Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/308

300 to the despotic genius of the Government landed property is much divided throughout the Empire : and so it is that tea is grown in gardens, or patches or plantations of no great extent." Until such time as large areas of tea land can be leased or owned, cultivated and carefully managed as they are in India. Ceylon, and Java to-day, there can be nothing similar to an Indian plantation or a Ceylon estate in China, where the land is owned by the foreigner, the plants tended and cultvated by the foreigner, the leaves picked day by day, and day by day manufactured by machinery on the spot.

More might be done immediately for the improvement of China tea had shippers such a vested interest in the article which has given them some control over it ab initio. In India and Ceylon everything belongs to the planter, land, produce, machinery, besides control over the manufacture. It is in his power to make such a quality of tea as he may have a special market for. In his hands lie the power to increase or reduce the out- put and to regulate shipments, and a com- bination has been actually entered into by the Indian and Ceylon growers to adopt a common policy to regulate the quantity made, shipped and sold on the London market ■• Growers are no longer independent units. but an organised l>ody acting in concert with a definite aim." In China it is a case of each shipper for himself. It is only those who have witnessed the opening of the Hankow tea market in the month of May who can form any idea of the conduct of the business. They will have seen the extraordinary and irregular prices paid, and the speed with which the article is shipped off to markets too often quite unable to deal with more than a moderate quantity, a speed which may be gauged by the fact that some 600.000 half chests out of a possible total supply of 800.000 half chests of Congou are afloat within the very limited time of six weeks. And in due time from across the seas comes the effort to sell, with the result that such fluctuations in prices occur as are unknown and impossible in any other article of produce in the known world. It is this absolute inability to control prices in any degree which has driven the genuine old exporter from the field, and is one of the causes of the decline of the China tea trade. To such fluctuations the British-grown article is never subject l>ecause shipments are regulated, and the quantity offered for sale at one time on the home market, although large, never excessive. The cost of production in India and Ceylon varies but little. A good season may bring out a larger supply of leaf than usual, and so lessen the cost of the article. In China neither quality nor quantity materi- ally affect prices which alone are determined by the caprice of buyers, for the tea-man once having brought his produce to market must perforce sell it or ship it. And he is much too wise to do the latter. Very inter- esting is a comparison of the average prices realised for a season's yield of British-grown tea. and the average prices paid for China tea. In 1904 the average obtained, according to the Daily Telegraph, for all the Indian and Ceylon tea sold in London was 7jd. per lb. for the former and 7d. for the latter. In 1905 the prices were respectively 7jd. and 7}d. In 1906, 8}d. and 8d. According to the Customs returns the average value of black tea from all China was for the following decades : — to 187 1 $247.1 per picul. to 1881 $1999 to 1891 $1664 to 1901 $2025 „ It would be very diflicult with any accuracy to determine the average laying-down cost of tea in any of these decennial periixls because of the fluctuations in exchange ; but the prices paid to the native tea-men were on a marked decline for the thirty years from 1862 to ii;oi. a decline that no British planter could understand and a depreciation unknown to British-grown produce. And anomalous as it may appear, despite the very low aver- age price at which China tea has been laid down in London this year, the article, save for a moderate quantity of finest quality tea, is practically unsaleable. Is It possible to recover, at least, a part of the lost trade with Eng- land P And If so, how? This is a question to which the answers are as numerous as they are varied, strongly con- firming the lafinism of long centuries ago, qiiof homines, tot scntcntiiv, that the number of opinions was limited only by the number of men capable or otherwise of forming them. There are those who look upon the future of the tea trade with England as hopeless. There are again those who think the present limited trade will drag on for years under much the same conditions as now exist. The Indian view of the prospects of China tea are thus summarily dismissed in an article on the Indian tea companies, in the Daily Telegraph of August 17, igo8 : — " China's export may be expected to decline if India's advance." Everything points to an Indian advance, though "as regards Ceylon the opinion pre- vails that its output will not increase." But let India t;ike heed lest she has but " scotched the snake, not killed it." for China is a land of surprises. And there are a few, very few, who think that a part of the lost trade may be recovered. Amongst these last I am con- tent to take a humble place and believing in the adage that " she may have been asleep but is not dead yet," I think that China, imbued with the spirit that is now making for a new China, will rise to the grand occasion, and through her all-powerful ofli- cials not only make the effort to resuscitate her tea trade, but even to extend it materi- ally. And for whatever they may be worth I submit the following suggestions as possible aids towards the extrication of the trade from the slough of despond in which it is at present so hopelessly floundering : —

'1st. — The effort must be made to cheapen the cost of the article. '

(a) This end might in a measure be attained could some combination, such as that which regulates output and shipments in India, be entered into not to pay such inordinate prices for that great bulk of tea which fills up the space between choicest and commonest descriptions.

(b) In India there is no tax on the pro- duction or export of tea ; in China there is a specific export duty of $125 per picul, based on an average value of Tis. 25, and a series of taxes on the article from the place of production to the port of shipment, levied by the local oflicials and generally known as likin, which amounts on the average to rather more than the export duty, "with something added for irregular levy and delay and loss of interest." *

Obviously no industry thus burdened can compete with a rival free of all burden. And strange to say, with the knowledge that these internal taxes are illegal and abolished by Chinese Empire." Treaty, which in their place imposes a transit duty of one half of the export duty, namely. $0'625 per picul. the natives are content to be mulcted rather than incur the displeasure of the local officials, and the consequent penalties and lets and hindrances to the prosecution of their legitimate trade. Nothing could be clearer on this head than the words of the supplementary Commercial Treaty with China, which was ratified at Peking on July 28, 1903 : —
 * Morse. "The Trade and Administration of the

Preamble. — " The Chinese Government recognizing that the system of levying likin and other dues on goods at the place of production &c. &c. &c. undertake to discard completely this means of raising revenue." Art. VIII. — "The total amount of taxation leviable on native produce for export abroad shall, under no circumstances, exceed 7J per cent. ad valorem."

It is possible that natives will sooner or later resent the fact that their produce is being illegally taxed, while it is not only to the interest but it is actually the duty of all those engaged in the tea trade, whether foreigner or native, to obtain their Treaty rights. That a little perseverance will go a long way towards attaining this end is proved by the fact that the present writer, in the month of June this year (1908), actually succeeded in bringing tea down from the country free of all burdens except the legitimate tax imposed by Treaty, viz.. one half of the export duty per picul.

What has been attempted by an individual single handed, who takes this opportunity of thanking the Consuls-General of Shanghai and Hankow and the Consul at Kiukiang for their whole hearted and inspiriting support of his action, might be carried into general and permanent effect by the combination and co-operation of all those engaged in the trade to insist upon their Treaty rights. Had the Chinese Government properly fulfilled its Treaty obligations there would have been saved last season to the export trade in leaf tea and dust no less a sum than Haikwan Tls. 621.981 (as per Customs returns), or roughly ;£f90,ooo sterling, while exporters of brick and tablet teas would have enjoyed an abatement on 82,000,000 lbs. of the article so manufactured. Surely this is a betterment which shippers as a body should at once make an effort to obtain.

'2nd.— Greater strength must characterlse China tea. ' At first sight it does not appear very obvious how strength can be imparted to the leaf, but when it is suggested that this end may in a degree be attained by returning to the leaf before its final firing some of that precious sap wherein lies the strength now largely lost through the existing native methods of manipulation, the experi- ment should certainly be worth the trial. Inventive native genius should surely be able to manufacture a rolling machine to be worked by hand which would answer all the purposes which the Indian machine is supposed to meet, or in any case to devise some means whereby the loss of strength of the tea may be minimised. For great and natural original strength is in the leaf undoubtedly. Again, greater strength and increased productiveness might be ensured were those tactics followed which have been so successful in India and Ceylon, viz., replacing worn-out sections of the patches or gardens by newly planted areas on more fertile soil, and by more scientific manuring.