6 TOBACCO GROWING IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



difficulty of adjusting the revenue was one of 

 the chief reasons given by the Select Committee 

 for continuing the restrictive policy. This is a 

 deep and important subject certainly, involving 

 much difficulty, but equally, certainly, not in- 

 volving an insurmountable obstacle. 



How, it may be asked, is the matter of revenue 

 managed in the continental countries, where 

 tobacco foiTiis a staple commodity ? 



In Austria, for instance, tobacco is a State 

 monopoly ; the State fixes its own pix)fits, and 

 all tobacco is carried to depots, where regular 

 Commissioners give the planters a fair market 

 price. 



In Belgium the plant is taxed, as it stands, 

 at two centimes per plant, unhealthy plants 

 being exempted from taxation, thus raising a 

 tax of about £13 per acre, reckoning 16,000 

 plants to an acre, as the Belgians do. 



These methods answer to the satisfaction of 

 the Government authorities ; and, at all events, 

 the foreign systems should be officially inquired 

 into before fiscal difficulties be considered in- 

 surmountable in England. 



The produce of Customs duties on tobacco in 

 France in 1885 amounted to £15,600,750 ; while 

 in England, in consequence of our extraordinary 

 partiality for and care of foreign trade, our net 



