THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[March i, 1898. 
616 
districts, tUey will remain the most popular. 
There is such a manifest advantage in being able 
to receive by i>ost .samples of teas about to be 
exposed at Mincing Lane, in time to wire, or even 
write, purchasing limits and orders, that the 
saving in transport does not compensate for the 
uncertainty of Colombo, bought teas being pre- 
cisely what is wanted. Direct shipments will, 
I doubt not, greatly increase, particularly if large 
uniform lines of tea can be purchased, and Odessa 
will more and more become the distributing 
centre for the South and South-East, 1 believe 
that through rates from China and Colombo to 
Moscow have been arranged for, and the system 
in force of keeping the teas in bond during their 
journey to and storage at Moscow, enables the 
dealers to clear just the quantities they may 
from time to time require. There is, I may men- 
tion, no foundation for the statement, made to 
me in London, that the Russian Customs’ regula- 
tions necessitated the clearing of, and consequent 
payment of duty on, the whole of a consignment 
at once. The dealer can draw as much or as 
little as he likes, and he pays duty only on the 
quantity taken out. Ihere are no Octroi duties 
in Russia. 
GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS CONCERNING THE 
SALE OF TEA. 
No tea can be sold retail in Russia except in 
closed packets and no packets can be sold unless 
they have been tracked in an authorized t'acking- 
rooiii in presence of a Government Officer, and 
have the Government baudarol or wrapirer round 
them. Indeed, although the tea has all previously 
paid the import duty it is treated in the mer- 
chants’ warehouses precisely as if it were in bond 
until the tracking is linished and the baiularol 
affixed. The Government supplies and pays the 
supervising Officer, who keeps the keys of tlie 
warehouses, and it is only in his presence that the 
teas are moved to the packing-room, bulked, 
wei"hed and packed. He keeps detaileil records 
of all the quantities received and sent out, and 
returns are rendered to the central authority. 
The Officer has it in his pjwer to be obstruc- 
tive, but I fancy a private monthly payment 
secures bis good-will and makes him act as a 
general superintendent of the packing-) com and 
the workers employed there. At present the Go- 
vernment requires that a minimum quantity of 
48 000 lb. per annum shall be jmcked befoie 
they will grant autliority for a packing- 
room to be estalilishe-d. It was reported 
that this minimum is aho.ufc to be raised 
to 200,000 1b. per annum, hut I could get 
no official confirmation of the report. The Go- 
vernment makes a charge for the bandarol label 
varying according to tiie size of the package. 
On a one pound (Rus.sian) [racket it is ^ ko[>eck, 
on a half pound l-5th, on a quarter J, on an 
eighth i, and so on. 
This systetn of compulsory Government super- 
vision aiid use of a band.'ir'ol is of recent origin, 
and was introduced with the ostensible, and, no 
doubt, to some extent real, object of preventing 
fraud 'ill weight and adult n ation, but the large 
firm of Russian dealers to whose inlluence the 
system is said to he due, undoubtedly hojied 
that it would c.nish out all their small rivals. 
It does oiler .a serioiR ol).5taclc to the starling of 
a small business, and it entirely [U-events the 
importation of packet teas, hut .small dealers have 
in Isome instance.s combined and maintain one 
pac'kin"-room amongst several, and in other cases 
they send their teas to he packed at one of the 
establishments, paying an arranged-on charge. 
I heard this charge in St. Petersburg quoted at 4 
kopecks for 1 lb packets. 
THE CUSTOM.S OF THE RUSSIAN TEA TRADE. 
One of the prejudices on the [lart of the con- 
sumer adverse to small dealei's is that of dealing 
only with shops which sell nothing but tea, or, at 
most, tea and the kindred products — cotFee, cacao 
anil sugar. The rent, taxes and administrative 
charges all fall on the one article, and it requires 
a large turn-over to meet them. In the country 
and in the poorest portions of the City, 
the [u ejudice does not hold good, and shops with 
a general business sell packet teas, supplied by 
some of the large packing houses. The custom 
of the Russian tea trade which is most 
adverse to small wholesale dealers is that of giving 
long credit. 
The scarcity of money in the country, the 
long time occupie<l in transporting goods to the 
outlying districts, the necessity in some places, 
where winter closes the transport, of laying in 
stocks months in advance and probably the 
rivalry between the few large wholesale dealers, 
has led to a system of very long credit having 
become quite inseparable from a wholesale 
business. Six months is the usual period quoted, 
but it is often extended, and nine and even twelve 
months are not unheard of. It will be easily 
seen what a large capital is necessary to enable 
the wholesale merchant to [uovide for these long 
periods the cost of the tea and, what is much 
more serious, the 1/1 OJd per lb of duty. The 
wholesale dealer gives the retailer a high discount — 
29 [ler cent. I believe is usual and as that dis- 
count is not merely on the cost of the tea and its 
packing, but also on the duty, it is evident 
that the price of tlie packets must be 
fixed at a very high hgure in order to 
cover the discount. The Russian pea- 
sant is extremely poor, and the minute 
size of the packets prepared for him shows the 
limit of his purchasing power. Packets contain- 
ing half an ounce are largely dealt in, and I 
saw some which contained but one-seventh of an 
ounce. 1 was assured that there are millions 
of the people to whom tea and sugar are prac- 
tically unknown. 
THE DUTY ON TEA IN RUSSIA. 
The crushing import duty to which our teas 
are subjected, and which, as I have said equals 
Is lOJd per English pound, is of course the 
greatest hindrance to extended consumption. 
The present rate of duty on the European fron- 
tier seem.s to have been fixed in 1885, being a 
slight reduction on the previous rate, and that 
on the Siberian frontier in 1887, when it was 
sliehtly raised. 
The [nice of tea has, as we know, fallen consi- 
derably during thejlast ten years and theac? valorem 
incidence of the duty has become much heavier. 
The Russian duty must now equal on an 
average more than 300 per cent, on the value 
of the article, for much of the China tea im- 
ported costs les.s than fid per Ih. The duty is, 
of course, in no way a matter of treaty arrange- 
ment, and can he altered at will by the Russian 
Government. Its reduction would greatly stimu- 
late consiimjition and benefit the poorer classes. 
ADVERTISING IN RUSSIA. 
I found that while all the retail dealers in 
Ueylon tea were anxious that advertising should 
be undertaken and looked to much benefit there- 
from, the whole sale merchants expressed the 
opinion that it would be of no use. The con- 
