i86 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
[Sept. I, 1899, 
it is only dire necessity that has brought us, to this 
pass. (Hear, hear). We liad to consider the two 
points to which reference has been made in order 
to .see what we could do to meet the bad times. 
There has never been such a year for tea-growers 
as the past year, and the question of the sale of 
our teas naturally came under consideration — the 
two points that came before us being, of course, 
the system of weighment and the 1 lb. draft. 
Our duty was to consult you. We asked you 
what your opinion was, and we received from you 
what I consider practically a unanimous mandate 
to go on with the movement for the abolition of 
the draft allowance (applause.) It was so un- 
animous that it seemed we could do nothing but 
move the resolution we have brought to your 
notice today, unless there was some strong reason 
against it. Unless this strong reason could be 
adduced, we as a committee, it seems to me, had 
no alternative but to proceed. The only way to 
get reasons against our proposal was to meet the 
trade. But there was considerable delay. The 
trade held a mass meeting, and they threw over 
the Wholesale Tea Dealers' Association and at last 
appointed a comniifctee representing the retailers 
and the buyers to meet us. 1 had great hopes 
of that meeting, and was woefully disappointed. 
What was the answer we got? It was simply an 
answer of non possumus : the only plea the trade 
put forward was " We can't and won't meet you.' 
Some one suggested the possibility of a compro- 
mise : they would not listen to such a thing. 
Under those circumstances I do not see what we 
could do other than we have done. (Hear, hear.) 
I am one of those people who consider that we have 
a right to sell our goods on our own terms (ap- 
plause), prvoided those terms are fairly just, and 
I cannot conceive that making a present of 1 lb. 
of tea in every chest and half -chest is just, or 
that to abolish the custom can be called an in- 
justice. (Hear, hear.) One thing that took place at 
our meeting with the trade took ray breath away; 
I think it took away the breath of the whole 
committee. The trade said, "We don't get and 
extra weight at all." (Laughter.) They told us, 
" You are the sinners, and we are the sinned — 
against." One importer produced a most elaborate 
weighment return of a very large number of chests, 
done to the ounce in his own presence, to show 
that his loss was 1| per cent for the whole lot. 
It was handed to them, and they returned it 
and pooh-poolied it, and implied that they did not 
believe a word of what he said. We are not all 
dreaming : it vanH be possible that we don't lose 
any tea on these transactions. (Laughter). In 
calculating our averages for many thousands of 
chests I have always to make an 
allowance of two per cent to cover loss of tea 
that we are not paid for. (Hear, hear.) I have 
found in the course of many years' experience 
that less than two per cent will not cover 
it. The trade representatives said, " Oh, 
but you can't weigh lyour tea properly." But 
they know it is not we who weigh the teas, but 
Her Majesty's Customs. I don't like the system, 
because it tells against me ; but it is not likely 
that Her Majesty's Customs Avould cheat them- 
selves. I hold in my hand a letter from the mana- 
ger of one of the warehouses, in which he says 
that " the weighment of tea and the 1 lb. draft 
"iven from two to two-and-half lb. per chest is 
''"ainst the importer, and the Customs also lose 
"e in duly on each chest." I don't think 
.1 have any stronger e\'i(!erice that the trade 
,t more than they pay In. Let me draw 
attention bo the extraordinary notice issued on 
Friday last, the like of which I have never seen 
in the City of London. (Applause.) It is issued 
without signature, and it proposes to condemn, 
by not buying at the auctions this morning, a 
resolution to be submitted for approval this after- 
noon. (Laughter). Surely this can be only one 
thing— a tiireat ; it can be nothing el-e. I have 
ceased to be surprised at the actions of the body 
that is manaiuvring the opposition to our proposal. 
There has been made the unwarrantable assertion 
that there was an understanding that the aboli- 
tion on draft would not be forced upon the 
trade against tiieir wishes. I know the whole 
of the negociations,and the committee will bear me 
out when I say there never was such an understand- 
ing, and I hope there never will be. Hear, 
hear). I revert to my original proposition: we have 
the right to offer our goods for sale on our own 
conditions. Some of the conditions of sale want 
revising. In two cases I admit they lell hardly 
against the trade. One clause is very badly 
drawn, and the sooner it is altered che better. 
Seeing the lower value obtained for tea, it would, I 
think, be much fairer that the deposit, instead 
of being a fixed deposit of £1, should be an 
«c? mZorcm deposit, with a niaxitnuni of £L That 
is a change that we should insist upon at once. I 
go further. I say that three days is not sufficient for 
the trade to inspect their purchases. I would be inc- 
Imed myself to allow a period of five or six days. 
(Hear, hear). We do not want tosell them something 
that is not tea. If they are correct in their state- 
ment that extraneous matters are found in the 
chests, let us, as Mi-. Rutherford said, get at the 
real offenders. We want to sell nothing but pure 
tea. But we insist upon being paid for every 
pound of it. (Aapplause.) As to the loss in 
distribution — in the reweighing in small pack- 
ages — it is not a fair argument. We im- 
porters also have a lot of loss in our own 
factories. But it cannot concern us what loss 
there is on our teas after they have ceased to be 
ours. It is said that there are large profits in 
the tea trade. But it is not the growers who 
are making the large profits. (Hear, hear). Turn 
to the reports published today, last week and 
the week before, of the large heavily-capitalised 
concerns of retailers, and you will see who are 
the people who are making the money. But we, 
growers and importers, have never been in such 
straits. The fatal error of the " shilling canis- 
ter " throughout the country is shelling ruin for 
us. (Hear, hear.) It is not Ave who regulate the 
price for tea ; it is the trade. As long as this 
underselling of tea continues it will redound to 
our loss. Let us be unanimous today. Let the 
dissentients from this proposal be only those who 
have other interests to conserve — the interests of 
retailing. But let the growers and importers be 
unanimous. (Hear, hear). Let us continue our 
present unanimity, and then the abuse will be 
corrected and tliis unjust tax abolished. (Ap- 
plause. ) 
Mr. John McEwan -.—You said, Mr. Chairman, 
that 215,000,0001b. of tea out of 227,000,000 was on 
the side of this proposal. I believe, I represent 
8,000,000 lb, of the deficiency. There are some 
points in this movement that have not been adduced 
today. I admit that we, as growers and importers, 
apparently lose \\. per cent on our turnover, taking 
into account the half-chests, on which we pro- 
portionately lose more. But I am not prepared to 
forego a loss of 1^ per cent at an expense of "\ 
pel' cent. If you adopt this resolution I think 
