CIGARETTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 177, 28 July 1928, Page 9 (Supplement)

CIGARETTES.

U.S.A.'S HUGE "FAG" REVENUE ANNUAL TAX WOULD RUN NAVY. INDUSTRY TI! A ( EI) TO t KIM KAN WAK. (By JOHN W. ITAlililXtiToN". in the "New York Herald-Tribune.") Di?pateller from Washington show thui in nine months oi" ilie liseal year 1U27-2S. which closed in June, the cigarette tax has increased £4,000,000 over the same period last year, making a return of over £44.000,000. The Government collected from the cigarette makers in the fiscal year ended last June, £30,000,000, in round figures. Judging from the present trend, it will not be long before the humble ''lag" is contributing £00,000,000 a year to the national coffers. Glance at the Federal budget and you will find that such an amount would nearly pay the expenses of the United States Navy for a year, and it is not much below the annual appropriation of tlie" War Department. This harvest of smoke is now twice the sum required lo run the Department of Agriculture, which, among its functions, promotes the growth and well-being of American tobacco. Every man, woman and child in this country, in theory, is smoking about 1000 cigarettes a year that is. fifty packs of twenty each, or nearly a pack a week, or three cigarettes each day. Of course, the average smoker consumes at least a pack a day, a fact which takes the burden oil" of babes in arms. Ono reason so many men, and also women and girls, in this country smoke cigarettes is that these short smokes are adapted to the hurry habits of the people That part of the increase has been due to the "new freedom" of women is evident, although the majority of women, as far as the manufacturers' can make out, still do not smoke.

Origin in America. The cause* for this increase* appeal along the course of the history of the cigarette itself. This way of smoking tobacco is really American, although it is spoken of as an importation. When Columbus discovered this country h» found the natives "perfuming themselves with a smoke" made from tobacco which was rolled up in thin corn husks. Jn sonic sections Indians still use these maize wrappers, especially in the souih-w c.-l. where the putting at such crude cigarettes is a religious ceremony, l'roiu which women are excluded. Cigarette smoking was not a won I practice until after the Crimean War which from 1853 to 1856 had Europe in a turmoil. Turkish and Russian officers smoked cigarettes, and the swagger young subalterns of the British army coming back to London, were seen at the clubs pufiing at the aromatic mi!* they had brought from the Crimea. The first brand of British cigarettes, which istill quite popular, dates from thai period when the world was thrilled with "The Charge of the Light Brigade."' As a fact, there were cigarettes in Spain before this, and the shape and form of them had been developed in France. Cigarette making as a modern industry, however, dates from the Crimean War, and not until 1860 did it. get on its feet. In the Civil War period large fat cigars arid stogies and cheroots were the ordinary smoke fare. The tiermans spread the cult of the pipe, although pipe smoking originally was also a habit of the Indians. Costly Smokes.

Cigarettes were very expensive, as they were made of a very light and choice leaf known as Turkish, small in size as compared with (lie American plant. In the late "00's cigarettes wee beyond the reach of the average American purse, better suited to the "tlireefur" stogies, the "two-fur" cigars, and somewhat strained by the now lowly five-cent cigar. There was developed in the south about 1802 a new variety of light yellow tobacco. In colour it resembles the so-called Turkish leaf, but is much larger. By 1807 there was a supply of it in the markets. From that year the popular-priced American cigarette bocame a factor. AViih (lie taxation levied to pay off Civil War debts, it appeared in 1809 as an appreciable source of revenue, for it paid into the Treasury of the United States £<>.">O. A million and threequarters of cigarettes were made iu that twelve months' period. The next year production was increased sevenfold. Tli.: manufacturers turned the billion cigarette mark in 1885; the output doubled by 1890 and in the '90's production was varying from three to four billions a year. Larger production and hence cheaper prices were made possible in the 'BU's by the introduction of a cigarette-making machine invented by James lion suck, a Virginian. Before that the cigarettes had been tilled by hand by workmen brought from abroad. Kacli of these experts turned out about 2.500 a day. The ne\. r machines, although far from perfect, could produce 100,000 in ten hours. The cultivation of tobacco, meanwhile, had been developed in North Carolina, \"ii - ginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. "Coffin Nails."

Although some of the ablest executives in the tobacco business were working in building up the manufacture, it sag£«'d unevenly for the first decade of this century. There was let loose a flood ut propaganda against it. Cigarettes were called "coflin nails" and their foes spread stories that they contained opium and other harmful drugs; and that the papers were treated with dangerous chemicals. Some states passed laws which restricted consumption and even imposed extra taxes of their own, to supplement the Federal revenues. The passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in IUOG cleared up this situation. If cigarettes contained opium the manufacturers would have nau to put that fact on the packages. The Harrison law also added many penalties for the irregular sale of narcotics. From an economic point of view it is evident that a substance as costly as opium would hardly be added to anything as cheap as a cigarette. The manufacturers always denied that any drugs were used.

All this discussion, however, led to an investigation of the cigarettes themselves. National and state laboratories picked them to pieces and analysed them and found nothing to justify the charges.

Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, father of the Pure Food and Drug Act, denouncing the use of tobacco as a harmful and unclean habit, as he did, reported there was no-

thing active in cigarettes but tobacco, which he considered quite bad enough. Production in 1907 passed the five billion mark and in 1910 more than eight billions of cigarettes were sold.

Billions of Smoke Cylinders. W hen the cigarette manufacturers got their production up to more than K>,000,000,000 in 1913 they felt they were firmly established. Cigarettes were fouud to bo such short, convenient smokes that working men, who had hesitated to use them for fear of being called "dudes," began to buy them in quantities. Many rolled their own in cowboy fashion. Business men. especially in the hustle of going from one appointment to another, or iK'tween spurts of intensive effort, lighted the "cig."' The cigarette was fitted into t lie temperament of a rushed, quick - acting and quick-thinking people. The World War shot up the production of cigarettes to a high peak. They were smoked by the British and French soldiers in large quantities. When the Lnited States entered the war, and millions of young men went into training, and the A.E.F. sailed overseas, the cigarette practically became an army raticn. Tho World War made millions of Americans cigarette smokers who had been abstainers from tobacco in every form. The production of 1917, more than 35,000,000,000, was more than, twice that of 1914. Another 10,000,000,000 was added in 1918, and in 1919 the output registered more than 53,000,000,000. Enter the Gentler Sex. There appeared a new factor during these years. Young women began to smoke. There came years of agitation for women suffrage, the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919 and its ratification in the following year. Women wanted all kinds of rights which they felt had iieen denied them, in addition to tho vote. Some bold spirits of the gentler sex essayed to smoke in hotels and restaurants and were told to desist, In most public dining rooms they now smoke freelv.