The National tribune., 1899-07-27
A DECLINING TEA PORT.
aakow and Its Waning Trade-Russiaa Influeaee Sup.
planting English.

In an article entitled "The River of Tea, y
Miss f.. K. Scidmore, an enterprising and
authoritative writer on China, Japan, and
Java, tells the readers of the August Cen
tury good deal about the trade that flour
ishes on the banks OF the Yangtsze-Kiang
and incidentally of the loss of English in
| fluence at the great tea port Hankow.
Hankow, SO long the chief source of sup
ply of British tea-drinkers, with Is OF
20 tea-steamers in port at a time load
ing for London, has undergone a change
| in this decade. AS Chinese teas deteriorat-
ed in quality and tea-farmers became more
careless and dishonest India and CeylOn
teas began to win favor, and with the enor-
nous increase of production in those two
| British dependencies, Chinese tea has losi
| it's place in the British market furnishing
only one-ninth of England's import in 1896.
At that same time began the general
awakening of Russia. At Hankow the
| Russian has come, and to stay, and the
shadow of the Muscovite is over it all. The
Russian is not only established at the gates
OF China, but also at its very heart, the in
vasion and absorption being as remarkable
III this British settlement at Hankow as
anywhere in Korea or Manchuria. Hankow
is fast becoming Russian city or outpost,
Il fOothOld soon to be q stronghold in the
valley of the YangtSZe, which China has
given her word shall never be alienated to
any power but England.
Some alarmists may even view the ST
berian merchants at Hankow as emissaries.
like those armed Russian monks who first
established themselves in the Caucasus and
Asia Minor in stronghold monasteries
Although the Russians have their own con-
cesSiOn at Hankow, they do not care to
build upon it and live there, amenable then
TO Russian laws and consular jurisdiction,
to Russian restrictions and espionage; and
the Consulate and a few warehouses were
tho
cessier in 1896.
The Russians prefer the laws and the order
of the British concession, crowding in upon
it at every opportunity, competing for any
house that comes into the market, and
building closely over former lawns and
garden-space. They compete with and
outbid the Few British tea merchants who
remain in these days of active Russian
trade aggression.
Only one tea steamer took a cargo to Lon
don i'll 1885, two more British firms closed
out and left Hankow that year; and, still
more significant, only one pony showed
the cOlors of the one British racing stable at
the Autumn races. In the retail shops
prices are quoted and bills made out as
often in rubleS as in taels or dollars, and the
Russians have gradually assumed an air of
ownership, OF seigniorial rights, as COM
plete as if they held the lease or diplomatic
deeds to the place for 90 years.
This great tea market of foreign Han
kow is a city of six weeks only, the heads
of the great hongs, or their managers, oc-
cupying their residences from the first of
May to the middle of June each year.
Leaf teas are fired and shipped until Sep
tember and even later, and brick-tea is
made until January, but the choice tea is
all looked to in those few weeks.
With all the machines invented and used
on tea plantations in India and Ceylon, a
drier has only onco been used in China. All
attempts toward greater care and cleanli-
ness in preparation have been as vain as
attempts toward introducing machinery at
the tea farms themselves. Not declining
trade or prices-for the tea trade is not
nearly what it was eight years aegean
stimulate the tea-growers to any change,
aRd only when the whole country is open to
foreign trade and residence will each vii
lage or valley have its own tea factory to
cure and pack the tea for final shipment
on the spot.