88 



GorrEE. 



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

 jeet to a duty equiyalent to that levied npon colonial coffee, and 

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

 were at the same time issned, that the legal penalties ^YOuld be 

 rigidly enforced, if discovered mixed vrnth coffee. 



In 18i0, in consequence of memorials fi'om the grocers and 

 dealers in chicory, and also from the cii^cumstance of exceedingly 

 high rates then ruling for coffee, together Avith 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 liiln-dried, and 6d. per lb, 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-grovrn commodity, was ex- 

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

 Order, 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 j)er 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 ^est 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 advanced 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 satisfiictory 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 

 dechned in 1844 to £681,616. In 181-6 it had again reached to 

 £756,838, and was gTadually recovering itself, when this system of 

 adulteration first began to extend itself generally, and since that 

 time the revenue has rapidlv declined under the same scale of 

 duties to £566,822 in 1850. 



In 1824 the quantitv retained for home consumption was 

 8,262,943 lbs., which was augmented to 11,082,970 lbs. in the fii'st 

 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 rate, when it advanced from 



