PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3419, 26 September 1919, Page 53

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

THE CALCUTTA TEA MARKET. A friend sent me a month or two ago a copy of the Statesman, a daily published in Calcutta, and from it. 1 take the following :—"There were 25,000 chests listed for to-day's £ales, but as many members wanted to see the Handley-Page aeroplane, only 7000 che&ts were sold. Tho only teas wanted at all badly to-day were one or two invoices of good' Darjeelings. These were keenly competed for. . . . Good leaf tea was conspicuous by its absence. . . . Dusts were about 3 pie per lb easier, although they were realising very satisfactory prkes. "Deliveries during November were only 18,GQ0,G001bs as against the normal 35,C00,GQ0Ibs. It is probably a long time before the old figures will be again equalled. Consumers will probably have discovered how much tea they have wasted in previous years, for, like the mustard man who said he had not made his money out of the mustard people ate, but out of the mustard they left on their plate, it is certain that quite a large proportion of the tea consumed is not used to the utmost advantage. "This waste of tea applies not only to the United Kingdom, but to India as well. The usual dustur, for instance, for chota hazari is that the bearer first appropriates half the tea for his own use and then puts enough tepid water on the balance for a warm bath, the result being enough of an insipid mixture for six cups instead of the one cup of a refreshing drink for which most people yearn. The quality of the •tea is very often most unfairly blamed for the poor result, when a little care would show that the real fault is in the preparation. Probably people at Home have learnt that a little care in this direction will both halve their tea bill and give them more satisfactory results." These extracts are interesting. What are the meanings of "dustur".and "chota hazari" ? Are waiting maids in the British Empire guilty of purloining half the tea for their own use? Are women of the Empire so wasteful as the extracts suggest Is th e consumption of tea decreased permanently ? THE VALUE OF THE SOVEREIGN. India is said to be a sink for gold. I have been told that tourists have received as many as 25 rupees for a sovereign at Colombo. Of course the converse takes place jf a tourist is leaving India and wants to get gold. The same paper has an article of one and a half columns on "The Flow of Money in India : Vanishing Sovereigns." It is a most interesting one on the money movement. In a general way it says that, owing to the restriction on imports and the desire abroad for wheat, rice, jute, etc., from India there has been a flow of sovereigns from seaports into the interior—-for - producers want gold and not ,paper money, partly a result of the war. But a large percentage of these sovereigns find their way to the mints at Calcutta and Bombay, not to foe put into circulation again but for assay and to be melted for jewellery purposes. The melting of gold and silver, however, is an offence againstMJie Defence of India Rules. But why assays are made and sovereigns find their way into* the melting pot, we are not told. By the by, the coinage in India is under the control of the Director of Feronantics. What does that word mean ? It does not occur in my dictionary.

Merchants are having a difficulty in buying from India because of the changing value of the sovereign. It varied between Bsls-15-3 and Es 18-4, coming to a rest at Es 16-7 at the end of the year. The movement has continued this year, and this accounts mainly for the rise in prices of Indian and Eastern goods. But what do the figures 15-15-3 mean ? I take them to mean 15 rupees 15 annas 3 pice, for Whitalcer's .Almanack (oldfashioned way of spelling adhered to) says : "Eupee fixed rating equals 16 annas equals 64 pice," and under the heading "silver and other subsidiary coins" adds : "Silver—£, \, J rupee; Nickel (square)—-g rupee (2 annas), (scalloped)— 1-16 rupee 1 anna; Copper— 2, 1, 5, and 3 pice or pie." Englished I work this out thus : Four pie (pice not used in the article), one anna; 16 annas, one rupee; 15 rupees, one sovereign. So taking this reading we get 15-15-3 to mean 15 rupees 15 annas 3 pie. Mind I am not saying that is the interpretation of the figures though I think it is. Now for a sum or two. If the sovereign fluctuated between 15-15-3 and 18-4 and rested at 16-7, what was the percentage of rise above normal, of fall below normal, of rise ex2Dressed in percentage of the minimum, of fail expressed as percentage of the maximum? The normal is 1052 pie; the one at a discount 1023 pie; the one at a premium 1168 pie. Express 29 pie as a fraction of 1052 and multiply by 100 and we get 2 per cent, as nearest whole number; express 116 pie as a fraction of 1052 pie and nrultiply by 100 and we get "2 per cent, -whole number; express 116 pie as a fraction of 1052 and we get 9 per cent, nearest whole number—it is slightly above it; and 116 as a fraction of 1168 and multiplying by 100 we got 10 per cent.—it is slightly below it.

It is by working out such figures as these that bankers and others on large transactions make their profit. Sir J. G. Ward, referring to the American exchange, says it is about 10 per cent, against. This is because there is a glut of gold in America so gold is at a discount in the United States just as it is at a premium in India and the East. Some think a good deal of this disparity can be overcome by a bimetallic systemwhile others stand by the mono-metallic system. As the Mother Land has a gold standard the Empire is governed by, the mono-metallic system. The gold standard in America, and the

silver standard in Asia give a scries of problems for the banker to deal with—and the consumer, too, for tea, rice, sago, tapioca, come from the East, and motor cars, etc., from the United States. In the East gold has brought as much as £4 15s 9d in the open market, while in tho United States a sovereign has depreciated fully 10 per cent, bringing it down to about 18s. In New Zealand, the purchasing power of a sovereign is reduced to about 12s 6d, or even less. Next week I'll return to Coal and Metal Nationalisation and conclude my short series on that subject.