4th February.
Tue "Weekly Times of Ceylon" presents with its first issue this year a table showing the export of Ceylon Produce from Colombo and Galle during the past ten years. It is a most interesting table and will be especially so to those who remember when coffee was the principal export from the island, and recall how many ple were ruined when the coffee cultivation failed, and how there was a general lamentation that Ceylon was an exhausted colony, whose prosperity had fled for ever. But the truth of the proverb that when one door shuts another opens was again exemplified. Coffee having failed, the planters plucked up courage and tried tea, with the result that halt the people in Great Britain now drink Ceylon tea, and the export of China tea to London has dwindled down to a mere dribble. As the table before us only goes back ten years, the remarkable way in which tea has supplanted coffee in Ceylon is not shown in anything like its full extent, but it is indicated. The export of coffee in 1894 was 5 cwt; in 1903 it was 9,839 cwt. export of tea in 1894 was 84,591,714 Ibs. In 1903 it was 137,898,365 lbs., having reached 148,431,639 lbs. in of green tea which only began: in 1901 reached 8,443,012 Ibs, in 1903. From our earliest days we are taught to associate Ceylon's isle with spicy breezes blowing soft, and it is interesting to note that nearly three million pounds of cinnamon were exported from Ceylon in 1903 against a little under two millions in 1894, not to mention considerable quantities of cardamems, wild cinnamon, and cinnamon oil. On the other hand, the export of cinchona from Ceylon shows a very marked falling-off. It amounted in 1894 to 2,497,616 lbs., but in 1908 it was only 170,575 lbs, The cocoa~ palm, whose graceful outlines are such a pleasant feature in the scenery of Ceylon, contributes greatly also to the island's commercial property. Over eight million cocoanut were exported in 1894, and nearly thirteen millions last year, in addition to which there isa considerable expors of cocoanut oil, copra, and desiccated cocoanut, and of coir in the shapes of rope, yarn, and fibre. The good Bishop Bober maligned the Cin-gales by stigmatising them for all time as "vile;" but it is obvious that they are a hardworking race, and "laborare est orate." Other' products of the island which are sent abroad are cocoa—no connection with the—cocoanut,—plumbago, ebony, sapanwood, palmyra fibre, etc. It may be added that the declared value of the exports from Ceylon in 1901—the latest date given in the "Statesman's Year Book"—was Rs. 102,840,348, and of the imports into Ceylon, Rs, 112,626,926.
There are one or two interesting points in the table showing the distribution of Ceylon's exports in 1903. Of the black tea, over 92 million pounds went to the United Kingdom, 194 millions to Australia, which once depended entirely on Foochow, 13} millions to Russia, supplanting so much China tea, 64 millions to America, and nearly 3 millions to China, thus adding insult to, injury, Of the green tea 74 millions went to America against less than 2 millions in 1902, and something under 1 million to the United Kingdom. It may be noted that the total quanti-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.