Destination. Quantity. Value. ---------------------------------------------------- United Kingdom 8,537,133 lbs. $1,627,035 America 134,064 26,949 Arabian and Persian Gulfs 343,037 33,385 France 1,922,120 371,396 Germany 85,680 15,504 Suez 295,269 51,730 Other places 9,577 815 ---------------------------------------------------- Total 11,326,880 lbs. $2,126,814
The value of exports in 1866 was £1,861,501. In the same year the imports of indigo from the whole of Central America, including Honduras, was 672,480 lbs. The consumption of indigo in Great Britain did not increase during the ten years ending with 1867. This stationary demand, notwithstanding the fall in the price of the drug and increase of population, is attributed by McCulloch principally to the decreasing use of blue cloth. It is more probably due to the substitution of cheaper dyes. The average home consumption in Great Britain for seven years ending in 1867, was 1,675,072 lbs. per year.
The importation into this country for the twenty years last past is shown by the following table, kindly prepared at our request by the chief of the Bureau of Statistics:—
_Statement of Imports of Indigo into the United States during the Fiscal Years ended June 30, 1853–1872._
INDIGO. Fiscal Year ended June 30 FREE OF DUTY. DUTIABLE. -------------------------------------------------- Pounds. Dollars. Pounds. Dollars. 1853 1,387,847 947,367 1854 1,965,789 1,282,367 1855 2,097,397 1,151,516 1856 1,732,290 1,063,743 1857 1,533,037 1,010,509 1858 1,647,767 945,083 1859 1,773,868 1,441,429 1860 1,707,116 1,413,790 1861 185,039 160,138 719,563 505,766 1862 2,501,052 3,281,441 1863 885,834 1,008,187 178,364 219,169 1864 684,813 623,406 897,821 671,899 1865 741,438 601,283 415,575 324,207 1866 798,855 609,160 44,660 41,268 1867 1,069,506 816,974 1868 870,164 775,751 1869 1,574,449 1,649,550 1870 1,270,579 1,203,664 1871 1,994,172 2,052,222 1872 1,526,869 1,484,744
EDWARD YOUNG, _Chief of Bureau_. Bureau of Statistics, Nov. 16, 1872.
The extraordinary quantity imported in 1862, we hardly need remark, was due to the demand for consumption in army cloths. Indigo imported directly, was made free of duty in 1861. The duty which appears by the above table to have been charged since that period, was upon indigo, the product of India, imported by way of England, which was subject to an extra duty of ten per cent.