August i, 1887.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
135 
THE PEESENT VALUES OF STBAITS 
PBODUCE.—I. 
{Straits Times, July 13th.^ 
The values of Straits Produce so materially affect 
the welfare of our Colony, that it is rather sur- 
prising that more general attention is not devoted 
to a subject which is so full of interest in itself 
and which has such an immediate bearing on our pre- 
sent and future prospects. To any one who has felt the 
charms and experienced the woes of a speculative 
business in the Far East, the list of market quot- 
ations which we publish daily at the top of one of 
our columns is more stirriug than the most exciting 
romance and more pregnant with human interest than 
anything written since the days of Shakespeare. The 
dull and prosaic list of market quotations means Pro- 
fit and Loss, and Profit and Loss are probably the most 
powerful influences of modern society. There has been 
quite a revolution of late years in the prices of Straits 
Produce which has largely contributed to the pro- 
sperity of the Colony, in which many a man has particip- 
ated without grealy troubling himself as to whether 
gambier is firm, pepper weak, or tin dull and 
heavy. There are, of course, a number of gentlemen 
whose sole study and care are concentrated on 
produce freights and exchange ; we need hardly say 
that we do not write for the benefit of these specialists, 
but with a view of demonstrating to the general public, 
to whom gambier is an unknown quantity, and pepper 
a pungent powder kept in a cruet, that high prices for 
Straits Produce are for the benefit of all concerned 
Prices of Straits Produce are at present running high 
with, it would appear, but a small prospect of any im- 
mediate and disastrous reaction. We quote by way of 
text the following extracts from our prices current of 
yesterday : — 
Gambier.. .. ... $ 665 
Black Pepper ... ... 23 50 
Bali Coffee 27-00 
Tapioca Small Flake ... 6-00 
Cloves, Amboiua... ... 42'00 
Tin 38-25 
Sago Flour, Sarawak ... l"97j 
With the solitary exception of Sago Flour, all of 
these quotations shew a very high range of prices which 
must of uecessity be very remunerative to producers 
and leave a good margin of profit to Singapore and 
Peuang merchants. Take, for iustauce, tapioca, which 
now realises §6 per picul against from *3 to §3 50 for 
cost of production. It will be seen at a glance that the 
fortunate owners of tapioca estates in full swing must 
clear close upon luO per cent on every picul winch they 
sell.* Yet we all known what a deal of sheer nonsense 
has been said and printed concerning the alleged in- 
iquity of levying a most moderate laud tax on estates 
which yield fabulous profits to their owners. It is a 
far cry to the day when gambier, winch is now worth 
betwoen §6 and S7 por picul, was exchangeable for a 
picul of rice, but within the last ten years still more 
marvellous changes have taken place in the values of 
produce. Teu years ago Black Pepper was worth 
about S7 per picul, ami Cubebs sold for say §5 per 
picul. Cubebs are but a variety of the pepper vine, 
and the berries of tho cubeb vine are in the lirst place 
distinguished from ordinary black pepper by means of 
a short stalk, so that if we may use a familiar illustra- 
tion, a cubeb m appearance is to a pepper berry as 
a comma is to a full stop. Of course there are certain 
other properties peculiar to the cubeb which arc known 
to all and sundry who can distinguish between a cubeb 
and a cow. I n the halcyon days of 1S77-1S7D when 
cubebs sold for $5 per picul, it used to bo a practice 
of our Chinese friends to rub off the stalks of the 
cubeb berries and mix them in with the ordinary 
pepper. Many a man has administered a consider- 
able dose of cubeb to himself when he thought 
ho was going in for nothing more pungent thau 
popper. This is an accident not likely to happen 
* Things have greatly changed since we visited 
Singapore in 1881, when the chief grower of tapioca, 
Mr. Uhasaerieau, (old us he had some hundreds of tons 
unsaleable iu the London market.— Ed. 
now-a-days, for, although black pepper is now quoted 
at $23-50, cubebs are wanted at $80 p er piau.1, and 
really pure cubebs, free from stalks, sand, jungle 
berries, and foreign matter generally, would fetcu a 
good deal more. Nobody mixes cubebs .with pepper 
now, and the progress of adulteration in this part- 
icular direction has been most successfully checked. 
Another very striking feature of our commerce is 
the manner in which we profit by the disasters and 
misfortunes which befall our fellow men in other parts 
of the world. Take Coffee as an example. Coffee 
plantations have been started pretty well all over 
Singapore, Johore, and certain districts of the Pro- 
tected Native States. Since coffee planting became 
a feature of Singapore enterprise^ we have seen the 
ruin of Ceylon as a coffee growing country, leaf dis- 
ease has wasted the splendid estates of Java, and 
finally the vast production of Brazil has been cut off 
to a very large extent by the same causes which 
have wrought such havoc in Ceylon and Java. The 
natural result has been that coffee of all descrip- 
tions has risen enormously in value, considerably 
over 100 per cent and a healthy colfee estate in full 
bearingjhas become the first cousin to a "bonanza" gold 
mine. We doubt, however, if the poor and exhausted 
land of Singapore will do for coffee, but plant- 
ations on the virgin soil of the peninsula have brilliant 
prospects before them, and to go yet a little further afield, 
there appears to be no doubt but that some of the, 
finest coffee land in the world is to be found in the 
newly opened districts of British North Borneo. The 
wasted fields of Ceylon have never recovered them- 
selves, the same thing is now being experienced in Java, 
and if the information at present to hand about Brazil 
is anywhere near the mark, prices of coffee must rule 
high for years to come. It needs no prophet to tell 
us how beneficial the disasters of other countries will 
be to us iu this instance, however much we may de- 
plore them.* 
II. 
(S. T., July 14th.) 
We have already iustanced the causes of the en- 
hanced prices of coffee as an illustration of the fact 
that our prosperity is sometimes built up from the 
ruins of less favoured countries ; it may be of interest 
to work out this idea yet a little further, and per- 
haps nothing more extraordinary can be found in 
the whole history of Straits Produce than the fluctuation 
in values of Amboina cloves. About the period when 
our Unofficial Members of Council were lads at school, 
Amboiua cloves were worth $7 per picul ; they are 
now quoted at §42, and even this latter quotation is 
as nothing to the price which they used to fetch at 
one time. For there is a historical interest attach, 
ing to Amboiua cloves with which few of our pro- 
ducts are gifted. Sir Francis Drake drove a fine trade 
in cloves when he cruised about the Molucca 
Islands in tho glorious days of Queen Elizabeth. 
Drake is reported to have sold his " Aniboinas " for their 
weight in gold, for which he had paid with powder and 
shot. Thus Sir Francis thoroughly uuderstood the quint- 
essential principle of buying cheap aud selling dear, and 
it is not surprising to find that our gallant free-trader 
ou returning to London after one of these cruises paid 
£47 for every £1 invested by the shareholders iu his 
produce venture. Wo may now follow the courso of 
the clove market iu a less remote and less picturesque 
period. A few years ago the prices of Amboiua cloves 
after many fluctuations remained dull aud dragging at 
about ,$17. They got to be quite a drug in the Am- 
boina market, but nevertheless a few hundred piculs 
were bought at that price by the branch house of a 
Singapore firm ; further quantities were offered at low 
prices, but the firm in qmstiou refused either to buy 
more cloves ot\ take them ou consignment agaiust ad- 
vances. AVheu the cloves finally reached Singapore, the 
news was telegraphed of the total loss of the Zanzibar 
crop; it was said at the time that whole plautalious 
were destroyed in Zanzibar by bush fires, aud the en- 
tire lot of " Amboinas," bought at §17, was sold in ar- 
* Yes, but, with leal disease ou colfee buBJUp in iho 
Straus, he must bo a bold omu who risks large cnpitnl 
in the pursuit,— Ed, 
