No. 4 (1917) INDIAN BECHE-DE-MER 135 



quoted in the above table (" Sand-fish ") at the much lower figures 

 of £30 to £20 per ton, a difference due apparently to the more 

 satisfactory treatment of the same class of raw material evolved 

 in India. 



As indicating the considerable importance of this industry 

 on the Australian coast, we may note that the annual exports 

 from Queensland, including re-exports of New Guinea produce 

 between the years 1880 and 1889 (the only years for which I have 

 statistics) ranged between 3,757 cwt., valued at £14,529 and 

 6,841 cwt., valued at £31,581 ; practically all of this went direct to 

 China. For much of the material collected in Borneo and the 

 Dutch Indies, Singapore is the clearing-house; in 1915, the imports 

 of beche-de-mer amounted to the exceptionally large quantity of 

 9,379 cwt., valued at $215,061. Practically all of this was re-exported 

 to China. 



From these figures it will be seen that the Indian and Ceylon 

 production is at present a negligible proportion of the total con- 

 sumption and that we need have no fear of ever experiencing any 

 difficulties in disposing of our production, however greatly we may 

 expand the industry. 



As I believe the trade ramifications of this industry are very 

 little known, I append (Tables I, II, III and IV) tabulated statistics 

 of the imports into and exports from Penang and Singapore, of 

 beche-de-mer, for the past ten years. From these, several interest- 

 ing facts emerge. We see that Borneo and the Philippines between 

 them produce nearly 50 per cent of the total imports into Singapore 

 on an average of ten years, while in some seasons fully three-fourths 

 of the total comes from these islands. South Africa is a late comer 

 into the trade, her exports beginning in 1915. The large imports 

 into Singapore from Hongkong and China in some years are 

 puzzling and seem larger than local consumption can require. It 

 is to be noted that Ceylon produce goes almost entirely to Penang 

 for sale and that no exports to that port have taken place since 

 1914, a fact largely due, I believe, to deterioration in methods. 

 (Information recently received shows that the methods pursued 

 by some important curers in Ceylon are even worse than those 

 formerly practised in India — the material is sometimes boiled once 

 only, the limy coating imperfectly removed and the material dried 

 on the sand without mats.) 

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