3<D Coffee Planting. 



warehouse, in return for a payment of thirty-five 

 shillings, which, as the crop is about two cwts. only, 

 amounts to seventeen shillings and sixpence per 

 cwt. The Government in addition, carries on a 

 further cultivation directly on its own account, by 

 means of Malay labourers. " Under this system," 

 says Mr. Branson, "so little in accord with the 

 progress of civilization, the limit of production has 

 been passed, and the yearly export is now 100,000 

 bags less than that of ten years ago." He thus 

 sums up his conclusions : " The difficulties con- 

 nected with labour in Java and Brazil have a 

 constant tendency to contract their production, so 

 that whether this decreases, or the world's con- 

 sumption increases in the ratio of the last twenty 

 years, but one conclusion can be arrived at. 

 Ceylon and Southern India will rapidly become 

 the most valuable and important coffee-growing 

 countries in the world, offering every year an ever- 

 widening field for British capital and enterprise." 



