HEARER TOBACCO LEAF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 84, 10 April 1937, Page 4

HEARER TOBACCO LEAF.

STEADY UPWARD TREND. .Z^ 18 tbat a substantial increase in the cost of leaf tobacco would have to be faced in the current year was emphasised by Lord Dulverton, chairman of the Imperial Tobacco Company of Great Britain and Ireland, at the aunual meeting in London recently. Lord Dulverton showed how the company, out of its large resources, had been able in the past to even out temporary fluctuations in cost by carrying large stocks of leaf to mature in bond. But obviously when the general trend in prices over a series of years was in the upward direction, the rate of profit must be adversely affected. That the company was able last year to increase its earnings was aue to a continuous expansion in tobacco consumption, resulting from the general improvement in the trade of the companv. But Lord Dulverton declared that any further increase in the duty on tobacco, still at the highest figure at which it a V< t V .® tood ' would have an immediate tion n restrictive effect on consump-