10 TEA 



Moreover, at the present time, there are unmistakable 

 signs that the Chinese intend to make a bold bid for the 

 recovery of some of the ground they have lost ; for the 

 more enlightened among them have realised that the 

 trade was lost owing to inferior, and to the Western 

 mind sometimes repulsive, methods of manufacture, 

 and also to the fact that, generally speaking, hand labour 

 must at last give way before machinery. That the 

 Chinese are serious in their desire to regain their trade 

 is evidenced by the fact that in 1905 the Viceroy of 

 Nanking appointed a Chinese Tea Commission, headed 

 by an Englishman, Mr. Lyall, to enquire into the methods 

 and conditions of tea cultivation and manufacture in 

 India and Ceylon. As a whole the Chinese soil is said 

 to be less productive with regard to tea than that of 

 our Eastern Empire, and the climate of the tea districts 

 is colder and less forcing ; further, the yield per acre 

 cannot compare with that obtained by the European 

 planters. Nevertheless, the ruling classes in China 

 have become alarmed at the great falling off in revenue 

 due to the diminution of the export trade, for there are 

 heavy Chinese transit and export duties on the product, 

 and it is their intention to see what improved methods 

 of cultivation and manufacture can do to restore this 

 trade. Whether the Chinese peasant can be induced 

 to depart from the methods and customs which have 

 been handed down to him for countless generations 

 is a matter open to question, but the attempt on the part 

 of the authorities is significant, and the situation may 

 be very accurately summed up in the words of an 

 editorial of a Ceylon planting paper : " . . . The way 

 in which it (i.e., the Chinese trade) has steadily gone 

 back during the last fifty years is not at all conclusive 

 proof that there can be no important recovery under 

 changed conditions and methods. In other words, 



