July 2, 1888.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
65 
CEYLON TEA. AT EXHIBITIONS. 
We fully agree in the general tenor of the 
letters which Mr. Kutherford has very properly 
placed at the disposal of the press at this juncture. 
Of the importance of doing what we can at all 
Exhibitions to make our products and especially 
our tea known, there can be no two opinions ; 
and we feel as irate as any member of our con- 
temned Glasgow Committee at their treatment and 
the treatment of the Ceylon Court, by the officials, all 
due to the scandalous refusal of the local Govern- 
ment to grant the required recognition which a 
stroke of the pen would supply. But we do not feel 
that sufficient effort was made at this end, to obtain 
this recognition. An ordinary refusal should only 
have led to a special Deputation, and, if necessary, 
an " indignation" meeting, and then red-tape would 
have given way. 
As to Mr. Beid's opinion that the mother-country 
is not yet worked half enough on behalf of Ceylon 
teas, we only wish that Australia and even a 
corner of America had one-twentieth oE the at- 
tention. It would be interesting to learn from 
Ceylon men at home now, the name of any town 
or village they may come across in which Ceylon 
teas are not prominently advertised and sold. 
Our information last year in London led us to believe 
that from Cornwall to the Shetlands and from Dublin 
to Cork, " Ceylon teas" had been made known as no 
product ever before has been to the general public. 
Of course, there is not the least doubt of further 
advertising been a most remunerative undertaking. 
There never can be too much notoriety for an 
article you want to be bought and used by the 
million. But certainly, the time has now come, 
for us to give as much of our energy and means 
as possible to advertising in Australia and America. 
THE OPINIONS OF MESSES. DAVID BEID 
AND J. L. SHAND ON PUSHING CEYLON 
TEAS. 
The following are extracts from letters received 
by Mr. Butherford on his efforts to organize 
schemes for pushing our teas : — 
Mr. Rbib writes :— " Great Britain, in my opinion, 
is the country that drinks the best quality of tea, 
and I greatly doubt if any < Sorts of tho Ceylon 
planters will Ire more fruitful of results to them 
than efforts to push Ceylon teas in this country. 
It has not been half done yet. Indian tea is 
second-class as compared wth Ceylon, and is, in 
my opinion, a better weapon to combat China 
tea with in America. I am at one with you in 
desiring to combat the heathen Chinee rather than 
our countrymen in India, but I am not sure that 
you have got hold of the best mode of procedure 
to effect that object by joining with India in an 
American tea crusade." 
Mr. J. Ij. Siianii writes : — " I had your ideas 
08 to India and Ceylon joining in a British-grown 
tin crusade a year or so a;.'<>, bill having seen 
more, 1 think it now impracticable. There is some 
ONnmon ground, but there are many points of 
divergence, and 1 think Ceylon would do better alone. 
" Sample? of a few thousand pounds here and 
there are all nonsense, and the man that asks for 
help of this tort is not the right man, and will 
probably realize the samples ; after being fictitiously 
bolstered up, lie will tumblo down when the prop 
is tnken away. 
" I can think of no better way of pushing our 
tpftM than an Exhibition. Personally 1 am sick of 
them, and have no reason to speak in favour of 
thorn. Any connection from S. Konsington and 
Liverpool Exhibitions has not been worth £20 to 
me, and I consider I should be doing the enter- 
prize much harm if I appeared at Glasgow as 
a tea dealer and not as a representative of tea 
growers, and one cannot appear as both. 
''The Paris Exhibition will be a great opportunity 
for Ceylon ; but after the Glasgow Exhibition, I 
hope to shake Exhibition dust off' my feet, for one 
cannot afford to go on losing time and money in 
the public cause. But what I want to impress 
upon you is, don't lone the chance of an Exhibition 
anywhere. If it is properly done nothing can be 
so good as an advertizing medium, but the dis- 
tribution of samples gratuitously or otherwise is 
a mistake, and we are always particularly careful 
of the man who asks for samples. The man who 
comes and boldly asks for help is in another street, 
and may be worthy of subsidy." 
The following letter has been sent to Mr. Ruther- 
ford by Mr. David Reid as to Ceylon's part in 
the Glasgow International Exhibition, with a re- 
quest to publish the same if considered desirable. 
Thomanean, Milnathort, N.B., 17th May 1888. 
My dear Rutherford, — The Glasgow Exhibition 
is a success, as is the Ceylon tea-house— the latter 
so much so that I don't think we will have to call on 
the guarantors in this country for anything: we 
are making about £10 profit weekly. 
All the same I do not think that the representa- 
tion of Ceylon at Glasgow is as great a success as 
it|might have been made ; perhaps nothing ever is. 
We have made the Court pretty, there can be no 
doubt about that; but it is not sufficiently interesting 
for want of Ceylon Exhibits. Still I believe it is 
worth all the trouble it has cost us, and if I had 
the business to do over again, I should do it in the 
same way ; I mean that I would have both a Court 
and a tea-house. I know that the view of some 
of the planters is, " Never mind the Court ; let us 
have a tea-house," but that won't answer. It is of 
course much easier for the Committee to do what 
we are doing at Brussels : subsidize a refreshment 
contractor to sell Ceylon tea, but the effect I am 
sure is not the same. 
The Government have treated us very shabbily. 
I say nothing about their paltry subscription (though 
I doubt if it accords well with the dignity of a body 
like the Ceylon Planters' Association to accept such an 
inadequate contribution) : what I complain of is their 
refusal to give us the status and inlluenee they 
might have done by stamping with their cordial 
sanction our representation of the island. Such 
conduct shows not only a want of respect towards 
the Planters' Association and the Chamber of Com- 
merce, but, what is much worse, a want of percep- 
tion both of their own duty and their own interest ; 
indeed there is something almost ludicrous in a 
Government spending money by the million on 
railways that will be worthless unless the tea 
enterprise continues to flourish and expand, and at 
the same time ignoring in the most severe manner 
the efforts of a Committee whose sole aim and end 
is to advance the success of that enterprise. I 
impressed on Mr. Noel Walker, whom I saw in 
London before he left for Ceylon, that it was not so 
much money the Committee wanted as official 
recognition, so as to enable us to interest the 
British [ ublic in the island, and to bring our staple 
product before them not as huckstering refresh- 
ment contractors, but as responsible representatives 
of the colony. If Sir Arthur Gordon, who is at home, 
had taken tho trouble to enquire what we were 
doing, and shown some interest in the colony whose 
interests ho is paid for promoting, I have no doubt 
the Prince of Wales would have shown the same inter- 
