THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [July i, 1889, 
tion has to be faced of overdoing the market 
as with so many other products and reducing 
the price from £10 to perhaps £5, £2 or even 
£l per ton! "Ay, there's the rub!" There is 
" the dread of something after " — the inevit- 
able drop in prices, when the harvest is ready to 
reap, which the Ceylon planter has had so often 
to face. Nevertheless, so far as we know there is 
a large and growing demand for tanning barks and 
the area suited to growing black wattle or black 
wood in Ceylon.is limited in extent, more particularly 
now that the official rule about selling no more 
Crown land above 5,000 feet elevation, is enforced. 
We think therefore that there is some reason for 
encouraging planting experiments after the example 
set by Mr. Tringham. 
AN ENGLISH RUBY COMPANY FOR BURMA : 
—WHY NOT A LONDON GEM COMPANY 
FOR CEYLON ?— No. II. 
SURPLUS WEALTH AND SPECULATION— RUBY MINING IN 
BURMA AND THE DIFFICULTIES TO BE ENCOUNTERED 
— CEYLON SAPPHIRES AND OTHER PRECIOUS STONES 
— CEYLON A BETTER FIELD FOR GEM MINING THAN 
BURMA — BETTER PROTECTION OF LIFE AND PROPERTY 
— EASY TRANSPORT AND CHEAP LABOUR AND CER- 
TAINTY OF SUCCESS — CHIEF CENTRES OF GEMMING 
OPERATIONS IN CEYLON, 
One of the most prolific sources of instruction 
as well as amusement to a philosophic mind is with- 
out doubt a watchful observation of the popular 
investments in which from time to time the capi- 
talists of Europe employ their surplus wealth. 
Surplus wealth in reality it may be said to be, for 
whilst in all ventures and speculations of this kind 
there undoubtedly can be found men, who, attracted 
by some special condition such as the prospect of 
extraordinary returns or more commonly perhaps 
by a spirit of excitement and adventure, make in- 
vestment to the utmost of their means, still the 
majority of subscribers to these ventures arc those 
who possess unemployed capital, and to whom the 
absolute loss of what they invest would not by any 
means signify ruin or disaster. It would seem 
that it only requires the presence of some Dotion 
by which the fancy of the moneyed public can be 
tickled, no matter how absurd or dangerous the 
scheme may appear to be to the outside public, 
and forthwith wealth and capital is forthcoming 
in tens and hundreds of thousands of pounds for 
the formation of companies, or the establishment 
of industries, by which the subscribers are to 
change their tens for twenties, their hundreds for 
thousands. When once the mania has been fairly 
established there appears to be no visible limit to 
speculation and gambling, until either success or 
disaster put an end to the excitement, which gra- 
dually dies away and for a time gives place 
to an uneasy slumber which continues to pervade 
the financial atmosphere until it is once more 
aroused to activity by some fresh and taking 
attraction. 
Many of these objects of popular excitement are 
no doubt sound commercial undertakings and per- 
fectly legitimate in their ends : for instance the 
conversion of the world-famed breweries at Burton 
and in Dublin into limited companies. Many on 
the other hand are mere visionary propositions, 
with no past history on which to build a reasonable 
prospectus — speculations in every sense of the word. 
One of the most notable of these public schemes 
during recent years has been the creation of the 
Company for working the Ruby Mines in Upper 
Burma. The extraordinary rush for shares in the 
proposed Company, by the capitalists of England 
and the Continent, is too recent a matter to need 
more than the merest mention here, but there 
are a variety of circumstances in this connection 
which claim attention and which apparently have 
been either altogether ignored, or not deemed worthy 
of second thought, but of which a more intimate 
knowledge and more careful examination might very 
possibly have exercised considerable influence on 
the minds of the subscribers to the scheme. In 
all probability all that was known about it by 
the majority of that section of the public who 
so wildly tendered their capital, was simply that 
from time to time they had seen rubies which 
ostensibly were obtained in Burma. They were 
told of rich mines belonging to the King of Upper 
Burma, from which rubies of large size and the 
finest quality were obtained and reserved for the 
royal use, and of which large stores was supposed 
to be hidden away in the coffers of the palace at 
Mandalay. At any rate this was the belief of some 
of those who knew that Messrs. Streeter and Com- 
pany, a world-famed firm of jewellers, for a very 
considerable money payment had obtained from 
the British Government a concession to work these 
mines as a monopoly, and it was not likely they 
would have done such a thing without " there 
being something in it." The remainder— probably 
the greater proportion— of the subscribers heard it 
was likely " to be a good thing," and seeing their 
neighbours join were eager to take their share of 
what might be going. And so with great flourish of 
trumpets, the Company was floated, and what may 
result remains to be seen in course of time. Very 
few indeed of those who wildly contended for 
shares took the trouble of making searching in- 
quiry into the exact nature of the undertaking in 
which they were embarking, the position of the 
mines, the distance from a civilized centre, the 
dangers of working in a newly-conquered country 
far from pacificated, and to all appearance not 
likely to be so for many years to come, and where 
at the present time no person can travel in safety 
even along the public roads without an armed 
oscort of police, and where murders and dacoities 
are of daily occurrence. How many of them took 
into consideration the extreme difficulty that would 
have to be faced in the transport of machinery and 
supplies over lengthened distances in a hostile 
and unhealthy country to an elevation of some 
4,500 feet above sea-level, and which when once 
erected must be guarded by night and by day by 
a large force of armed police ? How many of them 
ever had the means of being assured that the King of 
Mandalay had this much talked-of wealth in rubies, 
and, if he had, that they were obtained from the 
one small spot of land known as the ruby mines, 
when thousands of square miles along the range 
of the Shan hills were equally as likely to contain 
rubies in just as great abundance? How many 
indeed of these subscribers ever heard or thought 
of these facts — for facts they are and not by any 
means the emanations of a vivid imagination ? It 
is probable that had they considered these facts 
many would indeed have paused to consider whether 
the game was worth the candle, and whether it was 
not possible for them to venture their money on 
a 3omewhat similar undertaking in some other 
country without increasing a tithe of the risk and 
danger to life and property they were courting 
so recklessly when they selected Upper Burma as 
the scene of their speculation. Had they done so 
there would have been no necessity for extended search 
or lengthened inquiry to acquire the knowledge 
that there are other localities quite as famous as 
Burma for the production of gems — and gems in 
greater variety and enhanced value. They would 
soon have learned that Ceylon from time imme- 
