Norwich bulletin., 1920-05-27
COFFEE CONSUMPTION IN
 FIRST YEAR OF PROHIBITION

The people of the United States are paying over a million dollars a day for their coffee. The import valuation of the coffee entering the United States in the fiscal year which ends with next month will be over $300, ,000, ,o0o, says a statement by The National City Bank of New York. And when we consider that this import valuation is the price of the article in the country from which imported, it Is quite evident that the added cost of freight, roasting, and distribution to the consumer will bring the total much above $365, 900, 900 mak- ing the average for the year more than a million dollars a day against one third that sum two years ago.
 This enormous increase in the sums which the people of the United States are paying fer coffee in 19e6, as com pared with 1918, says the banks state ment, results in part from an increase in quantity and in part to an increase ] in price. The quantity imported in the ] fiscal year which ends with next month | will approximate l,5e0.0 900 pounds against 1,052,09e,e 900 two years ago, while the average import price in 1920 was 22.Tc per pound against an aver age of 9 1-2e per pound in ths fiscal year 1918, these figures being the aver age wholesale price in the country of
 
 Y file the average import price of coffee brought inte the United States in the fiscal year 1920 is double that during the war period and higher than in any year in the history of the import trade, the quantity imported has also gone on increasing. The total coffee imports in the year ending with next month will approximate 100000, 600 pounds against the former high record of 9o0 ;,, the average import price was less than half that of 1920.
 Whether this increased consumption of coffee, irrespective of price, is or is not related to prohibition, it is at least fact that n both quantity imported and price per pound the first prohibi-
 tion year breaks the record" The quantity imported in the current year
 the first year of prohibition, has in-
 creased 42 per cent. over the same
 menths of last year, despite the fact
 that the average import price is 80 per
 cent. higher than last year. The ex- peetatien expressed by the tea growers
 of the world that prohibition would in
 crease the quantity of tea consumed has not been realized, for the quantity
 of tea imported in this first year e1
 prohibition has decreased 20 per cent
 Most of this increase in the sums . "HiSh we are pay HE E9F cOIIee mas gone, says the banks statement, to the
 benefit of our aeighbors in Latin Am
 erica. Of the s2Ss, ,OO0,0O0 sent out ot the country to buy coffee in the nine nenths ending with March 1920, s222, eee,006 went to Latin America as 6
 whole, and the remainder chiefly tc
 the Dutch East Indies To South Am erica the total was $195, ,060 ,e9e of whiet t$14S,909,0oo went to Brazil against s47,- , 906,0e0 in the same months last year $3a,ee0 ,00o to Columbia against S1s,- oee,ee0 in the corresponding months of last year, and s17oe0, eco to Venezuela aSainst a little less than $9,000.000 in
 t6e corresponding months of last year
 The average import price of the cof- fee brought from Brazil in the nine
 months ending with March 1920 was
 22.7c per pound against 11.sc per pound
 in the same months of last year.
 That this large increase in the quan-
 tity of coffee imported at the highest price per pound ever recorded. was for the consumption of our own people is evidenced, says the banks statement by the fact that we have re-exported this year only per cent. of the cof- fee brought in as against per cent. re-exported last year.