June 2, 1890.] THE TROPICAL 
superseded or resuscitated, we find the effects still 
visible of the disastrous time during which king : 
coffee was deposed and tea was but commencing 
that career of success which has enabled it to 
successfully succeed to the deposed monarch. 
Although it is the fact that the sharehold- 
ers of the Eastern Produce and Estates Com- 
pany — in strking contrast to the Ceylon Tea Planta- 
tions Company — have to content themselves with 
hope deferred as yet, it may well be maintained 
that they are rapidly approaching the time when 
they may reap very fully the advantages for which 
up till now they have had patiently to wait. We 
need scarcely refer in detail to the conditions under 
which their investments were made ; but as some 
of our readers are comparatively new arrivals in 
the Colony, or have but recently acquired a local 
interest, it may be as well to review briefly a 
little bit o£ our past island history and the tragic 
events which led up to the formation of the 
Eastern Produce and Estates Company. The Ceylon 
Company Limited was established in the year 1864. 
It was then rumoured that facilities rather too 
readily granted by the Oriental Bank more parti- 
cularly in Mauritius, had led to that institution 
being hampered in its operation owing to a 
large extent of estate property being thrown 
upon its hands. The Ceylon Company was 
avowedly formed for the purpose of relieving the 
Bank from a responsibility which the home directors 
felt was not one that it was legitimate for a Bank 
to undertake ; but instead of fairly calling the 
Company after the Colony with the properties mainly 
to be taken over, the brilliant idea was adopted 
of buying up the splendid ooffee properties of the 
Messrs. Worms in Ceylon and so calling the new 
Company solely after the island that was then by 
far the more prosperous of the two. Afterwards 
many more estates in Ceylon were taken over by 
the Company. 
For a good many years the Ceylon Company had 
a career of uninterrupted prosperity. During that 
period the dividends paid by it were never, we 
believe, less than 12 per cent. To these halcyon 
times succeeded others which showed a great 
falling-off in Mauritius and then came the days 
whioh witnessed the ruin of so many of our 
own coffee planters. For years the direotors 
struggled on, being generaly supplied with funds 
by the parent Bank, until, on that institution 
suspending its operations, the Company's indebted- 
ness to it was enormous, and no course remained 
but to wind it up. It is on the ruins of this Ceylon 
Company that the Eastern Produce and Estates Com- 
pany has been built up. Succeeding as the latter 
has done to a bankrupt concern, to properties 
which had suffered greatly both by enforced neglect 
of full and proper cultivation and having absolutely 
no produoe, the new Company had necessarily to 
prooeed with the utmost caution and to devote any 
annual profits it might make, to wiping off the large 
obligations with which its properties were burdened. 
It is owing to this necessity we find in the two 
Tieports before us, that while the one has paid in 
three years no less than 45 per cent, in 
the case of the other no dividend at all save 
to secured preference shareholders has been paid. 
This contrast, were it not fully explained, would be 
likely to cause a doubt in the minds of the home 
investing public as to the soundness of the posi- 
tion of our present chief industry. They would 
probably be induced by the oontrast to regard 
tea ouitivation in Ceylon as an investment 
in which there might, indood, be one or two 
prizes, but whioh was possessed of very many 
crushing blanks. It is, as far as may bo pos- 
sible to prevent Buoh a conclusion being drawn j 
AGRICULTURIST. 863 
that we have noticed thus briefly the conditions 
under which the non-dividend paying Com- 
pany has been worked. Our object would, 
however, scarcely be fulfilled unless we drew 
attention to the fact that, although the 
Eastern Produce and Estates Company has been 
debarred under its Articles of Association from as 
yet dividing any profits, it by no means follows 
that its career hitherto has been unprosperous. 
On the contrary its profits have been both large and 
progressive : the sum cleared last year having been 
£18,513 against £12,000 for the year previous. 
The Beetroot Industry and the Proposed Keduc- 
tion of the sugar duty in the united states. — 
The reduction of the duty on sugar m the United 
States is likely to be a very serious matter for the 
beetroot industry in California. It is said that if the 
bill pasees the machinery for a second refinery will 
not be put up, but will be returned, so hopeless are 
considered the prospects of the trade under the new 
conditions. What, however, California loses the West 
Indies will gain. The sugar trade of those islands is 
rapidly being diverted to the United States. Twenty 
years ago the bulk of the West Indian sugars came 
to England, but nowadays the tendenoy is more and 
more to send them to the United States.— Stock 
Exchange. 
CEYLON EXPOBTS AND DISTRIBUTION 1890 
j Plum- 
bago. 
0 . 
01 -M 
" O 
1 CD CM OO 
O t- iO CM 
OS t- CM CO 
; ■ ; ; ; OS OS CM 
CD O CO 1 CM O O — < 
r-i co 10 1 1— 1 00 0- 00 
CO r-1 CN I CO CO CO 
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... 00 : 1 CD CO Ol CO 
j ^ 
a 1 
° i 
1'V 
0 1 
a 1 
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io - . co 1— cm r-i : 
CO O CO CM 
"2 : : ; co 3 : 
. . . <o 1-1 co : 
r-t O CM Ol 
OS r-l >— O l 
|.| 
r-t O 
CO (MOIH 
as 000 
; fCO ; b- ia • • 
• • :<m : : 
O as r— OS 00 
r-i lO CO CM CM 
: ; 0 — 0 0 • 
1 Iwohio : 
CM CM r-1 
1 CN C11.O 
COOC-Oi 
CO CM CO 
Cinnamon. 
Chips 
lb. 
92788 
2800 
11424 
11200 
7840 
2372 
5600 
0 
0 
;CN : 
fJ1r-IK3H 
r~> CM CO CO 
CM O CO 
lO O r-H CM 
HOlflH 
H CO CO H 
1 
w 
w 
327705 
43900 
34725 
4000 
1400 
126300 
7000 
7506 
10000 
7500 
5000 
2260 
40728 
20000 
638024 
1076543 
403149 
348564 
Carda- 
Cccoa Jmoms. 
$ 
OS r-1 . . 
COOS 
: ; : . co - 
» > . -co : 
CO 
163719 
142910 
146904 
159120 
CO O CM 
§ : : : :S : : 
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ira oj 00 
: ; "tf ; cm ; 
CO m rH CO. 
CO CO ^ O 
tCO iG> Co tH 
COONh 
i Tea. 
as , 
00 
16644016 
25 
800 
409 
1030 
15 
15178 
115 
8524, 
10. t— O CO CO 
CM CM r— fc- "tfl 
; ; - m cd O co * 
. . b- 0 CM tJi : 
H H W Gl t> 
CO 
17496350 
12813823 
7116209 
S996180 
Cinchona 
1890 
Branch & 
Trunk lb. 
f— 1 O i-N <M CO 
r— O r-i m 0 
0 10 -n CM CO 
joii t p as 
CO " * 
Os 
00 0 
CO ^ 
: CM : ; ; : [0 : 
3490574 
4108973 
4647319 
Coffee cwt. 
P 
"oS 
0 
EH 
O IQ Cfl CO itMN S (N CD 
OCMi— lOCMCQCTsCQr— t 
Hrt CO QO CN 
CQ C- 
CO 
100 
3 
16 
112 
1045 
4358 
1570 
lO -Jj H H 
^ t- CO CD 
Ol CM t- CD 
OO CN CM G» 
V CO t-H 
1 1 
O CM 0 
O ^ CM 
O OO CM 
O CO OS 
rrt : ; ir* t» ; 
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TO CO OS CO 
rH CN r-l CO 
Is 
■i £ 
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O CM r-1 l> CM PQ J. r-i r-i 
O r-i CO CM 
CO 
CO CD CM l- CO 0 
rl n iO Cfl 1-. 
: h m n 10 • 
• co m ; 
CO O CO CO 
« CpOOffO 
C3i 0 to 
"■fl wN b» O 
COUNTKIES. 
To United Kingdom 
„ Marseilles 
„ Genoa 
„ Venice ... „. 
„ Trieste 9( . 
„ Odessa .„ 
Hamburg „. ,,, 
Antwerp ,„ „. 
Bremen 
Havre ... 
„ Kotterdam & Amsterdam 
Africa 
Mauritius and Eastward 
,j India .,, 
„ Australia ... ,,. 
„ America ... ... 
„ Barcelona 
j 0 a co t> 
H a. OO CO CO 
« 00 00 SjCo 
w >» 
r-1 crj 
cl^ooo 
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B* 
M 
w 
"0 
