TEA-PICKING IN CEYLON

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 59, 27 July 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

TEA-PICKING IN CEYLON

AMONG THE PLANTATIONS. People who indulge in the mild revels of afternoon tea at the reasonable tariff of threepence or sixpence a cup are not likely to trouble their heads much about the fact that the little black boys and girls who gather the fragrant leaves from which the festive beverage is brewed receive only threepence a day for so doing. A large proportion of the tea used in New Zealand teapots is grown in Ceylon, where the picking of it gives employment to a large number of coolies. The actual picking of the leaves is done by girls and boys, men and women doing the more strenuous work of digging, pruning, etc.

For there is a great deal of work involved before the merry little maiden in the cap and apron can be supplied with the wherewithal to brew our cup of afternoon tea. And it is mostly work that only colored people are suited,for. Mr. Cecil Darling, a brother of the late Chief Justice of New South Wales, and formerly Under-Secretary for Public Works, says that the girls and boys who pick the tea work 10 hours a day and arc paid 3d for all that la;bov. White people could scarcely exist under those conditions; yet Mr. Darling says the coolies are the most contented and industrious workers he ever met. They are law-abiding and frugal, living on a little rice, which they buy very cheaply, as it is grown on the island. "They make up for these virtues," '-he remarked, "by several shortcomings. In the coolie lines you will not see a single window, though you examine every house there. If you were to put a window in his house for him the first thing the coolie would do would be to paste paper over it. They have a horror of ventilation. A family of six or seven will live—eat and sleep—in a room no larger than a small back bedroom in a colonial cottage, with nothing to cover the bare earth floor. Consequently, if an epidemic breaks out among them it spreads with appalling rapidity. "A Ceylon coolie's mouth should be like the"fabled dragon's—he eats such hot things. Tf you want to win the heart of a Sydney child in the summer you buy it an ice-cream. To lift a coolie child into the seventh heaven of delight you should treat it to slaked lime bebetween bethel leaves. They also chew betel nut with great relish. "This makes their teeth black and their mouths a light red color inside. "At one time the whole of the island was under tea and coffee, but since the introduction of the rubber-tree the tea plantations have been pushed back into the rolling hill land. All the land under cultivation for tea is undulating, and some of the hills are thousands of feet above sea-level. The plantation where I was staying was 400 feet high. In places the hillsides are so steep that [ have seen girls standing on the stumps of one tea-tree and plucking leaves off the tree in the next row above.

"When «you get down to an elevation of 2000 feet you get into the rubbei: country. The rubber kills off the teatree. The tea-tree must have the sun, and it needs constant pruning. It is never allowed to grow more than 3ffc high, although, if left alone, it would reach a height of 12ft. Kveiy plantation has its factory centrally, situated, to which the leaves are taken as they are picked. As the boys and girls come in with their baskets ot leaves the latter are weighed and examined to see if there are any large leaves in the consignment. Each picker must bring in so many pounds of leaves as the result of his or her day's work, and if there are too many large leaves in a basket the owner of that basket is lined. A careless picker may lose a day's wages in that way very easily. You see no fences among the tea plantations. There are simply boundary marks to define the limit of each planter's area. Nearly all the timber has been replaced by Australian trees. Bluegum they call it, there, but it mostly silky oak from the Rieln mond River district, which you will see growing all over the country, Ironbark. box and acacia are also there." Mr. Darling had a word to say in commendation of the Indian tailors. "They are very clever. I think. You lend a tailor an old suit that fits you well, give him eight rupees (10s), and without any bother about measuring and trying on be will bring you a summer suit that will lit you like a glove. It seems a pity that people in Australia don't take a hint from the Colombo tailors."