90 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [August i, 1893. 
by the middle of the carrent yesr. The whole line 
is riue to be completed ia Augast 1894. 
This line will do for the Kinta district what the 
Selangor Riilway did for Kusla Lampor, and I shall 
be disappointed if it does not yield a revenue of 
a quarter million of dollars, or sbont 12 per cent on 
the capital investeij. 
Lord Bipon baa been intersBting bimself— much 
to Mr. Swettenham's satisfaction— in the question 
of Land Taxation and tbe promotion of Agriculture 
including tbe settlement of Agricultural Golonies. 
Mr. Swettenbam reports : — 
That at the two places where, in Peiak, colonisa- 
tion echemeg have gone beyond the preliminary stage, 
and that ia in £ri&a and S'tiawan, remurkable sao- 
cesa has been obtained. The experimental stage hai 
beeu successfully passed in the case of a 'lamil colony 
established some years ago in the Krian district by 
Roman Catholic Fathers, and yet again in a smaller 
end more recent settlement of Christian Chinese under 
the Bom&n Catholic missionary of Tamping, Father 
Gazean. Father Oazeau has been able to return the 
entire sum lent by tbe Qovernment to assist him in 
introducing the coloniBts, who are now permanently 
settled, and engaged principally in the caltivation of 
pepper. There are still two other colonies in the ex- 
perimental stage, one a Siamese settlement at Pondok 
Tanjong, under Mr. Ohoomsai, and the other a Tamil 
colony at Talnk Anson which my predecessor began, 
but_ declined to carry oat in view of tbe expense 
of introducing immigrants from India. 
THE CONSUMPTION OF TEA AND 
OTHER STAPLE DRINKS. 
Under the above title, Mr. O. H. Denyer contri- 
butes to the Economic Journal for March an article 
dealing at length with the consumption of tea, which, 
he say, "has long been outstripping every rival, and 
it is very probable that we now drink even more 
tea than beer." In 1891 we used 5'35 lb. of dry leaf 
tea per head, which, converted into a beverage at 
the rough average rate of seven gallons per lb., re> 
present an annual consumption of no lees than tbirty- 
sevea gallons per head, as against twenty-nine gallons 
of beer, so that we are almost justified in calllug tea 
tbe English national drink, the more so as we take 
as much of it as all the rest of Europe put together ; 
while the fact that our colonists in Victoria manage 
to consume per head two and a half times as much 
as wo do points in the direction of greater possibilities 
yet in store for tea in this country. 
THE LITBEATURB OF TEA. 
The literatare ot tea is interesting and extensive, 
and Pepys, Waller, Pope, Swift Defoe, and Cowper 
all famish apt references to the historian of its 
introduction. To confine ourselves as much as may 
be to its economic aspect, we find thnt the tea 
which was a new drink to Pepys in 1661, and of 
which the East India Company made the munificent 
gift of 2 lb. 2 oz. to Charles II. in 1664, was used as 
much as a drug as a beverage. However, the company 
determined to push its sale, and either the tea, or the 
porcelain cups whicn were introduced to drink it from 
became very fashionable by the ead of the century; and 
this, notwithstanding the bitter complaints of such old- 
fashioned persons as Mr, Henry Savile, who complains 
of those who call for tea, instead of pipes and battles, 
after dinner, a base unworthy Indian practice, and 
which I must ever admire jour most Christian family 
for not admitting ; . . . the truth is, all nations 
are growing so wicked as to have some of these filthy 
customs." 
On the other hand, in the very same year (1,678) 
a Dutchman, Cornelio Bontekoe, wrote his very po- 
pular and often translated Tractaat van het excellenste 
Kruyd Thee. Tea, he said, was the infallible cause 
of health, and if mankind could be induced to drink 
a sufficient quantity of it, the innumerable^ ills to 
which man is subject would not only be diminished, 
but entirely unknown. Indeed, 200 cups daily would 
not b8 too mnobi 
In 1,731 the import cf tea already amounted to 
1,793,0001b. weight the duty on which produced » 
revenue of £358,000. Tea had been liable <o a duty 
since 1660 whon 8d. a gallon w«s charged on the 
infusion as cold in tbe coSee-houBef, which wai as 
Dr. Short says, "no small prejudice to the liquor, and 
inconvenience to its driiikerp, for the excise officer 
was to survey it before any could be sold, and was 
not to survey it above once or twice a day " This 
primitive nieihod of levying tbe duty soon ^ave 
place to a tax on tbe dry leaf, but tbe exeessive 
rate charged, while it hardly availed to check cod« 
sumption, caused vast loss to tbe revenue. One of 
the chief vainer of ie\ was considered to lie "in 
the fact that tbe great revenue it pars the Crown 
lessens the general taxes to tbe poor," who did not 
then drink it ; a doctrine which sounds Strang* 
beside thj ttatsment of tbe late Cbiincellor of tbe 
Exchequer that tea is now tbe one article by 
which many of tbe poor contribute to tbe re- 
venae. So absurdly bigb, however, was tbe duty 
fixed in 1732 that tbe duty psid import fell 
Irom If million lb. in 1731 to ^ million ia 1735 
while even tbe revenue was ledaesd one-third of 
its former level. Pelham took oS half tbe duty ia 
1745, and tbe consumption of tea rapidly spread through 
the middle classes. 
BMUGOUNG AKD ADULTEBATION IN THB SABLT D4TS, 
Smuggling and adulteration, however, render tbe 
official returns of consumption almost valueless till 
within quite a recent period. Tbe proportion of t«a 
smuggled into tbe coaotry may be inferred from the 
fact tbat tbe reduction of <*uty in 1746 trebled in one 
year tbe number of pounds weight charge'), and a 
similar rise took place between 1783 and 1785, when 
one of Pitt's greatest fiscal reforms increased tbe duty 
paid import from 5,800,0001b to 16,300,000ib a year. 
Nor was tbe adulteration macb Itrks rampant, for 
Dr. Short, alt r seriously discuesiug the question 
whether a dealer who bought his tea from emunglers 
was an honest man, gives a long list of chemi- 
cal tests for different kinds of adulteration, both 
English and Chinese. He complains th.it so great 
was the demand ot the Chinese for terra japouica 
wherewithal to dye teas green, thit the price of the 
said japau earth had risen from 4d to 184 a pound. 
When in the last quarter of tbe Eighteenth 
Century, tea became a regolar drink, even among 
farm labourers (vide Arthur Young's " Six Months' 
Tour," and Eden's " State of the Poor"), and at 
the same time the heavy duty kept the price high, 
a committee of the House of Commons disoavered 
that 4,000,000 lb, of so-called tea were annually 
manufactured from sloe, liquorice, and ash leaves, 
and this at a time when tbe whole quantity imported, 
duty-paid, was only 6,0(.»0,000 lb. 
The lessons taught by Pitt's early reductions of 
taxation were forgotten amid the pressure of the 
French wars. High duties again enconraged adul- 
teration, and a Treasury prosecation in 1828 re- 
vealed an extensive manufactnr* of green '° tea " 
from white and black thorn leaves dyed with white 
lead and verdigris. The Chinese, too, were not far 
behind in the arts of adnlteration, for from an inter- 
esting paper read in 1839 by Dr. G. G. Sigmond 
before the Boyal Botanical Society we learn tbat the 
remission of tea duties in the United States in 1832-33 
caused a great aud sudden demand for green tea at 
Canton, a demand which was met, in the absence of 
a supply of the genuine article, by rtfiring a great 
quantity of damaged black leaves, and dyeing tbem 
green with tnrmeric and Prussian bine. 
In spite, however, of adulteration and high prices, 
the consumption increased rapidly, eo thai in the 
first five yesrs of this century it reached nearly 25 
million lb. daty.paid, i.e., 1§ lb. per head per 
annum. It appears that the farther increase of 
taxation due to Napoleon's victories probably 
checked tbe consumption, and certainly increased 
smuggling ; so that it was cot till 1835-9 tbat the 
average annual consnmption for a quinquennium rose 
from a oonstant 20 or 21 ounces to 23 oucces per hefid. 
