APPENDIX. 387 



the great staples of commerce. At the risk of tiring the reader, I 

 append the figures showing the export of tea from China to for- 

 eign countries for the past ten years : Piculs — in 1866, 1,192,138 ; 

 186Y, 1,330,974; 1868, 1,475,210; 1869, 1,528,149; 1870, 

 1,380,998 ; 1871, 1,679,643 ; 1872, 1,774,663 ; 1873, 1,617,763 ; 

 1874, 1,735,379 ; 1875, 1,818,387. By this it will be seen that 

 the quantity exported from Chinalias increased in ten years about 

 fifty per cent., and to this great increase must be added the tea 

 exported from India and Japan, amounting last year to about 

 120,000 piculs, where ten years ago little or none was exported. 

 Putting these figures together, we find that the available supply 

 has increased in ten years nearly one hundred per cent. It can- 

 not be said that the consumption has increased in anything like 

 the same ratio. Have we not, therefore, in these figures a satis- 

 factory reason for the great decline in the prices of tea during 

 this period — a decline which many of the old merchants in the 

 tea trade have claimed to be excessive, and for which they pro- 

 fess they can see no good reason ? It is probable, also, that this 

 material reduction in the cost of tea has had more or less to do 

 with influencing the coffee market. Three or four years ago a 

 short crop in some of the principal coffee-producing countries 

 was made the pretext, both in Europe and America, for largely 

 advancing the price. Gravely written articles appeared in the 

 most influential commercial journals in Europe and America, 

 claiming that the consumption of coffee was increasing much 

 faster than the production, and that this range of prices was not 

 onl}' legitimate, but that prices would probably attain a still higher 

 range. Experience, however, has shown that the high prices 

 stimulated production in all coffee-producing countries ; the avail- 

 able supply everywhere increased, and the tremendous decline in the 

 price of tea, making that by far the cheaper beverage, was " the last 

 straw that broke the camel's back," and prices tumbled. Whether 

 they will soon rise again or not depends, of course, somewhat 

 upon circumstances ; but all the indications at present point to in- 

 creased production and a low range of prices in these two arti- 

 cles, which constitute so large an item in the domestic economy 

 of the world. 



