We summarised last year the operating causes in the Tea trade, in the remark that profit resulted entirely from a due relation of the production to the consumption. The lesson of this ear is the same. At the beginning of the season, Black Teas, owing to the late opening of the market in Foochow, and the loss of tivo large steamers with first teas from Shanghai, were delivered in London in moderate amount, and were generally sold at a profit. Later on, steamer followed steamer from this with full cargoes, a very small portion of the crop being shipped by sailing vessel; so that the bulk of the ship. ments, whose arrival should have been spread over the spring months, reached London before Christmas, and a general decline, with severe losses to weak holders, was the result. There are now s0 few sailing vessels to arrive in London, that there will be there almost a scarcity before the new season begins, and we know by wire that the inevitable recovery has already set in on the London market.
These phenomena have been rendered more striking in Green Tea, by the exaggerated application of the Adulteration Act in England. The wretched state of the overloaded New York market at the beginning of the season, sent most of the new Pingsueys to London, where all demand for them was checked. by the fear of legal proceedings under the Act, and they were soon offering at fifty per cent under prices current within the last two years. The losses were enormous; shipments from this were checked; their very low cost in London drove them into consumption notwithstanding the Act; and we now know by wire that there has been a recovery within the last two months of from fourpence to sixpence @ pound, It is fortunate that this recovery has come too late for the teamen to dis
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.