Читать книгу The Cultivation and Manufacture of Tea - Edward Money - Страница 5

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	Upset price per acre.
Districts of the Assam Division	Rs. 8
Districts of Cachar and Sylhet	8
Districts of the Chittagong Division	6
Districts of the Chota Nagpore Division	5
The Soonderbuns	5
All other Districts	10

It is not likely that Government will sell much land at such exorbitant rates.[1]

Security of title, it is generally thought, is one of the advantages of buying land from the State; but I grieve to state my experience is that the reverse is the case, and will so remain until the following is done:—

First. The Government should learn what is and what is not theirs to sell. Such an absurdity, then, as Government ascertaining, years after the auction, that they had sold lands they had no right to sell, could not be.

Secondly. That before land is sold it be properly surveyed and demarcated; and what might so easily have been done, and which alone would have compensated for much of bad procedure in other respects, that the simple and obvious plan before the sale, of sending a European official to show the neighbouring villagers and intending purchasers the boundaries of the land to be sold, be resorted to.

This last simple expedient would have saved some grantees years of litigation, and many a hard thought of the said grantees against the Government. It would naturally occur to any one at all conversant with the subject; but, alas! in India this is often not the condition under which laws are made.

But there is another difficulty at the back of all this.

Though the Waste Land Rules enact that the Government, and not the grantee, shall be the defendant in any claim for land within a lot sold, practically the said enactment in no way saves grantees from litigation. Claimants for land always plead that it is not within the boundaries of the land sold, and ergo the grantee is made the defendant to prove that it is. The villagers never having been shown the boundaries by any Government official (for it is not enacted in the Waste Land Rules), the question whether the land claimed is within or without the boundaries is an open one, not always easily decided, and the suit runs its course.

I even know of cases where, though survey has been charged for at the exorbitant rate of four annas an acre, the outer boundaries of the lot have never been surveyed at all, but merely copied from old Collectorate maps, which showed the boundaries between the zemindaree and waste lands.[2] Is it strange, then, if buying lands from Government is often buying litigation, worry, loss of time and money.

In many countries, for example Prussia (there I know it is so, for I have tested it again and again), there are official records which can and do show to whom any land in question belongs. This may scarcely be practicable in India, but surely the question of title being, as it is, in a far worse state in India than in most countries, any change would be for the better. Anyhow, the present mode the Government adopts in selling lands is a grievous wrong to the purchasers. Words cannot describe the worry and loss some have suffered thereby, and it might all be so easily avoided.

I have above detailed two of the drawbacks Tea had to contend with in its infancy; the absurdly high price paid for land was the third.

Again, companies and proprietors of gardens wishing to have large areas under cultivation gave their managers simple orders to extend, not judiciously, but in any case. What was the result? Gardens might be seen in those days with 200 acres of so-called cultivation, but with 60 or even 70 per cent. vacancies, in which the greater part of the labour available was employed in clearing jungle for 100 acres further extension in the following spring. I have seen no garden in Assam or Cachar with less than 20 per cent. vacancies, many with far more; and yet most of them were extending. I do not believe now any garden in all India exists with less than 12 per cent. vacancies, but a plantation as full as this did not exist formerly.

As the expenditure on a garden is in direct proportion to the area cultivated, and the yield of Tea likewise in direct proportion to the number of plants, it follows the course adopted was the one exactly calculated to entail the greatest expenditure for the smallest yield. This unnecessary, this wilful extension, was the fourth and a very serious drawback.

Under this head the fourth drawback may also be included—the fact that the weeds in all plantations were ahead of the labour; that is to say, that gardens were not kept clean. This is more or less even the case to-day; it was the invariable rule then. The consequence was two-fold—first, a small yield of Tea; secondly, an increased expenditure; for it is a fact that the land fifty men can keep always clean, if the weeds are never allowed to grow to maturity and seed, will take nearer one hundred if the weeds once get ahead. The results, too, differ widely: in the first case the soil is always clear; in the second clear only at intervals. The first, as observed, can be accomplished with fifty, the latter will take nearly double the men.

The fifth drawback I shall advert to again later, viz., the selection of sloping land, often the steepest that could be found, on which to plant Tea. The great mischief thus entailed will be fully described elsewhere. It was the fifth, and not the least, antagonistic point to success.

Number six was the difficulty in the transport of seed to any new locality, for nine times out of ten a large proportion failed; and again the enormous cost of Tea seed in those days, Rs. 200 a maund (Rs. 500 at least, deducting what failed, was its real price). This item of seed alone entailed an enormous outlay, and was the sixth difficulty Tea cultivation had to contend with. It was, however, a source of great profit to the old plantations, and principally accounts for the large dividends paid for years by the Assam Company.

Again, many managers at that time had no experience to guide them in the manufacture of Tea; each made it his own way, and often turned out most worthless stuff. There is great ignorance on the subject at the present time, but those who know least to-day, know more than the best informed in the Tea-fever period. Indian Tea was a new thing then; the supply was small, and it fetched comparatively much higher prices than it does now. Still much of it was so bad that the average price all round was low.

Tea manufacture, moreover, as generally practised then, was a much more elaborate and expensive process than it is now.

This will be explained further on, under the head of “Tea Manufacture;” I merely now state the fact in support of the assertion that the bad Tea made in those days, and the expensive way it was done, was the seventh hindrance to successful Tea cultivation.

Often in those days was a small garden made of 30 or 40 acres, and sold to a Company as 150 or 200 acres! I am not joking. It was done over and over again. The price paid, moreover, was quite out of proportion to even the supposed area. Two or three lakhs of rupees (20,000l. or 30,000l.) have been often paid for such gardens, when not more than two years old, and 40 per cent. of the existing area, vacancies. The original cultivators “retired” and the Company carried on. With such drags upon them (apart from all the other drawbacks enumerated) could success be even hoped for? Certainly not.

I could tell of more difficulties the cultivation had to contend with at the outset, but I have said enough to show, as I remarked, “that it was not strange Tea enterprise failed, inasmuch as it would have been much stranger if it had not.”

Do any of the difficulties enumerated exist now? And may a person embarking in Tea to-day hope, with reasonable hope, for success? Yes, certainly, I think as regard the latter—the former let us look into.[3]

People who understand more or less of Tea are plentiful, and a good manager, who knows Tea cultivation and Tea manufacture well, may be found. It will scarcely pay to buy land of the Government at the present high rates, but many people hold large tracts in good Tea localities, and would readily sell.

There is plenty of flat land to be got, so no evil from slopes need be incurred.

Tea seed is plentiful and cheap.

The manufacture of Tea (though still progressing) is simple, economical, and more or less known. Anyhow a beginner now will commence where others have left off.

Of course to buy a made garden cheap is better than to make one; but the result in this case is of course no criterion of what profit may be expected from Tea cultivation.

As many of the items to be calculated under the heads of cultivation, manufacture, and receipts will be better understood after details on these subjects are gone into, I shall reserve the consideration of “how much profit Tea can give” to the end of this treatise.