THE CUBA REVIEW 25 
Cigarette Machine. 
of this month practically all operations by our larger factories will have ceased, 
save for a small demand for cigars from the Island itself. This demand increased 
very appreciably during the period of wild spending resulting from the high sugar 
prices of last spring and summer, but since the moratorium has gone into effect con- 
sumption of the same low-grade products formerly customary has been resumed. 
These are almost entirely manufactured by the smaller shops found everywhere 
throughout the Island. Prospects indicate that an extended period will intervene 
before the world conditions will be such as to allow our cigar industry to again 
assume its one-time importance, and during this period no one can guess what 
changes may be introduced due to the ever active propaganda against the use of 
tobacco that seems to be quietly but surely making its advances, and that some day, 
like that for the elimination of alcoholic drinks, gives promise of accomplishing its 
object. 
No mention has been made in this article of the cigarette industry in Cuba. It 
is needless to say that this is important, and that the use of the cigarette is on the 
increase here as it seems to be the world over. This department of our cigar factories 
has relied much less upon exportation than have their cigar departments, but as the 
production of cigarettes is largely accomplished by means of machine work, its im- 
portance to the Island as an employer of labor is small in comparison. The cost of 
the raw material in this line has also greatly increased, raw materials formerly 
costing from $12.50 to $15 per 100 pounds today cost $50, so that profits have been 
considerably lessened, notwithstanding the increase in retail price per package from 
5 cents prevailing before the war to that of 8 cents now being received. Moreover, 
if the cigar industry slows down as indications now seem to predict, the cigarette 
industry cannot replace it in the consumption of the high-grade and high-cost tobaccos 
of Vuelta Abajo and Partidos, and these districts will suffer severely and will prac- 
tically have to find some other product upon which to rely as their money crop. 
