624 THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [March i, i8qc. 
both Mr. Shand and Sir Roper Lethbridge, there 
was another way of looking at it, and a correct 
judgment could only be arrived at by considering 
the various parties ngaged in the business. He had 
been in formed lately by a gentlemau who bad made 
inquiries on the subiect, that the general price of the 
tea sold in the poorer districts in London and the 
country was Is. 8d. Of that 4d. was the retailer's 
profit ; he intermediate dealer, who purchased iu 
Mincing-lane and supplied the retiiler, required 5d. 
per lb., and sometimes 6d., which reduced the price 
to lOd. or lid. from which, after deducting the duty, 
you only had 5d. remainiug as the original price of 
the tea which was retailed at Is. 8d. Very few 
dealers could purchase decent Ceylon or Indian tea 
at that price, and therefore they must be content 
with the cheapest varieties from Ohina, which were 
sold at 4d., 4Jd. and 4|d. The result was that Ceylon 
tea, as a rule, never reached the mass of the people at 
all, but was consumed by those who could afford to 
give 2s. or 2s. 6d. per lb. The duty, therefore, migQt 
be said to keep the poor from purchasing Oeylon tea. 
But theie was another way of looking at it. If 6d. a 
lb. were taken off altogether, the cheap China tea 
could be sold to the poor at Is. 2d., but the Oeylon 
tea would have to be charged ac least 3d. a lb. more, 
and the question was whether the poor would 
x-ecognise that it was worth fully 3d. a lb. more in 
flavour aid strength, and be willing to pay the euiire 
price. The percentage of difference between the 
two qualities would be greater with the duty taken 
off than with it on, and therefore he supported Mr. 
Sand's view that if the duty were removed, Ceylon 
tea would be handicapped more than it was at 
present. 
The Chairman, in proposing a vote of thanks to 
Mr. Shand, said he must refer for a moment to the 
efforts which that gentleman was making to introduce 
Ceylou tea into Paris, where the tea told was geuerally 
more horrible than could be imagiued, and the price 
charged was enormous. Another question in which he 
was much interested as a teetotaller was that of good 
temperance drinks, and his experience was that cold 
tea was the very best drink of all. On that ground 
also he had reason to wish success to Ceylon tea 
and Iudian as well. If the Chaucellor of the Ex- 
chequer would help them in the tea business, he 
would assist the teetotallers and counteract the harm 
which he feared Mr. Gladstone had done by the 
grocers' licenses. He concluded by moving a hearty 
vote of thanks for the paper, which did great credit 
to the Section. 
The vote of thanks having been passed 
Mr. Shand, in reply, said they could not expect to 
make the French a nation of tea-drinkers all at occe, 
but he was much indebted to the Secretary for pla- 
cing means at his disposal which enabled him to intro- 
duce Ceylon tea to the Parisian public. He had no 
doubt that good results would follow, but they could 
not expect these to be seen immediately, as was the 
case with the Indian and Colonial Exhibition of 1886, 
the success of which was so much due to the ex- 
ertions of the Chairman. That Exhibition created for 
many of them an era they would never forget, and 
they all owed a deep debt to Sir Philip Ounliffe- 
Owen for the zeal, energy, and courtesy which he 
displayed in connection with it. He was sure that 
if Sir Philip could tear himself away from South 
Kensington for a time and pay a visit to Ceylon, 
he would find that hia fame had preceded him, and 
that he would receive a most cordial welcome. 
♦ 
Another Promising Tea Company. — We 
attract attention to the report of the pn eeedings 
at the annual meeting of the Talgaswela Company, 
and to the opinion of so competent and prudent a 
judge as the Chairman, Mr. T. 0. Owen, that in 
all probability this Company will be paying 20 per 
cent on its capital after next year. This we oan well 
believe when we see as Mr. Shelton Agar stated that 
710 acres have been planted with tea for leps money 
than was originally estimated for 500 aores. Well 
done the Talgaswela management, Bay we ! 
Planting in East Africa. — Mr. I). J. Rankin 
: in a paper in February's Fortnightly Review, speak- 
ing oi the Shire" Highlands, says: — " Vast tracts of 
: laud that would produce immense quantities of oil- 
| seeds, rubber, sugar, rice, maize, coffee, and other 
j valuable commercial articles are now awaiting the 
! advent of British enterprise, which, with improved 
conditions of communication with the coast, will 
have every prospect of immediate financial success." 
Japanese Tea for Russia. — Last year there was 
established in Kobe a company styled the Nippon 
Tea Manufacturing Co., with the object of working 
up an export trade in tea with Russia, but so far 
the expenses of the concern have exceeded the profits 
made. It is, however, intended to continue the 
scheme, and a special meeting of the Association 
of Tea Merchants is to be held in the Kesei Kwan, 
Kobikisho, Tokyo, on the 31st instant, to consider 
the idea of subsidising the Nippon Tea Manufactur- 
ing Company.— Japan Gazette. 
Indian Tea fared rather worse than Ceylon 
at the Paris Exhibition to judge by the official 
report thus noticed in the Madras Mail :— 
Without a duly qualified manager everything went 
wrong, and delays and difficulties with exhibitors and 
contractors ensued. Then the Indian Tea Association, 
instead of keeping the management of the Tea Depart- 
ment in its own hands pi iced it in charge of a City 
firm, who pushed their own trane mark; aLd the tea 
business was handed over to refreshment contractors, 
who " very naturally considered their direct pecuniary 
benefit." A prohibitive price prevented the sale of tea, 
whilst beer-drinkers crowded the seats in the limited 
space desigued only for tea drinkers. " The French 
Press called the Iudian Pavilion the ' Templeof Tea,' 
but by thus depraving its use, the opportunity was lost 
of inducing an inquisitive and imaginative people like 
the French to linger amidst Oriental and appropriate 
surroundings to taste a new beverage offered them by 
native servants brought moreover from the French 
Colony of Ohandernagore." 
Btjshire and British Trade with Persia 
are thus noticed in the London Times: — 
But at Bushire, and in a certain degree at 
Ispahan, there are signs that some activity of life 
is possible yet for Persia. 'Bushire is the chief 
port in the gulf, and though it offers a poor 
harbour for vessels, British trade is there fairly active. 
The Europ an portion of the town is "as un- 
mistakably British "as " might be those of Aden, 
Colombo, or Hongkong." It is the centre from which 
British and British-Indian trade finds its way all 
through Southern Persia. What the extent of that 
trade already is may be learned from some of 
the statistics give by our Correspondent with re- 
gard to Ispahan, " the northern limit of undis- 
puted British predominance." Nine ba'es out of 
every ten that pass through or are discharged 
here bear British trade-marks. If the principal 
firms in the town bear German names, none the less 
do they deal in by far the largest prop, rtion of 
British goods. The imports, mentioning them in the 
order of their bulk, consist of cotton goods from 
Manchester and Glasgow ; copper sheets from London ; 
tin and zinc from India and Java ; woollen 6tuffs and 
cloths from Austria and Germany (why not from 
Bradford ?); and minor matters from India, Russia, 
and Marseilles. Thus the bulk of what Ispahan and 
Southern Persia consume of foreign goods comes from 
England ; and much of what Persia produces finds its 
way to London in return. The chief part of this is 
raw material, the chief exception being carpets, for 
which an immensely increased demand has arisen of 
late years in England, France, and America. The old 
carpet industry of Kborasan, and other Persian pro- 
vinces has been revived, and may yet be greatly 
extended. It is fortunate, too, that European dealers 
have learned that for these beautiful things to find 
favour with Western buyers they must be of purely 
Oriental design and made in the old way. Thus there 
is at present little ohanoe of the serious deterior- 
ation of this interesting art, 
