1002 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [June i, 1882. 
silt within the estate but within tea minutes ditches 
three feet deep and four feet wide were full and over- 
lowing, and within another five minutea gaps six feet 
Aide were wrought in the embankments. This was 
wn'.y the drainage of less than ten acres. The rain 
oasted about two hours and I think three inches fell. 
BRITISH TEA AND COFFEE DUTIES. 
We nre glad to see that the question was put to 
Lord Hartiugton whether the import duties on India 
tea and coffee could not be abolished. Attention must 
be directed to the matter, and the claims of India 
in this direction must be fully ventilated. It must 
not be cause for discouragement that the reply was 
so unfavorable, for it would never do to show a too- 
yielding disposition to all the demands made upon 
the finances of Great Britain. And there may be 
some technical reason in the reply that the remission 
of the cotton duties on this side is in itself no actual 
ground for remitting tea and coffee duties on the 
other. But there is more reason for the demand than 
tine mere remission of the cotton duties. The princi- 
ples so strongly upheld as ground for the one course 
must be as strongly insisted on when dealing with 
the other. The close connection of the interests of 
India and England, and the advisability of having no 
cause of friction and dissatisfaction between the two 
countries, were strongly insisted on when the repeal 
of the cotton duties was demanded. These same rea- 
sons exist for the repeal of the tea and coffee duties. 
As the champion of free trade, and as the great ad- 
vocate of that system when dealing with Indian im- 
ports from England, the latter country ought to be 
just as nctive an advocate for free trade in the case 
of English imports from India. England can far more 
easily bear the loss of the revenue thus derived than 
India can, and this fact must not be overlooked. A 
difficulty, we see, may probably arise, if treaties are 
already entered into with China and other countries 
with respect to the duties on tea and coffee. These 
countries may claim the " most favored-nation " priv- 
ileges, and may demand that what is done in the 
case of these exports from India should be done also 
when tbey come from other countries. And if Iudia 
is treated as a foreign country in the same way that 
China or Brazil is a foreigu country, the contention 
would be well founded. So far as India is on the same 
footing as other foreign nations, a demand from the 
one must be treated as it would be if it came from the 
others. But when the cotton duties in this country 
were abolished the other day, the great argument was 
that India was not foreign. This country was held 
to lie, to a very practical extent, part and parcel 
of the British Empire ; and it was on this very 
ground that pressure was put on her, which a foreign 
nation would not have endured. Our great objection 
to L ird Harrington's reply — supposing Reuter has given 
it to us in an accurately summarized form — is that the 
noble lord fails to acknowledge that the same prin- 
cijjles should govern both cases. If India is to be 
treated as a part of England when cotton goods are 
concerned, England should treat India as an integral 
part of the same great country when teas and 
coffees are concerned. The principle on which the 
Home Government forced ou us the one abolition 
should be of equal force when India asks for a corre- 
sponding abolition. Apart from the question whether 
England ought not to encourage the importation of 
the products of her own colonies, by giving privileges 
which others do not possess, there is a special reason 
why India should be peculiarly favoured in this res- 
pect. The intimate connection between India and 
England, if used for the advantage of the stronger 
in the one case — and no one can doubt that the 
recent instance of the cotton duties remission is a 
case of advantage to stronger England— then much 
more, a fortiori, should this intimate connection be 
used to the advantage of the weaker in the other 
case. — Madras Times. 
SOUTH AMERICAN CINCHONA AND THE 
"QUILLaI TREE" 
We and our readers are indebted to an old Ceylon 
planter, Mr. P. D. Millie, for some interesting in- 
formation which, at our instance, he has obtained 
from South America where his brother is resident. 
Our readers will see that Ceylon has not much to 
fear from the action of wretched Bolivia, the victim 
of her own treacherous conduct in the war with 
Chili. The "Quillai" tree might, as Mr. Millie 
suggests, be tried on the Nuwara Eliya ranges. But, 
perhaps, like so many other products which form 
matter of discussion, it has been in Ceylon for the 
last score of years, only "blushing unseen"? 
Edinburgh, 16th March 1882. 
To tlie Editor of the " Ceylon Observer.'" 
Dear Me. Editoe, — Some time ago, you asked me 
to try and procure some information from my brother 
in South America, upon the position of cinchona there, 
and also about the Quillai tree. Enclosed find papers 
from him on both subjects. 
From what he writes, it seems to me the Quillai tree 
would do well on the Nuwara EHya slopes. 
With regard to South American cinchona, I do not 
think Ceylon cultivators have much to fear from that 
quarter. Our facilities of inland transport to sea-port, 
and in shipping, give Ceylon an advantage in all its 
products, which none of the South American coffee and 
cinchona producing countries ever can realize, unless, 
as is possible, steam navigation on the river Amazon opens 
up the unexplored forests and facilitates the transport 
of bark. — Yours truly, P. D. Millie. 
THE PROSPECTS OF CINCHONA IN 
BOLIVIA. 
Coquimbo, Chile, January 1882. 
The Mercurio, daily of Valparaiso, gives the follow- 
ing items of information in regard to the prospects 
of cinchona in the interior of Bolivia. The article is 
written by a correspondent in Tacna Peru, and is 
dated Dee-mber 31st, 1881. Like the project of the 
partition of the victorious republic of Chili, which has 
turned out a very sad fiasco indeed for both Peru 
and Bolivia, the estimate of the value of the cinchona 
plantations is not likely to fulfil expecatione, and the 
" Director-General of Imports." of Bolivia, must be 
a wonderfully sanguine individual, and, perhaps, counts 
upon cinchona taxes as the panacea for the chronic 
condition of emptiness of the public treasury of his 
wretched country, where -every aspiraut to political 
power helps himself to what little he finds in the 
coffers of the Government, and keeps them empty 
during his term of office. Heaven knows we have 
heard enough of Peruvian bark during the war between 
the allied republic of Peru and Bolivia against Chili, 
and no doubt the Director-General alluded to 
hopes to render the genuine article quite as plentiful 
by and bye as the "tall talk," which was thus desig- 
nated by us foreigners 
Alluding to the resources of the Province of Yungas 
(Bolivia) Sefior Aspiazu, in his " Report, " states : — 
" Until the present time the C'ascarilla, cutters have 
only devoted themselves to hewing down the trees and 
exterminating the forests of this plant : now the destroyers 
have been converted into cultivators. 
