Nov. 1, 1898. J TFTE TROPICAL AORICULTUEIST. ?,31 
THE COL'JMBU TEA SHARE ilULES. 
The second Kesolulion proposed at tlie recent 
mejtin" of theTea Trader's Association (for report 
see i)a"e3;!S) iiad, we tinnk, only to he mentioned to 
eeinniend itself to all practical men, and it was 
accordingly carried unanimously. 
There' is also, it is evident, a snbstan'i-il 
f^rievanee to be removed by Mr. Mackwood's 
Resolution a.s he fully showed in his speech. 
The 100 chests ot tea packed on the estate 
for export to London may be contrasteil with 
100 chests intended for sale in the Colombo 
market. We are not sure that planters make 
the allowance of a few ounces extra in the latter 
ca^e ; but anvhow when :i lb. or 4 lb. for samples 
are taken on't of the usual proportion of chests in 
Colombo, and such nailed down again, ready for 
shipment, "there must be the risk of the Melbourne 
{or some other) Customdiause coming across one 
of such short-weight chests, and classitying the 
whole as under weight. To jnevent such risk, 
it is well, we think, there should be a dis- 
tinguishing mark on the " sample" cases. 
TE4 IN AMERICA, GERMANY 
AND FRANCE. 
Mr. NVm. MaCKEXZIK, in sending us some 
papers, writes : — . 
''Note particularly ihe letter m Amenccui 
Grocer showing the difficulty in getting in ^/fwZv;; 
teas. The tea dealers don't liUe these. ISor 
would the wholesale in.porters in the Statk.s 
touch our teas, were they not compelled by 
Tetley Lipton, Larkin, &c. With \.\vi exchange 
in their favour, they can get China teas 3d 
cheaper; and in Ciiina they have caintal sunk 
in establi-hmenis. 
"Canada is different, and there wo are doing 
well Ceylon tea especially has iucreased largely 
this year, but unfortunately India has lost ground. 
"Tell Westland, it is France not Germany we 
should attack. German coffee and beer hahds 
have been our greatest enemies in the States. 
In a German town of 60,000 i)eople, in Pennsyl- 
vania, not a pound of tea is drunk. When made 
for them in Colonilio, Germans very politely say 
they like it, but they won t drink it. 
" In France, there is to be the granil opportunity 
of the great E.xhibition. 'J'here are tea drinking 
English families everywhere croiiomUinij, and the 
Fre^ich are not ba'r-iodden like the Germans. ' 
This reminds us of what we learned from Dr. 
Mac VU— the founder of the MacAll Mi.ssion— 
when with him in Raris in 1878. He told us 
that at one of his earliest meetings Sir Edward 
Raines of 1 ee Is gave an address and conelufled 
with a regular teetotal exhortation. Dr. Mac.VIl 
did not like to pull his coat-tails ; but he sa;<l 
the Parisians thought the British visitor had sud- 
denly become crazy, in asking them to give up 
tneir li"ht wines as drunk at meals. " But '— said 
Dr. MacAll -"seven years have elapsed, and 
now a temperance or teetotal address would be 
perfectly understood and ai>preciated by the 
Parisians at our meetings, so terribly has the 
'absinihe' and even 'beer' liabit grown on the 
p'rcmdi" ; and the venerible evangelist poiiHerl 
out .as we w.ilkeil along, establishment after 
establishment which he iiait know.i .as Ibmnsh- 
iM" cafes for colioe and chocolate, turned into 
diTiiking bars for beer, absinthe, &c. So mii'di 
for the'eh inge in I'aris since the Franco-Gcrnnm 
War. At the same tim.>. Dr. Mac.Vll said in 
ia7ji._"If I wore a young man noihing would 
please nie belter than to open a wholesale tea- 
selling Pn lu in Paris and to subsidize tea rooms, 
with a full belief in linancial success." On the 
other hand, our Commissioner who depreciates 
tiie German nation, has to learn that there 
is a growing trade with Germany and that the 
British Consul at Stettin says Iridian and Ceylon 
tea.s are much wanted. And how does he 
account for the fact liuib at the greatest German 
watering place — Carlsbad— only iex is drunk ; 
wliile at the next iirincipal European watering 
place, V'ichy, in France, not a cup of te.a 
is seen? Very op|)ortunely, we receive 
'■ J."'s letter (see oar last page) showing, 
certainly, how great is the consumption of coflTee 
and beer in Berlin ; but then Mr. Hagenbeck 
is attacking that capital ; and in answer even 
to the crj- of the British Consul at Stettin, we 
learn lioni a Colombo merchant the f(jllowing 
interesting paitieulars : — 
" Northern Germany and that part of it known 
as East Prussia have for some years past taken a 
great deal of tea. Baing close to the Russian 
frontier the inhabitants follow to some extent 
the customs of their neighbours, and drink tea. 
There is a big business done in Konigsberg, but 
rumour says a lot of the tea that goes in there 
is smuggled across the linssian frontier. The 
bulk of th'.; le.i used v,-as China ; bnt now Ceylon 
and Indian tea if not pushed is at any rate well- 
known in vhe Eastern Geinian Provinces. It 
is ail bought in London. Many Loudon Houses 
send hundreds of samp'es of Ceylon te't up for 
auction and buy on order lor Germany. The 
big Brenxm ami Hamburg Houses all told nie 
they can buy Ceylon tea nmcli cheaper in 
Lond.on than in Colombo, and they buy pre- 
cious little China now in London. You may put the 
import inio Ger.nany as one-half China, and the 
balance is divided between Ceylon, India and 
Java. I fear Java has the prepotideranee : the 
teas are cheapor than ours and tiieir apjj arance 
beats Ceylon hollow. Several Mincing Lane 
Firms are engaged exclusi\ tly in the Continental 
tea trade. These people (mentioning a long list of 
firms) are all pushing tea in Germany." 
Tiie exjjorts of tea direct to txerin any from Co- 
lombo up to Seiife. 20th this year equal 249,474 
lb. against 189,503 lb. up to same date last year. 
To F ance the comparison is 59,714 this year 
and 39,403 lb. last. 
Tk.V S11ARE.S.— Says the Calcutta corresj)ondent 
of the Pioiierr 1st October : -A jjiopos of tea, I 
leiently mentioned that Phijcni.x Tea shares had 
changed hands :i.s low as R2 per RSo paid up 
shave. This week a further call of R5 per share 
has been lujule. I now understand that another 
of Messrs. l>arry and Com[>any's gardens, the 
Biiootan Dooars Tea Company, is lapidly follow- 
ing in the footsteps of Plnenix, and not only 
need shareholders expect no <ii\ iilend, bnt it has 
come to be a question whether it is worth while 
keei)ing the garden in cultivation. L'niike the 
Plucnix, this is a new garden only about three 
years old. The company's capital is three or 
four lakhs of iu|iees, for which ll-.ore is apparently 
not going lo be much to show. Now this i?^ a 
comitany which from its inception has had the 
advanl.age (?) of a rising exchange and of the con- 
se(|Mcnt leduction in the rupee . outlay for it^ 
stores. Tt Las even had a year of comparative 
fixity of exchange at one and four j)enee. What 
have the unfortunate shaielialders got to sa^- as 
to the result ? \\n'\ what have certain local 
quid-nuncs to say ?— En. T.A.] 
