The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-05-30
REVOLUTION IN CHINA AND
IN EUROPE

of the markets is unable to keep pace with
the extension of British manufactures, and this
disproportion must bring about new crisis
with the same certainty as it has done in the
past. But, if one Of the great markets sud-
denly becomes contracted, the arrival of the
crisis is necessarily accelerated thereby. Now,
the Chinese rebellion must, for the time being,
have precisely this effect upon England. The
necessity for opening new markets, or for eX-
tending the old ones was one of the principal
causes of the reduction of the British tea
duties, as, with an increased importation of
tea, an increased expectation of manufactures
to China was expected to take place. Now the
value of the annual exports from the United
Kingdom to China amounted, before the repeal
in 1884 of the trading monopoly possessed by
the East India Company to only 100000; in
1886, it reached the sum of 81 326,3S8; in 1916,
it had risen to e., 94,S27; in 1852 it amounted
to about e3 100000 The quantity of tea i'm
ported from China did not exceed, in 1898,
16,167,331 lbs but in 1S45, it amounted to
50,714,657 lbs; in 1885, to 57,5S4,561 lbs; it is
now above 60,OO0,000 lbs.
The tea crop of the last season will not prove
short, as shown already by the export lists
from Shanghai. of 100000 lbs. above the pre-
ceding year. This excess is to be accounted
for by two circumstances. On one hand, the
state of the market at the close of 1851 was
much depressed, and the large surplus stock
left has been thrown into the export of 1852.
On the other hand, the recent accounts of the
altered British legislation with regard to i'm
ports of tea, reaching China, have brought
forward all the available teas to a ready mar
ket, at greatly enhanced prices. But with
spect to the coming CROP the case stands very
differently. This is shown by the following
extracts from the correspondence of a large
tea-firm in London:
"In Shanghai the terror is extreme. Gold
has advanced upward of 25 per cent, being
eagerly sought for boarding; silver has so far
disappeared that none could be obtained to pay
the China dues on the British vessels requiring
port clearance; and in consequence of which
Mr.. Alcock has consented to become RESPONSE
BILE to the Chinese authorities for the payment
of these dues, on receipt of East India Com
panys bills, or other approved securities. The
scarcity of the precious metals is one of the
most unfavorable futures when viewed in ref
ence to the immediate feature of commerce.
as this abstraction occurs precisely at that per-
iod when their use is most needed, to enable
the tea and silk buyers to go into the interior
and effect their purchases, for which a large
portion of bullion is paid in advance, to enable
the producers to carry on their operations. .
At this period of the year it is usual to begin
making arrangements for the new teas, where
as at present nothing is talked of but the
means of protecting person and property, all
transactions being at a stand. If the
means are not applied to secure the leaves in
April and May, the early crop, which includes
all the finer descriptions, both of black and
green teas, will be much lost unreaped
wheat at Christmas"
Now the means for securing the tea leaves,
will certainly not be given by the English,
80 -, h.
Chinese seas, but these may easily, by their
interference, produce such complications, as to
cut off all transactions between the tes-pro-
ducing interior and the transporting seaports.
Thus, for the present crop, a rise in the prices
must be neutrality-suspicious. has already
commenced in London-and for the crop to
come large deficit is as good as certain. Nor
is this all. The Chinese, ready though. they
may be, as are all people in periods of revo-
lutionary CONFUSION, to sell off to the foreigner
all the bulky commodities they have on hand,
will, as the Orientals used to do in the
apprehension of great changes, set to hoard
ing, not taking much in return for their tea
and silk, except hard money. England has ac-
cordingly to expect rise in the price of one
of her chief articles of consumption, drain of
bullion, and a great contraction of impor-
tant market for her cotton and wooden goods.
Even The Economist, that optimist conjuror of
all things menacing the tranquil minds of the
mercantile community, is compelled to use
language like this:
eve must not fatter ourselves with finding
as extensive market for our exports to China
as hitherto 1t is more probable that our
export trade to China should suffer, and that
there should be diminished demand for the
produce of Manchester and Glasgow"
1t must not be forgotten that the rise in
the price of so indispensable an article as tea
and the contraction of SO important market
as China, will coincide with deficient harvest
in Western Europe, and, therefore, with rising
prices of meat corn and all other agricultural
produce. Hence contracted markets for manu-
features, because every rise in the prices of
the first necessaries of life is counterbalanced
at home and abroad, by corresponding de-
duction in the demand for manufactures. From
every part of Great Britain complaints have
been received the backward state of most
of the crops The Economist says on this sub
ject:
I'm the South of England not only will there
be left much land unsown, until too late for a
crop of any sort, but much of the sown land
will prove to be FOUL or otherwise in a bad
state for corn growing. On the wet or poor
soils destined for wheat, signs that mischief is
going on are apparent. The time for planting
mange-wurtze may now be said to have
passed away, and very little has been planted,
while the time for preparing land for the tur-
nip is rapidly going by, without any adequate
preparation for this important crop having
been ACCOMPLISHED Dat sowing has been