FOREIGN  TRADE  293
piculs,  brick,  360,091  piculs  ;  in  1903  (before  the  dislocation
of  trade  occasioned  by  the  Russo-Japanese  war),  leaf,
401,087  piculs,  brick,  618,458  piculs,  the  total  being  60  per
cent,  of  all  exports  of  tea  from  China  during  the  year.  The
English  market  and  that  of  Australia,  with  the  largest  per
capita  consumption  in  the  world,  have  been  lost  to  China,
chiefly  for  the  reason  that  the  Indian  and  Ceylon  teas  give
a  strong  infusion,  and  are  as  strong  in  that  second  drawing
which  is  so  dear  to  the  housekeeper’s  heart.  The  English
taste  has  become  so  thoroughly  perverted  and  insensible
of  the  delicacy  and  cleanness  of  flavor  characteristic  of
China  tea,  that  the  market  can  never  be  recovered  even
by  reduced  price  ;  and  in  the  contest,  China  is  handicapped
by  several  factors.  Indian  tea  is  prepared  and  fired  by
mechanical  appliances,  the  use  of  which  is  possible  only
where,  as  in  India,  large  plantations,  of  a  thousand  or  more
acres,  are  under  one  management  ;  in  China  all  is  done  by
hand,  and  no  change  can  be  made  in  a  country  where  the
individual  cultivator  has  only  a  small  patch  of  a  very  few
acres,  ten  acres  being  a  large  plantation.  In  twenty  years
of  a  declining  market  the  tea  shrubs  have  been  left  unpruned ­
  and  uncultivated,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  they  can  ever
recover  their  old-time  condition.  Finally,  the  Chinese
fiscal  system  is  to  tax  everything  in  sight.  In  India  there
is  no  tax  on  the  production  or  export  of  tea  ;  in  China
not  only  was  there  for  forty-five  years  an  export  duty  of
Tls.2  50  a  picul,  reduced  only  in  1903  to  Tls.i  25  (equivalent
at  present  exchange  to  \d.  per  lb.),  but  on  the  way  from
the  producing  district  to  the  shipping  port  there  is  levied
a  series  of  taxes,  amounting  on  the  average  to  more  than
Tds.2'50  a  picul  for  official  tax,  with  something  to  be  added
for  irregular  levy  and  delay  and  loss  of  interest.  No  industry ­
  thus  burdened  could  compete  with  a  rival  free  of  all
burden.
Silk  is  the  product  for  which  China  has  been  noted  for
two  thousand  years,  and  it  is  now  the  product  which  individually ­
  contributes  the  greatest  proportion  of  the  value
of  the  export  trade.  By  the  nineteenth  century  the  supplies