Commercial notes and scientific information. 47 



prices of cloves have considerably advanced. For the time being the position of the 

 market is firm, but in spite of this there have been several opportunities of laying in 

 supplies at advantageous prices below the current value, because the stringent condition 

 of the money market has induced a number of speculators to realise hurriedly. Of 

 course, no one can say what will be the further development of the market, but rumour 

 has it that the crop of the coming summer is likely to be very heavy. It is, in fact> 

 not unreasonable to expect an improvement in the yield of the crop after two successive 

 failures. 



Unfortunately neither German nor foreign Consular Reports on the trade of Zanzibar 

 have been published for a long time, and as these reports usually contain statistical 

 data on the production of cloves, we are for the present unable to bring the figures 

 (of which the last relate to the year 1910) up to date. We cannot account for the 

 absence of the Consular Reports in question. 



From a report of the German Consulate at Amsterdam we gather that the aggre- 

 gate sales of cloves at Amsterdam and Rotterdam in 1912 amounted to 48 700 bales, as 

 compared with 16 600 and 42 100 bales in the years 1911 and 1910 respectively. 



The stocks of both descriptions (Zanzibar and Amboyna) at Amsterdam in December 

 amounted to 540 tons, which compared with 407 and 744 tons respectively in the two 

 previous years. 



The highest and lowest prices are given as follows: — 



Amboyna Cloves Zanzibar Cloves 



1908 50 and 42 Cents 29 and 23 Cents 



1909 43 „ 37 „ 29 „ 23 : '/* „ 



1910 52 „ 42 ,, 39 3 /s „ 25 7 /s „ 



1911 50 „ 46 „ 43 V« n 27 s /* „ 



1912 53 „ 43 „ 547* „ 28 



H. Klein, in an interesting article on Indian usurers at Zanzibar 1 ), describes the 

 desperate condition of the Arab clove-planters in the island, and the nefarious practices 

 of the Indian money-lenders there. We quote the following passages from the article: — 

 "As soon as the Arab has sold his cloves, the produce of his plantation, he 

 lives riotously on the fat of the land until the cash is gone. Then, as he is 

 generally without the means even of doing the most urgent weeding and cleaning 

 on his plantation so that the crop may at least be more or less saved, there is 

 nothing left for him but to pay a visit to the money-lender, the Indian. When the 

 crop is ripe the Arab again needs cash to pay his labourers' wages. Some of them 

 sell their crpp a year before it is ripe, at a price which does not even cover the 

 cost of gathering. And so the borrowing goes on, year in year out. When the 

 Indian thinks that he has lent his debtor enough money he begins to tighten the 

 noose; may be he allows the planter a short breathing space, just to show that 

 even a money-lender has a soft side, but the end is inevitable: the plantation 

 comes under the hammer. It may be taken for a fact that more than half of the 

 Arab plantation-owners have recourse to the usurer to find the wherewithal, and 

 it goes without saying that every man of them finally falls a victim to the Indian 

 money-lender. 



Sales by Order of Court of clove- and cocoanut-plantations owned by Arabs 

 are of daily occurrence in Zanzibar. It is only a matter for regret that the gardens 



x ) ITomh. Frcmdenblatt 1913, No. 63. 



