Feb. 1, 1899,1 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTUEIST. 
533 
troublesome operation as tea blending m a shop, 
or on ijremises where many other goods are stored. 
The o-rooer v,ho buys his tea ready blended from a 
large ^.holesale dealer effects the following savings 
1. Ho need hold practically no stock, 2 His teas 
are more cheaply blended. 3. The teas are likely 
to be better. 4. A great deal of labour and 
dirt is save. On the other hand, it may be 
said that all this only partially applied to large 
retailers who can work on a sufficient .scale, and 
this is true. It may also be argued that all these 
advanta'^es wiU'S'becho.rgea Tor, but competition soon 
settles That point. If the grocer cannot buy blended 
tea more cheaply, all things being considered, ho 
v,-iU simply continue to buy unblended tea. It is a 
matte- for a comparison of samples and prices, 
and for the intelligent judgment of ench individual. 
A3 a ustter of fact, there is absolutely no 
royal road to tea blending, any more than there is to 
anything else. It is a question in the first place of 
an' adequvte knowledge of tea tasting, and then of a 
sufficiently large business and capital to enable the 
necessary etock and ruachiaery to be employed. 
There is absolutely no secret about any of these 
things anv more than there is about the catch-penny 
trick, employed in some cases, of selling the lowest 
tea at a loss. This simnly means that the loss must 
be put on to the higher priced tea, and whenever 
this obvious artifice is used the remedy is simple. It 
is to seiul large orders for the teas sold at a loss, and 
for no others." 
The Competition of Prepared Cocoa.—" Besides 
these hindrances to an expanding commercial enter- 
prise, there hos been the severe and unflagging com- 
petition of ' prepared cocoa ' in various attractive 
forms, which, being pushed to the front by all legiti- 
mate means, has in some degree v/eakeued the hold 
which the raw material had for many years retained 
Tinon the great mass of consumers in the United 
KiDRdom. 
Ph'.si'Ect.— " In short, prospects for the article 
have entirely charged within the past few weeks 
and that too without precise warning to anybody in, 
particular. Even the best informed in the trade were 
not aware of the impending reverse in the value of 
cocoa till its significance and repetition left no room 
for doubt ; and instances could be recorded where 
the parcels cf West Indian and African sorts disposed 
of, by auction or privately, have shown a deprecia- 
tion "of 5s to 85 per cwt from the recent highest 
point. Nevertheless, there is ground for satisfaction 
in the steady progress which the home consumption 
of cocoa is making in the British Isles, and es- 
pecially in London, where for the present year to 
date 154,000 bags ha- e been delivered on payment of 
duty, in contrast to l.S5,000 bags in the same 
period of 1897.—//. anJ C. Mail, Dec. 9. 
Is IT TiiUE?— The Financial Times, thinking the 
allegations oi ihi^! correspondent of the Tunes well 
worth inqiiiriiig into, despatched a representative to 
the oftkos of Sic T. Lip'on, but found that Sir 
■Thomas was away on the Continent. Recourse was 
next had to Mr. Duncan McDiarinid, the general 
manager of the company, who stated that he could 
. not say nnvthing in regard to Sir Phonias's 
scheme in connection with the West Indies as 
it was entirely a private matter of Sir Thomas's, 
and had no ((mnectiou with the company. Asked 
as to Ihe allegations made by the correspondent against 
Sir Thomas in reg ird to his trading with Ceylon, he 
ridiculed the asseitions. It was true, he snid, that his 
companv had cut prices, but this certui' ly benefitted 
the coi'.sumtrs. Grocers and other competitors, who 
formerly mado considerable profits, naturnlly objects 
to this, and tlio low prices which have pravailed have 
given rise to !; simihir feelii g among planters. As a 
matter of fact, ho continued, the falling off in price is 
due principally to over-production, and another factor 
wbii'h iiijiiiioiisly nlfjcts planters is the rise in ex- 
change. "Ceylon," he said, ' is not tho only country 
affected by the causes mentioned. Indian lea is aleo 
down iu price, and for precisely the same reason." 
Another View. — Mr. Geo. Seton, writing ou the sub- 
ject of the function of popular distributing agencies 
and the charge brought against Sir T Lipton by tho 
correspondent whose letter in the Times we bava 
quoted, says: ''Let the planting community, at any 
rate, ' give the devil his due,' and endeavour to seek 
out in the proper quarter the real ' origo mali.' I 
hold no brief for cheapness, the driving of which to 
Us extreme i-sue is undoubtedly one of the evils 
attaching to the present system of the retail and 
distributing trade in all its branches, which cheap- 
ness is a doubtful benefit to any section of the com- 
munity. At the same time it cannot be denied that, 
with the enormous increase in the oatput of both 
Indian and Ceylon tea which has been the feature 
especially of the last five or ten years, disaster would 
most certainly have overtaken the combined indus- 
tries much sooner than it has done had it not been 
for the go-aheadness of the large packet tea and other 
similar agencies. These, by narrowing the margin 
t)f profit, have given an enormous stimnlns to the 
sale, both at home and abroad, of Indian and Ceylon 
as well as China and other teas. Of these agencies 
Liptons is only the most recent form. It is to be 
regretted, no doubt, that the advertising distributers 
should so go out of their way almost (so to say) to 
invite the consumer to pay the lowest price. Two facts, 
however, must not be overlooked as regards the advant- 
ages to be derived from this system: 1. As regards the 
great mass of the poorer population of this country 
— or, indeed, of any country — the quantity of an 
article like tea which they can consume has practically 
no limit except that of the length of their purse, 
and with an increase quantity obtainable for the 
same sum of money that increased quantity will un- 
doubtedly be consumed. 2. As regards a very large 
proportion of the better and more well-to-do class, 
they refused to be hood-wrnked by the minimum of 
cheapness which is offered them, and still continue 
to buy a better, though dearer, article. Admitting 
these facts, we are led to the conclusion, I venture 
to submit, that this extreme method of pushing tho 
trade is, on the whole, for the planters' advantage." 
So Disinterested. — An ex-Indian official in the 
Pall Mall Gazette expounds at some length the offi- 
cial view of tho financial outlook, and if his way of 
looking at things repre t its the official position gene- 
rally the Indian planter can tell pretty plainly what to 
expect from that quarter. Says the " ex-Indian 
official " : " One class alone appears to be immovable 
in its preference for open mints — namely, those 
prodnofiB and exporters who believe that they can 
continue with a falling exchange to pay in a deprecia- 
ting metal while they receive the same sterling prices 
fur their pruOuce. When these people loudly proclaim 
the benefits which Indian agriculturists and labourers 
enjoy by being paid in a metal that is constantly fall- 
ing in its purchasing power, it is not ill-natured 
to suppose that their vision is dulled by the mist of 
their present and immediate interests." According to 
the " ex-Indian official " a gold standard would give 
India that sound financial position and staple exchange 
which selHsh Indian producers, having only their own 
pockets to consider, would deny her, and from his 
point of view the grandest bogey of all the phantoms 
use'l in the work of endeavouring to prevent the 
adoption of a gold standard is that of the threatened 
destruction of the tea planting interest. He 
says, " If China has not an open door for anything 
else, she has it for silver, and therefore, it is argued, 
she will be able to beat India out of the market. 
Chinese labourers will be paid in silver, while In- 
dian workmen must be paid in rupees. This is r 
question which has to be threshed out. The fear 
that English or European capital will start plantaiiona 
and mills iu China and produce articles aa good aa 
the Indian at a cheajier price seems, to say the 
least, premature. I doubt if any of tho capitalists 
who own Indian property would feel very safe under 
the Chinese Government. Has Indian tea won its 
way by cheapness or by quality?" This is supposed 
to settle the question and to satisfy all whom it may 
concern that the real friends of India are those 
who would establish a gold standard. Tlie taunt 
