MONEY SPENT ON TOBACCO

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25955, 8 November 1949, Page 5

MONEY SPENT ON TOBACCO

MR MORRISON WARNS BRITONS ■

BIG INCREASE COMPARED WITH 1935 LONDON, November 6. Britons must ask themselves ■whether their present rate of spend** ing on tobacco and other “private fun and games” was consistent with the nore important and worthwhile

things the nation wanted, said the Lora President of the Council (Mr Herbert Morrison) at a public meeting at Preston, Lancashire.

“In the second quarter of this year we were smoking an average of nearly 18,000,0001 b-of tobacco each month, compared with less than 14,000,0001 b in 1935,” said Mr Morrison (who is himlelf a smoker).

“One dollar in every 12 that we roend goes in tobacco and films. In fact, if we compare our exports to the United States with our dollar imports of tobacco,- it would take us quite half t year’s exports, at the rate we were going last summer, to pay for a year’s dollar tobacco.” Mr Morrison quoted figures to !«pow that nearly a quarter of personal spending “went on alcoholic drinks, tobacco, cinemas, racing, and other private fun and games—without counting the very large stake in gambling through football pools and in other ways. “So you see, we really are spending • very large sum indeed on different types of fun and games, and things that are not essentials. Not that I want to stop all the joys of life. I am all lor them, but we have to face the economic facts of life.”