38 CO1TBE. 



In the year 1832 chicory was first imported into England, sub- 

 ject to a duty equivalent to that levied upon colonial coffee, and 

 permitted to be sold by grocers separately as chicory ; but notices 

 were at the same time issued, that the legal penalties would be 

 rigidly enforced, if discovered mixed with coffee. 



In 1840, in consequence of memorials from the grocers and 

 dealers in chicory, and also from the circumstance of exceedingly 

 high rates then ruling for coffee, together with the disruption of 

 our commercial relations with China, simultaneously advancing 

 the price of tea (thus rendering both these popular beverages 

 excessively dear to the consumer), an order was issued from the 

 Treasury to the Excise Board, authorizing the admixture of chicory 

 with coffee; a duty, however, being still maintained on the 

 former of 20 per ton on the kiln-dried, and 6d. per Ib, on the 

 powdered root, when imported from abroad. 



In the year 1845, the cultivation of chicory was introduced 

 upon British soil, and, being a home-grown commodity, was ex- 

 empt from duty, but nevertheless, by virtue of the said Treasury 

 Orider, was permitted to enter into competition with a staple pro- 

 duction of our own colonies, contributing on its import a tax of 

 60 to 80 per cent, to the revenue of the State. 



The result, as might have been foreseen, necessarily created and 

 stimulated a demoralizing system of fraud, unjust and destructive 

 to the interests of the coffee planter, and prejudicial to the na- 

 tional revenue. 



The effects of so baneful a system being equally manifest upon 

 both consumption and revenue, they are here separately illustrated. 



In 1824, according to the following high scale of duties, viz., 

 Is. on West India, Is. 6d. on East India, and 2s. 6d. on foreign, 

 the Customs derived from coffee was 420,988 ; in the following 

 } ear the rates were reduced one-half, and in the short space of 

 three years the amount yielded had adTanced to 440,245, an 

 increase which steadily progressed (partly aided by the admission 

 of the produce of British India at the low duty) until it reached 

 921,551 in 1840. These satisfactory results justified a further 

 reduction of the duties in 1842 to 4d. on colonial and 8d. (and in 

 the subsequent year to 6d.) on foreign, under which the revenue 

 declined in 1844 to 681,616. In 1846 it had again reached to 

 756,838, and was gradually recovering itself, when this system of 

 adulteration first began to extend itself generally, and since that 

 time the revenue has rapidly declined under the same scale of 

 duties to 566,822 in 1850. 



In 1824 the quantity retained for home consumption was 

 8,262,943 Ibs., which was augmented to 11,082,970 Ibs. in the first 

 year of the reduction of duty, and continued to exhibit an in- 

 crease at a rate rather exceeding two million pounds per annum 

 until 1830, when coffee would appear to have reached its limit of 

 consumption without further stimulus, and remained stationary 

 until the modification of duties allowing the admission of foreign 

 coffee, via the Cape, at the colonial rale, when it advanced from 



