66 COCOA 



a permanent crop. But at this stage of the industry's 

 development, those advantages, together with the 

 phenomenally high prices which cocoa has recently been 

 commanding, are apt to be a dangerous source of 

 incentive to slackness. And slackness might so easily 

 mean a disease -born catastrophe such as ruined the 

 coffee industry in Ceylon and Malaya, or a big loss of 

 business due to cocoa-producing competitors in other 

 parts of the world making efforts to increase the output 

 and improve the quality of their output, whilst the 

 farmers of the Gold Coast and Ashanti are, with a few 

 exceptions, contentedly resting on their laurels. 



CHAPTER XIII 

 THE WORLD'S PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION 



THE world's production of raw cocoa has reached an 

 annual total of upwards of 300,000 tons. The principal 

 countries contributing to this grand total are, in the 

 British Empire, the Gold Coast, and Trinidad and 

 Grenada in the British West Indies; among foreign 

 competitors, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, San Domingo, 

 and San Thome. Minor producing countries within 

 the British Empire are Jamaica and various other 

 British West Indian islands, Nigeria, Ceylon, and 

 the portion of the Cameroons now under British ad- 

 ministration; among foreign competitors, Fernando Po, 

 Java, Haiti, Cuba, the French Colonies (chiefly Guade- 

 loupe and Martinique), Dutch Guiana, Belgian Congo, 

 Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Colombia, Panama, and Peru. 

 The oldest producing countries are situated, of 

 course, in the New World, the homeland of cocoa. 

 Some of them, such as Mexico, have dropped out of the 

 competition; others, such as Haiti, Dutch Guiana, and 



