An island of tea

Ceylon’s Tea Industry

To reach the position I am in today, I had to work very hard, travel extensively, take risks, face situations which made me stronger and gave me the courage and strength to keep moving and never to yield. Above all, I believe I received divine guidance. Merrill J Fernando

When the British East India Company took control of Ceylon from the Dutch in 1796, their concerns were much the same as those that had driven them to battle for almost 200 years with the Portuguese and the Dutch for supremacy of the high seas in their quest for power and wealth. Conquered territories were seen as a source of land to be utilised, labour to be harnessed, and resources, crops and products to be plundered. Company’s directors and employees based their control and governance of the land on their desire for commercial and political success. The lands of the Orient were therefore not generally valued as ancient, fascinating or rich civilisations whose religions and philosophies perhaps had something to teach the newcomers (although certainly in some cases - and especially in India – some Europeans did adopt the local way of life, manner of dress and even the religion) but were viewed simply as territories to be tamed and exploited.

The main concern of colonialist powers was to gain control of trade routes and overseas territory, and to develop industry, commerce or trade for the benefit of European investors and owners. However, treaties and agreements signed with local rulers often imposed some controls and under the Kandyan Convention of 1815, the British, although given power over the entire island, were bound to maintain the laws, customs and institutions of the Kandyan kingdom. An early failure to adhere to this agreement led to an insurrection in 1817 and, in preparation for expected resistance or rebellion, the British built a

network of roads to facilitate the movement of troops – which proved to be rather useful later for the transportation of coffee and eventually tea. Peace was reinstated and the British went on to rule the country with a more liberal and responsible approach than the Dutch had demonstrated and managed to maintain generally good relationships with all concerned.

The imposition of British ways and the poorly paid use of local labour does not mean that the island of Ceylon did not benefit from the development of the plantation industry. Indeed, the expansion of the plantations brought improved infrastructure, roads and railways, the clearing of vast tracts of jungle, the construction of new towns and villages, new employment and business opportunities for shopkeepers, merchants and retailers of consumer goods, transportation companies, merchant sailors, road builders, engineers, mechanics and domestic staff. It was in some of these sectors that local investors and entrepreneurs were able to establish successful businesses as the island’s economy grew.

As earlier conquerors and rulers, the Portuguese and the Dutch had already set the pattern long before the British arrived. They invested in infrastructure, recruited local labour, shipped spices, ivory and precious stones back home to Europe, deposited large profits in European banks and paid the workers in Ceylon a minimal wage.

However, while recognising and acknowledging all the benefits, it is crucial to understand that the tea industry was underpinned by structures and systems that continued to govern the way in which it was organised in the 19th and through into the 20th century. The British inevitably replicated and perpetuated their British way of life in order to both create a semblance of home away from home and also to enable British commerce to grow and strengthen. Their clubs, commercial associations, trade bodies, banks and other institutions were organised and run along exactly the same lines as in Britain. They were established and maintained to protect British interests and to keep the control of Ceylon tea firmly in British hands. And this perhaps predicted and prescribed the sort of businessman Merrill J Fernando would have to be if he was to build, in the 20th century, a successful enterprise that could operate as a truly Sri Lankan company and not simply as a clone of earlier British companies.

The British Become Tea Planters

As earlier conquerors and rulers, the Portuguese and the Dutch had already set the pattern long before the British arrived. They invested in infrastructure, recruited local labour, shipped spices, ivory and precious stones back home to Europe, deposited large profits in European banks and paid the workers in Ceylon a minimal wage. When the British wrested control out of Dutch hands, Ceylon’s cinnamon gardens were producing some 400,000 pounds of the spice every year – valued by the British crown at £60,000 per year. Once in control, the British decided to diversify and tried indigo, sugar, cotton and tobacco before settling on the idea of growing coffee and coconuts – coffee on the higher land and coconut in the coastal regions. They set about acquiring more land, often with a careless disregard for ancient laws which gave every Sinhalese the right to a piece of land, thus disrupting in the longer term

the structure of local communities. And then they started planting. Some Sinhalese entrepreneurs (and some Indian) also purchased land as the planting areas opened up around Adam’s Peak and up at the high elevations of Dimbula, Dickoya, Nuwara Eliya and Uva. But the majority of plantations were in European, and mostly British hands.

The new planters recruited cheap labour from the indigenous population but, although Sinhalese craftsmen were willing in the early stages of development to chop down trees, clear undergrowth and erect necessary buildings, once those jobs had been completed, they showed no interest in continuing to work for foreigners but returned to their villages. And so the planters, unable to recruit enough workers from within the island, sent agents to Southern India to persuade Tamil villagers to leave their homes and take up the offer of work in Ceylon. Once recruited, this migrant workforce was shipped across

the dangerous Palk Straights and brought, in hazardous and gruelling conditions, down the North Road from Jaffna to Kandy and beyond. Many died during the sea voyage and many more perished on the road to Kandy due to disease, attacks by wild animals, lack of water and food, and exhaustion.

The first Tamil immigrants started work in Ceylon in 1828 and were put to constructing roads and railways and clearing jungle. They lived in appalling conditions and were very badly paid but they continued to accept employment in Ceylon because it offered a better life than was possible in the rural villages of southern India. In the days of coffee, these journeys were undertaken by some at least twice a year as the Tamils came to harvest the seasonal coffee crop and then went home again. The development of the tea industry offered more permanent positions for families who, once they had arrived, were housed on the plantation. The ‘workers’ lines’ were dismal, offering single-room, mud-floored units that were occupied by groups of three or four ‘coolies’. In cases where wives and children had accompanied the men from India, each of the little apartments housed one family. Although at first it was only the individual planters and their womenfolk who provided any medical care and welfare for the employees, a network of clinics, hospitals, dispensaries, and childcare units was established as an accepted necessity. Each plantation functioned as a separate, independent entity with its own hierarchical structure, its own workforce and its own care facilities. Once families had settled on a particular plantation, they tended not to move elsewhere but became part of the resident population.

New Recruits from Britain

British recruits were also sought back home to work as superintendents and managers, overseers and assistants. From the small town of St Laurencekirk in Scotland, came James Taylor and his cousin Henry Stiven, both of whom had been signed up by Messrs G & J A Hadden. Recent school leavers with no particularly bright prospects on the horizon at home, they were typical of their age group and their social group. We learn from the Times of Ceylon in 1907 that a certain Mr Peter Moir “.... had come out to Ceylon in 1843. He was manager to Messrs Hadden’s properties out here, and enticed a lot of young people from our small town to come out. It is a very small town, ours. It is St Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire, with a population of about 2,000 souls, yet at one time there were as many as fourteen St Laurencekirk men in Ceylon.” And so a steady stream of tough and hard-working Scots left their small towns in Britain and sailed out to Ceylon to grow coffee, and then tea. There were Robertsons and Macgregors, Steuarts and Fergusons, Alexanders and Camerons. Plantations were given names that reminded the men of home – Moray, Lochiel, Glasgow, St Andrews, Gleneagles, and Logie. Similarly, the English planters chose the smartest of names for their new properties – Eton, Mayfair and Kensington.

The collapse of coffee meant that many disappointed, disillusioned, unemployed and even bankrupt planters left the island and returned home to Britain. But those who stayed, encouraged and heartened by the success of experiments at Loolecondera and elsewhere, somehow found the strength to try again, this time with tea. Some who had given up and gone home now returned, while more promising young men just out of school or the military were encouraged to try a life in planting. But they had to be tough, single-minded, resilient, of robust health and determined.

The Early Tea Plantations

Facilities on the early plantations were primitive and the lifestyle basic. Planters and managers lived in small, roughly-constructed wooden cabins with the simplest of furnishings and utilities. They were often isolated for long stretches of time and had to take full responsibility for every aspect of life on the estates – overseeing the workers in field and factory, mediating in any disagreements, arranging medical care when necessary, taking care of the finances and paying the wages. If the plantation was to run smoothly, the planter was required to be commander-in-chief, doctor, banker, welfare officer, plantsman and policeman all at the same time. During the change from coffee to tea, money was often in short supply, making day-to-day life even more difficult and challenging. However, as the plantation industry developed and prospered, the superintendent or planter usually acquired an assistant, an apprentice and a local supervisor known

as a ‘kangany’ who recruited labour and then managed the workforce so that the planter or superintendent had little more to do with his Tamil employees.

If housing for planters and employees was of the most basic kind, so too were the early tea factories. As William Forsythe explained in his Memoirs, “The first low-country tea houses had to be seen to be believed! They consisted of wattle and daub walls, cadjan roofs, mud floors and a few chulahs (open stoves), with grooved tables for hand rolling …”. Ceylon tea factories gradually developed a quite distinct form and shape. Whereas factories in Assam had been built with withering sheds, or ‘leafhouses’, separate from the actual factory, in Ceylon, two or three floors of withering troughs were placed above the processing area on the ground floor. One reason for this particular Ceylon style was the lack of suitable space for large buildings. Another was the fact that the coffee factories which had been converted to tea were often positioned close to streams and rivers where power could be generated. The cool damp air close to the ground was unhelpful to the withering process and so extra floors were added to accommodate the withering areas. Once this format had been established, most Ceylon factories were built in the same style.

When the leaf had been gathered by the pickers, it was brought into the factory, carried up to the withering floors and spread out thinly on ‘tats’ – wooden structures with jute hessian stretched across them – for between 18 and 24 hours. The withered leaf was then sent down shoots to the rolling room on the ground floor. Before the introduction of mechanical rollers, the leaf was rolled by hand – a “laborious and somewhat disgusting operation”, according to Frederick Lewis in his Sixty Four Years in Ceylon, “after which it was thinly spread over shallow calico-bottomed trays, that were placed on the tops of what looked like inverted hollow pyramids, the apex of which was filled with live charcoal”. Once machinery had been introduced to make the job easier, the leaf from the roller was shaken to break it up and then spread out on fermenting beds, made of smooth concrete, to oxidise. The charcoal stoves referred to by Lewis were gradually replaced with firing machines or driers that circulated the tea on a series of wire trays over a current of hot air. After sorting into different leaf sizes, the made black tea was ready for shipment to London.

The collapse of coffee meant that many disappointed, disillusioned, unemployed and even bankrupt planters left the island and returned home to Britain. But those who stayed, encouraged and heartened by the success of experiments at Loolecondera and elsewhere, somehow found the strength to try again, this time with tea.

With a growing number of companies that had investments in the plantations and an increasing quantity of tea being offered for sale, various official bodies and organisations were set up to represent the interests of those involved.

Managing the Industry

Most of the land acquired by the British for planting at the beginning of the 19th century was mostly purchased by employees of the East India Company, by government representatives and officials, or by adventurous speculators – both companies and private individuals - who recognised the future potential of the island. The companies that owned the tea estates were registered as sterling companies based in London, or rupee companies based in Colombo. They were either partnerships or joint stock limited liability companies that had interests in various concerns across a number of industries – in rubber, cotton, jute, shipping, sawmills, copper and engineering. When money for investment was needed, funds were sought from private individuals, family members, friends, tea merchants and other planters. If yet more cash was needed, more shares were offered to existing investors rather than raising capital by floating on the stock market, and so the tea companies remained in the same hands of a relatively small group of people who worked closely together to control their interests.

Given the vast distance between their offices in London and the estates in Ceylon, and with little or no experience or understanding of the crops being grown or indeed of plantation management, a third party was required to manage the day-to-day running of the business. And so the agency houses were born, staffed by particular individuals who had already had dealings with producers and traders and who knew how the plantations operated and understood prices, transportation and shipping. These men offered the skills needed to ensure the profitable and smooth functioning of the plantations and the disposal of the crop through a network of brokers, wholesalers and shippers. Although their principal role was to supervise the estates and facilitate the sale of the crop, agency houses often also offered banking facilities and so employed ‘Visiting Agents’ whose job it was to value properties and assess how much money might be loaned to an owner to help with the development of an estate. Sir Thomas Villiers described the work of a Visiting Agent as “not so much to advise on the management and cultivation of the estates but to estimate the amount of credit that could be given to the proprietor. Estates were also constantly changing hands, and the Visiting Agent was called in on behalf of the vendor or the purchasing party to value the property”. As this network of facilitators grew, the agency houses often represented more than one planter or group of planters, thus creating an even more tightlyclosed circle of controlling influences. And those controlling influences were almost entirely British.

With a growing number of companies that had investments in the plantations and an increasing quantity of tea being offered for sale, various official bodies and organisations were set up to represent the interests of those involved. In 1854, the Planters’ Association (generally referred to as the PA) was established to represent the planters and fight for the things they needed the government to do to support the industry - build roads and railways, impose taxes, control imports of tea from China and India, and allow the importation of foreign labour. The PA had the right to nominate a member to the Legislative Council and used every opportunity to act effectively as

a pressure group for tea. In 1888, the Ceylon Association in London (CAL) was established for the “protection and furtherance of the general interests in Ceylon”. In 1894, the Colombo Tea Traders’ Association came into being with the purpose of promoting “the common interests of sellers and buyers of tea in the Colombo market”. And the Ceylon Estate Agents’ Association, set up in 1913, gave way in 1921 to the Ceylon Estates Proprietary Association which was so powerful that it too gained the right to send a member to the Legislative Council. The existence and power of these bodies highlights the way in which the Ceylon tea industry was run in very close collaboration with the British government of Ceylon and with the London trade. The structure became such an established and powerful part of the tea trade that it was to continue for decades and was difficult to change later, even after Ceylon had gained independence from Britain.

The Expansion of the Industry

Between 1882 and 1886, more and more land was purchased, more and more seed was propagated for new stock and Ceylon truly became a tea producing country. As the newly established plants started yielding more leaf in the latter part of the decade, planters developed the idea of sharing factory facilities for processing it. Sometimes three or four estates sent their freshly harvested tea to one central factory. This made economically sensible use of the expensive new machinery that had been manufactured in Britain and shipped in by companies such as Marshall of Gainsborough, Davidson of Belfast or John Walker & Co. As their new inventions made the tea factories more viable and as the amount of tea being produced increased, the industry needed new structures and systems to cope with the manufacture, transportation, storage and selling of tea. And with prices rising and the demand for tea in Britain and elsewhere growing, those engineering firms were just one business sector that grew as a result of the burgeoning Indian and Ceylon tea industries. The idea of investing in this thriving new sector appealed to many and the number of banks, brokerages, shipping companies, importers and transport companies grew rapidly and made money for both foreign and Sinhalese investors.

In 1890 a new personality arrived on the Ceylon tea scene and he was to bring Ceylon tea to the notice of the British public in a way that no other grower, retailer or promotional body had ever done before. Before he set foot on the island himself, Thomas Lipton, successful grocer and publicity genius, secretly sent his agent to assess the possibilities of buying land for tea growing in Ceylon. He told his friends and business colleagues that he was setting off for Australia to explore business possibilities there but in fact, when the passenger steamer on which he was travelling docked in Colombo, he disembarked and set about the business he had come for – that of purchasing tea estates. He planned to offer the public cheaper tea that he had grown himself on his own estates, instead of having to buy through an expensive network of brokers and middlemen. He bought four plantations almost immediately and several more soon after, and started growing and selling tea direct to the consumer in Britain at a price well below the average, publicising his Ceylon tea with the now famous slogan, “Direct from the tea garden to the teapot”. He avoided the middle men; he side-stepped the auctions; he simply grew the tea and marketed it through his vast network of family grocery shops. However, his plantations could not produce nearly as much tea as he needed to meet demand and so, like everyone else, he found that he had to blend his ‘pure’ Ceylon tea with teas from India. But, for many people, Lipton became synonymous with Ceylon tea and, already a millionaire from his chain of grocery shops, he became a multi-millionaire through his tea business.

By 1900, the area under tea on the island had reached 387,000 acres and total exports steadily rose – 151,011,454 pounds in 1903, 158,183,330 pounds in 1904, with most of that going to Britain. By

1929, with improved cultivation and manufacture and a more scientific approach to planting and plant husbandry, exports had increased to 251,588,012 pounds of tea which earned a little under £15.5 million sterling. But exports of teas to London had in fact started very slowly. In 1873, James Taylor sent 23 pounds; in 1875, two boxes were shipped to London (and two more to New York); in 1876, 240 pounds were listed amongst sundry exports; in 1878, quantities started building and at the London auction, 10 chests were sold for “fairly satisfactory” prices. And, there had been little excitement at first. The London brokers wrote such comments as, “the quality of the liquor somewhat dull and capable of improvement”, and “the liquor though of good strength lacks flavour”. Some did not find it to their taste and compared it to Indian teas, not yet aware perhaps of the differences that growing conditions, altitude and climate can make to the character of teas from different origins. In 1884, only 2.5 million pounds of tea from 135 estates were auctioned in London, but with major successes for Ceylon teas at international trade fairs and exhibitions in Melbourne and Calcutta, interest in London picked up and by 1887, 15 million pounds were shipped into London. With the demand for tea in Britain growing due to a reduction in the tea tax and the rising popularity of the beverage amongst all classes, Ceylon teas began to make their mark and started fetching much higher prices.

With so much tea now being offered for sale, and more than 90% of it going to London, it was recognised that Colombo would have to establish London style tea auctions to handle at least some of the tea being produced. The first of these was held on 30th July 1883 at the offices of Somerville & Co, one of Colombo’s leading tea brokers. Put up for sale were 5 separate lots of tea - one lot of 999 pounds of teas from Kabaragalla, three lots from ‘Agars’ land’ and four quantities of tea from Ooodawarra. At the end of July that same year, one auction offered 14 lots and gradually the number of lots and the variety of leaf grades increased. The auctions continued to be held at the premises of

As the newly established plants started yielding more leaf in the latter part of the decade, planters developed the idea of sharing factory facilities for processing it. Sometimes three or four estates sent their freshly harvested tea to one central factory. This made economically sensible use of the expensive new machinery that had been manufactured in Britain and shipped in by companies such as Marshall of Gainsborough, Davidson of Belfast or John Walker & Co.

the broking companies but by 1894, they were being regularly held at the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. Those in attendance each week included brokers, representatives of the agency houses, and buying agents for wholesalers and packing companies in Britain and elsewhere. In 1891, the United Kingdom Tea Company of Mincing Lane purchased a consignment of tea from Gallebodde Estate and declared it “the finest tea ever grown”.

Promoting the Product

Tommy Lipton was not alone in running advertising campaigns to publicise Ceylon tea to the wider world. The planters themselves took every opportunity to advertise their new product, offering it to friends and family, colleagues and work associates in their attempt to raise awareness and create a demand. They discussed the need to advertise both in Britain and in the newer markets of Russia, Canada and America. They tried, without success, to persuade the government to fund a Ceylon Commissioner to represent them at the 1879 Sydney Exhibition, but Ceylon tea was well represented at both the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880 and at Calcutta in 1883. From 1883 to 1886, the government gave greater financial support and in 1886, the Planters’ Association set up a voluntary Tea Syndicate Fund in order to raise money to pay for the distribution of free samples of tea to traders in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

At this point, H K Rutherford, of Mariawatte Estate took on the role of chief publicist for Ceylon tea. He urged the planters to promote their teas at the 1888 Glasgow Exhibition and suggested a voluntary tax of 1 rupee per 1000 pounds of tea to pay for such advertising and representation. In 1892, his idea of imposing an export tax to pay for promotion at the Chicago World Fair led to the government’s introduction in 1894 of the first ‘Propaganda Cess’ and the establishment of a committee, made up of 24 planters and 6 members of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, to act as the official body for the promotion of Ceylon tea. At exhibitions in London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Brussels, Melbourne, Paris, Chicago and Russia, Ceylon tea played a prominent role. It was served in restaurants, small packets of it were given away, and mini model factories were set up to explain to the public how the tea was made. To raise the public’s awareness further, royal personalities were presented with gifts of tea, the thirst of the German army was quenched by cups of Ceylon tea, and grants were awarded in the US, New Zealand, the Argentine Republic, Germany, Tasmania, Russia, Sweden, Canada, Switzerland, Austria, Indian and Africa to any merchant who agreed to sell only pure Ceylon tea. In the City of London, some companies set up tasting rooms where Ceylon tea was served every afternoon, and in 1893, J Lyons agreed to serve Ceylon tea at the Imperial Institute in London at the price of 3 pence a cup. In 1891 a tea kiosk opened at the Colombo Passenger Jetty and ran for 9 years. In 1894, Ceylon considered joint promotions with India and in 1896, the two countries collaborated in placing advertisements in 28 newspapers. By 1904, India and Ceylon were jointly sponsoring a three-year promotional programme in the North American district of St Louis.

Dilmah today sells large quantities of tea to Russia and the important link between the two countries was established in the mid 1880s when the Ceylon planters recognised the potential there. Russia was for decades the third largest consumer of black tea (after the UK and Australia) and in 1886 a certain Mr G H D Elphinstone, Scottish planter and promoter of Ceylon tea, went to Russia to assess the potential for promoting Ceylon teas for the Russians to brew in their samovars instead of the black China teas they had traditionally purchased. Trade with Ceylon did grow but only slowly and by the turn of the century the Russians were still importing the vast majority of their tea from China – 119 million pounds in 1901, whereas imports from Ceylon amounted to only 18 million. By 1910, Ceylon tea imports had risen to 19.5 million but the Russian Revolution of 1917 put paid to any further development when the Russians started growing their own tea around the Caucasus. It was not until the late 1950s that Russia once again started buying from Ceylon, dealing directly with Merrill J Fernando who was by then working in the Colombo tea trade.

Although all tea manufactured in Ceylon up to this point had been black, a decision was taken in the late 1890s to also manufacture green tea to meet the perceived demands of the North American market. In 1903, 7 million pounds of green tea were exported but demand was limited and quantities rapidly declined while exports of black tea steadily increased (Ceylon actually went on producing green tea until 1936, with its main customers in Russia, India and the US). Arguments and discussions persisted about the imposition of export and import duties and the use of resulting funds to sponsor promotional campaigns, but there was never enough money to run a sustained and effective campaign. By 1914 this lack of finances meant that all publicity and promotional activities had dwindled.

From World War I to Independence

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 brought new concerns. For the first three years of the war, the planters were free to continue their business as usual but in 1917, the government in London took control of imports and prices of all tea going into Britain. And even though business returned more or less to normal once the war was over, with a record 140 million pounds of Ceylon tea arriving in London, problems at docks and depots, and a surplus of government-controlled tea readily available, tea prices in general fell and Ceylon teas no longer fetched the high prices they had enjoyed before the war. Voluntary controls on production were suggested but not implemented, and the idea of scientific research with the aim of improving tea quality in the longer term was discussed as a possible answer to failing markets. Ever since James Taylor’s day, the planters had recognised the need for soil analysis, a study of the chemistry of tea, and the control of pests, blight and other plant diseases. In 1923 came the suggestion for the establishment of a tea research station in Ceylon and in 1928 the Tea Research Institute of Ceylon was set up at St Coombs in Dimbula with a loan of Rs 1 million from the government. In its quest to produce consistently better tea, the Institute has subsequently led the field in the vegetative propagation of new plants and in its work against plant disease.

In the early 1930s, world overproduction of tea caused a further slump in prices and the International Tea Restriction Scheme was introduced, limiting production and exports from Ceylon. Although originally intended to last only 5 years, the scheme was kept in place until 1955. Tea prices remained low through the post war years and, with the threat of world depression and a surplus of poor stock widely available to the consuming public, the Ceylon planters decided that a sustained programme of publicity was essential if the tea-drinking world was to sit up and take notice of Ceylon tea. In 1932, the government, the Planters’ Association and other concerned bodies (including the Ceylon Estates Proprietary Association, the Low-Country Products Association and the Colombo Tea Traders’ Association) set up the Ceylon Tea Propaganda Board and appointed Gervas Huxley as their Colombo-based Chief Commissioner. He travelled to Kenya, India and South Africa to discuss the possibilities of working together and then coordinated work in London with the newly set up Empire Tea Growers’ Campaign. The Ceylon tea growers had already seen how well their teas sold in markets outside Britain and so more commissioners were appointed for North America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Then in 1935, a new body, the International Tea Market Expansion Board, was set up to promote all tea from around the world rather than particular teas from just a few countries. And, while the Ceylon planters were again worrying about the promotion of their own teas, war intervened yet once more and destabilised world markets. Plans for advertising were pushed aside, controls over shipping and exports were immediately put in place, and the Ceylon industry concerned itself with supplying tea to the armed forces around the world and to those stationed in Ceylon as part of the Allied war against the Japanese.

During World War II, the majority of Ceylon’s crop was sold under contract to the British government for a price fixed by them based on the individual estates’ average prices. The auctions were suspended from 1942 to 1947 and the brokers based in Ceylon were employed by the British government to inspect and value all the teas sold in Colombo. Once the war was over, other more pressing issues became important in the tea industry and in the wider community. There was growing disapproval for the way in which the majority of the profits earned from tea went into foreign pockets and did not benefit Ceylon. The question of landlessness had also been a suppressed issue ever since the early days of coffee planting. Vast tracts of land had been taken over and developed as plantations, ignoring and destabilising the traditional systems of land ownership. The more land was planted with coffee and later tea, the less land there was for the native people and the more families found themselves landless. These worries and concerns began to ferment and bubble to the surface, political pressure steadily strengthened and the movement for independence gained momentum. On 4th February 1948, Ceylon gains independence from British colonial rule.