Will the Eagle Like the Lion’s Cigarette?

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 352, 12 May 1928, Page 24

Will the Eagle Like the Lion’s Cigarette?

British-American Tobacco War — Some Staggering Smoke Figures — Is Smoking Injurious?

HE world of tobacco smoke trembles with IfTLBQTi rumours of an impend'SnJw'Bkdr*? ing international clash. The American eigar- [&} ette having invaded Great Britain, the British cigarette threatens to invade America. Scarcely has the largest American company acquired a plant in England when the largest English company buys one in North Carolina and erects a second in Kentucky. Cigarette smokers in America may acquire a new taste as well: the taste for unseasoned tobacco. It is forbid-; den by law to flavour toba>*o in England, but most American cigarettes are sweetened. or the taste is otherwise altered. The question arises whether the American smoker will take kindly to natural tobacco, or whether the British manufacturers must flavour their goods. Tobacco to-day ranks among the first dozen of industries. Its present commercial importance had a notable parallel during the early Virginia period, when other merchandise was commonly priced at “so many pounds of tobacco.” In this commodity the King’s taxes could be paid and business generally carried on. Virginia and Massachusetts might still be British colonies if there had been no tax on tea and tobacco. The Tea Party once held in Boston Harbour has been widely sung, but Virginias’ indignation was not less hot over tobacco imposts. The colony’s resentment flamed high after it had been decreed that tobacco, along with other American products, should be shipped in British bottoms to British markets. A substantial trade to the Netherlands and France was ruined. Any colony might be expected to revolt when it saw its readiest source of livelihood cut off.

ettes, a total large enough to poison the whole nation, If reformers might be credited. The smokers went on growing in number. The World War enhanced the demand. “Cigarettes!” was a plea from the trenches. A cigarette was a man's last prop before going over the parapet and liis first comfort when wounded. It was in those days that the women folk learned to smoke. The tobacco

industry has observed that, as the women learned to smoke opposition to smoking dropped off. This year the American people will smoke about one hundred billion cigarettes, or roughly six times the total of 1914. Last year tobacco was the second largest source of return to the internal revenue collector, yielding him £75,000,000. Only the income tax exceeded this total. Some conclusion shows that cigarettes are ruining the feminine voice, eyes and disposition; others affirm that cigarettes give woman a larger sense of freedom (if she needed it). One expert even thinks they help her digestion aud keep her thin. He is a very popular expert. Vivian E. Fisher, former assistant psychologist at Johns Hopkins University, has compiled a list of the effects of tobacco.

The use of tobacco grew so ill Europe that Church dignitaries railed against it and stern laws were passed forbidding it. Penal sentences, the lash, excommunication and capital punishment failed to check the practice. When these laws could not prevail they went the way of such laws since time began. Before the war cigarette smoking had been confined to an effete dandy here and there. The practice spread until it became our national habit with the new century. That same Phenomenon was at work in England, France and elsewhere. Rv 1914 the American consumption had reached seventeen billion cigar-

It increases the pulse rate immediately and raises the blood pressure; causes decrease in steadiness, as demonstrated by an attempt to hold the hand in a given extended position; makes for loss of accuracy; produces greater uniformity; retards muscular fatigue; accelerates any automatic function, physical or mental; aud increases apparent efficiency in work requiring sustained attention over long periods of time.

Another Hopkins man, Dr. Knight Dunlap, goes further and affirms the virtues of tobacco. He says: “Such evidence as we have found inclines to support the belief that the man who smokes will be a more steady and dependable worker. Tobacco* is a sedative. The man who smokes is more likely to go along in his work with even production in quantity and quality than the man who does - not. Smoking does increase the blood pressure slightly, but so does the telling of a good joke, and the effect produced by tobacco is not much greater than that produced by the joke.”