WELLINGTON NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 9 July 1928, Page 3

WELLINGTON NEWS

TOBACCO GROWING

(Special to 11 Guardian.”)

WELLINGTON, July 7

The demand for tobacco is persistently growing and there are more smokers in the world than say five years ago. At one time pipe smoking was the fashion, perhaps plug tobacco and the labour of cutting up a pipe lull of tobacco every time one wanted a pull at the pipe, though tiresome and inconvenient, was not hard. Now the cigarette is all the rage and there is a 'multiplicity of brands and makes and there is great rivalry on the part of manufacturers to secure the goodwill and trade of cigarette smokers. It is not uncommon to see young ladies puffing away at a cigarette, and some of them have become inveterate smokers. The habit may be a bad one, but, if it is permissible for men to smoke, why not women? Just how much money goes up in tobacco smoke each year it is difficult to estimate, and it is probable that if the statisticians knew how many cigarettes were smoked each year they would bo able to entertain with some arithmetical calculations. Tobacco is a valuable product of the soil, and the grower who can cultivate the tobacco and prepare it for commerce in a scientific way is sure of a reasonably good income. Tobacco will grow in several places in New Zealand. It thrives in Nelson, and the growers there have done well enough to extend the area for tobacco cultivation. Recently the subject was discussed in the Wairnrapn, and something may be done in that locality. Tobacco grows in several other localities and the National Tobacco Coy., a Napier organisation, is, from all accounts. doing very well, handling New Zealand grown tobacco. The leaf is a profitable crop to the United States and the output there last year was 1,237,832,0001 b or 4.6 per cent less the’ in 1926 and the smallest quantity since 1921. Bright flue-cured and Maryland and Ohio export types of tobacco were the only grades produced in larger quantity than in the previous year. Owing to the low price received for tile 1926 crop of hurley tobacco acreage of this type was cut in 1927, and the large surplus stocks wero reduced. Burley has been consumed almost wholly in the United States, hut last year a fairly good export trade was established, for foreign shipments increasing from a four-year annual average of about 6,500,0001 b to 17,854,0001 - The use of hurley as a cigarette blend is said to bo increasing both in the United States and other countries. The United States export trade in leaf tobacco exceeded 500,000,0001 b in 1927. thus marking tho year as one of the four outstanding years in the history of the industry. Exports of unmanufactured tobacco aggregated 511,868,000 lb, constituting nearly 41.4 per cent of tho total production, hut exports of manufactured declined. Shipments ol cigarettes abroad were 25 per cent sm allcr than in 1926; evidently British makes are cutting out the American products. Empire grown tobacco should and no doubt will receive preferential treatment in tho Old Country. RATING RELIEF.

One of the special features of the British Budget is the rating relief which is claimed to represent a very important step forward in the organisation of public finance. From October 19, 1929, farm lands and buildings arc to’be completely and permanently relieved from local rates, the farmer continuing to pay rates on his residence in the ordinary way. In addition from the same date the local rates levied on any building or other property used tor the purppse of production, with the exception of public utility undertakings, are to be reduced by 75 per cent, while a further benefit to industry is to be provided indirectly by a reduction in the rate burden upon the freight carrying railways, cereals, harbours, and docks, this latter latter reduction being conditional upon these undertakings making equivalent reductions ill thentransport hearges wherever practicable. Tiie amount of relief to be granted to the railways is estimated at four millions a year, and it is intended that the resulting benefit shall accrue as td one-fifth to agriculture and that the remaining four-fifths shall he concentrated upon traffic in coal, coke, patent fuel, mining timehr, ironstone, iron ore and manganese ore and likestone for blast-furnaces and steel works. By this selection it is hoped to help the industries which employ the largest pro" portion of manual wage-earners to thenbusi ness turn-over and to cheapen the cost of those raw materials which play so important a part in the export trad e of Great Britain. The rating reliefs should he of very considerable assistance to agriculture and ’to industry in general and should help to remove the legitimate grievance under which so mtiny producers have suffered.