PRICE FOR TOBACCO LEAF

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 18 April 1944, Page 4

PRICE FOR TOBACCO LEAF

ACCORDING to growers, the tobacco industry runs the risk of becoming unattractive because net returns to the producer are not ah adequate reward. If that can be substantiated by actual statistics then the call is for adjustment before growers become dissatisfied, as they have done in some other'primary industries. Where a fixed price operates it gives security but not elasticity for recouping extra costs in selling price. The authorities have accentuated that by increasing wage rates without a corresponding increase in the price of tobacco leaf. A feature of price concessions under present Government control is that a little more is given to the producer on the one hand but this is practibally always accompanied by a stepping-up of wages on the other so that the balance remaining with the producer is often very! small. Tobacco growers are willing to give their employees the highest standard of living that their returns permit. At present they claim they are being pinched through having to pay up to £1 a day in wages and receive the same price return as when daily wage rates were 16 shillings. An extra penny a pound on leaf is being offered but this they consider insufficient to cover additional costs. The Price Tribunal should examine all the relevant data on an impartial costs-price basis without delay. As an infant industry tobaccogrowing has been a very healthy youngster reared so far on almost model lines. It would be a great pity if undue regimentation or lack of sympathy were to retard its childhood development.