Mar. 24.
One of the reasons for the Nanking Government's budgetary difficulties, likewise one intimately connected with the silver problem, is the parlour state of hhina's export trade. The glory that was silk and' the palmy days of the tea clippers have been left behind, ind this solely for the reason that steps have not been taken to ensure an improvement in these commodities or even to maintain the former high standard which made them 0 greatly prized throughout the world. Foreign enterprise made heroic attempts to improve jcultuye here, but the results not been too encouraging owing to the indifference of the farmers as to the kind of seed they use, and, in the case of tea, quality has in many cases been allowed to deteriorate owing to the adoption-of such measures coarse picking, when prices have been high "and harvests generally small. Up. to this point the grower' may be held to almost solaly responsible, as he has declined all assistance offered by foreign merchants for the improvement of the tea he produces: even the sugges-ion of & cess on exports a few ars ago with this object in lew evoked very little interest in the tea districts. The govern ment, however, whether nation: or provincial, is by no means free from responsibility, as recent information from' the Foochow tea: district shows, Owing to the operations of. bandits the 1930 crop. of souchongs, which should have been on the Foochow market in June, did not reach there until December, and the prospects for the ' coming season are anything but bright. The cause of this is the very" indifferent, or even casual, measures taken by the authorities to cope with the evi The story of why last season's op of souchongs was so late in arriving is well worth recounting in detail. In the Singchuen istrict, from which the tea principally comes, the bandits have been in the habit of levying squeeze on the amount sent to Foochow, and this has naturally borne hardly on the export trade. Last year soldiers were "sent to deal. with the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.