March i, 1892.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
617 
JAVA TEA BEING PREPAUKD AND 
PASSED OFF AS CHINA IN BATAVIA. 
Visitors to Java even more than in the case of 
Penang and Singapore must be alruak by the pro- 
ponderanee of tlie Ohiueae element in the population 
of Batavia. To meet the tastes of tins population, 
“an ingenious device " ha.s been adopted by some 
Java Chinamen, for a brief description of which we 
are inde ited to a correspondent, who writes : — 
In the last number of the “Toysnuinia” which you 
were kind enough to send me there appears an inter- 
esting article headed “ Theo-vervalsciimg op grootc 
achaal te Cheribon ’’ (Tea adulteration on a largo 
scale at Cheribon). It is not what would ho generally 
called '■ adulteration " in tho ordinary sense of the 
terra, hut tho preparation of inferior kinds ot Java tea, 
by scenting it with flowers and putting it up in 
packages with labels in the Chinese characters setting 
forth that it is made in China. It is sold to the largo 
Chinese population in .lava and to tlie Javanese as 
China tea, of superior quality. As there is an import 
duty of U)e. (of a guilder) on China tea, this acts as 
a protecting duty to tlioso engaged in tho trade. The 
writer of the article gives a full account of the mode ot 
preparation. If you think tliat a translation of tho 
article would bo suitahlo to tlie T. H. or any of your 
publications, I shall be glad to translate it, and to send 
you tlie translation. As this business must cause a 
certain loss of revenue it is prohalilo tliat the public 
prosecutor will come down on the industrious, iugeuious 
and unscrupulous Chinaman. 
We shall be glad to have the trcnslatiou, 
* 
the CEVEO.V TEA I’LANT.VTIONS 
COMFANV AND I’EIUK. 
We Bould not say with truth that we regret the 
deoision come to at the meeting of the above- 
named Company to abandon the idea ot under- 
taking ooflee planting in Perak. It is not that 
We should not wish well to any enterprise of tho 
kind if it were uedertakon by a Company that 
Was wholly independent ol planting or other pur- 
suits in Ceylon ; for it is unfortunately now the 
Ottse that we have no auoh prospect belore us ol 
the resusoitation ol eoUoe planting in this island 
that we need feel any jealousy of efforts being 
made to grow our former staple in any other 
country. But we have in former timee given our 
reasons for deprecating the association of the name of 
Ceylon with enterprises oonduoted without its) lioun- 
daries. Most of our readers will recolleot that when 
the affairs of the Ceylon Company first became in- 
volved that Company was lor years buoyed up by 
fhe large proliis it was making out of its in- 
vestments in this colony. All the time these pro- 
fits wero being made here, things were going 
from bad to worse in Mauritius, where the Com- 
pany had had to take over a number ol sugar 
estates on which the then Oriental Bank had 
blade largo and dangerous advances. Year 
after year these estates wero worked at a dead 
loss, but the actual position ol tho Company’s 
Affairs was coueealed by the announcement it 
ivas still able to make of substantial dividends, 
fha entire, and more than tho entire, of which 
had been earned in connexion with Ceylon. When 
fhe final crash came consequent upon the ili- 
Advisod stoppage ol the Oriental Bank — a stoppage 
ivhioh we all now know to have been uoneoeesary 
And timorous — it was natural for tho homo publio, 
Unacquainted ae it was with the full and peoulmr 
A'roumatanoos ol the case, to lay tho vvl.ole onus 
®f the failure at the door of unfortunate Ceylon. 
is needless to siy how seriously this mis- 
Aonoeption afloated the credit of this colony 
At a time when the maintenanoo of (bat oredit 
was of the most partioular importance to us ; and 
bad the directors of the Ceylon Plantations 
Company obtained the warrant of their shareholders 
to graft upon their parent stem an enterprise in a 
comparatively untried region for coffee planting 
auoh as ia Perak, we should have been in oonstant 
dread lest a reetirrenoe of similarly damaged oredit 
might have to be facen. It is lor this reason that, as 
wo have said, we can feel no regret that the share- 
holders of the Ceylon Plantations Company have 
vetoed the proposal submitted to them by their 
Board of Direction, We suBpeot that most of 
thoBB shareholders either have, or have had, some 
connection with Ceylon, and in that ease we have 
little doubt that they retain in their minds a 
painful rooollection of the result to what we may 
term a foreign assooiation with the name of this 
i.sland which we have above quoted, and it is 
ccriain that their decision to refuse compliance with 
their diieotors’ recommendation would have been 
largely influenced by such a reoolleotion. Nor, 
when wo come to consider other points in the 
matter submitted to the meeting, can we feel 
surprised at the disfavour with which it was 
viewed. The generally expressed opinion seems to 
have been that the suggested enterprise was of a 
spooulative charaoter. It was all very well for the 
Chairman to deny this ; but all unprejudiced men 
will, we think, agree that the oommenoement of 
a new, or nearly new, industry in a comparatively 
untried country must necessarily partake ol a 
speeulative character. Into suoh an undertaking 
it was only natural that a body of share- 
holders secured by present investment in a 
known and well-tried industry should object, for 
this alone, it for no other reason, to see the ohataoter 
of their existing undertaking altogether ohanged. 
The Direotors, when S'-nding out the circular in 
which their proposals as to Perak were first mooted, 
mentioned as one of the chief inducements that they 
could hold out that, being already tho employers 
ol some six thousand coolies in Ceylon, they would 
be in a position superior to the diffioulties at 
present attendant on the labour supply of Perak. 
But it must be assumed that, if the Company 
possesses this amount of labour, the whole of it is 
needed for the cultivation of its Ceylon estates. In 
that case it could not afford to transfer any 
portion of it to Perak, nor could the coolies be 
sent to that country without fresh and special 
agreements being entered into with them, and it 
would be at least questionable if any large propor- 
tion ol them woulil oare to have their services trans- 
ferred to a new and, to them, an unknown country 
But quite apart from all reasons which may bava 
ao’uated the shareholders towards their refusal of 
their Directors’ propositions, there stands out pro- 
minently tho one tact that, by that refusal, this 
Colony IS saved from the chances ol once 
again being made the stalking horse for a 
speeulative and possibly losing inveetmenl. 
^ 
Et'FEOT OP TtlR OoLtaPSE OP THE PoOCHOW TeA 
Traoe. — The Foochow Kcho of 2nd Jan. says: — 
Accounts reach ua from Kiengniiig-foo of most dar- 
ing robberies. Bands of thirty or forty ruffians enter 
the houses of wealthy people, blindfold and gag the 
unhappy inmates, and then help themselves, and 
make oil with all tliat is best worth having ol the 
valuable contents. 'Phis is described to us as one 
of tho results of the decline of tile tea trade. Many 
hundreds of men (our informant said thousands) 
hitliorto earning an honest living from it. are now 
driven froni sheer hunger to become burglars and 
liighway robbers. ® 
