the mistake made in England in estimating what tea we may look for
from China goes upon the supposition that they grow expressly for us:
the fact being, as stated by Mr. Robt. Fortune, in his recently
published "Tea Districts of China," "that the quantity exported bears
but a small proportion to that consumed by the Chinese themselves." On
this point the report of the Parliamentary Committee is
explicit:--"There is a population in China, commonly assumed at above
three hundred millions, at all hours in the day consuming tea, which
only requires some change of preparation to be fit for exportation;
thus implying an amount of supply on which any demand that may be made
for foreign export can be, after a very short time, but slightly
felt." Mr. Fortune, in his evidence, says "that the Chinese drink
about four times as much as we do: they are always drinking it." Four
times as much is probably very much an under-estimate. With rich and
poor of all that swarming population, tea, not such as our working
classes drink, but fresh and strong, and with no second watering,
accompanies every meal. But even taking their consumption at four
times as much per head as ours, and their population at the lowest
estimate, at three hundred millions, their consumption, setting ours
at 55,000,000 lbs., will be no less than two thousand two hundred
millions of pounds per annum, or forty times the quantity used in the
United Kingdom. As reasonably might the few foreigners who visit the
metropolis in the summer expect to cause a famine of fruit and
vegetables in London, as we that a doubling of our demand for tea
would be felt in China. The further fifty-five million pounds would be
but another fortieth of what they use themselves, and would have no
more effect upon their entire market than the arrival of some thousand
strangers within the year in London would have upon the supply of
bread or butchers' meat. There is no need, therefore, to wait for the
extension of tea plantations, and so far from taking for granted the
statement of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, "that time must be
given to increase production, and that the point of its taking three
or four years to make a tea-tree is to be considered in dealing with
the duties," we have the fact unmistakeably before us, that the
production is already so vast, that any demand from us could have no
appreciable effect. And as to future supplies, if we should come to
drink as much as the Chi