Lessons of Recent Tea Slumps

摘要

One of the amazing facts about tea industry is that none seems to care to learn a lesson from the vast changes that occur in its career from season to season. It was hardly four years ago that this industry faced a crisis of the greatest magnitude. Due to a variety of circumstances, the demand for tea slumped and the price fell sharply, to touch a level at which no garden could hope to make a profit. Huge losses were suffered by gardens, as they had to sell teas at rates much below the cost of production. After a good deal of suffering had been inflicted, the tide turned slowly and the industry began to pass through a boom, perhaps, unparalleled in its history. This boom lasted for a short period and soon the tide began to turn once again and brought the industry very near a crisis. Then, in early 1956, the industry started to recover, much in the manner that it did in early 1953, and things began to look normal again. All these changes have occurred within so short a period that many lessons could have been learned from them, but, curiously enough, no one seems to have taken the trouble of learning anything, writes Commerce in a recent editorial.