40 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
fJULv I, i803. 
162 taels of silver per bar of standard weight sod fine- 
ness, Bince 1866, to 261 taels (the highest point toaobed) 
ID March last, or Bomewhut over sixty per cent. That the 
advonce from 1873 to 1892, inclusive, msy be properly 
appreciated, I have given the silver fquivaleuts of 
gold in each enccessive year ia the horizobtal line 
under that of the aggregates of commodities, 
adopting the same standard 2,000 in 1873, as the 
etartiuK point, and it will at onoe be seen how the 
commodity, gold has advanced above the silver plaue 
2,000 which silver, and all commodities inoladiog 
gold, oaoupied in 1873. 
That this enormous divergence between the values 
of gold and silver is entirely owing to an advance 
of the former ssd not, at all, to any decline in the 
latter, is, I think, abundantly proved by the attached 
table, for if silver had leally gone down, even five 
per cent., then the aggregate value, for 1892, of 
the commodities specified, woold have been more, 
instead of less than 2,000 and, with a decline equal 
to the difference between the two metals, instead of 
1,761, as it now is, it would bare been at least as 
high as the other commodity, gold, which stauds as 
shown in the table at 2,9S0. 
TABLE OP INDEX NUMBERS FOE TWENTY 
CHINESE STAPLE COMMODITIES. 
Compiled W. S. Wetmoke fbom thb Beiubnb 
OF Tbade of ihe Impebial Mabiiime Cuetqus 
OF Uhina. 
[We quote only for tea,] 
18T3. 1874, 1876. 1876. 1877. 1878. 1879. 
Tea, Black .. 100 lU 99 99 84 85 91 
Do Brick ... ICO 123 112 102 99 96 78 
Do Oreen... 100 97 76 73 64 76 74 
Aggregate values 
ot commodities 
in silver ... 1925 1940 1986 1916 1883 1854 1858 
Aggregate values 
ot commodiiies 
in silver ... 2000 1814 1787 1930 2031 2102 2023 
Bilver value of 
Gold ... 2000 2029 2078 2160 2159 2215 2301 
1880. 1881. 1882. 1883 1884- 1885. 1886. 
Tea, Black ... 82 67 70 69 67 63 73 
Do Brick ... 120 87 78 86 82 67 77 
Do Green . . 70 60 66 53 57 61 S8 
Silver value of 
Gold .. 2275 2322 2307 2336 2376 2425 3571. 
1887. 1888. 1889. 1890. 1891 1892 
Tea, BUck... 54 58 73 81 96 66 
Do Brick... 62 65 83 67 74 i04 
Do Groen.. 60 66 69 53 51 5'J 
AggreRate values 
of commodities 
m silver . . 1774 1761 
1803 1808 1748 1761 
Bilver value of 
Gold ... 2648 2730 2746 2539 2621 2950 
The standard being taken at "lOO" in 1873 wijjt> 
gold at " 2,000,"— in 1892, we finii black t«a at 66 
or 34 per cent of a fall, while gold has rist'o nearly 
50 per cent in silver value. Silver itself, Mr. M'etmore 
holds has not declined in value ! 
CEYLON TEA IN RUSSIA. 
M. Rogivue has apparently given up advising the 
P. A. of his doings. The following is what he writes 
to 00 e of our contemporaries :— ■ 
" In previous reports to the Committee of the ( 
Ceylon Tea Fund I very often wrote that, although 
the task of pushing Ceylon interests here is not an 
e»ey one, I am, however, very ee^uguine about euooeet, 
were I better supported from that direction. Mr. 
P. G, SpeDce, tbrongh your kind columut, has been 
many times my advocate for pUcjug tbe matter be- 
fore th.i eyes of Oeyloo PUni^r*, but, I uiu sorry to 
say, his efforts, as well a« yon s ha-l, up to this time, 
very little eff< ct as the T<;a Fund Committee seems 
to be more ititereetrd in oti .;r, perbaps more im- 
portant questions. They Dev. r replied to one of my 
letters, this being, it seems, tbeir way of acknowledg- 
iog and encouraging the eervices of their " pioneera " 
It is true that more than a month aro I received 
from Mr. Philip, the Secretary of the Planters' 
Asfociation a copy of the resolution passed re- 
cently by the Committee, thai a grant of 9,000 
pounds of t«a is to be maie to me, bat up to tbia 
time I l ave not yet seen the first pound of that in- 
teodid ebi|>ment, nor ,efen reoeivea any advice from 
Messrs. Wbittall & Co., that the tea bas been boagtit 
and shipped. "Your suggestioD that halt-a-dozeo 
agents, on similar termt to mine, should bedespatcted 
to Russia to co-operate with me, may be a good one ; 
but, besides being unfair to me, who did for the past 
two years the first or more diffioult work, it would, 
I think, be useless unlebj very large cumi of money 
were devoted for this purpose (in such a case I could 
nee the funds myself, and I hive uo hesitation to 
say I can do alone the whole work named). Let, 
instead, ail the available tuu<is be sent to me in kind 
(tea) lor money, and I nill (how Ceylon, in a abort 
time, what I am still able to do for the extension of 
Ceylon tea in Burs a. "Let, as you once suggested 
in your paper, a^ much as £1,000 a year be ppared 
for my work for the next five ytarf. and, like yourtelf, 
I feel certain tbat the money would be well laid out. 
" Advertising by publications and by free distribu- 
tion of tea, travelling and opening new agf ncies in the 
provinoer, are the principal mediums for snoeeas ; but 
bariog myself already spt-nt a amall fortune in doii g 
this — my only reward up to the present time being to 
have worked for others ! — 1 have no meauB to con- 
tinue it, and therefore require the assistance of the 
Tea Fund. 
" The fact that Poprff Brothers are about to estab- 
lish an agency in Colombo for the purchase of Ceyion 
tea ia certainly a very palpable evidence tbat my work 
bad some effect, for it is to be noticed that tbat very 
firm was the most energetic (nemy of Ceylon tea two 
years ago when I commeiiced operations and called 
at tbeir office to offer them my produce. That tbey 
nill sell Ce:^lon tea pure in packets 1 cannot say yet ; 
it is well known that they mix it with tbeir Chinese 
rnbbisb ; but I fancy that the demand for pure 
Ceijlon has so much increased by now that they 
most be in a position to deliver it to tiieir regular 
customers. Another proof, amongst many others I 
could meotion of the re»nU of my work in finscia 
is to te found in Messrs. Gow, Wilson & Stanton's 
London circular of the 27th January, 1693, when 
tbey say : " One of the most noticeable features |ii 
the large quantity of Ceylon tea sent to Germany 
in 1892, amounting to very nearly one million poundis 
the bulk of which was most likely destined for the 
Russian market." 
"You may be interested to bear that in the year 
1892 I myself imported very nearly 100,000 pounds 
of Ceylon tea for the exclusive sale to the public 
pure in packets. I have now three retail magazines 
m Moscow and in Nijni-Nowgorod, and fourteen 
agencies in the provinces. In your editorial note 
referred to above I notice yon are under the im* 
pression that I have not sent for some time a report 
to the Tea Fund Committee I wrote them a long 
letter on the 13th-26th of November last, of which 
Mr. Spence has sent you a copy, but which for some 
reason or other has not been submitted to you as usual 
for publication in your valuable paper. 
[Mr. Rogivue is wrong about the great Russian 
Tea House of Messrs. Popoff Brothers ; for M. Popoff 
paid a visit to Ceylon in February 1891, went all 
over Abbotsford and expressed himtelf as greatly 
pleased with all he saw and ae much interested ia Ceylon 
tea which he was at onoe to study with a view to 
itnportstions,— Ed. T.^.J 
