August x, i8go.] 
THE TROPJCAL AGRICULTURfST. 
1 17 
the China brick tea from Thibet. Chinese exclusive- 
ness and the desire to preserve iheir mono- 
poly has shut out Indian teas up to the 
present, and we fear that, having regard to the great 
injury done to the China tea trade in the foreign 
markets by the teas of India and Ceylon, the planters 
of Assam and Darjeeling must be content with cast- 
ing longing, lingering looks at the mountain larritrs 
of Thibet, and must not hope for any immediate Oj,en- 
ing for their teas in that market. That Mr. Cooper’s 
view is the correct one is shown by the recent annual 
report of the Imperial Customs of China, where it is 
pointed out thar Indian teas have quite driven Chinese 
teas out of Turkestan, where they latter had a 
practical monopoly a few years since . — Rangoon Gazette, 
June 16 th. 

FAILURE OF COFFEE ROASTERS. 
(OlBoial Receiver’s Department.) 
EE J. AND C. COLLIEE. 
Accounts have been issued undar this failure showing 
dabilities 37,078L, of which 9,3807. is unsecured, and 
assets 8,1637. The debtors, trading as “ James Collier 
& Sons,” coffee-roasters, &c., of the Commercial-street 
Steam Mills, also as “ Walker and M'Letchie,” manu- 
facturers of liquid extract of coffee, at Great Pearl- 
street, joined their father in partnership in June, 1877, 
the capital of the firm amountiug to 7,8247. Tne 
failure is attributed to losses by depreciation in the 
value of their business premises and plant, &c., to 
losses by consignments, to bad debts, and to heavy 
interest on mortgages. The “ fully-secured ” creditors’ 
hold mortgages on the debtors’ freehold premises, and 
those “ partly-secured ” hold dock warrants for cocoa 
and chicory and a second mortgage on the Commercial- 
street premises. The first meeting is fixed for the 
24th instant . — Daily Weios, June 19th, 
PLANTING IN NETHERLANDS INDIA. 
(From the Straits Times, June 18th.) 
The Planters’ Association at Sukabumie in Java have 
petitioned the Governor-General to allow the army in 
Netherlands India, in future, to draw its supplies of 
tea from local producers. The Chinese tea in use 
among the soldiers turns out to be bad and of low 
quality. The planters call attention to the strangeness 
of the fact that, while Java produces excellent tea, the 
army purveyors give the preference to inferior Chinese 
kinds. 
The indigo outturn in Java shows signs of being 20 to 
25 per cent below the crop of 1889. The falling off is 
said to be due to degeneration in the plants under cul- 
tivation. 
Mr. E. L. Gordon, the pioneer concessionary of the 
Western Borneo Goldfields, has been recently to Batavia 
after starting a mining company in London with a 
capital of £300,000. The Company has eight Europe- 
ans at work in Montrado, who have already prospected 
with promising results. 
In East Borneo, by last advices, European enterprise 
bas made further headway than is generally known, 
hut want of labour works as a drawback and trammels 
success in prospecting the gold and diamond mines 
there. The Batavia Nieuwshlad states that both the 
Rajah of Pasir, and the Rajah of Cotie in Bast Borneo, 
have decided upon leasing wasitelanH in their dominions 
on easy conditions but, unfortunately, dela; s of office 
which demand the consent of the Governor-General to 
each concession stand iutho way of much advantage 
being taken of their liberality. 
Mongooses have been imported from India into the 
province of Kedirie in Java, to clear aw.ay field rats 
and other vermin whicli destroy the crops there. 
On the 1 st May last, the blockading squadron on the 
coast of Acheen consisted of nineteen vessels. 
COOLY LABOUR. 
(From a Planting Correspondent.) 
The. question of cooly supply for the coffee districts 
is geiiiug beyond a joke, and Planters caunot cope 
wiih it without assistance. Do what we cau with our 
Planters’ Associations, appi-al as we will to Govern- 
ment, the deaf earls alwa^ s turned to us, and help in 
any shape or form denied us; and yet if Government 
would only look at it in the light of Rs. As, Ps., it 
would s.-e that the coffee industry has more to do iu 
lilliug the treasury iu coffee districts than it seems to 
imagine, besides the benefit that other districts derive 
therefrom. How many co.ilies do the coffee districts 
in Southern India annually employ, how much money 
do those coolies take away yearly to spend in their 
country f Almost every head of a house now owns 
laud, and how did they accumulate the money to pay 
for ic, aud the yearly tax ? AYhy, only by working on 
coffee estates. The advance they get buys the laud, 
and cue or two of a household are lelt to attend to it 
and one or two come to work off that advance, and 
help to pay the tax. What are the imposts in grain, 
fruit, salt, coconuts, beetle leaf, cloths, glass, bangles, 
&c., &c., iSiC., in a place like Ooorg whilst the district 
IS m full swing? Let Government enquire of the Com- 
missiouer, auu then 3 udge whether or no coffee as an 
industry is a thiug to he lightly passed over. Take an 
estate of 300 acres, which should have one cooly an 
acre by rights for iis proper working, and given that 
each cooly spends B4 a .oiouth in the district itself, that 
gives R1,2U0 a mouth, or a given sum of say, in eight 
months, of R9, 600 Then say that each cooly saves R2 
a month, that gives — to be taken to their country or 
held pay off the advance given, — say R4,S00. This is 
only on one estate, and the number of estates in Ooorg 
include large acreages now, belonging both to Europe- 
ans and Natives, so that the annual amount spent tor 
working alone is immense, besides the work given, 
during crop; to bandy contractors for the conveyance 
of crop to Mangalore, Tellioherry and Bangalore. In 
fact if Government would only choose to take a little 
trouble and go carefuly into things, it would be aston- 
iolied at the figures, aud the amount of money expended 
by coffee planters tor the benefit of the country, exclusive 
of the very haudsome amount paid into the Treasury on 
coffee assessment, income tax, bani tax, &o., &c. What 
was Ooorg years ago before tlis country was opened out, 
and what is it now? This 1 will leave to Government 
reports. Yet now a crisis is coming, and it is either 
recovery or death, as the planter cannot fight on singly 
much longer, lor the want of labour io telling most 
emphatically on must valuable property. The planters 
have no hold over maistries to whom money has been 
advanced has been shown over and over again ; and 
planters as a body have again and again tried to get 
help from Government in such cases. The last endeavour 
was that all maistries should have a registered cettifi. 
Cate from the parpiteyar, or subadar of their villages 
as to their being persons to be trusted to bring in 
labour. Not a very great request ibis, but we might 
as well appeal to the gods of the heathm, as to a 
Government which takes all it cau get from its struggl- 
iug offspring and gives nothing in return. 
What 18 the use of pl.ntcrs struggling on against 
such onds ? in bad years ryots get a deduction m tax 
money. Do we? No, our pL.ces may be going baelc 
from shoro crops aud not sufficient labour to work 
them, but to ask tor a reduction in tax would be the 
height of insult, and the reply would be equivalent 
10 , "No, you are not uaiives, to them wo grant every 
thing asked, lo 30 U not the stretching forth of a nUie 
lutio finger.” VV'Uore is the use of piauters speudiug 
money 3 ear after year m supplying their estates whoa 
it IS too late ? At the beuiuuiug of June everything 
should be ready lor ibis al.-important work, but uovv- 
a-uays thoto is not a cooly iu, they are quietly 
reposing m their country, daily attending to their 
fields, and oaiiog the planters’ advance whilst we 
are longing lor thoui to come. Our work is 
all behind, our coffee is all in wetus, which are eating 
ail the manure we have put io for the benefit of the 
