38o 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [December i, 1891. 
knowledge of the business seems to be superfluous' 
when a passport to Buooess is, that the vendor 
is well kno^D as a purveyor of sometbing else, 
and 80 ^uoh is this the case, that sellers of 
tea bo£ist upon every wall and hoarding that they 
are not grocers. In one instance, wa believe that the 
public have been assured that, after paying immense 
advertising expenses, the regular trade can be under- 
aold to the extent of Is per lb., without including 
free postage. Now, Is per lb. ou a oonsamp^ioa of 
200,000,000 lb.. of tea a year represents arithmetically 
£10,000,000 sterling — an extent of benevolence which 
the publio can hardly expect, either as the voluntary 
surrender of profit, or as the gift of the richest 
company. Further, as good tea is habitually sold by 
grocers at Is 6d per lb., and to undersell this by Is, 
would mean a retail price of 6d, out of which (ullow- 
Ing nothing for the cost of the tea) the duty would 
come to 4d, vrhile packinjj, advertising, and free 
postage would cost another 4d per lb. In fact, it does 
not require any acknowledge of the tea trade to assert 
that few more fallacious statements coald be made 
than that the grocers overcharge the publio Is per 
lb. for their tea. Another strain on publio credulity 
is the assertion that tea in leaden packets, which, 
with advertising, must add 3d per lb. to the cost, can 
possibly be cheaper or better, than tea offered fresh 
from the chest, without this added cost and risk of 
deterioration. If all the tea marked Oeylon comes 
from the island, the tea trade is also more ignorant 
than its tradacers make it out to be. Nor should a 
triumphant success in the retailing of butter or pork 
be much of a passport to the favour of the tea-drinker. 
An older advertising development, which has rather 
sunk into the background of late, is the so-called 
" present " system. Under this the trader gives a trip 
to the seaside, • grand piano, or what not, to the buyer 
of so many lbs. of tea. If all these gifts come out of 
the superfluous profits hitherto enjoyed by the grooerfl, 
the strange thing is that the latter aie not millionaires, 
instead of being, as many of them are, men struggling 
for subsistence. All the»e matters, however, concern 
the publio, and, although the power of self-assertion is 
no doubt unlimited, our thirty odd million of people 
will, no doubt, draw the line somewhere. The con- 
sumer, sooner or later, will realise that the division of 
labour, on which all modern society rests, applies to tea 
ai well ax to everything else. For a man to attempt 
to grow the tea be sella by retail, is to ensure its being 
•B dear as our boots or hats would be if we made them 
ourselves, ia order to save intermediate profits. 
X new development in advertising, to which we wish 
to draw the attention of the trade, is that those who 
are endeavouring to deprive them of their living are 
now audacious enough to offer to supply them with 
tea. In fact, the despoiler now kindly offers to put 
the grocer on his feet again by offering him tea 
cheaper than it can be bought in a market noted for 
the intensity of its competition and for the immense 
capital embarked in the wholesale trade— of late years, 
at any rate— for less than a living profit. The grocers 
have shown a good deal of the quietude of doves 
UBder the torrent of mendacity that has been poured 
upon their tea trade, but they have a reserve of the 
wisdom of the serpent left about them. The endeavour 
»o destroy one's trade is surely a strange preface to 
an offer to supply you with goods, yet this is what 
is being done in the most open way. Some firms are 
endeavouring to regenerate society by under-selling the 
grocers, by whom they live- This may be philanthropy, 
but it is certainly of a one-sided character. Others, 
with dozens, or a hundred or more, of competing 
retail shops, are now appealing to the grocers for 
■appurt, but in most cases under a different name 
from that in which their shops are carried on. Then, 
again, packet tea advertisers — whose attack upon the 
groccrh' trade and profits is the moat insidious of 
all— actually offer to make them agents, lo aid in 
their own destruction, and the astounding feature in 
th<: ease is, that grocers are to be found ready to 
play into their hamis. Further, so-called wholesale 
houecs open shops, with various high-sounding mimes, 
all over a town, and, at the same time, by enticing 
statementB and adTertiucoaaats, endeavour topersuoo 
the grocers to buy of them. In a similar way, in the 
wholesale trade, the merchants and brokers endeavour 
to supplant tho'ie by whom they live. In short, the 
tea trade at present consists in coveting and desiring 
other men's business, and in expecting the victims 
to assist ia their own happy despatch. 
It is surely time that tbe grocers set to work to 
turn the tables on their aritagoni°ts. Let them carry 
the war into the enemy's country, expose the menda- 
cious statements that are made, and offer cheaper 
and better tea, as .they can very well do. Thtre is no 
doubt that the grocers, as geotr^il distributors, not 
dependent on any one branch of their trade, can 
cfEer tea more cheaply than any other retailers, 
especially as they understand the trade, and have 
a knowledge of the commodity they sell. They have, 
perhaps, relied too much on the publio knowing 
their position, and have let their adversaries 
obtain a foothold. If, on the contrary, the 
grocers once made up their minds to " cut " in 
tea, no one else could live with them. Sacb an 
ext.reme step is probably by no means necessary at 
present, as the competition is only serious nhen it is 
let aljne. But it is clearly time for the tea trade to 
set to work to expose tbe delusive statemeDta by which 
it is sought to mislead the public. 
Thb Retail Pbofit on Tea. 
The Qrocer, discussing the subjeot, says : —This 
subject is one which engages the careful attention of 
our readers, many of whom look back with feelings 
of regret to the time when a profit of one shilling 
per pound was not thought unrea:ionabIe upon the 
higher-priced canister, and when the margin on even 
the lower or more popular-priced tea was sufBoient to 
cover a loss on the sale of tugar and still leave a fair 
profit for the retailer. Those days have, however, 
passed away. "With the reduction in the duty and by 
keener competion the retail pricss have been brought 
down to a very low figure, and as the grocer haseiuoated 
the public to pay prices rangmg from one shiUiug to two 
shillings per pound, it is not likely that the retail price 
will reach any higher figure, unless w*r or some otner 
cause should at a future time lead to an increase in 
the duty. But, as publ.o opinion seems to be in favour 
of the abolition of the duty altogether, it is not probable 
that any Ohancellor of the Exchequer would attempt 
to raise money by increasing the duty on tea unless 
there were some pressing necessity. As regirda the 
price of tea in bond, the lalling-oft in the supply from 
one part of the globe seems to be more than ooropen- 
sited by the importation from another, as evidenced by 
the decline in China tea being amply compe'isated by 
the rapid strides made by the island of Ceylon, so that 
there is little fear of there being any substantial in- 
crease in tbe price of this article. 
Under these circumstances it may be assumed that 
there is no probability of a material change in the cost 
of tea to the grocer, and there should b* no farther 
reduction in the selling price to the public, who can now 
buy tea of fair quality at a^out one penny per ounce. 
Indeed, any further reductiou in the retail price must 
involve a dimiaution in profit, which the trade can 
ill afford to bear at the present time. In our 
opinion the success of • grocer's tea business depends 
in a large measure on the quality of the aiticle 
sold, and its suitability for the water of the dis- 
trict in which it is made. We believe the interest 
taben by omt readers in the purchase of the most 
desirable and economic il te»s for blending has 
decreased instead of increased as the margin of profit 
has from time to time declined ; thus other channels 
have been opened for the sale of teas, aud the com- 
petition thereby aggravated. There is still, however, 
room for a reasonable return being obtained ny re- 
tailing good tea, the lowest price of a leading store 
being now Is 4d for a pound, or Is 2id for half-chesta 
of fifty-six pounds, the highest price being 23 9d, 
giviug an average of 23 upon the whole range of prices; 
This is, of course, a higher rite than many grocers 
can obtain, especially those who supply the wants 
of the poorer classes, but even with the lowest-priced 
teas the percentage of profit is worth having, and might 
