Norwich bulletin., 1920-02-12
HIGHER FOREIGN PRICES
 INCREASE IMPORTATION

Washington, Feb. H.
 High prices of the products of for eign countries have apparently no ter TOTS for the people of the United States. Does coffee double in price? The people of the United States calm l ly increase the quantity imported and treble the sums paid for it. Does su- gar advance 90 to 1000 per cent. in price? They increase the quantity inn ported and consume larger total than ever before, the quantities brought in- to the country advancing from 7,000,- 980, 600 pounds in 1918 to 10,000.000,000 pounds in 1919, and the wholesale price paid therefor from $375, ,000, 900 to $530, ,0OO, 600. Do hides and skins show an increase of 50 to 15 per cent? The ! quantity imported doubles and the sums paid for the grand total trebles. :; Do diamonds and other precious stones | increase in price per carat? The quantity still further increases and the total imports jump from S50,000,- | 900 in 1918 to $100, ,000, ,000 in 1919.
 There are some of the facts revealed | by an analysis by The National City Bank of New York of the latest import i figures-figures which show an in crease in stated values of our imports from s1,778,000,00 ,00O in 1915 to $3,904,- i 00000 in 1919, an increase of about | 120 per cent. in a short four year ] period
 Prices abroad, says the banks state ment, of many articles have doubled since the close of the war, but this fact has not deterred the people of the United States in their importation of | these higher price articles, but appar- ently has rather stimulated consump- l ton than otherwise. Coffee, as every body knows, has more than doubled in the import price in the single year 1919, advancing from less than He per pound in November 1918 to 24c per pound in September 1919, yet the quantity of coffee brought into the /! United States in the year just ended is greater than in any earlier year in
 the history of the trade, and the i'm | port value in 1919 exceeds S250,0O0, 900 as against s99,000,000 in 1918 The price of cocoa jumped from 10c per pound in November 1918 to 20c per
 pound in August 1919, yet the quan- 1 tity imported in 1919 exceeds that of the preceding year, and the sums paid 1 in 1919 are practically 50 per cent. greater than in 1918. Sugar, as every body knows, has reached a price hith- erto unheard of, at leastsin the mem
 ory of the present generation, and
 hard to get at that, yet all the sugar authorities now agree with the state ment that the quantity consumed in the United States in 1919 is the big gest ever, while official figures of the l government show that the sums paid for that entering the ports of the Unit l ed States in 1919 Gncluding that from
 our own islands, is approximately 1 540,000, 900 against approximately $350, ,600, GOO in 1918, and $l57 600 ,OO0 in the year preceding the war.
 In manufacturing materials the ad-
 vance in prices has been as great as that of foodstuffs. but this has not de- tered the purchase from abroad. Raw silk, for example, shows an advance in import price from $5.S9 per pound in December 1918 to an average of $9 10
 per pound in November 1919, and yet the quantity imported in 1919 is one
 third more than in the preceding year
 and the value of the importation about
 $S50, 100000 in 1919 against S194, ,009, = 000 in 1918. Calf skins, for which the
 leather consuming population seemed to have suddenly developed a special | taste, have advanced in price from 18o
 per pound in November 1918 to 67c per
 pound in November 1919, and notWith- Il standing this quadrupling in price, the
 quantity imported has jumped from less than 5000, 900 pounds in 1918 to
 65,O00, 900 pounds in 1919, and the value l of the imports from S3, 000 GOO in 191S to approximately $35, ,000, 900 in 1919
 Goatskins more than doubled in i'm
 port price, advancing from an average
 of 42c per pound in December 1918 tc sac per pound in November 1919, ye
 the quantity imported jumped iron , 62,Oo0, ,0eo pounds in 1918 to 125, 1000 ,0Ot
 pounds in 1919, and the value of tn, importaIions from $3a-o00, 900 in 1s1s