TURKISH TOBACCO

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8341, 30 January 1913, Page 11

TURKISH TOBACCO

EFFECT OF THE WAR. Perhaps the aspect of tho War of tho Five Nations which has been most impressed upon the man in the street (says “South Africa") is the increased cost of Turkish cigarettes. Lovers of this particular form of the weed will tell you that the unique flavour cannot bo obtained outside Turkey; but that is an exploded theory. For some years now tobacco of the Turkish variety has been grown successfully in Khodesia, and the soil and climatic conditions of that progressive country have been pronounce! by experts, who have gained {heir experience in Turkey, to be eminently suitable for tho production of a leaf equal in quality to the highest grpdo Turkish. It has become the fashion to sneer at Homo industries, and porchanco that is why the Khodesian cigarette has made so little impression upon the English market;; but in .South Africa chore are hundreds of men with cultivated palates who will smoke nothing other than the Khodesiuu producr. Not only is the quality high, hut the cheapness of the manufactured article is astonishing; and perhaps that fact has militated f.fca:nsl success as much as anything, for there be those who hold that what is cheap must necessarily ho nasty. Tet the truth remains that the llhodesian manufacturers can sell at 4s a hundred cigarettes the like of which could not be obtained in London at more than >■

twice that price. It would ewin that the psychological moment has arrived to make an onslaught upon the English market, now that the much-vannted TurEsh cigarette is likely to lx; scarce and its cost inflated. One is so apt to depend upon foreign countries for touaoco that one finds it difficult to believe that wo have a supply within the Empire, and, further, those who are acquainted only with the rough Magaliesberg of the Boer will scarcely be credulous of South Africa’s ability to satisfy the nice taste of a 'confirmed, cigarette smoker.