Jan. 1, I902.J 
THE TEOPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
457 
some months of discussion, decided that they would 
cut the Gordian knot by giving the Clearing 
Hoiue notice that they intended to deal wilh tea 
lying at Gun Wharf. The reply of the Clearing 
House was to expel the members in question from 
their body, and to charge them increased rales 
for san>pluig and other matters besides withdraw- 
ing the facilities of monthly accounts for charges, 
and coinpelling the boy messengers of the firms 
n question t ) carry abou t a small amount in cash 
10 pay each 2d or 3d ia charges as it was in- 
urred. Several leading brokers who had been 
tntru;ted with the sale of teas by a leading Indian 
cmporter who had placed his goods at Gun Wharf 
jwere also expelled from the Clearing House, 
jdeprived of its facilities and exposed to higher 
charges amounting in tliecaseof some of the firms 
mentioned to a good many hundred pounds a year. 
In this Dosition the 
ANNUAL MEETING 
took place at the London Tea Buyers' Association, 
a body which contains four-litths of the buying 
pov^erof the trarle in this market. At this meet- 
ing after full discussion, a request was unani- 
mously forwarded to the Clearing House to strike 
out the boycotting clause in its rules, and to 
enable buyers to purchase tea where they 
thought it desirable to do so. In reply to 
this the Clearing House refused point blank 
to do anything of the sort. This refusal was 
followed up by more notices to the Clearing 
House that buyers intended to purchase teas at Gun 
Wharf, and also by the appearance of two or three 
fresh wharves upon the scene who had not pre- 
viously stored tea and who are now prepared to do 
so. The last stage of the controversy is that the 
Clearing House have asked the Tea Buyers' Asso- 
ciation to meet them in conference to discuss the 
questions at issue. The Committee of the Tea 
Buyers' Association were co meet on Wednesday 
to agree upon their reply, which will probably be 
to the effect that they will be pleased to discuss 
the whole situation with the Clearing House, but 
the boycotting clause must fir^t be removed as 
requested by the trade. The general feeling is that 
the trade are quite prepared to pay any reasonable 
sum for the lacilities of the Clearing House, but 
that that institution in itself should haveabsolutely 
nothing to do with any pool arrangement. A con- 
siderable section of the home trade, however, think 
that the Clearing House might very reasonably 
form a central place of meeting for the use of tea 
growers, importeis, brokers, dealers, blendeis and 
other market buyers. If some meeting place, of 
this sort could be arranged, the whole question of 
the organisation of the tea trade, which sadly 
requires improving, could be discussed at leisure 
and in a friendly way. At presens there is no 
communication whatever between the importers 
of tea and its disiributors in this market, and 
the result has been most disastrous. Ths importers 
do not know even the names of their chief buyers, 
and the distributors in the same way are ignorant 
of whom they are buying. It is true that the 
brokers who sell from the importers to the distri- 
butors know these facts, but this is an entirely 
difterent matter to direct communications between 
the parties interested, especially as the brokers are 
completely satisfied with the existing position of 
things, and are unwilling to come for>vard as re- 
formers with the risk of embroiling themselves with 
either one side or the other. 
As is well known, tea ia common with oilier 
EASTERN PRODUCE, 
was for many years a monopoly on the East; 
Indian Company ; that Company drew up a very 
complete ajid a most able system of dealig with 
the different articles of produce under its control. 
By degrees all other Eastern trade has shaken 
oir the clever but antiquated and monopolist 
system imposed upon buyers three or four gener- 
ations ago by the East Indian Company. Tea 
however, remains under the old rules, which have, 
become absolutely useless in many respects, while 
they entail prodigious and unnecessary cost upon 
all who h;,ve to deal in it. The prompt (or time 
within which payment has to be made) is kept 
up on the old East India terms of three months, 
whereas all the siniiliar articles of produce have 
now to be settled for within one month. To 
provide against the risk of what may happen to 
the market in so long a period as three months 
the buyers pay on purchase a deposit of £1 per 
package, which now amounts in seme cases to 
more than half the value of the tea. To 
carry out this system, and to get security for 
the deposits, a document called tlie Weight Note 
is employed which is a contract, an invoice, a 
security for deposit, a delivery note, and other 
things besides. fn other trades a single in-, 
voice is made out for the whole parcel, and if 
necessary the landing ^.ccount is supplied by 
which it may be checked. In tea, however, 
(at an enormous aggregate cost which 
is perfectly useless), an invoice is made out 
for every six or nine packages, and its contents 
also bear all sorts of fribbling particulars of a 
useless character which simply add to cost without 
giving any conespondiug advantage. The whole 
of this complicated system requires to be swept 
away, and to be replaced by a reasonable and 
modern way of doing business. Again, the 
conditions of public sale require revision and to be 
brought up to date. Considerable reforms were, 
some time ago, actually agreed to by a committe, 
of importers and the home trade but they were 
blocked by the action of the brokers who do not 
desire any changes to be made, and there was not 
sufficient cohesion between the importers and the 
buyers to insist upon the alterations. If, how- 
ever, the Tea trade is to be modernised these 
conditions of sale will have to be dealt with. At 
the same time the unnecessary cost of catalogues 
might be seen to. This suggests a point which 
may be interesting to the planters, especially in 
India and that is the enormous 
COST OF SAMPLING 
and dealing with the small parcels, or breaks, 
which they send to this market. In the old China 
days a chop might represent from six to seven 
hundred packages, the cost of dealing with the 
details of which was precisely the same as the 30, 
40 and 60 chest lots which are now sent us from 
India and Ceylon. 
Closely allied with this question of small breaks 
is that of bulking on the gardens. At present 
nearly all Indian Tea has to be rebulked in London 
at an enormous cose to the planters, and to the 
great injury of the tea. In Ceylon this cost and 
damage is commonly avoided, and there is no 
question at all that the same steps oui;ht to be 
taken in India, Even careful and complete balk- 
ing in the gardens, so that the quality of a parcel 
should be uniform, would be insutlicient, however, 
unless the ditterent chests or empty packatje^ 
