Dec. 1, 1899.] THE TEOPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
417 
buying and of holding the "Umbrella" during 
the downpour of tea which occurs during the 
months named above. 
It is not the business of a planter to speculate. 
His risk and duty is to make tea, and to sell it at 
once and obtain his money quickly, and the 
agency houses in London and elsewhere recognise 
thisaud wisely sell on arrival, and, in my opinion, 
no combination of Tea Companies could be formed 
of sufficient strength to regulate supplies so as to 
keep the price of tea up during the heavy months 
of the year. 
If a body could be formed, among the various 
6wners and Companies — each proprietor sub- 
scribing pro rata according to the number of 
acres under bearing, to a sufficient amount to 
enable the body to sustain prices when they fell 
below a level warranted by the whole position 
of tea— why then prices would not fall below their 
proper level. 
Such a company would have to keep itself 
well informed of every movement in the trade ; 
it would have to know what the export from 
India was going to be; what the out-turn from 
Ceylon would be, how Dealers' Shocks were work- 
ing oft' ; and watch any increase in the export 
of China, caused by the keeping of the prices 
of British-grown tea too high ; its operations 
would have to be guided by the deliberations of 
an experienced Committee, and directed by a 
smart tea expert. 
Granted that these conditions are obtainable, 
in combination with a few otlieis, which I will 
not weary you with now ; and, there is no doubt* 
in my mind, that they are obtainable : ihen 
the mere announcement that the " Planters' Pro- 
tection Society" was going to buy, would so le- 
assure the trade, and tighten things ; that it is 
more than probable they would have to buy 
nothing, the competition of the alarmed distri- 
butor would prevent the Company buying at 
low prices. 
If the Company did buy a few thousand 
chests, the operation would not only have pre- 
vented the Ma-ket falling, but when the months 
of light supply came along, it should have an 
opportunity of making a profit on them ; and 
pay a dividend — a dividend wrenched from the 
maw of the insatiable distributor. 
London Warehouse charges. — There is an agita- 
tion very justly in progress, to reduce the 
London Warehouse charges ; some years ago the 
London Warehouses used to comj)ete for busi- 
ness and in doing so they would cut their prices ; 
some would offer 25 per cent discount, others 
50 ; and 75 per cent has been known ; this 
was suicide for them, so they met together and 
.made a scale, and bound themselves under large 
penalties to not accept business under tlie scale. 
The result was that tea found its way into the 
■^bck Warehouses and the last state of many 
of the outside Warehouses was worse than the 
"first. What did they do? — with commendable 
enterprise, they bought tea gardens, and floated 
Companies ; and even bought tea when it was 
.cheap in Colombo and in Calcutta. The result 
of the buying and flotation of tea gardens, has 
been that the warehouses have tea to ware- 
' house, and make a fine profit out of the 
business ; the result to Ceylon has perhaps not 
been an unmixed evil, for one of the factors of 
the boom in tea estates a few years ago, was 
the anxiety of the wharfinger to obtain tea 
to warehouses. These facts, sir, would tend to 
. show the ditliculty of fighting the Loudon Ware- 
houses on the subject of their charges, they being 
so intimately mixed up with the proprietorship 
of much of the tea in this island, and regard- 
ing a dividend as quite secondary to charges 
'hue and large."— Your humble and obedient 
servant, DIRECTOK. 
The British Tea-Industry.- A most ex- 
haustive study of the tea-trade appears 
on page 414, one which is well worth 
the attention of all planters who are 
at all concerned in the subject. The letter 
is the third of a series from a veteran cor- 
respondent, signing " Suum Cuique," who has 
devoted months of reflection and enquiry to 
the question. Two important conclusions 
are arrived at— we cannot today touch on 
all the points he passes in review— which 
are:— (1) that, the permanent price of tea 
from year to year being ruled by the lowest 
P,'^^'^®,^'^,* ^^^^ beginning of a season, efforts 
should be directed towards tiding over these 
periods without any material fall, the constant 
tendency of the market of recent years 
having proved a downward one ; and (2) that 
some collective means must be adopted to 
prevent this downward tendency. Every one 
knows or ought to know that, even if ad- 
visable at all, the reduction or abolition 
of the British tea-duty is an impossible 
object to aim at, this time of heavy 
-war expenditure; and that what- 
ever decision, on the matter, if any is 
arrived at by the Planters' Association next 
month will be an academic one merely. The 
Indian Tea Association, the minutes of whose 
meeting of October 31st, are unfortunately 
crowded out today, have set about the right 
line of attack— namely, that upon excessive 
dock and warehouse charges. And, it will be 
seen from them tomorrow, the London Com- 
mittee of the I.T.A. have been asked to 
bring matters to a definite issue. We cannot 
believe that any practical good caa be at- 
tained at Kandy by discussing the Tea-Duty 
on Tuesday week, whereas if Ceylon joined 
hands with India over dock and warehouse 
charges, some effective means of cheapening 
the cost of supplying tea to the London 
market might be secured. Meanwhile every- 
thing must be done to develop the Colombo 
Market as far as possible for there is ample 
scope in this direction, and it would be a 
curious reflection on the tea island if the 
foreign buyers we have welcomed here, wer« 
at any time to find they could not obtain all 
their requirements at this growing source 
of direct supply to the countries they re- 
present, 
Indian Tea Exports. -Statistics published by 
the Indian Tea As>sociation, with reference to the 
exports of Indian tea from Calcutta, show that 
in the month of October last the sailings to 
Great Britain increased to 21,692,9761b. as com- 
pared with 21,466,990 lb. in the same month last 
year. More noticeable increases took place in the 
sailings to Australia and New Zealand the 
figures being 1,763,291 lb., and 426,867 lb. re- 
seetively, and to America, the latter total heiug 
1,495,,391 lb. in comparison with 583,316 lb. in 
October 1898. The sailings to other places show a 
slight falling off, 1,216,278 lb. having been ex- 
ported in October last year and 1,031,405 lb. in 
htis. — Pioneer, Nov. 18. 
