ELASTIC TOBACCO?

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 138, 8 December 1945, Page 9

ELASTIC TOBACCO?

RETAILERS' PROBLEM

P.A. AUCKLAND, This Day. Although thousands of demobilised servicemen have transferred their demands' for tobacco from Service canteens to the shopkeepers with whom they dealt before the war, harassed retailers have not received increased quotas to .meet their added requirements. A North Shore grocer who recently wrote to the Minister of Supply (Mr. Sullivan), giving the names and ranks of about 30 former customers who had returned and asking for an increased tobacco allowance to fulfil their needs, was told that in the meantime "It is expected retailers will endeavour to supply all returned servicemen out of their existing quotas."' "Unfortunately at this stage of the shortage of all supplies it is not possible to make additional allocations available to any one particular retailer for the purpose of supplying returned servicemen and others who have been demobilised from the Armed Forces." said the Factory Controller (Mr. G. A. Pascoe), who, at the Minister's direction, replied to the grocer's letter. ''Actually all retailers are in the same position and it would not be fair to make an additional supply available at the expense of others. In the meantime, it is expected that retailers will endeavour to supply all returned servicemen out of their existing quotas.

'"It is hoped, however, that production in tobacco factories will be stepped up in the near future when more supplies will become available for all concerned."

The grocer is now wondering if supplies to Service canteens have been cut to correspond with diminished demands, and how he can endow the little tobacco he gets with more clastic qualities.