Chapter XXXIV: Markets Outside Great Britain

I have forestalled a good deal on the above in the last chapter, so this will be short, but, I hope, cheering.

AUSTRALIA.

This, from the correspondent of the _Tea Gazette_ in Melbourne, as to the size of chests, should be attended to:--

If the planter wishes to get his Tea direct into consumption, the
packages must be small, to suit buyers. In the Colonies a large trade
is done in 38lb. half-chests. They are within the purchasing power of
a numerous class, and are easy to handle.

A fierce fight has been going on in Melbourne between the advocates of China and Indian Tea. The latter say China Tea is often adulterated, but this is disputed by the former. Of course _I_ cannot say which is right, but chemical analysis, to which China Teas have been subjected in Melbourne, would seem to prove that in some cases they are _not_ pure. We all know China Teas in London have, in several instances, been pronounced unfit for consumption, so it is _possible_, of course, that similar Teas are sent to Australia.

The Tea trade in China has taken alarm at our attempts on the Australian market. This is what the _North China Herald_ (an organ of the China Tea trade) said lately:--

There are no squeezing mandarins in India; there is European
supervision in the packing and firing of the leaf, and the
plantations are connected with civilisation by the railway and the
telegraph. Everything is done to give India an unfair advantage over
China. Consequently, India tea of the same quality is far cheaper in
London than the ill-regulated produce of Hankow and Foochow, and it
is only the conservatism of the consumer, _who is not yet entirely
habituated to the Indian flavour_, that prevents our losses being
much heavier than they are. Every year this preference for the leaf
that has been longer known is wearing away, and our buyers will soon
have to reckon with its disappearance. As yet, Indian Tea is hardly
taken on the continent of Europe at all; but here, too, it will
penetrate sooner or later, as it is doing into America and Australia,
and then there will be no corner of the earth where the sway of China
Tea will be undisputed. Until foreigners can supervise the packing
of the leaf in China as they do in India, the produce of the latter
country will continue to have an unfair advantage. The time no doubt
will come when we shall be able to go up and buy the raw leaf on
its native hills, pack it by our own methods, and bring it down by
railway to Shanghai for shipment; but _for years yet we labour under
the disadvantage of having to buy it just as the Chinamen choose to
prepare it, without any real knowledge of the total crop at any time,
or any immediate power to manipulate the Teas to suit the tastes of
consumers_.

Mark you, this is an enemy’s opinion. May his prognostications be accomplished to the letter!

The following is from the _Tea Gazette_ lately received:--

THE CALCUTTA TEA SYNDICATE.

We are glad to learn that this most useful body intends to continue
its operations in opening up, wherever possible, new markets,
although there will be no more soliciting supplies of Tea for
Australia--the feeling being that the trade in this direction may now
be left to take care of itself.

The Tea Syndicate has done a great good, and those able to ship to
Australia should at once arrange to take the fullest advantage of the
opening made for them. We would have wished that the Syndicate had
continued actively its operations there, but perhaps they are right
in leaving, now, the further development of the trade they have so
successfully founded to private enterprise. It will be the fault of
owners themselves if they do not take advantage of the large market
opened to them.

I conclude my notice of Australia as a market by the following, also from the _Tea Gazette_. Matters there certainly look promising for the Indian planter:--

THE NEW AUSTRALIAN TEA ASSOCIATION.

Our friends in Australia, now that they are convinced of the purity
and good quality of our Indian Teas, have determined, we are glad to
see, to follow in the wake of the Calcutta Tea Syndicate, and push
by _united_ effort Indian Teas throughout the Australian Colonies.
Knowing full well that no half-hearted measures would be likely to
succeed, and that the efforts of a few individuals would not meet
the requirements of the market, our friends in Victoria and New
South Wales have _combined_, and formed an association under the
title of the “Calcutta Tea Association,” for the sale of pure and
unadulterated Indian Teas to wholesale merchants, storekeepers, and
customers in general. Large and handsome premises have been taken in
King Street, Melbourne, and Charlotte Place, Sydney, in which the
operations of the Association are to be carried on on a large scale.

AMERICA.

The following is from the _Daily News_--a Calcutta paper:--

We were glad to note that our American cousins were being induced to
give some orders. If only Indian Tea was once taken up, and became
popular, its future would be secured. The teeming masses of people
in the States would consume more Tea we should imagine than all
the English public, provided Indian Tea took the place of China.
Australia so far has done well, but the market there would be easily
glutted, whereas, if its use became general, it would be almost
impossible to glut the American market. The millions of settlers
in America and in Canada all use Tea at their meals very much as
an Englishman takes his beer, so that the inland consumption must
be very large. In Australia, every shepherd carries his pannikin
of Tea, and the amount he swallows in twelve months must be pretty
considerable. In the backwoods of America and Canada, each woodcutter
consumes nearly half a pound of Tea weekly, so that, with its
millions of people, America could easily dispose of millions of
pounds of Tea, which would not only clear off all the surplus Tea in
the London market, but would probably cause a deficit. We wonder if
in our time this golden era will take place.

This from the TEA GAZETTE:--

TEA IN AMERICA.

A petition has been presented to the United States Congress asking
for the prohibition of the importation of adulterated Teas from
China and Japan, which are at present extensively sold. This, it is
thought, will lead to increased attention being paid to Indian Teas,
which are well known to be pure and unadulterated.

Again from same paper:--

The circular lately addressed to the local Tea planting interest by
the Committee of the Calcutta Syndicate, reporting the results of Mr.
Sibthorp’s efforts to create a market for Indian Teas in America,
opens up a vista of unprecedented prosperity in the future.

That the population of America, the bulk of which consist of the same
races among whom Indian Tea has grown in favour so rapidly in the
United Kingdom, should persist in rejecting it after a fair trial was
_à priori_ highly improbable. It was, therefore, reasonably to be
presumed that whatever difficulty might beset the opening up of this
new market would consist chiefly in the obstacles to securing such a
trial.

Mr. Sibthorp’s report not only bears out this view of the case, but
justifies a confident expectation that the obstacles in question,
so far as they have any real existence, will speedily disappear. In
Chicago, so far from having had to encounter any of those strong
trade prejudices which were met with at first in Australia, Mr.
Sibthorp found the leading importers, Messrs. J. Doane and Co., ready
to render every assistance and confident of being able to dispose
of five thousand half chests the first season, without forcing the
market. Similar success seems to have attended his efforts in New
York, and a telegram has been received from him ordering a thousand
half chests for shipment to that port.

The importance of this new market is immensely enhanced by the
circumstance that the American consumption of Tea is destined to
increase, owing to mere growth of population, at a rate not to be
looked for in any other country; at such a rate, in fact, that if
India could only secure the annual addition to the demand from this
cause, she would probably have to double her production in less than
a generation to enable her to meet it.

So far from seeing any reason why she should not secure this amount
of custom in the New World, we see none why the proportion of India
to other Teas consumed in America should not ultimately be as large
as in England, where there was once a strong prejudice against Indian
Tea.

What possible foreign markets have we besides Australia and America? Russia and many European countries are on the cards, and if the Calcutta Syndicate will continue its work great results may ensue. Those who know the Continent often say, and it is true, that no good Tea can be had in France, Germany, or Italy (it is _not_ so in Russia), and retail dealers have offered again and again (made the offers to me) to take large quantities of the Indian Tea of which I have shown them samples. As this is so, why not supply them? But it cannot be done well to any extent by individual planters. The Calcutta Syndicate could easily do it, and I quite believe they would find the work in Europe easier than in America.

The Amsterdam Exhibition, so soon to take place, affords a great opening, and from all I hear it will be taken advantage of. Inhabitants from all countries will be there, and the fame of our Teas should thus spread throughout Europe. The _Tea Gazette_ says:--

THE AMSTERDAM EXHIBITION.

It is intended to have Indian Tea well represented at the forthcoming
Exhibition at Amsterdam; and we trust that the most will be made of
the opportunity. There is no reason why we should not succeed in
Holland as well as we have succeeded in _America_ and _Australia_.
The rapid strides going on in production must be met by exceptionally
active exertions to open out new markets, and to see that those
recently opened out are not allowed to drop for want of fostering.

The effect of this opportunity will be by no means limited to
Holland, as in all probability thousands will flock to the Exhibition
from adjacent countries, and many from all parts of the world.

We hope that every advantage will be taken of future International
Exhibitions in any part of the world by an adequate quasi-permanent
organization in Calcutta, and we sincerely trust that the existing
Calcutta Tea Syndicate will not cease its most useful operations
until all the world bows to the great god Indian Tea. The operations
in countries other than Great Britain during the last few years show
what important developments in the Tea trade of this country are
now taking place, and every exertion is necessary to maintain these
successful results--for which the industry is so much indebted to the
Syndicate.

THIBET.

This is a large, mountainous, and table land country on the northern side of the Himalayas. It is at a very high elevation, intensely cold, and very thinly populated. The Thibetans drink much Tea per head, but they use Brick Tea; this is made of the coarsest leaves compressed with some glutinous substance.

There is no difficulty in its manufacture. At present it is supplied by China, which is close by, but not nearer than India. Many think much of our coarse Tea (particularly from the Himalayan gardens) might find a market in Thibet, and I incline to the belief they are right. The quantity would not be very large, “but every little helps.”

Formerly much Tea was sold to the native tribes over the northern border by the gardens in Kumaon, Gurwal, and Kangra. Why I know not, but I hear the trade has fallen off to some extent; the Teas are taken to the Central Asian markets.

I have done with foreign markets, but there is yet another and a very large one regarding which nothing has yet been done: I allude to the market among the natives of India, in other words

THE LOCAL MARKET.

The following is from the _Calcutta Englishman_ on the subject:--

The letter of our correspondent “A. E. T.” calls attention for the
hundredth time to the failure of the planting interest to make the
most of the local demand for Indian Teas. It is only necessary to
compare the prices realised at the public auctions with those at
which even the most liberal of our retail firms offer to supply
their customers with such Teas to see that but a very small fraction
of the difference between the prime cost of the Tea and what the
consumer has to pay for it goes into the pocket of the planter. It is
probably no exaggeration to say that while the consumer pays, on the
average, from twelve annas to a rupee per pound more than the actual
cost of the Tea laid down in Calcutta, the planter may think himself
fortunate if he can appropriate from half an anna to an anna of this
sum. By whatever course of argument the fact may be justified, it is
certainly not justifiable by the equity of the case as it appears
to ordinary minds. For it is the planter who has borne the heat and
burden of the day, and the proportion which the capital invested by
him bears to the ultimate return is immensely greater in his case
than in that of the retail dealer.

On whom does the blame for the continuance of this state of things,
if blame there be in the matter, rest? Hardly on the public. They
would only be too glad to allow the Tea planter, say, four times
his present profit instead of allowing twelve times that profit to
a middleman or a series of middlemen. The public, however, can give
their custom only to those who bid for it, and who consult their
convenience in the arrangements they make to secure it.

It is evidently the planter, and the planter alone, who can move in
the matter. But whether out of regard for the interests of the retail
dealer, or from a belief that the game is not worth the candle, he
does not move. If there were a retail Tea trade worthy of the name,
in the proper sense of the term, in Calcutta, it would probably not
be to the interest of planters to enter into competition with it.
But though we have many retail establishments who deal in Tea, its
sale is, in the great majority of cases, only one item of a very
multifarious business, the profit on which, as a whole, is probably
not excessive under all the circumstances of the case.

As to the game not being worth the candle, that is possibly the case
if only the present demand is considered. But we are persuaded that
it is otherwise if regard is had to the expansion of which that
demand is capable.

If Indian Tea were procurable in the bazaars in parcels of moderate
size at a reasonable advance on auction prices, we believe that
a large native demand for it would rapidly grow up. As it is, an
extensive business goes on in China Tea of the most wretched quality,
some of it sold in packets of a few ounces, and some of it loose in
still smaller quantities. Even in Calcutta this Tea is sold at prices
which would pay the Indian Tea planter a handsome profit, while in
the interior it is sold at rates which would have been high fifty
years ago.

Surely a Syndicate which extends its efforts for the popularisation
of Indian Tea to such distant and widely separated markets as
Australia and America might profitably make some systematic effort to
promote its use among the vast population at its doors.

The time may be far distant when the great bulk of this population
will adopt Tea as an ordinary beverage; but the way in which the
habit of using it has spread during the last ten or fifteen years,
among all classes of the vast population of Calcutta, affords an
indication of possibilities very well worth testing.

When last in India I wrote on this subject largely, but all to no avail. The following was one of my letters which appeared in the _Tea Gazette_:--

THE MARKET AT OUR DOORS.--CONSUMPTION OF CHINA TEA IN INDIA.

The _Statesman_, in a recent article, observes as follows, while
discussing the maritime trade of British India:--

“Perhaps the most anomalous import we have is Tea. It is hardly
conceivable that while Indian Tea continues to advance in public
estimation at home, we should not only use China Tea in India, but
that in increasing quantities.”[93]

In 1876-77 the imports of China Teas were a little _under_ two
millions, but in 1880-81 as much _over_ three millions! The
_Statesman_ states, and truly, that the reason of this is simply
“that Indian Tea is sold in too large packets to be easily obtainable
by the general public, for it seems, as regards Indian Tea, the
smallest quantity that can be bought is one pound, whereas an ounce
of China Tea can be purchased.”

Further on, the _Statesman_ kindly alludes to my advocacy in the _Tea
Gazette_ of a company to sell Tea in small packages to the natives,
stating also that such a trade is “capable of almost unlimited
expansion at a fair profit,” which is exactly what I have, for some
time, been trying to hammer into the heads of those interested in the
Tea industry of India.

Now, Sir, is it not absurd that while the _bête noir_ of our industry
is “supply in excess of demand,” and while, with this dread, we
are trying (it seems with success) to open up new markets at the
Antipodes and in America, we are neglecting a market at our very
doors, the limits of which, I hold, no man can foresee, for is it not
a market where the possible buyers number 200 millions?

Is it not also more than absurd, nay a very shame to those interested
in our industry, that while we have a better article than China Tea,
we allow, by our supineness and lack of enterprise, more than three
million pounds of an inferior article to be sold in the birth place
of the better? And why? simply because we _will_ not supply it in the
form the teeming crowd of natives willing, nay anxious, to buy can
avail themselves of it!

Since I advocated in your paper the formation of a company to sell
Tea to natives in small packets, and showed, I thought conclusively:
1--That the capital required was not large (say one and a-half
lakhs). 2--That the shareholders might expect very fair dividends.
3--That there was no assignable limit to the trade which might be
developed. 4--That if such a company was started and worked well, all
fear for the future of Indian Tea would be at an end. 5--That every
Tea owner, who became a shareholder, would advance his own interests
by many times more than the dividends he would receive--since then I
have obtained from England estimates of all the machinery required to
bulk and pack the Teas, advice from the best firms as to _the mode_
so successful in England, and I am more than ever convinced that the
company would be a money-making one, and that, in two words, we shall
sadly neglect our own interests if we do not accomplish it.

Again, since my former articles I have spoken to dozens of Tea
planters and Tea owners on the subject, and all of them think highly
of the scheme, while many only wait for the company to be launched
to take shares. I could name more than one influential native also
who is willing to join, and this is a good sign, for, in my opinion,
a moiety of the directors should be natives. I will myself become a
large shareholder, though I cannot offer my services on the board,
for it must be in Calcutta, and I do not reside there.

I am convinced, if the company is launched, the shares will be taken
up in a week.

But if no one in Calcutta is public-spirited enough to launch such
a company, why should not an association of a few individuals try
to carry out the scheme. I quite believe Tea proprietors would help
them, at starting, by supplying, on reasonable credit, the coarse
Teas suitable. Were this done, the thin edge of the wedge would
be driven in, and, if the association succeeded, they might later
transfer the business at a fair profit to a company.

I had written so far when I saw your remarks on the same subject in
your last issue. I cannot agree with you in thinking an association
would be _better_ than a company, but I say, failing the last let us
have the first--in fact, let us make a beginning.

I give here below, to save the trouble of reference, the last part of
my former article:--

“I will now, in conclusion, shortly estimate for how much two and
four ounce packets could be sold to the consumer.

“Supposing suitable Teas could be bought at six annas per lb. (and
all Tea planters know that a very large supply of broken Teas with
some red leaf would be available at that price), one ounce would
equal 4-1/2 pie or 9 pie for 2 ounces. We may then calculate thus for
each 2 ounce packet:

R. A. P.
Tea 0 0 9
Tin foil, company’s mark, labour of making up packet,
wear and tear, bulking machinery 0 0 3
Profit to company 0 0 3
-------
Price at which company could sell 2 ounce packets 0 1 3
Profit to dealer or middleman 0 0 3
Profit to retailer 0 0 3
-------
Cost to consumer for 2 ounce packet 0 1 9

“As making up a 4 ounce packet would be cheaper in proportion, and
the profit to company, middleman, and retailer need not be double the
2 ounce rate, we may fairly say that 4 ounce packets could be sold at
3 annas.

“I have sent to England for an estimate of the necessary machinery,
so that if my project meets with favour, there will later be no delay
on that score.”

Surely the above figures, and I believe they are sound, have _the
look_ of success about them.

I hear it has been suggested that paper packets would deteriorate by
keeping, but protected by a good wrapper of tin-foil inside, I feel
sure this would not be the case.

EDWARD MONEY.

Nothing has been done to this day; and thus, to our shame be it said, we are allowing a market capable of indefinite expansion to remain dormant.

FOOTNOTE:

[93] With few exceptions it is bought by the Natives alone and for the reason given above.--E. M.