MATCHES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3383, 18 July 1927, Page 2

MATCHES.

EFFECT OF THE CIGARETTE HABIT.

The mulch tax which Mr Churchill propesos to increase was one of the special imposts introduced during the war. For a long lime previously it was deemed impossible to impose such a tax, mainly owing lo the experience of Mr Robert Lowe, 'afterwards Lord Sherbrooke, who included a match in his Budget of 1871, and had lo abandon it owing to the opposition il aroused.

Mr Lowe proposed a halfpenny stamp on boxes of 100 wooden matches or less, and a penny on 100 wax matches or fusees, calculating that the tax would yield 2550,C00 a year. ’Matches went so far tlint a design was prepared for the stamp, allowing a flaming fusee surrounded by the legend: “E luce luc'elliun”—out of light a "little ..profit; but all ended in nothing.

In 1916 Mr McKenna was more fortunate. He proposed a tax in a less obtrusive form —a Customs duty of 3s 6d per 10,000 matches and an excise duty of 3s 4d per 10,000 in boxes not exceeding 80 matches. Customs and excise balanced the burden as between the imported and home manufactured article. Ho anticipated a yield from the tax of £2,CCO.CCO. The duty has since been raised to 5s 2d. Customs and Ss excise. The receipts for the year ended March, 1926, were:— From Customs £1.711,182 From Excise £1,633,790 £3,344,972 Mr Churchill gave the revenue for last year as £3,550.000. Taking Customs as representing imports, it would seem that the foreign matches used slightly exceed the home product, ami come chiefly from •Sweden, Belgium, and Latvia. Mr Churchill now proposes to raise both Customs and excise duty by 20 per cent., but instead of the scale per 10,050 matches explained above the scale will be graduated according to the contents of the box. .Some i oxes to-day contain 60 matches, others less. A. brand from Latvia bears a notice that the box contains an average of 40. The raising of the duty by 20 per cent, means, of course, that a tax of 2ld per dozen boxes will become 3d per dozen, and the higher rate is expected to bring an. additional £600,000 into the Exchequer this year. The increase in the use of matches has been tremendous. When John Walker invented the “friction match” just a hundred years ago he sold them at Is 2d pei 100 in a round tin box, for which ho

charged 2d extra. Comparatively few were used. According to figiucs in the Census Production of 1924 just issued, tho value of matches on the basis of figures supolied bv the trade rose from £855,000 in 1907 "to £4,371,000 in 1924. It was estimated that in the latter year ilic number of matches available for con-

sumption in the United Kingdom worked out at about 126,600,000,000, about 5C boxes of 50 matches per head of tiie population —an average of nearly eight a day. The enormous growth in the use of matches since Walker’s day has been marked by many changes. For a long time matches continued to be sold in round boxes of tin or wood, and they were regarded as so expensive that “spills” for folding rolled paper for lighting pipes, etc., became a feature on most ■chimney-pieces. Then large matches in large square boxes found favour, and are still used in many clubs. Fuses, too, bad their day for lighting pipes or cigars out of doors, but are hardly remembered now except through Calverlcy’s famous lines. Wax vestas were popular, but are now voted too dear for the continual lighting of cigarettes.

The cigarette habit that has grown not only among men but among multitudes of women has indeed vastly accelerated the use of matches. Mr Vernon Wraggc, speaking as Recorder at Pontefract Quarter Sessions some time ago, said that in a country walk iie followed three men who, in about three miles, used 62 matches for tiie purpose of smoking. Many heavy smokers, whether men or women, use a

couple of boxes -of matches a day between them. It is they, of course, who contribute most to the tax.