EARLY HISTORY OF THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY. 1bs} 
Although the market in England and on the Continent was a rapidly 
expanding one, production in America under the influence of necessity 
occasioned by the rapidly increasing influx of immigration, particu- 
larly indentured white laborers and negro slaves, increased at a still 
ereater rate. Just at this period also, England was entering upon her 
navigation and colonial policy, which had for its object the building 
up of English shipping, creating and retaining exclusive control of 
the colonial markets for home manufactures and increasing national 
resources. | | 
Parliament passed laws effectively prohibiting the importation 
of any tobacco except from the Colonies. This excluded Spanish 
colonial tobacco, which had hitherto been of considerable importance, 
and secured a monopoly of the British markets for the Colonies. 
Conversely, however, the Colonies were forbidden to export tobacco, 
except to the mother country and in English ships. This had the 
effect of reserving.the market for colonial tobacco to England only 
and helped to build up English shipping, but it placed the colonists 
entirely at the mercy of English merchants and shipowners as to 
prices obtained for tobacco. The British merchants, however, could 
sell colonial tobacco to other countries freely after it had passed the 
British ports, and it is estimated that during the colonial period two- 
thirds or more of the colonial tobacco reaching England was resold for 
use in continental countries. England thus became the great supply 
center for leaf tobacco for the rest of Europe. 
In order to increase colonial imports, augment customs receipts, and 
make the farming out of the tobacco monopoly of greater value to the 
King, the growing of tobacco in Britain, which had already become 
of some importance in certain sections there, was forbidden. Laws 
were also passed discouraging the development of any manufacturing 
activities in the Colonies in order to retain the colonial markets for 
British products. This, too, had the effect of making still more com- 
plete the dependence of the Colonies upon agriculture alone as a means 
of livelihood, and for exchange purposes tobacco seemed to be the only 
resource. The whole policy as outlined, together with the rapidly in- 
creasing population of the Colonies, conspired to increase production 
and depress prices.? 
In 1664 exports amounted to 23,750,000 pounds at 3.09 cents a 
pound. So it went on with production and prices fluctuating greatly 
i It should perhaps be noted in this connection that the action of this colonial policy in respect to Mary- 
land was somewhat different from that of the other colonies. Maryland was a palatinate and as such had 
a degree of freedom from control by the mother country not enjoyed by Virginia and the other Colonies. 
For example, the policy limiting the exports of colonial tobacco to Great Britain did not apply to Mary- 
land. She thus enjoyed a freer market and sold much of her product directly to other countries in Europe, 
particularly to France and Holland, and built up a trade in tobacco leaf with these countries which has 
persisted. These countries continue to take between them the larger portion of the Maryland product. 
- Virginia, however, produced a much larger quantity of tobacco than Maryland, and was really the con- 
trolling factor in prices and production in colonial times, 
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