ClIAP. VI.] 



COFFEE PLANTING. 



229 



demand for coffee, not only in Great Britain, but over a 

 great part of Western Europe ; and especially in Belgium 

 and France ; — tliis was the annually diminisliing con- 

 sumption of wine concurrently with an increasing con- 

 sumption of coffee ^ and tea. In England coffee had come 

 to be a necessary of hfe for the poor, as well as a luxmy 

 to tlie opulent classes. 



Almost before the first crops of Ceylon could be ship- 

 ped, the industry of her most formidable rivals in Jamaica, 

 Dominica, and Guiana was paralysed by the conduct of 

 the slaves subsequent to emancipation ; and the pro- 

 duction of these islands beo-an to dechne at the moment 

 when Ceylon was entering on her new career.^ It was 

 under these cu'cumstances that an experiment Avas 

 inaugurated in the Kandyan highlands, which, within 

 less than a quarter of a century, has effected an indus- 

 trial revolution in the island, converting Ceylon from 

 a sluggish mihtary cantonment into an enterprising Bri- 

 tish colony, and transferring the supply of one of the first 

 requisites of society from the western to the eastern 

 hemisphere. 



The example of the Governor was speedily followed ; 

 plantations were opened at Gampola and elsewhere. 



* Enqucte Legislative, snr Vlmpot 

 des Boissons. Paris, 1851, RappoH, 

 p. 35. So gi'eat has been tlie change 

 of manners and habits in tlie United 

 Kingdom, even ANathinthe last twenty 

 years, that had the population in 

 1854, taking it at 27,000,000, dnmk 

 coffee, tea, and cocoa in the same pro- 

 portion as the population of 1835-G 



(the latter being about 24,.S50,000), 

 the increase in the consumption of 

 these articles wouhl have been only 

 8,125,000 lbs., whereas it has actuaUi/ 

 been 42,918,215 lbs. In 1801 the 

 individual consumption of coffee in 

 Great Britain was one ounce per 

 annum for each person, in 1831 it had 

 risen to 1 lb. 5i oz. 



The Imports of Coffee into the United Kingdom. 



ci 3 



