776 
THte TROriCAt AGRICULTURIST. [May 2, 1904. 
•EADiTJM IN THE THOEiANiTE. THE TIBET MONASTERIES AND TEA 
We quote elsewhere Professor Dunstan's 
letter to Nature on the subject ; and we may 
also add, on the best local authority, that 
the thorianite has been found to contain a 
trace, though a mere trace only, of radium. 
This alone is ia fact to excite interest, 
whether radium itself is ultimately to be 
located or not. Professor Dunstan appears to 
expect great things from this last-named 
property ; but we fear it is improbable 
any sensational discoveries of radium will be 
made— through thorianite — in Ceylon. 
PKODUCE AND PLANTING. 
GOOD AND BAD TEA, AND THEIR 
EFFECTS. 
In the course of his address at the annual meet- 
i"g of the Mazawattee Tea Company, Mr Benjamin 
Deusham expressed regret that there was a quan- 
tity of rubbish on the tea market, ' Bad tea,' he 
said, ' vitiated the taste and drove people to bad 
spirits, and temperance people should grasp the full 
importance of a supply of good tea.' The curious 
temperance argument of Mr Densham has, accord- 
ing to the "St. James's Gazette," created consider- 
able amusement among tea experts, while his alle- 
gations against other teas are indignantly repudi- 
ated. ' Low-priced teas mustobviously be rubbish,' 
explained Messrs Twining's manager. ' But it is 
harmless rubbish. There is no doctoring carried on 
in the tea trade ; even the cheapest article is pure 
tea. So that in its weakness li^s its safety. It is 
really absurd to argue that drinking such slnlF 
drives people to spirits. Besides, the public are not 
driven to use cheap teas. This war is having a 
serious effect on the tea trade, and there is every 
justification for a rise in price?, but we dare not. 
Does Mr Densham propose to compel people to pay 
higher prices at the bidding of temperance advo- 
cates, or how is he going to bring about that ' sup- 
ply of good tea ' ? So long as there is a ' cheapest' 
the public will always rush for it, and it has no 
bearing on the temperance question.' A wholesale 
tea agent in Mincing Lane, in the course of an in- 
terview, practically confirmed this view, and said 
there was no reason to complain of the cheap teas 
on the market. * The import of tea is suffering 
greatly by the war, and I anticipate a rise in prices, 
but the public need fear no dangers from the use of 
teas, however cheap. Rubbish they are, of course, 
but perfectly harmless, often producing little more 
than coloured water.' * There is no doctoring ? ' ' I 
have never heard of any, and I don't see what 
could be gained if there was any method of adulter- 
ation. Tricks there are in the trade, as in all busi- 
nssses, and a dealer may sometimes put a good 
oiie-and thteepenny or eighteen penny line into a 
higher-price bin. A good deal of conjuring also 
aoes on in canister teas, where fancy boxes are 
given away. But most grocers live by their re- 
putation as tea merchants, and they are very 
jealous of it. It is rubbish to talk about bad teas 
as an incentive to drunkenness. There is really 
less harm in them than in the strong blends. In 
no other trade is there such a universal standard 
ot purity from the cheapest tQ the best article." 
The correspondent of the Times, writing from 
Chumbi on February 6 with reference to the 
Tibetan impasse, says, in the course of bis letter : 
" Refusal of allegiance to China may cause them 
annual subsidy. This, in part, takes the shape of a 
large supply of tea for the three great monasteries 
outside Lhassa. The trouble is that these three 
great monasteries actually govern the kingdom 
through the Tzung-du or Great As«enibly. Apart 
wholly from the unwillingness of the Lamasseries 
to lose what is to them a very large bounty, the 
withdrawal of the official sanction enjoyed by these 
monasteries— the source of the supremacy of Lhassa 
— would raise in an acute foim an old but ever 
present question, the rival claims of the Grand Lama 
of Tasbe-Lhumpo, This is a question of such im- 
portance both to the Tibetans and ourselves, and it 
is not too much to suggest that herein the solution 
of the present difficulty may eventually be found 
to lie." 
CANADIAN TEA IMPORTATIONS. 
Mr T H Ebtabrooks, tea importer and blender, 
St. John N.B., is, in the Canadian Grocert the 
authority for the statement that So. John is the 
natural port for the distribution of Ceylon and 
Indian teas in Canada, having imported 3,377,165 lb 
of black and green tea direct from Ceylon and 
India during the year ending June 30, 1903. 
Direct importations of tea from the country of 
growth and growing more and more in favour, 
Russia playing a leading part in importing direct 
in large quantities via the Siberian Railway 
from China. &c., instead of buying indirectly 
through the London market as heretofore. Large 
quantities of tea are imported by Canada indirectly 
through London and other intermediate centres, 
however, Mr Estabrooks also places the port of 
St. John very near the top of the list of Canadian 
cities importing the largest amounts of tea from 
all sources, giving it third place, Montreal and 
Toronto coming first and second respectively with 
the largest total imports ef tea from all sources, 
and are closely followed by St, John with a total 
of 4,448,9421b for the year ending June 30, 1903, 
The Salada Tea Company, Toronto with reference 
to this subject writes to a contemporary the 
following : — It is well-known in the trade that 
large quantities of tea are imported on through 
bills of lading to Toronto and other points west in 
Canada, but convenience are given by the carrying 
companies for entering these teas at the St. John 
custom house, and storing them there to await final 
orders as to their destination, so that a Western 
merchant or agent of a foreign shipper bringing 
teas out from India or Ceylon does not need to 
declare to the carrying companies the destination 
of the goods until he has actually sold the teas. 
The Customs returns from St. John would, of 
course include all this vast quantity of tea in its 
returns of tea entered at that point and would not 
mean that the merchants of St. John bad anything 
to do with the handling of this tea. Beside this 
fact the figures given are direct importations from 
Ceylon and India and as vast quantities of Ceylon 
and India tea are imported from London, and as 
nearly all the finer grades are imported from 
London (that being well-known as the large market 
for fine teas) the figures given in the advertisement 
last week do not at all represent the respective 
tea trades of the cities named in the advertlsemeoti 
—U. and, C, IHail, 
