AN OVERSTOCKED MARKET.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 January 1921, Page 6

AN OVERSTOCKED MARKET.

TEA TO BURN IN LONDON. The fact that there are millions of pounds of tea in London awaiting purchase has not, strange to say, had a great deal of effect on the prices of tea on this side of the world. The position in London has, it is stated, been created by speculators buying up huge quantities of cheap tea, in the belief that there would be an eager- market for it in Russia and Central Europe as soon as the blockade was lifted by the Allies. When the blockade was lifted, and a restricted trade was permitted to the defeated enemy countries, it wa., found that there was no security for trade, not that t’re.-e wi s no money in Germany, Atrstria, Poland, Russia, Bulgaria, Serb:':, and Rumania, bun the money had depreciated so that it was practically, worthless to the British traders. Soon London has become stocked up with tea enough for a whole Continent—and no buyers. One gentleman, who recently arrived from England, told a local tea dealer that there was a suggestion being made in Egland to bum all this cheap tea (in bond) in order to avoid paying duty on it. It was not .“class” enough for reexport to British Dominions, so there was a prospect of it being destroyed, unless the Central Powers could arrange to secure it by barter. Instead of having the effect of cheapening tea in Australasia, the action of the speculators on the Ceylon market had the effect of hardening prices, which was the reason for the maintenance of the high prices. It is not anticipated that tea, any more than anything else, will ever be as cheap as it was before the war,.as the cost of native labor on the plantations of Ceylon has increased in about the same ratio as it has in other parts of the world.