578 



These considerations have again and again been pressed on the 

 Boards of Trade and Customs, but fruitlessly. These facts show not 

 only that our Customs' tariff requires further revision, but that the 

 legislative power entrusted to the Board of Customs requires to be 

 abridged, and that the Board of Trade requires a fillip to awaken it to 

 a more active and conscientious discharge of its duties." 



This article called forth the following letter from Mr. J. Crawfurd: — 

 " By the existing tariff nutmegs are charged with two different rates 

 of duty ; what are called ' wild ' with 6d. a pound, and all others, 

 which of course means all cultivated nutmegs, whether of British or 

 foreign growth, with one of 2*. 6d. a pound, or six times that amount. 

 I have no doubt whatever but that this assessment of duty originated 

 in the mistake of fancying that there existed two essentially distinct 

 kinds of nutmegs, of different qualities and values. A nutmeg of a 

 long form is charged with the lower duty on the supposition that it is 

 a wild one, but a round one, with the higher, because it is thought to 

 be peculiarly a cultivated one ; both having in reality this property. 

 There is only one species of aromatic nutmeg, called by botanists 

 Myristica moschata. This, in the native country of the aromatic nut- 

 meg, exists both in the wild and cultivated state, and differs only in 

 being better grown and yielding more fruit in the last of these states. 

 The great authority for the nutmeg, although he wrote concerning it 

 above 160 years ago, is the celebrated Rumphius, who lived and died 

 in the Spice Islands. Rumphius describes the true nutmeg as being 

 a native of the Molucca and Banda Islands, but chiefly of the last of 

 these, which consists of six petty islets. He alleges that Nature has 

 confined it to this small and remote corner of the globe in order to 

 stimulate the industry of man, on the same principle that it has hid- 

 den gems and gold in the bowels of the earth. In its native country 

 the nutmeg grows luxuriantly and easily, with little labour. During 

 our occupation of the Spice Islands, on two occasions, about the be- 

 ginning of the present century, we transferred the nutmeg to the Bri- 

 tish possessions, then Bencoolen and Penang ; and, about thirty years 

 ago, its culture was introduced to Singapore. In the two British set- 

 tlements the nutmeg is at present extensively grown, both by Euro- 

 pean and Chinese proprietors, but beyond these and Bencoolen the 

 tree has never yielded fruit, either in Asia or America. Even in the 

 western parts of the Malay Archipelago itself, although the fruit 

 be equally good as in its native place, the culture is attended 

 with so much risk and expense, that if the Dutch spice trade were 

 thrown open the probability is that it could not be carried on at all. 



