RATIONING HELD LIKELY

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 117, 11 February 1941, Page 10

RATIONING HELD LIKELY

Cigarettes And Tobacco

EFFECT OF IMPORT RESTRICTION

Dominion Special Service. AUCKLAND, February 10.

The opinion that a system of rationing of supplies of tobacco and cigarettes will have to be introduced eventually unless restrictions on the importation of tobacco are lifted is held by a large number of Auckland tobacconists. Information published today stated that unless production of cigarettes and tobacco was increased iu Australia, Australians would have to smoke less. Commenting on this report. Auckland retailers stated that, while no official intimation had yet been given, it was almost certain that supplies would have to be rationed eventually if present conditions continued. According to one tobacconist, who has had many years’ experience in the trade both as a retailer and a wholesale merchant, large quantities of Virginian tobacco are needed to blend with New Zealand tobaccos. The Dominion product by itself, he said, is impossible to smoke, being very rank. Overseas tobacco in an unmanufactured state is essential to make it fit for- consumption.

The exact cut in the importation of unmanufactured tobacco was not given in the last list of import restrictions, it being stated that individual application for licences 'would be considered. The latest issue of the Mercantile Gazette, however, gives the importation of tobacco for 11 months up to November as 5,439,8951 b., as compared with 6,067,3871 b. f r the corresponding period in 1939. The jnanagor of a large city tobacconist’s said the agent of one firm from which some thousands of cigarettes were purchased each month advised that tlie order should be increased by several thousands so' that when rationing was introduced it would be possible to get the present normal supply.

No definite information was available concerning a possible shortage, but it was regarded as almost certain to come under present conditions.

Asked to comment on the tobacco situation in New Zealand, the Auckland manager of W.D. and H.O. Wills, Ltd., said he had nothing to say.