SYLHET, East Pakistan, July 30—The tea planters Of Sylhet, whose way of life for the past century has symbolized the majesty of the British empire in a colonial land, have been dealt a series of blows by guerrilla in the past few months. An institution may be ending.

Pakistan has been an independent nation since 1947, and, despite their English, names, the tea companies have largely passed into Pakistani hands. The tea is no longer exported to Britain, since Pakistan herself has become a nation of tea drinkers and consumes all the tea she grows.

But despite the changes, the typical tea garden here is still run much as it was a century ago. The British or Pakistani manager still lives in a handsome mansion with flower gardens, a swimming pool and has plenty of native bearers. He also commands an army of tea packers, who live at the other end of the social scale.

A Paradox of Parallels

The Pakistani planter, Jas almost as little in common with Pakistani workers as did his English predecessor.

Typically, the planter is Moslem and either a West Pakistani or a non‐Bengali who has settled in East Pakistan. About 90 per cent of his tea pickers are Bengali Hindus whose lives are not materially different from what they were in the days of empire.

Consequently, Pakistani and British planters are now in much the same position and both are badly frightened.

Sylhet District, bordering the Indian state of Assam, is a strategic frontier region. The border zone thunders every day with artillery fire from Indian and Pakistani gunners. There is a steady flow of casualties.

But as the planters drive through rain‐soaked hills where waxy green tea bushes stretch as far as the eye can see, the main danger is the guerrilla.

Two Planters Are Missing

On June 2 Phillip J. Chalmers, an English planter for Duncan Brothers Pakistan Limited, was kidnapped while driving through his tea gardens near here. Tea pickers who had recently crossed the border from India reported seeing Mr. Chalmers held by Indian troops. The Pakistan army believes he is dead.

Another Englishman, James Boyd, was seized from his plantation bungalow on June 16 and is also believed dead.

On March 25, the Pakistan army moved into East Pakistan to suppress the Bengali separatist movement here. At first, organized opposition to the army appeared, to have been stamped out.

Millions of Pakistanis, especially Hindus terrified by the fire‐and‐sword tactics of the Moslem army from the west, fled to India. Those from Sylhet District took most of the tea plantation cars and trucks with them. The pursuing army seized the rest when it arrived.

70 Miles to Dinner

“We planters have always been a bit isolated,” one manager said, “but we always had very active social lives. Until March, we thought nothing of driving 70 miles to have dinner with some other planter and coming back the same night.

“But the vehicles are gone now, the roads are often mined, and there are guerrillas. Life has certainly changed.”

The tea gardens within five miles of the Indian border normally produce 60 per cent of the Sylhet tea crop. These are the plantations hardest hit.

Bangla Desh (Bengali Nation) guerrillas have avoided damaging the tea plants, but factory installations have been systematically sabotaged, some of them by dynamiting.

Tea company officials estimate that fewer than half of their workers are on the job. The crop this year will be so bad that Pakistan is being forced to spend desperately needed revenue from foreign exchange to import tea from Ceylon and China.

Some plantation managers have given up completely and moved to East Pakistan's capital, Dacca. Some Englishmen have gone home. Other planters, who live in especially dangerous areas, have moved to the quarters of the Rev. Joseph Lehaine, a Roman Catholic priest from New Jersey.

“Father Lehaine has been a friend to all of us,” one planter said. “Probably some of us owe our lives to having been able to stay with him.”