Very little addition to the machinery detailed above would accomplish the first. The chest ready to receive the Tea, plus the lid and top lead (which should have been carefully removed), might be weighed on the platform at the side of the big drum (by simply making the said platform a weighing machine) and weighed again when filled, with the lid and lead laid on it. The difference of the two weights would, of course, be the weight of the Tea.
The second is a question of expense; it would not be great if done systematically. The chest should be carefully opened, and the top lead removed in a square piece nearly the size of the box. When replaced, a narrow strip of lead, soldered down on either side, would make the covering complete.
Justice will not be done to Indian Teas till this last is accomplished.
Who should bear the expense? The chests are received into the Customs for the benefit of the Revenue, and who can doubt, were the question tried in a Court of Law, that they are bound to return them in as good condition as they were received. They do not, and have never done so, and I only wonder the trade has stood it so long, and has not sued them. Were the course I advise followed out, there would remain no cause of complaint, and the trifling cost of soldering on the lid again should doubtless, therefore, be borne by the Customs.
But in reality the Customs would sustain no loss—in fact, the other way. I have shown clearly at page [278] that were the weight of Tea correctly recorded, the Customs would receive in duty upwards of £11,000 each year from Indian Tea more than it does now. To re-solder the lids on the boxes would cost nothing like that; and highly as Indian Tea is thought of now, how much higher still would it stand were it not injured to the frightful extent it is in passing through the Customs.
Conclusion.
I lit on the following in the Home and Colonial Mail just before going to press, and it is too pertinent to much in preceding pages to omit:—
The China Tea Trade.
The influence of the expansion of the Indian Tea enterprise on the trade in China is being felt. We have more than once adverted to the fact that the growing use of the well-flavoured Teas of India would diminish the consumption of the better grades of China Tea, and that the effect of the competition between the two countries would be first seen in the falling off in the demand for so-called fine China Tea.
The following letter, which appeared in the Times Money article lately, confirms this view, and refers to the present unsound condition of the China Tea trade:—