700 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [April 2, 1888 
R23.280, the transfer of R5.000 to working capital, 
and that Rl,051 be carried forward. The estimates 
for the current season provide for an outturn of 1,500 
maunds of tea at an expenditure of K52,100. The 
area under cultivation is 259 acres. 
Seum Tea Company. — The report of the directors 
shows that the outturn of 1837 was only 499,360 lb. 
against an estimate of 560,000 lb., mosquito blight 
being answerable for the deficiency. The average 
prioe realised was annas 7-9'53 per lb. The re- 
venue for the year wa3 112,44,354 and the ex- 
penditure 112,47,394, leaving a loss on the working 
of 113,040, and resulting in a debit balance at' Profit 
and Loss of Rl,662. The estimates for the cur- 
rent season are, for 7,100 maunds at a local ex- 
penditure of Rl, 88,228 ; but the directors add that, 
after their experience of blight, it is impossible to 
say whether this will be realized. The directors 
all retire at this meeting. [We visited Selim in 
1876 as one of the leading Darjiling estates, planted 
with Assam hybrid. Connected with it was a group 
of estates, some in the Terai. The report shows 
what a fearful evil helopeltis is, aud how thank- 
ful we in Oeylon ought to be at the continued ex- 
emption of our tea from this pest. — Ed.] 
Balasun Tea Company. — The report of the directors 
Bhows that the actual outturn for 1887 was 1,029 
maunds against an estimate of 1,000 maunds. The 
entire crop Bold for annas 11-11 - 81 per lb., and the 
net profit was R17.814, the balance at credit of 
Profit and Loss being 1118,428. An ad interim divi- 
dend of 5 per cent has exhausted R10,000, and it 
is now proposed to pay a final dividend of 3 per 
cent which will absorb R6.000 ; transfer R2,000 to 
credit of Reserve Fund, which will then stand at 
RIG.OOO, and carry R428 forward. The estimate for 
1888 is for an outturn of 1,050 maunds. 
Gikxle Tea Company. — The report of the directors 
shows that 131,248 lb. were manufactured, which 
realised an averags of annas 11-404 per lb. and 
left a profit of R23.343 and an available balance at 
Profit and Lo3s of R24,705. The directors recom- 
menJed a dividend of 6 per cent, and that R705 
be carried forward. The estimates for 1888 provide 
for a crop of 1,650 maunds. 
Central Tekai Tea Company. — The report of the 
directors shows an outturn of 1,976 maunds against 
an estimate of 2,120 maunds and a crop iu 1886 of 
1,916 maunds. Mosquito blight [Helopeltis again. — 
Ed.] is to blame for the difference. The 
average price realised was annas 7-2 7 per lb., and 
there is a balance at credit of Profit and Loss of 
R392. The estimates for the current year are for 
2,100 maunds of tea,.— Pioneer, Feb. 28th. 
: — ♦ • 
THE NEW MINCING LANE COMPANY. 
For some time past Mincing-lino has been in a con- 
dition of suppressed excitement about ia. new Com- 
pany, which was to be started to revolutionise the 
Produce Markets there. This morning the Prospectus 
ef that Company makes its appearance in our columns, 
and puts the public in a position to estimate the 
character of the project which has occasioned so much 
talk. It discloses, for one thing, that the Company 
is to be most powerfully sponsored. Upwards of two 
dozen firms, containing among them th^ fir->t houses 
in London, have been found willing to figure on the 
prospectus as " founders " or underwriters of the half- 
million of capital to be offered to th ? public next 
Monday. Barings are there, and th i Rothschilds, and 
Friihling and Goschen, and the H imbros, and the 
Huths, and the Schroders — as imp* sing an array of 
names as ever propped a foreign State or launched 
a Brewery. There must be something good, 
one would think, in a project which finds so 
many merchant princes and princely financiers to back 
it. Certainly it looks a modest and innocent scheme 
enough. "The object of the Company," says the 
prospectus, " is to place on a secure basis, by a sys- 
tem of deposits, the dealing in produce for future 
delivery, which has become such an important devel- 
opment of trade both in Europe and America." By 
the "facility" and the "seourity " which the Com- 
pany will provide, it is contended that busiu :is which 
now goes past Loudon wi.l be brought ba ;c to it. 
Mincing-lane, in a word, will become again the lead- 
ing market of the world for coffee, aud for other 
produce too, should this Company succeed, and will 
no longer be the dead and alive spot it now is. In 
proof that this happy revolution is ab >ut to 
be effected, the " eminent success " of similar 
Institutions elsewhere is pointed to. A " Caisse 
de Liquidation " has existed for a number of 
years at Havre, and a similar Institution was 
recently established in Hamburg, and these have 
been " very profitable undertakings" — a fact which 
we can believe. Tney have also, say the promoters, 
given important and safe development to local trade 
— which is a statement that requires a great deal 
of independent proving before it can obtain credence. 
For an important distinction has to be drawn between 
the prosperity of the Oaisse or Clearing House and 
the prosperity of its patrons. There is no reason to 
doubt that the keepers of the gimiug tables at 
Monaco prosper, but it does not follow that the game- 
sters do so. In like manner, some of the Stock- 
gambling agencies which take deposits and deal on 
" margins"— the " bucket-shops," as they are familiarly 
called — appear to make money; but it is at the ex- 
pense of their customers. The fallacy underlying 
such statements as those in this Prospectus is that 
they treat gambling as if it were a productive in- 
dustry, which is exactly what it is not. A thousand 
bags of coffee may be passsd from hand to hand 
fifty or a hundred times at ever-varying prices, and be 
worth just the same money atthe end of it all as at 
the beginning. All that happens in the transit is that 
a certain number of people are made poorer by so many 
commissions,and the differences which they have to pay. 
Regarded in this light, then, we are bound to say 
that the new Company appears to promise a prosperous 
career to its shareholders — at any rate for a time— at 
the price of a very great deal of loss to the public. 
Its ways of earning money are plainly and honestly 
set out in the prospectus. Eich contract or bargain 
will carry a brokerage, money will be lent at interest, 
and members will pay entrance fees and subscriptions. 
By and-by, when metals, cotton, corn, seeds, &c, 
are added to the coffee and sugar with which the 
concern is to be started, the range of chances of gain 
will be immense. No broker in Mincing-lane will then 
be able to stand outside the Company's doors. They 
must become members of the huge produce u bucket- 
shop," orperish. The Company will thus grow to be 
the most powerful controller of the Produce Markets 
which it is possible to imagine, able to dictate its 
terms to the brokers, and to " rig" or depress prices 
at its pleasure. At present, and owing to the opposition 
it has met with at its inception, it modestly promises that 
the leading brokers in each article shall be consulted 
by the Directors in the framing of regulations for 
dealings ; but that is a condescension which is pretty 
sure soon to become unnecessary. Profits are assured 
to the Company, but the more its gains expand, the 
more money the public lose. Such has been the 
experience at Havre and at Hamburg, where the 
reckless speculation in produce fostered by the 
Caisse de Liquidation has brought about commercial 
failures and wide-spread rum. It stands to reason 
that such consquences must follow this mode of 
doing business. The Clearing House now to be 
started is not merely a centre where bargains can 
be adjusted, set off against each other, or liqui- 
dated. Within such limits, it would have been a 
useful Institution. But that work would not require 
the intervention of a Joint-shock Company, any 
more than the " Clearing " of bankers or of the 
Stock Exchange. The brokers of Mincing-lane 
could easily have formed themselves into an as- 
sociation for this purpose, had they been so in- 
clined, and might hav^ done so without modify- 
ing their ways of doing business in the manner now 
proposed. The true function of the new Company is 
that of stake-holder in a gamble. It is designed to 
open the markets of Mincing-lane to the man in the 
street, the loafer in the Clubs, the frequenter of City 
taverns— anybody aud everybody able to command a 
