41g 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [Dec. 1, 1903. 
teration or trade trickery of any description what- 
soever in tlieir business. It may be asked who 
will really get the benefit ot the 4id reduction 
in duty. As the British public has had to pay 
the duty of 6d a lb, sq will it get the benefit of 
the reduction, but the tea industry will also as- 
suredly benetit through an increased demand for 
tea caused by its cheaper price. The present aver- 
age price of all the Ceylon teas is abont 7|d, to 
which must be added 6d. a lb duty, thus bringing 
the cost to Is l^d per lb. If, in accordance with 
Mr Chamberlain's proposal, the cost be reduced 
to 9d per lb, surely this will cause a fairly large 
increase in the consumption of tea. If we add .3d 
a lb for the retail dealer, it should then be possi- 
ble for the public to purchase really good Indian 
and Ceylon tea for Is a lb. The tea industry for 
the past few years has been in a most unsatisiac- 
tory condition, and the heavy duty of 6d, which 
is equal to an ad valorem duty of 80 per cent, has 
been a severe handicap in checking consumption. 
Well may planters say, as they have so often 
said " Here are we an English colony in which 
we have spent millions of money in opening tea 
estates and in machinery for our factories, every 
penny of it British capital, our industry not get- 
ting 5 per cent interest, and still the old Mother 
country imposes a duty of 80 per cent, ad valorem 
on our tea. Why so much talk of free trade when 
there has never been free trade for us ? Free trade 
is for the benefit of the Foreigner, not for loyal 
colonists." The tea-planter's life of today is very 
diflferent to the palmy coSee days of 25 years ago. 
The life of a planter in those days was a perfect 
paradise compared with tea planting of today, when 
the utmost and unceasing care is required and 
the cost of working expenses has to be reduced to 
the finest point of economy. 
- Tea is grown in Ceylon at sea level, and at 
every elevation ranging up to 6,500 ft.; the higher 
the elevatien the more delicate is the flavour of 
the leaf. Lucky are estate proprietors who have 
properties at 5,000 ft. elevation and upwards, be. 
cause jungle land cannot now be purchased from 
the Government at above that elevation. Twenty 
years ago the Ceylon Government was warned that 
if the mountain tops were denuded of jungle growth 
it might seriously affect and cause a decrease of 
the rainfall of the island, and in consequence of 
this warning an Act was passed by the Ceylon 
Legislative Council to stop the sale of all Crown 
jungle land at elevations of 5,000ft. and upwards, 
It was a wise act undoubtedly. 
There are no crop seasons in Ceylon as regards 
tea, as the trees go on "flushing" all the year 
round. This, no doubt, is in consequence of its 
iDeinp an island having a hot, moist atmosphere. 
Almost any climate may be had, from the hot, 
moist heat of Colombo to the cold, frosty air of 
Nuwara Eliya, which is 6,200ft. above the sea 
level. For beauty of scenery and richness of 
vegetation Ceylon stands unrivalled and financially 
it is thoroughly sound. This latter fact is in 
some measure due to its highly paying Stale 
railway, for which its rulers claim credit ; but it is 
perhaps doubtful statesmanship to run a railway 
at high rates which give large immediate profits, 
but which hamper commercial industries and 
conduce to careless and expensive management. 
Tea is of such absolute necessity to the work- 
people of this country that Mr Chamberlain could 
not have selected a more suitable article for 
reduction of import duty. At the same time he is 
doing only an act of justice to an industry which is 
entirely British and to a body of British subjects 
who have during the past 20 years gone through 
greater vicissitudes (owing to coffee leaf disease) 
than almost any other colonists. We trust that 
the British workman, the Indian and Ceylon 
planters and proprietors and even the poor Tamil 
coolies whose wage is about 5d per day ot ten 
hours, may all derive benefit by the lower cost 
and consequent increased consumption of tea. 
If, when prosperity does return, the planters 
will avoid coarse plucking — which produces 
inferior tea and which greatly increases the weight 
of production and gluts the market~they may 
reasonably look forward, not to temporary, but 
to permanent, cheery days should Mr Chamber- 
lain's proposal become an accomplished fact. — 
London Tiines. 
THE REFINING OF COCONUT OIL. 
AND NEUTRALISING HOSTILE TARIFFS 
Mr. Brodrick, the iSecretary of State for 
India, speaking on 24th inst. at the Masonic 
Hall, Guildford, on the fiscal question, ex- 
pressed the opinion that much might be done 
by Mr. Balfour's policy of neutralising hostile 
tariffs. He remarked :— 
Every day that I read official papers this neces- 
sity is more brought home tome. I took up a file 
only yesterday — there is no secret about it — and in 
it I saw a small instance which will come home to 
all of us affecting one of our Colonies. A very 
active industry had grown up in the last three or 
four years in Singapore in the refining of coconut 
oil. Last year, or the year before, machinery was 
put up at a very large cost ; work had been begun, 
the export of a very large number of gallons had 
already taken place, and a firm at Portland 
(Oregon), in the United States, was taking practi- 
cally the whole of the product. What happened ? 
In April of this year news arrived that the United 
States, in the exercise of their undoubted right, 
had put a tax of 60 per cent ad valorem on the im- 
portation of coconut oil — so refined. Within three 
months not only was that factory shut up, but the 
very people at Portland who had been buying the 
product so refined made an offer to buy the whole 
machinery at half its cost, and to transfer it to the 
United States. There is a Colonial industry, rising 
legitimately, and equally legitimately extinguished, 
by a policy which we do not desire to imitate, but 
which we desire to prevent. (Cheers.)— i^. and C. 
Express. 
THE DEMAND FOR INDIAN LABOUR, 
CEYLON RECRUITING IMPROVED' 
Judging from two recent reports there is no 
diminution in the demand for Indian labour, The 
Seychelles have long discussed the importation of 
coolies from Madras and the Secretary of State has 
now approved of a scheme for a five years' agree- 
nient with repatriation when it expires. An offer 
was received from a steamship company to place a 
special boat on the run if the emigrants numbered 
over one hundred and forty, and the Seychelles 
Government guaranteed to employ half that 
number. But then the planters who had talked 
so much of the scarcity of labour hesitated 
and the matter is in abeyance. Wages for 
estate labourers in the Seychelles run from 
R12 to R14, whilst carpenters, masons and black* 
smiths can obtain from R25 to K60 a month. In 
Ceylon the cry is a^ain that Soutberu India does 
