TOBACCO AND BEER

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25580, 23 August 1948, Page 7

TOBACCO AND BEER

ATTITUDE OF BRITISH WORKERS (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, August 21. Workers in the heavy industries did not intend to give up beer drinking or smoking, said the general secretary of the Boilermakers’ Union (Mr E. J. Hill). The sooner the tax on beer and tobacco was reduced, the better; otherwise workers would revolt, and their profound loyalty to the Labour Government would turn to hostility. It wag “a fool’s paradise” to believe that consumption would be reduced by increasing prices. The workers would not allow smoking to become the privilege of a few, Mr Hill concluded. The cigarette shortage and queueing would end if all smokers smoked one fewer cigarette in 10 each day, and refrained from hoarding, said Sir Alexander Maxwell, the tobacco adviser to the Board of Trade. He added that a cut of 4 per cent, in the supplies of tobacco would come into effect about the end of ‘September. but even then the consumotion would be at the rate of 197,000.0001 b a year—higher than before the war. The Government would not introduce rationing, which would lead to an uncontrollable black market, said Sir Alexander Maxwell.