, and also caused the mother country, Holland, to take up the
role of one of the leading coffee traders of the world, which she still
holds. Holland, in fact, took to coffee from the very first. It is
claimed that the first samples were introduced into that country from
Mocha in 1616--long before the beans were known in England or
France--and that by 1663, regular shipments were being made. Soon after
the coffee culture became firmly established in Java, regular shipments
to the mother country began, the first of these being a consignment of
894 pounds in 1711. Under the auspices of the Netherlands East India Co.
the system of cultivating coffee by forced labor was begun in the East
Indian colonies. It flourished until well into the nineteenth century.
One result of this colonial production of coffee was to make Holland the
leading coffee consumer per capita of the world, consumption in 1913, as
recorded on page 290, having reached as high as 18.8 pounds. It has long
been one of the leading coffee traders, importing and exporting in
normal times before the war between 150,000,000 and 300,000,000 pounds a
year.

[Illustration: PRE-WAR AVERAGE ANNUAL PRODUCTION OF COFFEE BY CONTINENTS

Fiscal years: 1910-1914

Total pounds: 2,311,917,200]

The introduction of the coffee plant into the new world took place
between 1715 and 1723. It quickly spread to the islands and the mainland
washed by the Caribbean. The latter part of the eighteenth century saw
tens of millions of pounds of coffee being shipped yearly to the mother
countries of western Europe; and for decades, the two great coffee trade
currents of the world continued to run from the West Indies to France,
England, Holland, and Germany; and from the Dutch East Indies to
Holland. These currents continued to flow until the disruption of world
trade-routes by the World War; but they had been pushed into positions
of secondary importance by the establishing of two new currents, running
respectively from Brazil to Europe, and from Brazil to the United
States, which constituted the nineteenth century's contribution to the
history of the world's coffee trade.

[Illustration: PRE-WAR AVERAGE ANNUAL PRODUCTION OF COFFEE BY COUNTRIES

Fiscal years: 1910-1914

Total pounds: 2,311,917,200]

The chief feature of the twentieth century's developments has been the
passing by the United States of the half-way mark in world consumption;
this country, since the second year of the