PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF INDIAN TEA. 1/5 



to 2s. 6d., while the finest Indian in bond fetches $s. to 

 3s. 6d. 1 



What then will be the future of Indian Tea ? It is an 

 important query. The industry is one which, if successful, 

 might attain to wide limits, and help not a little to relieve 

 the Indian State Exchequer, while it would afford occupation 

 to many of a class of Englishmen who at present look about 

 in vain for employment. 



Tea speculation has passed through the first two prelimi- 

 nary phases to which most new ventures are liable. First, we 

 had the wild rush, the mad fever, when every man thought 

 that to own a few Tea bushes was to realise wealth. In 

 those days existing plantations were bought at eight and ten 

 times their value ; nominal areas of 500 acres were paid for 

 which, on subsequent measurement, proved to be under 100 ; 

 new gardens were commenced on impossible sites and by 

 men as managers who not only did not know a Tea plant 

 from a cabbage, but who were equally ignorant of the com- 

 monest rules of agriculture. Boards highly paid, with secre- 

 taries still more liberally remunerated, were formed both in 

 Calcutta and London to carry on the enterprise ; and, in short, 

 money was lavished in every conceivable way, while mis- 

 management ran rampant in each department. It is not 

 strange that the whole thing collapsed : the wonder is it did 

 not do so earlier. 



The second stage was then entered upon. Numbers had 

 been bitten, and the idea, once formed, grew apace, that Tea 

 could not pay at all. Everyone wanted to sell, and down 

 went all Tea shares to a figure which only increased the 

 general panic. Many companies, and not a few individuals, 

 unable to carry on, had to wind up and sell their estates for 



1 Note to 3rd edition. In 1876 the average prices of the two kinds in bond 

 were : Chinese, is. 2d. ; Indian, is. lod. per Ib. 



