In stating the deliveries at an average of 4,500,000 lbs. for the next five months, we have taken this amount merely for the purpose of arriving at a conclusion. In case the deliveries of the months of February to June inclusive average, as is generally expected, 5,000,000 lbs. a month, the stocks at 1st July next will be under 12,200,000 lbs., or 3¾ million lbs. less than at the corresponding date.
We can but consider this a very healthy outlook, especially as it is simultaneous with the estimated decrease in the supply of China Tea, and the possibility that the shipments to the United Kingdom may not reach the estimate. With respect to the latter contingency, we must recollect that new markets are being rapidly developed for Indian Tea. Australia, America, and other parts than the United Kingdom took over three million pounds from 1st May to 31st December last year, compared with less than a third of that quantity shipped thence from India in the corresponding period of 1881. A continuance of this rapid rate of outside demand would considerably curtail our supply, and develope the growing Indian industry.
Gow and Wilson,
19, Little Tower Street, London, E.C.
The diagram omitted shows as follows: it gives the results quarterly, I only give them yearly in millions of pounds.
CONSUMPTION OF CHINA AND INDIAN TEAS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS.
| 1878. | 1879. | 1880. | 1881. | 1882. | ||
| China | 128½ | 125¼ | 114½ | 111¼ | 114 | All are Millions of Pounds. |
| Indian | 36 | 35½ | 43¾ | 48½ | 51½ | |
| Totals. | 164½ | 160¾ | 158¼ | 159¾ | 165½ |
Thus, while China Tea consumption has decreased in five years by fourteen and a-half millions of pounds, Indian has increased by fifteen and a-half millions!
It must be remembered that the former table given at page [194] deals with imports, this with consumption, and thus the difference in the figures.
The following extract from the Tea Gazette (January, 1883) is interesting in a statistical point of view:—
The exports to Australia (which, as it is well known, have increased more than twenty-fold in six years) now occupy a position only second to that of the United Kingdom; and if the P. and O. Company would see its own interest, it would facilitate by every means in its power so important a development of a great industry.