26 DECEMBER 1846, Page 11

THE TEA QUESTION.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE SPECTATOR.

Mincing Lane, 24th December 1846. ant—I have again to seek the favour of apace in your columns for a rejoinder to the strictures of " Economist " corny former letter ; rusd will take his paragraphs seriatim. As lie is not without hope, that as regards the expediency of a remis- sion of duty on tea, our opinions may ultimately coincide, I shall rejoice in such consummation; considering it no discredit even should I have to succumb to so disyseqionate and able a reasoner. We do agree entirely in the principle that the proportionste value of an article is regulated the rather by home demand than by first cost; but I have yet to learn how that assumption makes his objection to a reduction of duty valid. The gist of all his argument appears to rest on the Supposition that a largely increased demand from hence would chiefly benefit the grower and producer on the other side, by greatly enhancing the prices in their I

favour; because time, and labour, and outlay, to us incalculable, would berequind to satisfy that demand; if, indeed, the supply of so largely. inareasect quantity could be met at all without turning other important cultivations out of their present and natural localities —a questionable policy indeed in a densely-Populated country. To this I here endeavour to oppose such firctatait‘etMd with our past experience as shall, in an unqualified manner, so far sliow he probability of all such fears being perfectly groundless, that the onus probandi must rest with him as the objector' and not with those who think with me, and who in common with myself have had intimate experience of the consequences of those facts. Under the chartered monopoly of the East India Company, they catered to the tastes of our population as to the quantity of this " agreeable superfluity" they would consume; taking care, however, by their upset prices, to establish so artificial a value for this the only article of .commerce that ever paid them a profit as to add materially to their dividends: towards the expiration of their last charter these patting-up or taxed prices were considerably reduced; but to what extent mover the consumption increased, they always left behind them on the hands of their suppliers a quantity of tea equivalent to one-third of their year's import; and this was known by them and by us as " winter tea," being bought by the Company's agents at the opening of the next season comparatively at their own prices. And we have the same experiences still; for even when our merchants, more sanguine than usual, increased their demand in one year from below forty to upwards of fifty millions, the same was readily supplied, and a con- siderable surplus left on the Canton markets as usual : indeed, never has the de- mand, when most speculative, ever been checked by an insufficiency of supply immediately at hand within the history of the tea-trade, whether we look only within the memory of those at present embarked in it, or for the whole of the past century. It is surely, then, not unfair ground for more than inference, that no greater difficulty will arise, however largely we are enabled to increase our demands, since all our experience is backed by the astounding yet ascertained fact, that the gatheredand consumed quantity by the native populations exceeds in hundreds of millions what we either have hitherto or are likely for many years to arrive at. My next fact shall refer to quality. Year after year did the East India Company in every despatch nrge on their supercargoes to obtain supplies of finer Souchong tea, often complaining of the nonfulfilment of their repeated desires on this behalf. The " Co Hong " then existed, and their will was the ultimatum; and no one of the Company's agents could ever successfully cope with them lied] Mr. Reeves, himself a criti- cal judge of the article proved that " knowledge was power ": but what was difficult to them, became comparatively easy to the first free-traders, who were individually interested in the proceeds of the article taken by them from the same monopolizing Hongs; and Souchong tea of quality excelling any ever brought by the "merchant kings" found its way here so early as 1886; and so readily do the intelligent and indefatigable selectors engaged for our merchants obtain (now that they are in direct communication with the tea-men) just what they prescribe as to quality, that not only have very large parcels of Congou tea been shipped year by year of a higher class than hitherto known to us, but at their dictum the whole "fabric," if I may so express it, of the great mass of useful blacks has been so improved, that any dealer who had left the trade for fifteen years would be ready to pronounce the major part as the productions of altogether new districts. But not so: most or nearly all the ten-plants yielding the native supply are so far cultivated and matured that the laying out of fresh tracts of country would not be required; attention to age of shrubs, and season for the preparation of all the various acceptable exportable kinds, would afford at once the nucleus for all we could want; so that mere modification and adaptation, and not a new culture, are all that would be required of the Chinese to meet an exigency they are already hoping for and expecting. (Here let me add, that I never drew or intended the Inference that the quantity of tea of a superior quality bears but a small proportion to the inferior as consumed by the Chinese population, the rude- ness or simplicity of preparation not destroying inherent excellence.) Sir, free trade with China has accomplished much, fettered as it has been, and erring SS we did in the outset: our culpable encouragement of smuggling a prohibited commodity provoked the authorities to stop our trade; we resisted vi et arida, and forced negotiations upon them, " making the word of promise to the ear but breaking it to the hope"; we abstracted their Sycee in the shape of indemnity; whilst we obtained a branch of commerce professedly based on reciprocity of ad- vantage, but being really a mudded &frier; we got them to remit restrictive imposts, but did not meet them by the like concession; in fine, we seem to have paralleled de facto the Prince of Orange's infelicitous expression, when, on his first landing here he was welcomed by the authorities, who received him as coming for their good " Yees, gentleman," he replied, "I shall soon convince you that I sin come for all your goots !" China has deep reason to complain of the treatment received from Great Britain. It is not because I am interested for and highly estimate the tea-trade, that alone or chiefly I advocate the remission of the full moiety of the duty we now impose on her chief product, but because I desire to see international profitable exchange augmented to the fullest extent: and if this desideratum is to be forwarded, we must give as well as take; we must reciprocate, we must be just: "with what measure we mete it will be measured to us again."

I cannot but think that your correspondent's quoted authorities now weaken Ins position. Especially when Mr. Senior says that we bring from China in ex- change for commodities the labour of 40,000, a quantity of tea which it would

require the labour of 1,200,000 to produce at home "Economist" admit that we could produce it at all at home, and even allow it to be reduced to cal- culation as to the requisite power, and yet dispute my certainly far more natu- ral assumption, that China could yield us the surplus demand with no more than ordinary efort? Again Mr. Senior says, that were the ports of China her- metically sealed to IL113, the 40,000 who now produce goods for tea would produce goods to be exchanged for coffee: indeed, do the coffee-drinkers, at two meals per diem, number by one hundredth part those who habitually consume tea in that ratio? or could they do it? Coffee, as drunk in decoction, contains caffeine (the active principle) almost in a tenfold degree to the quantity of theme ex- hibited in our infusions of tea; and few English constitutions, with English modes of living, could stand the indulgence, even if we could cultivate the taste. French chemists have lately sought to prove that there is nutriment in tea: and so there is but that property is never extracted by even successive infusions; maceration alone would do that: it exists in the form of gluten, is contained in the fibres of the leaf, and is of such tenacity that, on carefully tearing an infused leaf; it may be seen like a spider's thread, still connecting the severed parts: hut, as I said before this is never extracted; and no leaf or vegetable product has ever yet been discovered that adds so little property to water, or that is indeed so free from all pharmaceutical tendency; it forms, therefore, the innocent exhilarating diluent now necessary to English comfort.

In reference to the extract from Colonel Torrens, I would merely remark, that however widely we may cultivate the Chinese connexion, it need in no way in- terfere with or curtail any other commercial relation: the extension of all ennui- taneotudy is perfectly compatible. Lastly, in adverting to the quotation from Mr. J. S. Mill, let me say that we

have no right to expect results from arrangements the offspring of a graving and selfish policy, which would be the natural effect of even-banded and fairly- adjusted commercial intercourse: we have a great moral and social duty to perform to the most numerous, yet in many points the most helpless, of the nations of the earth.

I am, Sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, W. J. Basaen.