382 



The Supplement to the Troical Agriculturist 



Rubber Hopeful. 



"Regarding rubber, my opinion is that tbe 

 recent fall in the market was a very good 

 thing for Ceylon generally, because, only a 

 small proportion of planted land being in bear- 

 ing, it is better for the island that there should 

 now be this check on development, and a 

 steadying of the market, than that it should be 

 later when we have so much more material being 

 produced. The present fall in the market will, in 

 the course of the next few years, 



Lessen the Supplies from Brazil, 



and probably knock out altogether the pro- 

 duction of the inferior rubbers that have lately 

 been collected in Africa." 



THE LABOUR FORCE. 

 " So far as our labour force is concerned, 

 I think we are very well supplied with coolies. 

 There is certainly some anxiety on the 

 part of Superintendents, chiefly in the neighbour- 

 hood of large bazaars as to whether their 

 coolies will be 1 shifted ' — whether, owing 

 to their indebtedness to the bazaar- 

 keepers, the coolies will be forced to leave in 

 order to raise money to pay oft' their debts. As 

 regards 



Higher Advances Providing the Induce- 

 ments to Leave 



no doubt employers will give premiums in order 

 to get necessary work done in a certain time. 

 It is purely a business matter, and it is quite 

 Useless to try and prevent it. You cannot prevent 

 it, in fact. The evil of it lies in this premium 

 being given, as now, in the shape of coast 

 advances, which kanganie3 and coolies nomi- 

 nally have to repay. In some cases, no doubt, 

 the coolies' pay is actually taken to repay these 

 advances, which has an entirely demoralising 

 effect on the labour force. The cooly, with very 

 high advances, becomes either a debtor for the 

 rest of his life and has, therefore, no encourage- 

 ment to work, or he becomes a defaulter. If 

 this state of things were to continue, or increase, 

 our labour force, which, 1 may say, is the finest 

 in the world, at present, would be seriously 

 injured. 



"Of the future of labour, we are now await- 

 ing the sitting of the Commission, which will, 

 no doubt, recommend rules, or laws, which will 

 impose more obligations on the employer, 

 BUch as regular work, and, perhaps, the cost 

 of recruiting. In this event, I think the em- 

 ployers of coolies, on their part, should in 

 return demand some legislation to prevent the 

 cooly becoming indebted, or liable to be sued 



for more than a certain amount, say Rl5. Such 

 a limitation of liability would do away with 

 the demoralising effect of high advances, and 

 would necessitate any premium that had to 

 be paid being given as a bonus, or in some 

 other form. 



"I hear that the Forbes-Bliss scheme has been 

 approved not only by the Kandy Association, 

 but by several others. Whether it will succeed 

 or not 



depends upon how it is conducted by the 

 planters 



generally. I will not say anything further upon 

 the scheme while we see it in its present posi- 

 tion of development." 



TEA DISTRIBUTOR ON THE TRADE 

 OUTLOOK. 



The views of the tea distributor, whether 

 wholesale or retail, and his views of the trade 

 outlook are not without interest for the tea 

 grower. Mr. F.J. Tregilas, lecturing on tea to the 

 Midland Council of Grocers 1 Associations last 

 week, and discussing the question of the price 

 of tea, said : "Taking the position as a whole, 

 there seemed every probability that the depres- 

 sion that had ruled for many years had at 

 length passed away, for production had shown 

 little increase during the past twelve months, 

 while consumption both at home and abroad 

 had materially increased, and very little addi- 

 tional land was being placed under tea culti- 

 vation. In 1890 the consumption of British- 

 grown tea outside the United Kingdom was 

 14,000,000 lb. ; this increased to 130,000,000 lb. 

 in 1905, and over 171,000,000 lb. last year. The 

 very rapid increase lately might be attributed 

 to two reasons. First, the scarcity of common 

 China tea, owing to the low prices that ruled 

 for several years not being remunerative to the 

 importers, and, secondly, the too exceptionally 

 low prices for Indian and Ceylon teas, because of 

 very large crops. Experience showed that once 

 Indian and Ceylon teas were used instead of 

 China they were never given up. The world's 

 consumption of tea had now overtaken the 

 supply, a certain amount more could doubtless 

 be produced, but the demand abroad would 

 most likely exceed this quantity, and it must 

 not be forgotten that wherever new ground was 

 planted, it took five or six years to briijg the 

 tea bush into full bearing. We should pro« 

 bably get a larger supply of common tea from 

 China next season, but that was an uncertain 

 quantity, and was not liked by the British 



