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Show highest record, 1920, showed larger quantities imported than in any year precedinf that date. The average import im-port price of colfee entering the country in the fiscal year 1920 was, according to the Department of commerce, com-merce, practically 22 cents per pound (21.98 cents), and the quantity imported im-ported in that year 1,417,000,000 pounds, or more than in any earlier year in the history of the country, and in fact is only exceeded by the record of the calnedar year 1923 when the total is approximately 1,-425,000,000 1,-425,000,000 pounds. Ordinarily the import price of raw coffee averages from 10 to 12 and 13 cents per pound. In the calendar year 1923 the average aver-age import price was about 13 cents per pound, the valuation of the coffee imported being, under the laws of the United States, "the actual market value or wholesale price thereof at the time of exportation to the United Unit-ed States in the principal markets of the country from whence exported." export-ed." Prices vary, however, the coffee coming from Brazil in the 11 months of 1923 for which detailed figures .are now available having averaged 12.47 cents per pound, that from Central America as a whole 13.33 cents, from Colombia 16.81 cents, and from Java slightly more than 18 cents. While about two-thirds of the coffee entering the United States originates in Brazil, the number of countries from which our total imports im-ports are drawn is, according to government gov-ernment records, over 50, the chief countries from which the 1922 imports im-ports were darwn having been, in the order of rank as measured in pounds, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Guate-mala, Mexico, Java, Salvador, and Costa "Rica. The total quantity imported im-ported from the principal countries in the 11 months of 1923 for which details are now available was from Brazil 834,000,000 pounds, Colombia 202,000,000, Central America as a whole 117,000,000, Venezuela 48,000,-000, 48,000,-000, Mexico 33,000,000, and Java 8 million pounds. About 2 per cent of this coffee imported is re-exported. The United States is the world's biggest consumer of coffee. We take in fact about one-half of the coffee of the world and our per capita consumption con-sumption is now probably greater than that of any other country. Brazil Bra-zil is the world's largest producer and now supplies about 70 per cent of the world's coffee. The amount of money which we have sent to Brazil alone for coffee since the beginning be-ginning of 1913 is over one billion dollars. The coffee tree has wandered wander-ed far from its original home, Abyssinia, Aby-ssinia, following the tropical belt the world around but proving especially successful in tropical America Am-erica which now produces about 90 per cent of the coffee of the world. COFFEE BILL FOR U. S. MILLION DOLLARS DAILY . Coffee imports into the United States in the calendar year 1923 were the largest in the history of our import im-port trade. They aggregated, says the Trade Record of The National City Bank of New York, 1,425,000000 pounds against a former high record of 1,345,000,000 in 1921, 1,297,000,-000 1,297,000,-000 in 1920, and 852,000,000 in the year preceding the war; all of these figures relate to calendar years. The value of the coffee imports of 1923 was in round terms $193,000,000 against $105,000,000 in 1913., Whether the war had anything to do with this growth of our coffee habit is not easy to determine but at least it is a fact that the quantity imported has rapidly increased since 1913, the total quantity imported in 1923 being 66 per cent greater than in the year preceding the war, while the consuming population has meantime mean-time increased but 14 per cent. Whether prohibition has had anything any-thing to do with the increased consumption con-sumption is also not easy to- determine determ-ine but it is a fact that the imports of 1923 were but slightly greater than in 1919, the year preceding that in which the prohibition amendment came into effect.' There were only two occasions prior to the war in which imports reached as much as a billion pou'nds and four occasions prior to prohibition prohibi-tion in whffch the total exceeded 1,-200,000,000 1,-200,000,000 pounds; in 1923 the total was 1,425,000,000. The average per capita consumption in 1913, as stated by the Statistical Abstract of the United States, was silghtly below 9 pounds per capita; in 1918 10 lbs.; 1921 slightly above 12, and in 1923 approximately 13 pounds per capita. And the coffee "habit" seems a somewhat expensive one, says the Trade Record, when we note, that the stated value of the coffe imported since 1913 is over 1 billion dollars worth in the countries from which brought and by the time it is shipped to our ports, warehoused, roasted and transferred to the consumer has fully doubled in pyice, suggesting that the people of the country have paid more than $3,000,000,000 for their coffee since the beginning of the war, and that they are now paying pay-ing for their coffee considerably over a million dollars a day. But the people will have it irrespective irre-spective of price, for the very year in which the import price made, its |