THE HANKOW STEAMER TEA RACES
49
In short, the growth of Indian tea output with regular quantity and quality broke the Chinese market, in which both quantity and quality varied from year to year. The tea merchants could not afford to pay fancy freights to be first home with their tea just to have it thrown on to a well-stocked market. Moreover, steamer carriage by Suez saved so much time over clipper carriage that an extra day or two saved on swift steamer passages made little difference to the quality and to the price. Economics made itself felt and regular services at cheap rates became of more importance than a voyage a year at great speed and cost.
In the days before this had become clear, Mr. Macgregor of Macgregor, Gow & Holland, speaking at the launching of Glencoe in 1878, was reported to have said that he saw no reason why the new teas should not be brought to London as fast as the merchants cared to have them transmitted: i.e., we presume, the merchants could have as much speed as they chose to pay for.
At a luncheon after Sterling Castle's trials, her owner, Mr. Skinner, is reported as saying that it was a well-known fact that the tea which came in eight or ten days in advance of that brought by any other steamers commanded a price in the market which yielded a large profit for the exporter. For this reason, the China merchants had been in the habit of encouraging a type of vessel that had never been seen anywhere else in the world, either in sailing ship or steamer, and to the liberality of these gentlemen, who never stuck at £1 or £2 a ton of freight paid to shipowners of this country, was due the development of the beautiful vessel they were on board. He continued, "The merchants of China have so far appreciated what we have done, and I have still faith in them to recoup us for the enormous capital invested. We have still faith in their liberality, and believe they will give us such freights as will reward us for the risk we have taken."
With the decline of the dominant position of China teas in the market, the need for economy became more important. The question was argued well in an article in the China Mail on 27th September, 1882, from which the following extracts are taken:
"Not so very long since we commented upon the manner in which the prognostication of Mr. Macgregor (of Messrs Macgregor, Gow & Co., London), that the speed of carrying steamers would be accelerated in the same proportion as freights increased,