THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST.  [April  i,  1893, 
HOME  RAILWAY  RATES  ON  TROPICAL 
PRODUCE. 
We  felt  bo  oonvinoed  that  the  importance  of 
the  above  matter  would  reoeive  full  appre- 
ciation by  those  at  home  who  are  interested 
in  the  welfare  of  the  Ceylon  tea  industry,  that 
we  never  for  a moment  imagined  when  we  wrote 
our  previous  artiole  on  the  subjeot  that  it  would 
be  regarded  with  lukewarmness  by  the  members 
of  the  Ceylon  Association  in  London.  Suoh, 
however,  appears  to  have  been  the  ease,  and 
although  the  Secretary  of  that  body  had  been 
asked  to  obtain  the  presence  of  two  of  its  members 
at  the  Conference  of  the  London  Chamber  of 
Commerce  upon  the  subject,  Mr.  Leake  had  found 
it  impossible  to  persnade  any  of  them  to  attend 
it.  We  can  hardly  understand  how  it  is  that  men 
so  conversant  with  the  Ceylon  tea  trade  and 
with  everything  relating  to  it,  can  have  failed  to 
see  how  important  a bearing  discontent  and 
difficulty  among  retail  distributors  must  have 
upon  the  demand  for  our  staple  produot,  and 
consequently  upon  the  prices  that  may  be 
obtainable  for  it.  This  consideration,  however, 
would  seem  to  have  been  entirely  overlooked. 
Those  who  were  requested  to  attend  remarked 
that  the  question  could  not  possibly  affeat  them, 
and  that  the  wholesale  and  retail  grocers  might 
well  be  trusted  to  look  sharply  and  carefully  after 
their  own  interests  as  affected  by  the  newly  im- 
posed railway  rates  for  tea.  Suoh  replies  seem 
entirely  to  have  ignored  how  largely  dependent 
the  increasing  consumption  of  tea  must  be  on  the 
facilities  available  for  its  cheap  distribution.  If 
these  be  encroached  upon  in  any  sensible  degree, 
doubtless  the  retail  trade  will  find  its  remedy  as 
affeoting  its  own  interest.  But  in  what  direction 
is  it  most  likely  to  seek  this?  It  will  not,  we 
may  be  sure,  be  oontent  to  submit  to  any  dimi- 
nution in  its  own  profits,  for  those  in  the  grocery 
trade  have  already  been  reduoed  by  competition 
among  its  own  members  and  by  that  of  the  numer- 
ous oo-operative  stores  to  an  exceedingly  fine  points 
It  seems  certain  that  relief  will  be  sought  in 
efforts  to  reduoe  the  purchasing  price  of  teas  at 
the  Minoing  Lane  Sales.  It  requires  no  particular 
acumen  to  realize  what  such  a course  must  mean 
to  tea-growers  all  the  world  over.  If  this  oould 
not  be  accomplished  and  retail  prioet\  have  to  be 
put  up,  is  it  not  matter  of  certainty  that 
consumption  must  be  checked  and  that  our  own 
interests,  now  so  concerned  in  the  opening  up 
of  new  markets,  must  be  thereby  seriously  affeoted  ? 
We  are  well  aware  that  when  formerly  writing 
on  this  topic  we  employed  both  these  arguments 
to  emphasize  the  case  we  desired  to  put  before 
our  readers.  But  in  the  light  of  late  information 
it  cannot  be  useless  to  reiterate  them,  for  we 
beihve  it  must  be  the  oase  that  due  considera- 
tion has  not  been  given  at  home  to  the  full 
bearing  of  the  question.  It  was  said,  we  are  given 
to  understand,  that  but  little  attention  is  paid  at 
home  to  the  numerous  trade  meetings  held  almost 
everyday  under  the  auspices  of  the  London  Chamber 
of  Commerce.  Probably  this  negleot  may  in  some 
instances  be  justified;  but  just  now,  when  the  ques- 
tion of  a reduction  in  railway  rates  is  to  be 
pressed  upon  the  British  Parliament,  we  can  hardly 
consider  it  to  be  prudent  that  any  help  it  would 
be  possible  for  our  London  Association  to  give 
should  be  withheld.  It  must  be  patent  that  this 
question  is  not  oorfined  to  a merely  local  bearing, 
or  to  the  affecting  of  local  interests  only.  We 
have  shown  how  probable — how  almost  oertain — 
it  is,  that  we  shell  have  to  suffer  if  increasing 
difficulties  ocour  in  the  oourse  of  the  distribution  of 
our  ohief  produot. 
On  February  17th,  a Deputation  representing  the 
London  Chamber  of  Commeioe  waited  on  the 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trade  ; and  the  language 
used  in  reply  by  Mr.  Mundella  may  have  its 
lesson  in  some  respeots  for  the  Ceylon  Government 
in  connection  with  its  Railway  management  as 
well  as  for  English  Railway  Companies  We  quote 
as  follows 
It  was  a matter  for  great  regret  that  such  a mistake 
had  been  made,  and  that  the  trade  and  commerce  of 
this  country  should  have  been  subjected  to  so  much 
loss  and  irritation.  The  English  trader,  in  his  (Mr. 
Mundella’s)  opinion,  had  a right  to  trust  to  the  good 
sense  and  enlightened  self-interest  of  the  railway  to 
adopt  a line  which  had  been  so  successful  in  other 
departments  of  their  traffic — that  of  reducing  rather 
than  increasing  rates.  Where  they  had  reduced  rates 
and  increased  facilities  so  in  proportion  had  they 
prospered.  It  was  the  greatest  mistake  in  the  world 
to  suppose  that  the  amount  of  goods  to  be  carried  in 
any  given  year  was  a fixed  quantity.  On  the  con- 
trary it  fluctuated  according  to  the  cost  and  facility 
of  transit.  It  appeared  to  him  that  the  self  interest 
of  the  Companies  would  have  induced  them  to  meet 
very  much  more  reasonably  the  advances  of  the  traders 
than  they  tad,  according  to  the  statements  brought 
before  him  that  day.  He  knew  that  some  of  the  Com- 
Eanies  had  called  this  a fictitious  agitation  got  up 
y traders  through  selfishness.  Well,  he  was  bound 
to  say,  being  behind  the  scenes,  that  the  representa- 
tions and  complaints  he  received  came  not  from 
members  of  Parliament  greedy  to  catch  votes,  but 
from  many  of  the  highest  authorities  in  both  Houses 
of  Parliament,  from  those  who  represented  such 
classes  as  the  small  cultivator  and  the  market  gardener, 
whose  industries  at  this  moment  were  threatened 
with  ruin,  and  who  were  thoroughly  disheartened  by 
the  rates  charged  for  the  carriage  of  what  they  put 
into  the  soil  and  of  what  they  took  out  of  it.  He 
had  no  more  desire  to  interfere  with  the  business  of 
the  Railway  Companies  than  with  that  of  the  traders. 
If  the  companies,  having  regard  to  the  position  they 
held  with  reference  to  the  State,  would  only  act 
reasonably,  the  Board  of  Trade  did  not  want  to  inter- 
fere with  them,  and  did  not  want  the  increased 
owers  the  traders  desired  to  thrust  upon  it.  But 
e could  not  help  recognising  the  gravity  of  the 
situation,  and  all  he  could  ask  them  was  to  be  patient 
a little  longer.  The  Board  would  do  what  it  could 
to  impress  on  the  companies  the  importance  of  the 
crisis.  If  after  the  Companies  had  exercised  what 
they  regarded  as  their  powers  it  was  found  that  the 
state  of  things  was  not  sufficiently  ameliorated  so  as 
to  put  an  end  to  what  he  was  going  to  call  the  in- 
justice, at  any  rate  the  impediment,  to  business  now 
existing,  he  hoped,  with  the  aid  of  Parliament  and  the 
support  of  the  trading  and  agricultural  portion  of  the 
community  to  be  able  to  devise  some  remedy. 
INDIAN  PATENTS. 
The  1st  Maech  1893. 
Applications  in  respect  of  the  undermentioned  in- 
ventions have  been  filed  during  the  week  ending  the 
26th  February  1893,  under  the  provisions  of  Act  Y. 
of  1888,  in  the  Office  of  the  Seoretary  appointed 
under  the  inventions  and  designs  Aot 1888  : — 
No.  56  of  1893. — Richard  White,  of  35,  Queen  Yiotoria 
Street,  in  the  City  and  Gounty  of  London,  England, 
Merchant,  for  improvements  in  apparatus  for  drying 
cacao,  coffee,  tea,  barks,  malt  and  other  sub- 
stances : — 
No.  69  of  1893. — John  Ashington  Thompson,  Tea 
Planter,  but  at  pretent  of  53,  Chowringhee  Road, 
Calcutta,  for  drying  and  withering  green  tea  leaves 
by  means  of  centrilu.nl  action. 
No.  61  of  1893.— William  Stronaoh  Lockhart.  Civil 
Engineer,  of  London,  Eog'and,  lor  an  improved  pro- 
cess and  apparatas  used  therein  tor  the  washing 
and  separating  of  gems  or  ether  substances  from  the 
earthy  and  other  mineral  matters  containing  them, 
— Indian  Engineer. 
