IMPORTS REFUSED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 277, 23 November 1945, Page 5

IMPORTS REFUSED

SOUTH AFRICAN TOBACCO (P.A.) Auckland, Nov. 22. A statement that the Government had consistently refused, for the past five years to permit the importation of tobacco from South Africa was made to-day by Mr. J. Howie, New Zealand representative of a film of South African manufacturers.

Throughout the war years, he said, regular ir formation indicating that supplies of South African tobacco were available had been passed on to the Minister, of Customs, but Mr. Nash had refused to permit importations. Supplies were still available, and the result of an application for an import licence, now before the Customs Department, was awaited. In pre-war years African brands were extensively used by Dominion tobacconists in making their own mixture. Referring to the reported statement bv Mr. Hackett in the House of Representatives last night that South African tobacco could be bought in New Zealand but no one would smoke it. Mr. Howie said Mr. Hackett could have learned from Mr. Nash that no licences to import such tobacco had benn issued since 1939. There was ahsolutelv no justification for Mr. Hackett's statement, and it could be said defieitclv that if African tobacco was available in New Zealand to-day, it would command a ready sale.