But it is said we must not, if our accumulated stocks be drank off this year, expect the Chinese to meet at once so huge an increase in the demand as to supply us with as much next year.

Now on no point of the case is the evidence so clear as upon the capacity of the Chinese to furnish, within any year, any quantity we may require.  The Committee of 1847, on Commercial Relations with China, state—­“That the demand for tea from China has been progressively and rapidly rising for many years, with no other results than that of diminished prices:”—­a fact to be accounted for only upon the supposition that our ordinary demand is exceedingly small in proportion to the Chinese supply.  Nor is it an unreasonable inference, that if so much more than usual was to be had at a less price than before, any rise of price, however trivial it might be, would bring forward a much larger quantity:[8] a supposition which is completely confirmed by a review of prices here, and exports from China within the last four years; and in considering which it is important to bear in mind—­1st, that our tea trade year, on which our account of import, export, home consumption, and stock on hand is taken, is from January to January, and the Chinese tea year from July to July; 2nd, that a rise at the close of the last months of the year in England, influences the next year’s exports from China; and 3rdly, that of late years, since something of decrepitude has fallen upon the Chinese Government, smuggling there, to escape the export duty, has been carried on largely and at an increasing rate, so that the return is considerably below the real export.

In the Chinese tea year, July to July, 1848-9, the price of good ordinary congou, the tea of by far the largest consumption here, and which, in fact, rules the market, was 81/2d. to 9-1/3d., and the export from China 47,251,000 lbs.  The year closed with the higher price, and the Chinese export from July 1849, to July 1850, was 54,000,000 lbs., showing an increase of export on the year of 6,750,000 lbs.  Throughout 1850, here, prices fluctuated a good deal.  They were low in the earlier part of the year, but in January went up from 91/2d. to 111/2d., and from July 1850, to July 1851, the export from China rose to 64,000,000 lbs., being an increase of ten million pounds on a previous increase of nearly seven million lbs.  Prices here, during 1851, varied very much:  it was difficult to say whether any rise would be established, but the export still went up and reached, from July 1851, to July 1852, 67,000,000 lbs., giving a total increase in three years of 19,750,000 lbs.  Nor was it pretended that in any of those years the Chinese market showed even the least symptoms of exhaustion.  “We know,” say the Committee, “that the Chinese market has never been drained of tea in any one year, but that there has been always a surplus left to meet any extraordinary demand.”  But the effect of the rise in price in 1850 is still