150 



The World's Commercial Products 



The United States takes half as much again Indian tea as it did a year or so ago, and the 

 increase in popularity of the beverage among our cousins gives hope to the Eastern planters 

 of the creation of a new market of the greatest value. Australia, like the rest of the world, 

 is changing her taste in tea. Formerly her supplies were largely obtained from China, but 

 the imports from, that country are steadily diminishing. Although considerable quantities 

 of -tea are now taken from Java, the real fight for the Australian market lies between Ceylon 

 and India. At the present time the advantage lies with Ceylon, whose exports to the Southern 

 Empire have increased during the last ten years from ten to twenty-four million pounds. 



Great efforts; attended with considerable success, are being made to develop the Asiatic 

 trade in British-grown tea, and Persia is now the Jourth l arges t consumer of the Indian pro- 

 duct. The .preparation of brick tea for Tibet is also receiving much attention at the hands 

 of Indian planters, who have voluntarily submitted to a self-imposed tax to be devoted to 

 pushing their production among the Tibetans. 



Austria, Belgium, Sweden, Holland, Turkey, France, and Russia are all advancing in their 

 tea imports. Much of the tea taken by Holland naturally comes from their colony of Java, 

 but the increase in the Russian import nearly all comes from British sources, to the loss of the 

 Chinese merchant. 



AlthonglwHie of the most striking facts in connection with the tea export trade is the 

 practical loss, to China of some of the most important of the world's markets, it must not 

 be supposed that the tea industry in China is ruined. As a matter of fact, the area under 

 cultivation has not diminished to any appreciable extent during the past forty years ; for the 

 Chinese grower has a vast local market, and immense quantities of inferior tea are converted 

 into the " brick tea " for Tibet and Russia. Moreover, at the present time, there are un- 

 mistakable 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 West- 

 ern 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 com- 

 pare 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 Chinese method of rolling the leaf 



