CIGARETTE PRICES

Evening Star, Issue 22086, 20 July 1935, Page 19

CIGARETTE PRICES

“ LOWEST FOR YEARS " REDUCTION IN CERTAIN LINES Devotees of my Lady Nicotine will now be able to enjoy their cigarettes at prices in some cases lower than and in other cases as low as those which were in vogue prior to 1914. This announcement was made by a Dunedin tobacconist to-day, and he declared that the action of one firm of manufacturers in reducing the price of certain brands of their cigarettes made cigarettes available in New Zealand at the lowest price at which they can be bought in England, and cheaper than thes have been in this country since cigarette smoking reached its present magnitude. One brand is selling at 4d for a packet of 10. The three brands which are manufactured in New Zealand and which, therefore, have a slight advantage in taxation over imported cigarettes, have each been reduced Id a packet—from 5d to 4d, and from 7d to 6d for 10 cigarettes, and from Is to lid for 20. “ This should give an extraordinarily strong stimulus to the cigarette business,” said this tobacconist, “ and local manufacturers should profit considerably by passing over to the smoking public the advantages obtained by them through the late reduction in duty.” . Another retail tobacconist stated that in the whole of his experience—and he had been in the trade for almost a lifetime—he had not known cigarettes generally to be so low in price as they were at present. It was his experience that the cheapest line in most demand was the 6d packet of 10, but he held that with a reduction in price had come also a reduction in quality. In spite of all this, he found that one of the best sellers was a line at Bd, which had always kept its price, and for this the demand was always solid, which, he contended, showed that the habitual cigarette smoker was still discriminating in the type of cigarette he smoked. The manufacturers of this 8o brand, in spite of all the prizes that were given away by other _ lines at one period, had never given prizes, but preferred to put the quality into their cigarettes. Nevertheless, their sale had not been affected adversely. This tobacconist did not consider that the reduction of prices referred to presaged any general reduction in the prices ruling for other lines.