'454 THE TROPICAL AGRICULTUMST [Jan. ], 1900. 
if planters and local sellers would only give the 
■ Colombo market a fair amount of tea, so as to 
give local Rus.sian buyer.s a good selection, they 
would find that the demand from Eussia 
would be enormously increased, and that instead 
of a few millions, as at present, it would 
be double and treble the quantity, provided that 
locax Kussian buyers were well backed up. lie 
was certain, that the tact of any one firm starting 
a branch locally and pushincj the sale of tea for all 
they were worth did more good than all the grants 
given by the Thirty Committee since tlie time the 
fund was started. He believed that most of the 
buyers would bear out what he had said. He 
begged to second the motion. 
,,. , The Chairman said that as regarded liberty of 
. speech it was advisable that the meeting should 
, take the form of a Committee meeting so that 
members could speak more than once and ask any 
questions they wished. 
SMALLER BREAKS WANTED, AND MORE 
• VARIED. 
Mr. Heath understood that very often a 
planter would send a break down to this market 
for which he wanted a good bargain and marked 
...it "X. Y. Z." The broken pekoes people were, 
'- perhaps, suspicious of it, as tiiey did not know the 
'"tea and no fair bid.s were made; but the pekoes and 
" pekoe souchongs required for Rus.sia got fair bids. 
They said that was a mistake and they would not 
send the whole break home because people were 
' prejudiced in London if they knew that it had been 
shown in the Colombo market. To obviate that, 
could not some of the big concerns try half their 
breaks on this market and ship the broken teas 
home ? Everyone knew that they could buy this 
parcicular class of tea for Russia so that it would 
be no advantage to put up these teas here. He 
thought that if the planters sent part of their 
; lots to London and some of their leafy teas here, 
Vithey would find that they would get very good 
'•'offers, in fact, far better than in London, in many 
'/ instances, provided the teas were suitable. Of 
* course some kinds could not be bonght for Russia 
I'at any price. It seemed to him to be a mistake to 
,'*'put up the breaks as they did at present. 
RUSSIA BUYS ONE-SIXTH OF COLOMBO TEAS. 
Mr. Walthew thought it would be interesting 
, to mention that at the last auction 165,000 lb. or 
■■'■about one-sixth of the total was bought for the 
■•■Kussian market at prices considerably over Lon- 
■-••'don. The figures he had quoted were col- 
lected that morning from the various buyers in 
•"Colombo. 
e The CHAIRMAN said that to him two points 
• seemed to stand out clearly on which he thought 
'^-ifc Would be quite fair for them to ask for 
'•"information, at least with reference to one of 
■■■itbem. As to the other there might perhaps be a 
t'-certain amount of delicacy as trenching on imli- 
■'■yidual sources of interest. The first question 
'-'they were all interested in was this. They knew 
'' that Ceylon tea was increasing in quantity an- 
Dually, and it would be a great comfort for them 
' to know that there was any one country or grOup 
' of countries th'at would be likely to take an in- 
creased quantity of tea each year so as to work 
off the surplus. The first question that he_would 
•-theiefore ask his Russian friends was this.' At 
^-present Ilussia was supplied from the two markets, 
'' Colombo and London in-actically, and itaniounted 
1 'to BO many million lb. a year. The first question 
i'he would ask was, if there were greater facili- 
ties and greater quantities of tea put in the 
Coloml)o market would it mean that they .should 
simply sell more in Colombo for Russia and less 
ill London than at present, or did it mean 
that owing to the facilities offered here, they 
should actually increase the total quantity of 
tea sent to l^ussia from here irrespective of 
what they might do in London. In other words 
would they buy more tea here and less in London? 
If so, there was no great advantage as re- 
garded getting rid of surplus tea.«. The other 
question was this. ile could quite understand 
that that gentleman would not care to go into de- 
tailed figures showing that it would be of 
advantage to the planter to sell in Colombo in 
preference to London, because there were all 
sorts of interests concerned — there were the 
Russian interests in London and other things. 
It was quite possible that they might go more 
into detailed figures in addressing a letter to 
the Planters' Association and the Tiiirty Com- 
mittee where communications of tliat descrip- 
tion were often held to be of a confidential nature 
and r.iit made public. 
Mr. Heath said, with regard to the first 
question of the Chairman as to wdiether more 
would lie taken if more and a better selection 
were olVered in Colombo at a reasonable price, 
he thouglic there was no doubt that the sale 
of Ceylon tea would be enormously increased if 
they could show importers in Russia, the Con- 
tinent and other countries that there would be 
material advantages in giving orders in Colombo. 
The Chairman :— The total aggregate sale? 
Mr. Heath :— Yes, certainly. But if they 
move round the Russian firms and tried to get 
orders and then found that they were not in a 
position to buy in Colombo, people would natu- 
rally think that they had been wasting their 
time and had been talking nonsense, and that 
these people would go back to China tea, or 
whatever they had been taking previously. They 
had to give everybody some inducement and 
prove to them that what they were telling them 
was true. 
The Chairman :— In other words if you get 
more Ceylon tea, the Russians would take le.ss 
China tea. 
Mr. Heath thought there was no doubt about it. 
It was a question of price. If they gave them a 
better article, as they thought Ceylon was, at a 
lower price, they would certainly ta,ke more because 
it suited their taste.' 
Mr. Walker pointed out that an advantage 
in selling tea in Colombo was that tiiey saved 
the London charges and tha,t tea could be landed 
in Odessa for Jd as against Ifd in London. 
If Russian buyers were prepared to give the same 
price as to the seller in London they would still 
have ihe .advantage. 
Mr. TOKMAifOFF thought the figures he hod 
given a.s to the consumption of Ceylon tea in 
Russia spoke for themselves, and in his opinion 
the increase of orders here would not decrease 
the London market. Tliere had been an increase 
from 11 to 17 millions and very probably the 
confiuinption next year would be 24 millions. 
The Chairman ; I hope so. 
Mr. Renton said it had been remarked 
that the advent of one Russian firm here 
: had done more to bring Ceylon tea into Russia 
than the Thirty Committee. He wuuld like to 
iisk who made the first efforts to introduce 
Ceylon tea into Russia. Eight or nine yeaw 
