The San Francisco call., 1896-03-27
CHINA TEAS GIVING WAY
Thomas Fairhurst on How They
Have Been Supplanted
by Ceylon.
The Work of Missionaries in and
About Foochow Almost With.
out Results.

Thomas Fairhurst of Foochow. who has
been raising and handling tea for twenty
five wears, is at the Palace, on his way
home from London. Mr.. Fairhurst says
the Ceylon teas are now fast taking the
place of the China teas in different parts
of the world. The tea business in Ceylon
is in the hands of Europeans, who had
become expert in blending and in all the
details OF growing and marketing the
product On the other hand the Chinese
control the tea business in China. They
are not skilled in handling them and are
consequently losing hold III the markets
of the world. San Franciscans as yet
drink a good deal of Chinese tea, but in
the East. and especially III Canada, where
little coffee has ever been drunk, the
Ceylon tea is bought to a greater extent
than any other.
Mr. Fairhurst does not think much of
the Chinese railroad scheme recently ex-
plotted here. He says the Chinese will
not under any consideration let foreigners
come IN and run any railroad, and that
they will be extremely slow about making
any real grants looking to the building OF
railroads by outsiders.
authority in China do not want railroads
and the inventions of Western civilization.
The people would like to have them well
enough, but the officeholde-s are shrewd
enough to see that if they were introduced
they would lose their positions. And they
want to hold on to their fat places as long
as possible.
'This railroad project looks to me like a
mere scheme. Why, to build from Peking
Uio Hon l-Ou 10
miles of road. 1t wouldn't touch enough
of the big ports, and, besides very large
part of it would be over a very rough,
mountainous region that would make it a
very costly enterprise.
Talking about railroads in China, some
years ago an English company was al
lowed to build one eleven miles long from
Shanghai to the mouth of the Woo Sung
River. After they had it completed and
had run it awhile they offered to give it
outright to the Chinese Government.
The Government refused to take it In that
way, but the officials said they would take
it at cost. They did so, and paid the
money, and then they sent a lot of men
who tore up the track and carried it and
the rolling stock away off to Formosa,
where they threw it down and left it as SO
much rubbish. The Chinese people pat
ronlzed the road well, and it paid, but the
officials didn't want it.
cit was ninety miles from Foochow
that those outrages occurred to the mis-
sionaries. Ten persons in all were killed.
OF those who did it twenty-five were cap
tured and beheaded. five being brought
down to Foochow for that purpose. The
Chinese are still bitter against the mission
aries, and, for my part, l don't see what
good the missionaries do. One of them
admitted to me not long ago that their
work was of no avail. The missionaries
go there at about the same pay as they
could get at home. and when the warm
weather comes they go and spend three
months at the seashore-all except the
Catholics, who do not take this vacation.
The Chinese are class of people who do
not regard truth, and who are almost i'm
possible to reach.''