The success of our plantations depended entirely on the uninterrupted flow of British capital into the country, and any slowing down of this process would have held up the speed of expansion. This is exactly what happened in 1845. A serious financial crisis in Britain led to panic and fear in the country,

Expansion slowed down, and in most cases halted. Majority of the coffee plantations were sold at ridiculously low prices. Narangalla, a valuable coffee property near Badulla, which had cost the owners Pounds Sterling 10,000 to bring it to bearing, was sold for Pounds Sterling 350. A further narration is about an estate that was sold in 1843 for Pounds Sterling 15,000, was knocked down for Pounds Sterling 440 five years later. Most proprietors of coffee lands during that time could not find buyers, and about a tenth of the plantations were abandoned.

The government was forced to employ the strictest financial controls during this period. Initially, they adopted a policy of retrenchment, followed by a complete stoppage in road construction. The planters were helpless, and the instructions from the Colonial Office were “Hoard and save Revenue.”

It was to salvage a sinking situation that the “Planters Association of Ceylon” was formed. Their main task was to rebuild the economy, and this they found to be a laborious task. Senseless speculation in the sale of land had to be curbed. And financial stability and sanity restored. The planters who were still holding to their exhausted properties had to be assisted to fashion them on sober lines.

The problems of the planter were numerous. Capital for further investment had to be found. Labour had to be imported from South India. Transport to and from estates to points of exit had to be organised. Providing housing for the labour and sustaining them in a fair state of health were just a few aspects of the labour question.

Expansion in communication systems that were stopped earlier had to be restarted. All this only called for extra revenue.

It was at this stage that the planters felt the urgent need to have a representative body that would be able to speak authoritatively on their behalf and to deal with those responsible for the administration of the country. They felt that collective action was all that was needed, and accordingly they moved in to improve their lot.

George Wall a pioneer coffee planter, through his own personal efforts was able to muster the support of about hundred coffee planters for a meeting in Kandy on 17th February 1854.

The Planters Association was founded under the Chairmanship of Captain Keith Jolly, and the first dialogues were conducted at a meeting titled “The Boarding House.”

The stage was once again set for the rehabilitation of the plantation sector. In 1856, there were 27 planting districts, 404 plantations, and 80,950 acres under coffee, yielding 325,438 crates per annum.

Tea and Rubber Traders’ Associations

The above two trade associations are no doubt dependencies of the planting enterprise of Ceylon. In Portuguese times (1505 to 1658), which may be characterised as a period of religious conquest when Martial Law chiefly prevailed, trade was carried out in Colombo and Galle mainly in cinnamon. The Dutch and the Britishers who too were mainly traders followed, and left behind many customs, social observances and other memorials of their occupation.

It was only under British rule that the plantation enterprise as it is known today was laid. Coffee was first introduced by the Dutch, but the first highland plantation was not opened until 1825. It took a further twenty years for the coffee rush to commence, and by 1877 it had reached its peak production levels.

Tea was introduced into the island in 1839, but it was not until about the latter part of 1870’s that the rush into tea took place. Expansion was rapid thereafter, and the extant under tea increased from 10 acres in 1872 to 70,000 acres in 1884 and than to 385,000 acres at the turn of the century.

Rubber was discovered centuries ago growing wild in South America, but its commercial exploitation had not commenced. The credit for the commercial use of rubber goes to Charles Goodyear, an American who about the 1838 discovered the art of vulcanising. With this discovery, the utility of the material was greatly extended

Seeds of the Para Rubber tree were first tested out at Kew Gardens 1876, and subsequently tried at the Botanical Gardens with great success. Tea absorbed all attention, but the tea slump of the mid 1905, and the subsequent improvement in rubber prices, made most planters to divert their attention to this product.

Large extents of land were opened up in the Kalutara and the K.V. Districts. There were still others who tried planting rubber in between tea bushes. By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the extant had expanded to 40,000 acres.

By the turn of the century, the country could than boast of two flourishing agricultural products tea and rubber, looking of new markets for their disposal, and as the age old swaying goes “As enterprise finds solid foundations and trade begins to settle down, it has need for organised handling, and Trade Associations of various kinds are the outcome.”

Colombo Tea Traders Association

Ceylon’s tea industry was just sixteen years old when the first tea auction was held. It meant that sixteen years after James Taylor planted his seventeen acres of tea on Loolecondera estate at Deltota, the tea industry had developed to such an extent that the country had sufficient tea to sell by public auction.

It was the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce that initiated the formation of the Colombo Tea Traders Association. In June 1894 a small committee of tea buyers and sellers and the Chairman and the Secretary of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce were appointed “to consider the formation of an association, and the rules that ought to govern the body, not in opposition but simply subsidiary to the Chamber, and which could discuss questions that affected the trade specially.”

A meeting was held on the 9th August 1894 at which rules and regulations were adopted for the Colombo Tea Traders Association. It was an affiliated Association of the Chamber of Commerce.

Rubber Traders Association

The interests of the Rubber Traders Association were first recognised by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce in 1911 when a Rubber Committee of buyers and sellers were appointed. This alliance was found inadequately strong enough to meet up to the problems that were surfacing at that time, and in November 1918 The Colombo Rubber Traders Association was formed. Its membership composed of rubber traders, buyers, sellers, agents and brokers, and was inaugurated under the aegis of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, on similar lines to the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.

The Colombo Brokers Association

The Colombo Brokers Association was a descendant of the former Colombo Share Brokers Association that was formed in 1896. The new Association came into being in 1904.

The term “Broker” had been in common usage, as he had performed a useful function in the world of commerce. They had figured prominently during the Portuguese and the Dutch period, and had played a pivotal role in the cinnamon trade, acting as the middle-man for the sale of produce. With the conversion of coffee to tea, the term broker had acquired a high standard of respectability in the trade and commerce.

With the establishment of a plantation economy, the functions of the broker came to be legally recognised, and became an integral part of the commercial ethics of the country.

Early selling Brokers
Somerville and Company Ltd.
John and Company
Gordon and Company
Forbes and Walker.
Bartleet and Company
Keel and Waldock.
Agency houses

The origin of Agency Houses in the country can be traced to the days of the cinnamon trade, but most of them came into eminence with the coffee boom. When tea took over from coffee, the agency houses had all the commercial knowledge, financial backing, and marketing assistance, to offer the new enterprise, and the tea industry in a way was lucky to have had all this expertise at hand for a quick take off.

There was considerable speculation when land was originally sold for coffee cultivation. Most of the buyers were either government servants, and other prosperous members of society, or sheer speculators who had no knowledge of planting at all. When they found the going tough, they were compelled to entrust the working of the plantations to a managerial class who had already established themselves in Colombo.

Some of the pioneering agency houses originated as small floating partnerships, or family concerns. With a steady expansion in the volume of business, they were forced to form themselves into corporate bodies. The agency houses took over all the functions of which the planters could not perform from their plantations on the hills. They found all the necessary finance for the running of the estates. They took over all production risks. Regular supplies to the plantations were guaranteed. The produce from the plantations was stored in Colombo until shipment. All managerial services were provided by them, in addition to acting as shipping and insurance agents.

When coffee crashed, the agency houses were in the forefront offering all assistance to start anew on a new crop which had yet to be proved. Tea was still in its infancy when the agency houses came forth to salvage a situation which would otherwise have ended in a state of total collapse.

Original Agency Houses
George Steuart (1835)
Mackwood and Company (1841)
Alston Scott (1848)
The Tea Research Institute of Ceylon

On the 8th of October 1925, an Ordinance was passed in the Legislative Council of Ceylon, whereby provision was made for the establishment of a Tea Research Institute, and for the incorporation of its board of management. Accordingly the TRI was founded, and was to be maintained by funds derived from a cess of 0.1 cent on every pound of tea exported from Ceylon. These rates have on numerous occasions have been revised.

It was established “for the purpose of research into and investigation of all problems and matters relating to tea, and the provision of and publication of information relating to the same, and shall provide such facilities for the education of students in tea research as the Minister of Agricultural may from time to time direct.”

It was Mr. R. G. Coombe who placed before the General Committee of the Planters Association on 9th November 1923 a resolution expressing the need to establish a Tea Research Institute. The proposal was fully endorsed both by the Planters Association of Ceylon and the Ceylon Association in London. The first meeting of the Board was held on 7th January 1926.

Mr. T. Petch BA, BSc a former Director of Agriculture was appointed the first Director of the Tea Research Institute, and the first meeting held at the Victoria Commemoration Building in Kandy, where The Planters Association was accommodated.

The institute’s laboratory was temporarily housed at “Lindfield” Nuwara Eliya and the field experiments carried out at Scrubs estate. This situation was found most unsatisfactory, but it was only in December 1928, a suitable location for the research station was discovered. St. Coombs estate that was a part of a group called Canon, which included Waltrim, and Kowlahena was finally purchased from Anglo-Ceylon and General Estates Company for Rs. 600,000.

The Tea Research Institute situated at Talawakelle had remained the watch dog of the industry, and has done much to enhance the quality of the final product, starting in the field, and then carefully tested in the laboratory, and final finishing touches imparted in the factory