Further, in the concluding six years of the century, the Tea importations had further augmented to 21,706,718 lbs., the 91,183 lbs. of 1700 having become a century later upwards of _twenty-five million pounds_. In 1784 the Commutation Act passed the Legislature. By its provisions the East India Company were compelled to make quarterly sales of Tea, to sell even as low as one penny a pound above prime cost, and to keep a sufficient quantity for one year’s consumption always on hand. The same year Mr. Pitt reduced the duty to 12½ per cent., to which act is ascribed the enormous increase in the trade. Although in 1795 the duty was raised to 20 per cent., still the consumption of Tea increased. Early in the nineteenth century other fiscal changes occurred. The Customs’ duty, for example, was fixed at 6 per cent., and the Excise duty 90 per cent. in value; while in 1819 the former impost was repealed, and the latter made cent. per cent. However, nothing that statesmen or financiers could effect seemed to check the growing fondness of English people of all social grades for their cherished beverage. Accordingly we find that during the first twenty-seven years of the present century--a period which completes the third fifty years of the Tea trade--the average annual consumption amounted to about _twenty-nine million pounds_. Since 1827, the intervening half century has witnessed several fiscal changes in the Tea trade. The first and most important occurred in 1834, when the Excise duty became removed, differential Customs’ duties were imposed, and the long-existing monopoly of the East India Company was abolished. In 1835, practically the first year of free trade, the imports exceeded by 30 per cent. any previous period. The following year, at the request of the Tea dealers and brokers, the differential duties were repealed, and a fixed impost of two shillings in the pound imposed, the result being an increase of importation to the extent of fifty million pounds. In 1840, a rate of 5 per cent. was charged, thus raising the duty to 2s. 2¼d. per pound. [Illustration: DRYING.--A basket frame, wide at both ends and contracted towards the centre, containing the tea, is placed over hot embers of charcoal.]