Cocoa And Chocolate
The Tree, The Bean The Beverage

STATISTICS OF CACAO PRODUCTION 139 day of the year, generally amounts to round about 40 per cent of the year’s harvest or consumption. The stock held in London at the end of 1920 was 35,900 tons ; 1921, 34,350 tons; and 1922, 29,200 tons. The cacao imported into the United Kingdom came from various producing centres as follows— CACAO BEANS IMPORTED INTO THE UNITED KINGDOM 1921 1922 Tons. Tons. British West Africa . 48,103 50,930 British West Indies . 7,746 6,692 Ceylon 785 1,130 Others 2,710 3,266 Ecuador 865 1,365 Brazil 278 701 Total imported . 60,487 64,084 Value ^2,860,156 £2,931,675 In pre-war days about 50 per cent of the cacao imported into the United Kingdom was grown in British Possessions. By 1919 this had increased to 75 per cent. In that year a preferential duty was introduced, and partly as a result, in 1921, as much as 94J per cent of cacao imported into the United Kingdom was Empire-produced. The duty, at the time of writing, on raw cacao-beans is 3d. per Ib. on foreign, and 2Jd. per Ib. on British. It is high compared with the duty in other countries. It may be of interest to tabulate the changes in the duty øver the last seventy years. (See page 140.)