TOBACCO SHORTAGE

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 December 1945, Page 3

TOBACCO SHORTAGE

CONTRIBUTING CAUSES. The deficiency in the supply of tobacco and cigarettes, about whicn complaints are heard all over New Zealand, is discussed in the annual report of the National Tobacco Company, prepared by Mr. Gerhard Husheer, chairman of directors. “Our position with regard to tobacco supplies has,” the report says, “further deteriorated and we have to resign ourselves to the fact that with the present means at our disoosal we will never be able to satisfy the ever-growing tobacco hunger of the smoker. The demand for our goods is unprecedented and this applies to tobacco as well as cigarettes. Double the quantities and more could be sold if they were available. “Retailers are passing through an anxious period, some of them with empty shelves most of the time. Few of them can nowadays afford to display stocks openly. If they do, they are rushed and cleaned out by a frantic public who has been waiting in a queue determined to secure their share while opportunity is offering. And then the familiar placard ‘sold out’ makes its appearance until next delivery day. “If we inquire closely into the cause of this'general shortage, it will be found that insufficient supplies of raw leaf and lack of man-power are not the only factors responsible. There is another factor that plays an equally important if not the principal part, and that is the enormous increase in the consumption that has taken place over the last few years. People are decidedly smoking more than they used to and the industry has not been able to keep pace with this increase. ' “The man-power difficulties we have been trying to overcome by working overtime and we are beginning to make headway in this direction and ultimately, when all servicemen and workers, formerly employed in war industries, are offering for work again, this problem will- solve itself. More intricate is the question of an adequate leaf supply. Of foreign leaf, there sepms to be enough just now, but it is the New Zealandgrown that is wanting. Arrangements for the expansion of the industry are in course of preparation and we have already been successful in adding considerably to the acreage planted out last season. And the prospects ot a further increase are very promising.”