JONE I, 1898.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
8,1 
The average rate of exchange was Is. 3 13/32d com- 
pared with Is. 2 37/64d the previous year. 
The produce from the coconut properties is steadily 
increasing, 1,209,980 nuts were harvested, as against 
975,570 the previous year, and the out-turn from our 
Esca'e mills was 3,800 cwts. copra, and 4,540 cwts. 
Fibre. 
In June last the Hunnpitiya Mills; Negombo, were 
purchased for £3,000 for the manufacture of desiccated 
coconut and oil. 
Appended to this report will be found a statement 
showing the annual position of the Company for the 
last eleven years. 
The Directors again desire to express their appre- 
ciation of the zeal and ability displayed by the Officers 
of the Company in Ceylon and London. Under the 
Articles of Association, Mr, Henry Todd vacates his 
seat on the Board, but being eligible offers for himself 
for re-election. The Auditors, Messrs. Harper 
Brothers, Chartered Accountants also retired from 
office and offer themselves for re-election. 
PRODUCE AND PLANTINO. 
Planters and State Aid. — When discussing the 
unfortunate position of West India sugar planters we 
have referred to the argument used against them in 
comparing their position with that of Ceylon planters 
some twenty years ago. When coffee failed in Ceylon 
the planters turned their attention to other products, 
and very successfully too. After the reading of a 
paper on the West Indies at the Colonial Institute 
last month, one of the speakers referred to this 
argument and endeavoured to show that there was 
no analogy between the respective positions. Colonel 
Alexander Mann, c.m.g., said on the occasion refer- 
red to ; — “ People at home say that if the West 
Indian planters cannot make sugar pay, they should 
follow the example of Ceylon and try something 
else; and that is a sentiment which, especially in 
the north of Scotland, appeals to many, because 
people from that quarter own and work a great deal 
of the land in Ceylon. It is well known, I presume, 
to nearly everyone here that when the staple product 
of that eastern island failed, its proprietors turned to 
tea. But the case is an entirely different case to 
the sugar question in the West Indies. In the case 
of Ceylon it was not the market that failed, but the 
article grown ; nature simply refused to yield her 
fruits in due season. In the case of the West Indies 
it was the market that failed, and this through 
artificial causes.” We doubt very much if those to 
whom this argument is intended to apply will re- 
gard it as a forcible one. There may be some subtle 
distinction between the failure of a crop and the 
failure of a market for that crop, but the result is 
practically the same. On the one hand the blame is 
attributed to nature ; on the other, the consumer is 
the culprit. But the unfortunate planter in both 
instances is the sufferer, and we cannot see that the 
West Indian sugar grower is in a stronger position 
to claim State aid than the Ceylon coffee planter 
would have been twenty years ago. It may be said 
in reply, “ But the coffee planter did not ask aid.” 
No, but it is easy to imagine what would have 
happened had he done so. With every sympa hy 
for the unfortunate sugar planter, we are enable to 
see why, if he receives State aid, similar assistance 
should be denied to other Colonial agricul- 
turists at some future time. Supposing China 
were to swamp the tea market under labour 
or ot'er conditions not imaginable at the 
moment, would not the position of British, British 
Colonial, or Indian tea planters be much the same 
as that of the sugar planters now? Possibly we may 
have a system of bounties on tea in Japan and 
China one day, and while we do not object to the 
aid proposed in the case of the West Indies, we 
think the Government, by granting it, will have 
established a precedent which subsequent Govern- 
ments may one day be called upon to defend. The 
difference where ‘‘ nature refuses to yield her fruits 
in due season,” to use the 1 inguage of Colonel Mann, 
and where nature’s fruits cannot be cultivated upon 
profitable lines, will have to be clearly defined. 
A Case in Point. — Take the currency question. 
Planters of all kinds of produce in India and Ceylon 
are at the present moment handicapped by the 
artificial rise in the rupee, the result of Government 
action. They can grow produce under ordinary con- 
ditions, and find a profitable market for it, but 
just now their profits are cut down and their 
prosperity Ithreatened by the action of the Gov- 
ernment which affects them, or will, if it bo 
persisted in, much as the bounty on beet sng r ad- 
versely affects the West Indian sugarcane grower. 
In the one instance foreign Governments are to 
blame and the British Government proposes to come 
to the rescue. In the other case the Indian Govern- 
ment, with the approval of the home Government,is at 
the bottom of the business. No wonder planters in In- 
dia and Ce> Ion are loud in their denunciation of the 
present financial policy in India, and they cannot bo 
blamed if they fait to see the logic of a situation which 
proposes to support a threatened colonial industry 
in one case and handicaps it severely in the other 
Japanese Tea and the Russian Market. — The St. 
Petersburg Viedomosti reports that a regu'ar com- 
munication by steamers will be established next year 
between the ports of the Black Sea and Yokohama. 
The chief aim of the promoters of this service will 
be the export of Russian petroleum to Japan, and 
in exchange for the commodity raw iron and camphor 
are to be brought back. The Japanese Ministry of 
Trade has la'ely sent one of its officials to Russia with 
a view to finding openings for Japanese goods in that 
country. The producers of tea in Japan intend to 
introduce their tea into Russia, and to that end the 
first depots for the sale of Japanese tea in Russia 
«ill shortly be opened in Moscow; Warsaw, and 
Odessa. An important company has been formed 
in Japan to carry out the project. — H. and 0. Mail 
April 15. ’ 
The Tea Industry in the Kalutara Dis- 
trict.— T his is how Mr. Brodhurst reports for 
1897:— 
I am indebted to the Chairman of the Kalutara 
Planters’ Association for some interesting statistics 
showing the progress of the tea industry. The num- 
ber of estates in the Association is now thirty-one. 
This does not however include all the estates which 
are scheduled under the Medical Aid Ordinance, and 
most of which employ immigrant Tamil labour, the 
total number being forty-four. The acreage nnder 
tea for the 31 estates mentioned is given as 12 000 
acres. The returns prepared for the Blue Book 
show a total of 17,913 acres in tea for the whole 
district, viz. : — Acres. 
The totamunes . . . . 550 
Rayigam korale . . . . 4,336 
Pasdun korale west . . 9,703 
Pdsdun korale east . . 3,324 
Total .. 17,913 
This gives an excess of 5,913 acres over the Asso- 
ciation figures. It is probable that a good deal of 
this acreage is not yet in bearing, but in forming 
an estimate of crop some additions would have to be 
made to the official figures. The number of immi- 
grant labourers employed is given as 8,500, showing 
a large increase since the census was taken in 1891, 
when the number was put down at 4,190. The ap- 
proximate amount paid to Sinhalese labourers is 
estimated at R400,000. It is the distribution of this 
large sum among the natives, more especially in the 
Pasdun korales, which chiefly accounts for the 
marked improvement in the physical condition of the 
people of those divisions. There can be little donbt 
that a considerable proportion of the grain imported 
at Beruwala goes to the Pasdun korales, and chiefly 
to the Iddagoda pattu, in which the estates are 
mostly situated. 
