38 
THE TROPICAL 
AQRIOULTURIST. fJULY i, 1891. 
had refused to recognise the £aot. But he 3et>ms 
to have mado out a very good case for eeveral of 
tho other proposals which were embodied in hie 
letter above referred to, and his request that he 
should be given by the London Assooiation a sort 
of offieial locus standi appears to have met wilh 
eonsiderable approval. 
Mr. May urged thiit were that standing eecured 
to him — in some way or other, were the company 
he represents in Ameroa able to point to recogni- 
tion by your representative bodies in London and 
OeyJon, his hands would be very greatly strengthened. 
He did not aek for monetaty support, only the 
adoption of such rosolutiona by the Association 
as by their quotntion would induce reliaace by 
the Amerioaa public upon the good faith of his pro- 
testation that his Company would sell none but 
pure Ceylon tea, and that it was in a lull posi- 
tion to obtain it. The general sense of the meet- 
ing was that this demand might justifiably be 
met, and that resolutions whieh should assure to 
Mr. May the recognition he asks for might well 
be passed. Several such resolutions drafted by Mr. 
May vfere submitted by him, but the time at the 
disposal of the meeting did not admit of these 
being fully discuBSfed, and a eeoond meeting is to be 
called in order that they may have due consider- 
ation. As regards the principle of afiording the 
amount of support asked for there does not seem 
to have been any dissentienoe, it being the gener- 
ally adopted opinion that something should be 
done to back up the enterprise in America, and 
that the adoption of Mr. May's present proposals, 
involving, as they do, no expenditure, might well 
be (hat something. 
Mr. Butherford has suggested a more extended 
support being given to Mr. May. He proposes 
that jthe Company of which that gentleman 
is the President should be constituted the 
recognised agency for the due representation of 
Ceylon tea at the forthcoming World's Fair at 
Chicago. With this interest Mr. Rutherford has 
suggested that the Ceylon Tea Fund should devote 
the whole of one year's income — estimated, we 
hear, at somewhere about 50,000 rupees— to the 
support of such representation, on the condition 
that each subscriber to the Fund of 50 rupees 
should become entitled to a fully paid up 2 dollar 
share in the American Tea Company now established. 
Mr. May, we uudertjtand, would have no objection 
to subscribe to such a condition, which would, 
however, necessarily have to be ratified by those 
associated with him in the Company, This sugges- 
tion by Mr. Rutherford will receive consideration 
when the Committee meets to deal with the re- 
solutions proposed by Mr. May for adoption, and 
it will then have to be decided whether the 
Association shall recommend the management of 
your Tea Fund to agree to the arrangement sugRested. 
The two announcements given below appeared in 
the 'f illies of Tuesday last. I have given them to jou 
as they were printed in that paper, because it struck 
me that their following the one upon the other, must 
certainly direct public attention to the great con- 
trast betweeujthe results achieved by Tea Companies 
working in Ceylon and that which has its 
enterprise in India. You recently wrote as to 
the relative dividends declared by the Indian 
tea companies and those of Ceylon, and we 
think you will acknowledge that few stronger 
caBes of contrast could be adduced than these two 
announcements afford. You will receive a copy 
of the report ol tho Scottish Ceylon Tea Company 
of which tho following is a brief abstract, and 
will bo ready, wo know, to congratulate the 
directors and eliareholdors upon tho highly satis- 
factory roBViltH to the year's working that it 
The report of the directors of tLe Scottish Oeyion 
Te* Oompauy (Limited) for year ending December 31st 
1890, shows a profit of £7,368, making, with the 
bttlaiice of £169 from 1889, » total of £7,537 availabla 
for dietribution. Out of thin sam a dividend at tbo 
rttto of 4 pep cont. (free ot income-tax) has already 
been paid and the directors now propose a further 
divideL.d of 11 per cent (free of inoome-tax), making 
15 per cent in all for the year. Of the balance it 
is proposed to place £1,000 to a reserve fund, carry- 
ing forward £387 to next account. 
The report of the directors oi the Darjeeling Com- 
pany (Limited) made up to December 31st, 1880, 
shows thafe tho quactity of tea manafactured in the 
season of 1890 amounted to 606,950 lb., being a con- 
siderable increase of 57,172 lb. over the crop of 1889, 
but tbe tea brokers have informed the directors th«fc 
the usual high standard of quality was not maintained, 
and, consequently, the average price realized for the 
crop is only Is 0 66d per lb., against Is 210d per lb. 
for the crop cf 1889, showiug a decrease of l'44d 
per lb., whicb, ou the whole quantity disposed of, 
repreotnts a deficieocy of £3,573. The proportion ot 
teas of fine quality was unusually small during the 
past eeaeon, and high prices were realized for them. 
Out of the profit on the season's operations (he follow- 
iog claims have to be provided for : — To commifeions 
to staff, £843 ; to income-tax, £222 ; leaving a net 
profit of £6,26(5, which is equivalent to £4 12s 6d 
per cent on the paid-up capiial ot the company ; and 
it is therefore proposed to transfer from the un- 
divided profits the sum of £1,869 iu order to provide 
a f uf&oicnt amount to enable the members to declare 
a dividend at tbe rate of 6 per cent for the past year. 
8o iar the prospects for the season 1891 ehow an 
improvement over last up to the middle of April, 
but the quayfity of lea manufactured up to that early 
period oi the season has always fluctuated considerably. 
We suppose the telegraph will have informed you 
of the fact that the record has again have beatee, 
and in a most crushing degree, as regards the 
sale of the Ceylon gold tip teas. When Gartmore 
astonished the world there were few who thought 
the price its production obtained could be beaten, 
but when writing you relative to that sale my 
opinion was expressed that as the higher the price 
paid the greater the advertisement, there would 
probably be a great increase in the amounts obtained 
for these artificial teas until some ridiculously high 
limit v?as attained. Therefore it is that although 
a parcel of Ceylon tea from the Oriental Bank 
Estates Company's Havilland Estate sold on 
Tuesday last at the auction in Mincing Lane for 
£17 per lb or over one guinea an ounce, I feel 
no surprise, and shall go on quietly awaiting the 
time where some other and less costly form of 
advertising occupies the minds of speculative 
traders in the tea business. The Globe thinks that 
the tea men must have delirium teamens 1 
Sir Walter Sendall took a prominent part in the 
discussion upon Mr. Morris's paper on the subject 
of the Leeward Islands at the Colonial 
Institute the other night. He declared that 
Mr. Morris's recommendations while id those 
islands as to the utilization of fibre plants had an 
immediate effect, and caused orders for machinery 
to be at once sent home. This may have been 
so ; but it is within my own knowlege that some 
time prior to Mr. Morris's visiting the Leeward 
Islands, an article in the Engineer on the subject 
produced immediate inquiries by the authorities of 
one of the islands included in that group. Capital 
is what is wanted to stimulate these new enter- 
prises, and it is certain a great number of sug- 
gestions which promise fairly fall through for want 
of such support. 
Some remarks have been made above with 
reference to Ceylon tea having been sold during 
the present week at £17 the pound, and they 
inoluded a conjecture that we had not even as yeti 
