merchant long settled in Russia is 

 said after visi'ing Ceylon, to have decided that Ceylon 

 tea was not suitable for the Russian market. — Ed.] 



