Independence! For Ceylon and for Merrill J Fernando The tea industry was subject to absolute exploitation via regulations of the British dominated Colombo Tea Traders Association (CTTA), shipping cartels, freight rates fixed to make value added tea exports far too uncompetitive, and numerous other restrictions aimed at protecting vested interests. They were harmful to local traders as they placed severe restrictions on their progress. I could not accept many of these. I was identified as a rebel. As I was running my own small business, I was the victim of all the rules and regulations which only benefited foreign trade interests. I created awareness of them 66
A Cup of Kindness
by recording my protest fearlessly. It was during this period that I acquired trading disciplines, knowledge and experience about tea and the industry, its weaknesses and shortcomings that the trade and government failed to recognise. Merrill J Fernando
Although
Ceylon gained its independence from the British in 1948, the tea industry
continued along much the same path as before. Roughly two thirds of the sector was owned and controlled by sterling companies based in the UK and, as well as the actual growing and manufacturing of tea, the majority of the related activities of buying and selling, storing, shipping, blending, packing, banking, insurance and retailing were in British hands. Several of the largest tea companies (Brooke Bond, the Co-operative Wholesale Society, Lipton, etc.) now had interests
The Story of Dilmah Tea
