THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9468, 12 September 1889, Page 6

THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY.

TO TUB EDITOR. Sib, —May I ask you to find room in your valuable columns for a few remarks relative to the tobacco industry, the which the strenuous exertions and heavy outlay of the Atlas Tobacco Company of Auckland have of late given very considerable impetus and encouragement ? At an outlay of, I believe, considerably over £20,000 the company have secured a plant andmachinery of the latest and best construction, so that they can supply cigars, cigarettes, and faucy as well as plug- tobaccos of every description quite equal in finish and general get-up to any imported articles. They have encouraged eettlera to grow and care the leaf by promising co purchase at a remunerative rate all tobacco grown and properly cured, by supplying the best American seed, and lastly by giving them every possible information an to the cnlture and curing of the tobucco plant, and the construction of heating rooms, drying and wilting sheds, etc., to facilitate the complete und sj>eedy curing and colouring of the leaf by the new American plan, viz., by artificial heat. So much for what the company has done. I will now brieliy call yonr attention to the great value of this industry to the colony ii properly encouraged and carried out, and to the dangers and difficulties in the way, both of tho company and the settlers in nourishing it daring its infancy until it becomes a matured and important industry. In the first place, &s to its importance. I need not tell you that not thousands, but Sens of thousands sterling, are spent yearly by this colony alone, in the purchase of foreign tobacco*. This vast amount of ready money would bo kept in the colony and spent here, if the growth and curing of our own tobaccos were fostered as it should be. And I say that the interest alone of so a sum of money would far exceed any paltry sum which the Government could obtain by any duty imposed upon locallygrown tobacco, not to name the gre«.c and general benefit to the public by keeping 1 erhai>s more than £100,000 a yerr in the colony. Now, as to the danger.-: l&ely to choke this valuable industry in its infancy, if not guarded against. Ist. Both the company and the settlers have to contend with the insane and suicidal prejudices of that very colonial public who should be only too ready to advance, use, and encourage their own local productions, to the utmost of their power. An intimate friend of mine, on smoking some of my own rough cut, grown and cured by artificial heat this year, 18S9, expressed his opinion that it was somewhat new in taste, simply because he knew it was new, and did not think of the fact, that tobacco cured by artificial heat is perfectly and permanently cured. However, to test him, I cut up part of a plug of old "Derby," as hard and dry as chips, with age, and carelessly handing him a pipe full, tusked him to try that brew. Thinking it some of my own growing in another form, he very sedately smoked it. "Well," snid I, " how do you like it '!" " Oh, very well ; only, you know, it has the same fault as the other—that new taste; rather raw, you know; wants age." Fancy my friend's face when he found out the trap into which a foolish and groundless prejudice had betrayed him. The next ■ danger in to be appreheuded from the un- . wise and shortsighted action of the Govern- ' menb in placing a duty on the leiif grown in tho colony, more especially while the industry is in its earliest infancy. Small as the present duiy may appear as compared with the duty upon the foreign article, yet the Government will do well to consider that great as the margin may be at first' sight, it is not enough to makeup for the present absurd prejudice against the colouuvl leaf and manufacture. It is as much or more than tho company can give the .settler for the very best leaf he can produce, just because they have to pay duty to the Government. Thus the settler, who has all the expense, all the labour, and all the risk, does not get so much for the leaf as the Government, who do nothing. I have had considerable experience in growing tobacco in Australia and New Zealand, and 1 believe that few countries can grow the plant better than New Zealand. The only drawback was the risk of curing the leaf in a climate rather too moist if anything. This is now entirely done away with by the introduction of the American system of curing completely in eight or ten days by artificial heat, and with properly constructed buildings tho settler need not care what weather is outside. I have grown and cured leaf this year which numbers of gentlemen in Auckland have seen and smoked with the greatest pleasure, and one American expert, who had 150 acres of tobacco under his supervision in tho States, said he had seen much far inferior leaf in the States, and little, if any, to surpass it either in size or quality.—l am, &c., Equks.