5. Teas packed in these boxes, and so sold, would not be used for bolstering up China rubbish. They would be drunk pure, and thus the great desideratum of teaching the public, both here and abroad, to use Indian Tea by itself, would be, in a measure, attained.
I do not say that any planter should pack all his Teas in this new way. The mass of Indian Tea, do what we may, will still be used to mix with China. Again, the highest class of Indian Teas are not the ones to commence with. As a rule they are too expensive for the public to use them alone. Ordinary Teas, or perhaps a mixture which could be sold cheaply, and would be a good household Tea, is what I should recommend. It is just this kind which is now such a drug in the market, and necessarily the diversion of some of this into other channels would help us greatly.
6. A considerable saving in the loss of Tea at the Custom House would result by the use of these boxes, as the following figures will show. To begin with, the trade allowance of 1 lb. per package which is now allowed the buyer, and which is of course a loss to the producer, would be avoided; for this allowance does not apply to any package under a gross weight of 28 lbs., and these tins with 20 lb. 2 oz. of Tea in them, will weigh gross only 24 lbs. 1½ oz.
To make the figures below clear, I must state that the rule of the Custom House is to discard fractions of a pound both in the gross and the tare. But in the gross the number below is written, in the tare the number above. Thus, if the gross weight of a package is 132½ lbs., the gross is written 132. If the tare of a package is 37¼ lbs., it is written 38. Now to take one extreme case, to show the loss on our ordinary Indian packages: a chest weighs gross, say, 132 lbs. 15 oz.; it is still written 132 lbs. The tare of the said package weighs, say, 37 lbs. 1 oz.: it is written 38. The tare deducted from the gross gives the net weight of Tea. In this case 132 minus 38 equals 94 lbs., which is all the producer is paid for. But the net weight of Tea in the box is 132 lbs. 15 ozs., minus 37 lbs. 1 oz., equals 95 lbs. 14 ozs., and thus on such a package there is a loss of exactly 1 lb. 14 ozs. Add to this the trade allowance of one pound, and the whole loss is 2 lbs. 14 ozs., which is about 3 per cent.
It will be observed that by this custom the advantage, as regards the duty of 6d. per lb., is on the side of the payee, but none the less is it to the loss of the producer. The case quoted above is, of course, an extreme one, but in practice I believe the loss of Tea on Indian packages, including the trade allowance, is not much under 2 lbs. In the case of our ordinary Indian packages, if we could regulate our tares exactly, so as to make the gross weight only one ounce above the whole number, and the tare one ounce below the whole number, the loss would necessarily be much decreased. This, however, is impossible, for, as a rule, the tares are one or two pounds less when they arrive in England than when they left the garden, owing to the wood drying in transit; and thus it is quite a chance what the real tares come out here.
But, with the tin boxes in question, the tares, that is their weight, being fixed and equal, and not liable to change, we can so arrange the weights that the loss will be very trifling, thus:—
| lbs. | ozs. | |
| The box weighs | 3 | 15½ |
| We put in Tea | 20 | 2 |
| Gross Weight | 24 | 1½ |
| In the Customs the gross is written | 24 lbs. | |
| And the tare is written | 4 „ | |
| The Tea paid for will be | 20 lbs. | |
that is a loss of only 2 ounces, or not much above half per cent., instead of three per cent., as shown in the old packages.
Shortly, to conclude this point. In the case of the old packages by no means can we help ourselves; but, as shown, with the tin boxes, the loss need be very little.