s lieIl - - - 38! parts.
Broken and rotten nuts 101
Good nuts . _ s i
100
An argument in favour of freeing the nutmegs
from the shell, which at first view appears plausi-
ble, is the saving of freight or carriage, by diminishing
the bulk and weight by 88! per cent.
But this argument is easily answered. The packages
or tare of the nutmegs, according to the present
management, are 25 per cent, of the whole
amount, so that the apparent saving in this respect
is but 13| per cent., against which is to
be balanced the expence of the packages, which are
brought to the Moluccas from Java, as they must be
made of teak, the only wood of the islands found to
answer,—at least four months loss of time, with the
labour of curing the nuts, the cost of the materials
employed, and the effects of the depredation of
the insect. There can be no doubt that the cost
of bringing the nutmeg to market, therefore, is
very greatly enhanced by the injudicious practice
of freeing them from the shell, and this is satisfactorily
proved by a comparison of the relative
prices of the clove, the mace, and the nutmeg, in
the early state of the commerce, before the present
mode of treating the nutmeg was-adopted, with the
existing pricps. In the first periods of our commerce,
the average price of the nutmeg to the
clove was as 100 is to 290, or 65! per cent cheaper.
At present the case is reversed, and the relative
prices are as 100 is to ¥/, or 113 per cent, dearer.
This factitious and unnatural price, however, is
far from being, as will be presently seen, altogether
attributable to the blunder made in curing the
nutmegs, but is in a great measure also owing to
a rigour of monopoly, and a restricted production
in culture and trade in the nutmegs grown by the
hands of a few slaves, which could not be carried to
so pernicious an extent with the clove, cultivated
by the numerous and comparatively free population
of Amboyna. The intelligence, which is engendered
by free commerce, would render such
observations as these superfluous; but it belongs
to the imbecility which is the inseparable character
of commercial monopoly, to require a perpetual tutoring
and direction even towards accomplishing its
own narrow objects.
The mace requires no such preparation as the
nutmeg, simple exsiccation in the sun rendering it
at once fit for the market.
The natural price of rearing nutmegs, and bringing
them to market, in a state of free trade and culture,
may he ascertained without much difficulty.
A picul of long nutmegs in the shell, the natural
expence of growing which is exactly the same as