3 
Already machinery has been sent out, with instructions to endeavour to improve the 
quality of China Tea, and to make it more resemble the better qualities of Indian and 
Ceylon Tea, and we take the following extract from the Consular Report just issued on the 
''Trade of Shanghai for the year 1897." 
"An interesting incident in the past season was the experimental use at Wenchow 
of a Machine Roller, which proved beyond doubt that the most ordinary China 
Tea is capable of astonishing iinprovements if treated by modern methods. 
Wenchow Tea made by the old native process is of the most inferior description, 
but by being carefully inade and machine rolled a very fair drinkable Tea 
resulted." 
We ourselves hold that it is no more possible to make China Tea resemble 
Indian and Ceylon Tea than to make Darjeeling- flavoured Tea in Sylhet, or Dimbula- 
flavoured Tea in the Galle District. We have no liking for the China-produced article, 
but that is no reason why the point of the above extract should not be watched, as the 
displacement of China Tea in the past has been largely due to its inferior quality. 
China is a larger country than India — has varieties of soil and climate. It is difficult, 
therefore, to say what article cannot be produced. Suppose that, just as India created a Tea 
industry in competition with China, China should now, under European guidance, create 
a jute and an indigo and a grain industry. What would become of all those industries in 
India, handicapped as they are by a currency which gives the Chinese competitor so 
great an advantage. 
In a short time China will be provided with better means of communication with the 
rest of the world. If European skill and capital are applied, not only to producing all 
the things which China is capable of growing, but also to the manufacturing, say, of cotton, 
what will become of the competing industries in India, and what will be the effect, 
not only upon the mass of the population, but upon the revenues ? A great depression of 
the industries, it need hardly be said, would very seriously reduce the tax-paying capabilities 
of all persons engaged in them. 
The question of exchange is thus a most vital one for the Tea Producer of India 
and Ceylon, and when agitating for his grievances to be remedied he should draw attention 
to the vast amount of good that the industries have done in the past by opening up what 
would otherwise be waste land, and thus giving employment to about i,oco,ooo of natives. 
He should point out the fact that the ;^35, 000,000, which are estimated as having been 
laid out, was attracted on the belief that the enterprise would never be unfairly handicapped 
by the Government of the country ; and that during the last year further extensions of 
cultivation have been greatly curtailed by the distrust created in the management of the 
monetary affairs of the country. 
The Indian and Ceylon Tea producer does not, however, feel the whole of the disad- 
vantage in which he is placed against his rivals by the disparity in the silver exchange, 
as China Tea has to bear certain internal and export duties ; besides which there is some 
slight loss in converting "silver" into "copper cash," in which part of the producing charges 
are paid in that country. 
NEW MARKETS. — It is beyond question that the fall in the average price of 
Tea is due primarily to tlie fact of supplies being in excess of demand. Owing to the 
amount of land planted during the last three or four years that will be coming into 
bearing, this state of things may continue for a time. Thus the only course open 
to producers is to turn their attention to new outlets, Before going further into this 
point let us see what has been done in the past. 
