June  i,  1893.] 
THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
IAS 
THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  FALL  IN  PRICES 
OF  GOOD  CEYLON  TEAS. 
From  an  authority  well  able  to  disouss  the 
eubjeot,  we  have  information  whioh  we  lay 
before  our  readers  with  the  prominenoe  it  deserves. 
The  price  of  Ceylon  Tea  and  especially  of  good 
Teas  has  steadily  declined  since  the  commence- 
ment of  the  year  owing  to  direct  and  indirect 
causes.  The  direot  causes  are  the  strikes  in 
Lancashire  and  elsewhere,  and  the  serious  agri- 
cultural depression  caused  by  the  failure  of  last 
harvest  and  the  great  suffering  entailed  on  the 
great  tea-drinking  olasses  by  the  failure  of  the 
Liberator  and  many  kindred  Building  Societies — 
suffering,  which  will  be  further  increased  by  the 
stoppage  of  the  Commercial  Bank  of  Australia 
and  Australian  Joint  Stook  Bank  in  both  of 
which  several  millions  of  Scotch  money  are  said  to 
be  deposited. 
The  indirect  causes  are  the  political  uncertainty 
and  the  feeling  that  a General  Election  may  be  immi- 
nent and  the  unsettlement  of  all  Irish  trade.  This 
last  specially  affects  broken  and  orange  pekoes,  a 
very  large  proportion  of  whioh  go  to  Ireland.  Added 
to  all  this  there  was  a vague  feeling  in  the 
City  when  the  mail  left,  that  the  Pandarus 
who  holds  the  public  purse-string  may  try  to  get 
a few  more  voters  into  the  already  much-tangled- 
web  by  a reduction  of  the  tea  duty. 
The  direot  oauses  effect  the  market  not  by 
reduoed  consumption,  but  by  the  increased  con- 
sumption of  low-priced  teas,  because  those  who  used 
to  pay  Is  6d  per  pound  are  driven  to  the  Is  canister. 
The  indirect  causes  affect  the  market  by  a general 
shrinkage  of  credit  whioh  causes  the  trade  of  the 
country  to  be  carried  on  in  a restricted  and  hand-to- 
mouth  manner. 
Added  to  these  oauses  many  brokers  who  have  to 
give  reasons,  will  say  quality  has  been  poor  ; but 
there  has  been  no  demand  for  good  teas  and  broken 
pekoes  have  been  selling  from  101  to  lid  whioh  in 
October  and  November  would  have  sold  for  Is  2d  to 
Is  3d.  The  statistical  position  shou  d be  a very  strong 
one  : total  stocks  are  4,700,000  lb.  less  than  at  the 
same  date  last  year,  the  supply  from  India  will 
rapidly  fall  off  now  and  though  there  is  the  usual 
unaertainty  about  the  quantity  which  may  come 
from  China,  there  is  every  prospect  of  a good 
demand  for  Ceylon  medium  teas  though  there 
is  very  little  inducement  to  planters  to  go 
out  of  their  way  to  make  good  teas.  Steadily  it 
beoomes  more  and  more  appjrent  that  the 
market  for  good  teas  is  a limited  one.  Formerly  if 
there  was  a strong  demand  for  pekoe  souchongs, 
there  was  a proportionately  strong  demand  for 
pekoes  and  broken  pekoes  ; but  so  much  of  the 
retail  trade  is  now  in  the  hands  of  the  great 
Paoket  Companies  and  prioes  are  cut  down  so  that 
if  they  pay  much  for  their  pekoe  souchong9  they 
oannot  afford  to  pay  high  for  their  broken  pekoes 
and  consequently  use  less  of  them.  In  giving  advice 
from  the  “ City  ” side,  brokers  and  others  are  rather 
apt  to  eliminate  “weather”  and  to  consider  that 
planters  have  the  regulation  of  quantity  and  quality 
entirely  in  their  own  hands.  “ In  medio  tutist 
sumus  ib's”  will,  in  the  long  run,  be  found  the 
planters’  safest  course  both  for  pluoking  and  manu- 
facturing. Is  there  any  one  again  drawing 
planters’  attention  to  the  necessity  for  red  icing 
the  number  of  small  breaks. 
For  Tuesday, 11th  April,  there  were,  when  the  mail 
left,  catalogues  out  for  about  2,000  paokag  >s  Coylou 
tea  iu  more  than  800  breaks  of  whioh  more  than  150 
were  small  breaks  ; many  of  one  or  two  chests  only. 
It  takes  on  an  average  a minute  to  sell  three 
Ibreaks,  that  is  at  the  rate  of  180  per  hour,  so  it  will 
94 
be  nearly  5 o’clock  on  that  particular  Tuesday  before 
the  sales  which  began  at  noon  were  over.  In  this 
connection  it  may  be  remarked  that  after  fightng 
hard  to  have  Ceylon  sales  held  independently  of 
Indian  on  Thursdays,  sellers  are  availing 
themselves  but  little  of  the  concession.  The 
trade  is  said  to  prefer  Tuesday,  but  what 
the  buyer  likes  is  not  always  good  for  the  seller 
if  there  is  a large  Tuesday  sale  say  20,000  packages 
and  a small  Thursday  sale  say  1,000  packages, 
naturally  the  latter  falls  very  flatly,  but  if  the  21,000 
were  divided  somewhat  more  evenly  between  the 
two  days,  the  overorowding  of  Tuesday  would  be 
prevented  and  would  almost  certainly  tell  in  the 
buyers’  favour.  As  the  large  importers  of  Ceylon 
tea  are  or  should  be  all  represented  in  the  Ceylon 
Association  in  LondoD,  and  considerably  more  than 
half  the  Ceylon  tea  brought  to  the  hammer  in 
London  is  sold  by  four  firms  of  brokers,  this 
should  be  a matter  easy  of  adjustment. 
— <► 
CONSUMPTION  OF  TEA  IN  GREAT 
BRITAIN. 
Messrs.  Gow,  Wilson  & Stanton  append  some 
interesting  figures  to  their  circular  whioh  we  issued 
on  Saturday.  They  show  how  the  consumption  of 
Indian  tea  has  progressed  sinoe  1866  when  the 
total  consumed  in  Great  Britain  was  little  more 
than  4J  million  lb.  against  nearly  98  millions  China 
&o.,  and  the  gradual  change  year  by  year 
until  1885  when  Ceylon  first  appears  with 
about  3£  million  lb.  in  consumption  against  nearly 
66  millions  Indian  and  113£  millions  of  China.  It 
is  from  this  year  that  China  steadily  declined, 
and  not  only  did  Ceylon  go  ahead  in  favour 
of  the  people,  but  it  seems  to  have  carried  Indian 
with  it  far  more  freely  than  it  had  been  taken  off 
for  some  years  previously.  Thus  in  1892  we  had 
the  consumption  distributed  as  follows  109J 
millions  Indian,  over  63  millions  of  Ceylon  and  less 
than  34J  for  China  &e.  The  amount  shown  of 
tea  consumed  per  head  of  population  for  the  series 
of  27  years  iB  even  more  interesting  ; in  1866 
the  rate  was  3’42  lb.  ; in  1876  it  rose  to  4'49  ; 
in  1886  only  to  4 87  ; but  in  1892  it  was  5.43  lb. 
Curiously  enough  so  far  baok  as  1885  it  was  6'02  lb. 
a rate  whioh  was  not  reached  again  till  1890. 
That  there  is  room  for  much  further  increase  can 
be  judged  from  the  Australian  Colonies  where 
the  rate  is  between  7 and  8 lb.  per  head. 
COMPARATIVE  ANALYSES  OF  INDIAN, 
CEYLON  AND  CHINA  TEA. 
We  append  a very  interesting  not  to  say  valuable 
series  of  tabular  analyses,  with  explanatory  re- 
marks by  Mr.  John  Hughes.  In  forwarding  the 
same  to  us,  Mr.  Hughes  remarks:— 
“ I enclose  you  a paper  which  contains  the  results 
of  some  weeks’  investigation  into  the  composition 
of  Indian,  Ceylon  and  China  teas.  You  will  notice 
that  it  opens  out  some  new  points,  and  I believe 
it  will  be  appreciated.  It  is  on  these  lines  that  I 
wished  the  Planters’  Association  to  take  up  the 
chemical  investigation,  but  apparently  no  money  can 
be  spared  for  the  purpose. 
We  feel  sure  that  the  perusal  of  the  paper  will 
enable  our  tea  planters  to  see  how  muoh  praotioal 
service  oould  be  rendered  to  them  by  a competent 
Analytical  Chemist  after  the  stamp  of  Mr.  Hughes. 
1’bis  gentleman  points  out  so  dearly  the  various 
inferences  and  lessens  to  be  derived  from  his 
figures,  that  there  is  no  need  for  us  to  add  any 
words  of  our  own.  But  the  all-important  inform- 
ation has  yet  to  be  afforded,  namely,  how  is  the 
planter  to  secure  in  the  tea  the  properties  most 
