ON THE UP-AND-UP

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 266, 3 February 1941, Page 8

ON THE UP-AND-UP

MILLIONS MORE CIGARETTES SMOKED IN ENGLAND Ladies, you art- smoking a lot more cigarettes than you used to do. hut not enough of eaeli cigarette. You are even smoking more than the men. Rarely, say the manufacturers, , docs a woman smoke a cigarette to the end. That wastes tobacco. When you consider that we smolt- . Ed nearly 60,(500 , 000,000 cigarettes , in Britain last year, that means a big wastage. Even more cigarettes have been ! smoked this year. The ordinary reserve stocks every retailer held have gone. They cannot be replaced. In 1935 a mere <13,000,000,000 were consumed. Some of us complain that there is a shortage of certain popular brands When you have difficulty in getting your favourite cigarette locally remember these points: You are smoking more; supplies are rationed; there are transport difficulties, and the shifting of large masses of the population from London and other centres has pu| a strain on local retailers. The unofficial system of rationing to retailers imposed by manufacturers is as rigid as the official system imposed on manufacturers by the Government. j Manufacturers cannot withdraw more than 90 per cent of their normal requirements from bond. Retailers c:vi obtain only about 50 percent of their usual supplies from manufacturers. This is to enable a fair distribution to be made. Au official of the Imperial Tobacco Company put it this way: "Hundreds of thousands of men and women, apart from the men in the forces, are constantly on the move. It frequently happens that a sudden demand for particular brands of cigarettes and tobacco comes from a district where normally there is none. "These demands sometimes result in temporary shortages in other areas. The manufacturers are doing their utmost to net fairly to all retailers." Now a warning: Buy soon if you want extra tobacco or cigarettes for Ghristmas, because those additional supplies which normally arc on the market for Christmas trade will be cut by possibly 30 per cent. And running short of smokes at Christmas just does not bear contemplation.