138 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



teas. In point of fact it is very customary for the small-holders to sell 

 all their export rights, leaving their holding idle. There is a regular 

 market for export coupons, as in the parallel rubber scheme. 



On Monday, March 16, 1936, I attended the tea auction at Colombo. 

 The great majority of the tea is sold with export rights attached ; and 

 prices ranged, according to quality, from about 60 cents per lb. upwards, 

 but at the end of the auction some parcels of native tea were sold without 

 export rights, and the prices were in the neighbourhood of 20 to 30 cents. 

 This would be for tea of a lower quality than that which is exported. To 

 give elasticity to the scheme it is allowable for a country or a company to 

 carry over its quota from one crop year to the next. 



The international authority is the International Tea Committee. From 

 its two Reports, 1933-34 and 1934-35.it appears that the scheme has worked 

 well and with but few changes. When nations mean a thing to work, 

 there is no insuperable difficulty to international agreement. Loopholes 

 have been stopped up. The Report of 1934-35 (pp. 16, 17) draws atten- 

 tion to the steps which have had to be taken to prevent tea smuggling 

 across the overland frontier of India. Ceylon administers both the tea 

 and rubber schemes in a single office under a single head, though in 

 separate departments. The office is not a part of the Government 

 secretariate, and is close to the harbour for the convenience of merchants. 

 There has recently been introduced in Ceylon a coco-nut board, but this 

 is not part of an export control scheme and there is no question of coupons. 

 It is regulated by ordinance and has a central sales room for the display 

 of coco-nut products ; and its work is confined to the stimulation of the 

 sale of these products at home and abroad and to the general encourage- 

 ment of the coco-nut industry. The tea and rubber schemes, being 

 international agreements, have a definite duration — tea to March 1938 and 

 rubber to December 1938. 



The reports of the International Tea Committee indicate satisfaction 

 with results achieved to date. But the Committee is concerned with the 

 danger of a decrease in consumption and has therefore instituted propa- 

 ganda designed to expand the market. One small evidence of this is the 

 shop on Colombo pier, where couponed tea can be purchased by 

 passengers. Another is seen in the advertisement lighting along and 

 around Colombo harbour. More serious is the campaign which has 

 been launched in the United States to increase consumption there. 



The British Empire is easily the largest producer of tea. Taking the 

 figures for 1933-34, gross world exports amounted to 800 million lb. : 

 from regulated countries 650 millions, from other countries (mainly 

 China and Japan) 150 millions. Of the 650 million lb. 520 came from 

 India and Ceylon, the proportionate export of the regulated countries 

 being roughly India 3, Ceylon 2, the Netherlands East Indies i\. In 

 rubber the British Empire is again the leading producer, though the con- 

 tribution of India and Ceylon is trifling. The basic export quota of 1935 

 was for the whole world 1 • 1 million tons, of which Malaya was given 

 538,000, Netherlands Indies 400,000, Ceylon 79,000 tons. The Dutch 

 have managed the control of native production by a heavy export duty on 

 such produce, which is now being replaced by export licences such as 



