The Indian Tea Districts Association having failed to move the Customs, have quite lately addressed the following Memorial to the Secretary of State for India:—
To the Right Honourable the Earl of KIMBERLEY, Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for India.
The Petition of the Indian Tea Districts Association sheweth—
That your Petitioners are a body representing the interests connected with the cultivation of Tea in British India, in which enterprise British capital to the extent of over fifteen millions sterling has been invested.
That the industry dates from the year 1838, when the first consignment of Indian Tea, consisting of 456 lbs., reached the London market.
That the imports of Indian Tea for the year ending 30th June, 1882, were 49,503,000 lbs., having a value of more than £3,300,000 sterling; while the estimated importation for the current season is upwards of 55,000,000 lbs., or fully one-third of the entire consumption of the United Kingdom for the year.
That the contribution to the Revenue accruing from Customs’ import duty on the above quantity of Tea will exceed a million and a quarter sterling.
That the whole of this large quantity is manufactured and packed on between 2,700 and 2,800 separate estates, situated on various parts of H.M.’s Indian dominions.
That the boxes in which the Teas are packed are in great part made of such wood as can be obtained on the several estates, or purchased from the neighbouring Forest Department, and it is very important on economic grounds, as also in the manifest interests of the districts, that this should be exclusively the case.
That it has been found, under these conditions, practically impossible to meet the imperative Custom-house standard of close uniformity of tare weight when the chests reach the Bonded Warehouses here.