COFFEE-CONSUMPTIOIT OF THE WORLD. 217 



to 510,000 tons is a full estimate for present requirements in this 

 country and in Europe. 



The compilation of Dr. Yan Den Berg makes the total con- 

 sumption of Europe and the United States 479,000,000 kilos, or 

 493,482, tons. The rest of the world dependent upon the coffee- 

 exporting countries for a supply does not require anniially more 

 than 12,000 tons, so that we can safely say that a supply of 510,000 

 tons will be ample to meet the wants of the coffee-consuming 

 countries of the world. Brazil has furnished for the past three 

 years an average of 241,765 tons ; Java, 89,797 tons ; Ceylon, 

 43,022 tons ; India, 16,077 tons ; the "West Indies, 40,000 tons ; 

 Central America, 50,000 tons; Venezuela and New Grenada, 

 35,000 tons ; Mexico, 5,000 tons ; Arabia, 4,000 tons. Thus, 

 leaving all other minor producing points out of our calculation — 

 which wiU balance any over-estimate for Central America — we 

 have from the countries named above a supply of 524,661 tons. 

 From this showing it appears that supply is fully abreast of de- 

 mand, despite leaf-disease in Ceylon, while the excess of stocks 

 held at the beginning of 1881 will quite balance the short Java 

 crop of 1880-81. 



To what extent new plantations that are to come into bearing 

 in South America, Mexico, and Central America, will add to the 

 supply, is a problem that only time can enable us to solve. There 

 is everything in the situation to warrant a range of prices much 

 lower than those ruling from 1862 to 1879, the more so as there 

 is little chance of speculative rings being formed, for Europe is 

 not given to such operations, and American coffee-merchants 

 have during the past year b'een taught a lesson that will not soon 

 be forgotten. 



