March t, 1895.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
who had so long remained faithful voluntary subs- 
cribers to the Fund, it was decided unanimously by 
the Planters' Association and by a majority of the 
Chambei of Commerce to request the Government 
to re-impone an export duty on all tea for the pur- 
pose of pushing Ceylon Tea in foreign countries, 
and, if this was granted, to close the operations of 
the Ceylon Tea Fund. Government was accordingly 
approached on the subject, and your thanks are due 
to the Government and specially to H.E. the Gover- 
nor for readily giving effect to your representations. 
A special export duty has been imposed (Ordinance 
4 of 1894) and a special Joint Committee of the 
Planters' Association of Ceylon and Chamber of Com- 
merce has been appointed (and recognised by Go- 
vernment) whose duty it now is to administer the 
Funds provided by the export duty in pushing the 
interests of Ceylon Tea in foreign countries — in fact 
to continue the work hitherto carried on by the 
Standing Committee of the Tea Fund. The con- 
tinued existence of the Committee hae, therefore, now 
become unnecessary and its members now tender to 
the Planters' Association their resignation along 
with this report. 
CEYLON TEA AND THE PLANTERS' 
TEA FUND. 
Before disappearing from public view, the 
Ceylon Tea Fund Committee nave done well to 
place on record, in the interesting and useful 
Report we publish today, a full account of the 
various steps taken to promote the sale and 
distribution of Ceylon Teas. To make their 
Report complete and all the more interesting, 
they very wisely afford a recapitulation of the 
efforts made by the planters to build up a new 
industry in tea, on the ruins of the old one of 
from 40 to 50 years' standing in coffee ; and they 
shew how gradually their old — as well as new — 
lields got planted up with the product which 
has brought back prosperity not only to the 
Colonists, but, to a large extent, to the native 
community, the general revenue and the Gov- 
ernment. If any one were to ask how ruined 
coffee planters managed to find the means 
wherewithal to buy tea seed and plant and wait 
two or three years for returns, the Report 
before us will not help them to an answer ; 
and it may be well just to indicate that apart 
from the gradual decay of coffee, "cinchona'' 
came in as the valuable intermediary which 
helped to bridge over the transition period 
between coffee and tea in this island. In 1875, 
only 19,152 lb. of cinchona bark were exported 
from Ceylon : but in the five years— 1884-88 — we 
sent over 66 million lb. or an annual average of over 
13 million, the export of 1887 being close on 
16 million lb ! How the price fell in consequence 
until now we export only between 2 and 3 mil- 
lion 11). of hark needs no comment. The prac- 
tical point is that the planting of tea steadily 
extended, so that by 18SS, when bark crops 
began to fall off, well nigh 200,000 acres were 
under the new staple. 
It is, however, with the steps taken to find a 
market for Ceylon teas that the Report has 
mainly to do. Reference is made first to the 
Melbourne, then the Calcutta and next to the 
Colonial and Indian Exhibitions. With the latter 
may be associated its offsprings in the Utt&sgtixv 
and Manchester Provincial Exhibitions, as also 
the one at Brussels before (faking up the one 
at Paris and finally the World's Colombian 
Exhibition at Chicago. Credit is rightly given 
to Mr. H. K. Rutherford for initiating the Tea 
Fund, and well may he and the Committee and 
jMtpperfers be proml of a Fund which provided 
together uo less than R146.874 a~ a planters' 
self-imposed though partial tax for the promo- 
tion of the sale of Ceylon tea. "Partial", we 
say, because out of 1,450 estates in the island, 
it turns out that only from 260 to 676 contri- 
buted to this result — so that a minority bore 
the burden for the advantage of the whole tea 
community. All honour, we say, to those 
proprietors who, from first to last, consistently 
extended their support to the Fund. Their names 
along with those of Mr. Rutherford and the 
Committee ought to be published in a special 
form, as Benefactors of the Tea Industry of 
Ceylon. 
1'he Tea Fund Committee rightly report that 
the acceptance of Ceylon tea in tue mother 
country, in Australasia, on the Continent of Europe 
and latterly in North America is, really, in 
supersession of China tea. Mr. A. G. Stanton 
brought this out very clearly in his recent lec- 
ture before the Society of Arts ; and we are glad 
to see the London Times pressing home the lesson 
taught after the following fashion : -'- 
The bad work, the slovenly manufacture, and the 
dishonest makeshifts which gave the names of "lie 
tea" to portions of the staple export of China are 
merely the industrial counterparts of the political 
corruption brought to light by the present war. In 
1866 China had practically the monopoly of the 
British tea trade, and supplied 96 per cent, against 
4 per cent, of British-grown tea from India. In 
1894 China had been fairly beaten in the British 
market, and supplied only 12 per cent, against 88 
per cent, of British-grown tea in India and Ceylon. 
As late as 1S77 the the weight of tea imported by 
Great Britain from China was 123 million of pounds 
against 27 millions from India. In 1894 the imports 
were only 25 million pounds from China against 178 
millions from India and Ceylon. Mr. Stanton proves 
that the British tea-growers have won the battle, 
because by their care in manufacture and honesty in 
dealing they deserved to win it. 
Then conies a fact which cannot bo too widely 
made known or emphasized. The metropolitan 
Cournal notes that Mr. Stanton quotes from the 
impartial Customs-house Report that "if 1 lb. of 
Chinese tea produce 5 gallons of tea of a certain 
depth of colour and fulness of flavour, 1 lb. of 
Indian tea will produce 7i gallons of a similar 
beverage." He adds, "This is practically what 
the British housewife had found out years be* 
fore." — Finally, here is a bit of warning 
to us all, as to how India wants addi- 
tional facilities in order to grow and export still 
more tea : — 
But Mr. Stanton's narrative, although full of en- 
couragement, is not without its warnings. Indian and 
Ceylon tea has taken possession of the British 
market, but China retains her hold on the markets 
of the world. Mr. Stanton points out that the cost 
of production in India cannot reach its legitimate 
level so long as the Government is unable to resume 
its grants to road-funds, "which are now rather 
starved.'' The exemption of Manchester goods from 
the import duty compelled the Indian Government 
to arrest the works necessary for the development 
of the country. In one of the most important tea 
centres in Bengal, which the next rainy season may 
cut off from the seaport by neglect of the river 
embankments, the district authorities lament their 
inability to secure the line of communication on the 
ground that the road-fund is bankrupt. The same- 
cRuse constrained the Indian Government to cut 
down to a scale of ridiculous inadequacy the grants 
required for the representation of Indian produce 
at the Antwerp Exhibition last summer and at ihe 
Amsterdam Exhibition this spring. Mr. Stanton 
smnmed up the struggle for the tea supply of the 
I world us a struggle between the methods of civiliza- 
tion and those of a by-gone age. It is only by 
utilizing the modern industrial methods to the ut. 
most that tho final victory can be ' secured., 
