TEA FOR AUSTRALIA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1749, 21 August 1917, Page 4

TEA FOR AUSTRALIA.

Australia is one of the greatest tea-drinking countries of the world. The annual consumption is no less limn 40,00(1,000 pounds, which, works out at something over eight pounds per head. Nearly all this tea comes from Ceylon and India, and some from Java and China Dealing with the suggestion that Australia might 'grow its own tea. Mr W. I’. Wilkinson, federal analyst, says that Australian climatic conditions arc wholly unsuitable for lea. But the large slice of New Guinea which • Australia possesses is believed lo be ideal for the cultivation of (he tea plant. The large upland jungles, of Raima closely resemble those of the lea districts ol Java and Ceylon, and the essential conditions — average temperature and humidity —are present. Coloured labour, regarded as vital for (he pursuit of tea planting on a commercial basis, may be drawn wholly from local sources, or supplemented by trained labour from other British possessions. An essential preliminary slop would be the selection of a suitable district and the establishment of an experimental station. There should be no difficulty, once the suitability of conditions in Papua have been proved, in encouraging extensive planting, if the recent developments in India, Ceylon, Java, and Sumatra may be taken as a guide. The economic advantage to the Commonwealth of utilising to the fullest extent the resources of its own vast tropical possession, lying almost unexploiled within a few hours’ sail of the Australian coast, is emphasised by Mr Wilkinson.