OCR Text |
Show THE COFFEE SHORTAGE. It develops that the coffee shortage is not a coffee shortage at all, but a shipping shortage-. The captain of u steamer recently arrived at New York from Brazil reports that there are huge quantities of coffee on the piers in Brazilian ports which cannot lie moved because of lack of shipping. This sailor says there is no other reason rea-son for the high price of coffee in the (.'liited States than that a supply is not transported hither. All that is needed, he declares, is the ships to bring the coffee from Brazil. Thousands of bags of good coffee on the wharves ore wait ing. The best grade of coffeo is selling at the equivalent of two pounds for cents in Rio Janeiro, while the medium grades command 10 cents the pound or less. In this country the price is about -jo cents the pound for high class coffee. cof-fee. In this item of coffee alone it will bo seen that the new American merchant mer-chant marine can be used to good advantage, ad-vantage, and it is earnestly to be hoped, now that the war is over, that nu adequato fleet of ships will be put in the bouth American trade. |