Tea Industry Problems

摘要

Since we are a nation of shopkeepers it is not unnatural that trade should have dominated all aspects of our history, and this domination is admirably illustrated by the part which tea has played in our national development. It was one of the biggestfactors in the growth of the East India Company; it led to the great improvement in shipping design associated with those romantic ships, the 'Clippers'; it was an agent in the loss of the American colonies; it was perhaps the most powerful incentive tothe establishment of the great Calcutta agency houses in the nineteenth century; and in more recent times it sustained the courage of the British people, through the strains and stresses of the Second World War. Throughout the world today, the British are known by three characteristics; inability to open conversation in a railway train, obsession with games and fondness of tea. Not only do the British drink more tea than any other people, but the Commonwealth is also its principal grower followed by very efficiently - but a long way behind in terms of quantity - by the Dutch. Tea is, in fact, the most important export from India and Ceylon produced by concerns under British management - a vital element in their national economy.