The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-12-15
Rapid Development

Although the market in England and on the Continent was a rapidly devel- oping one, production in America un- der the influence of necessity occasion- ed by the rapidly increasing influx of immigration particularly indentured white laborers and negro slaves in- creased at a still greater rate. In 1864 exports amounted to 23.750,000 pounds, but the price has dropped to 3.09 cents per pound So it went on with Hro- duction and prices fluctuating greatly from year to year throughout the whole colonial period, the production always tending to expend rapidly, as the aver age of a series of years, attended with chronic dissatisfaction from low prices. The lowest recorded price was 1.52 cents per pound in .730. when exporta- ton was 36,000,000 pounds.
 Now we are exporting above BOG, ,000,- 900 pounds of tobacco per annum, and we are importing thirty odd million pounds used in the main for the manu- fracture of cigars. Strangely enough, however. the value per pound of tho toabcco imported is so much greater than of that exported that the value of. the imports offsets about two-thirds the value of our eXports-for the fif- teen years ending 1911 61 per cent so that the balance of trade in favor of the United States on the tobacco ac- count is smaller than might be sup posed.
 Imported Tobacco
 The tobacco which is imported con- sists principally of cigar filler leaf and cigars from Cuba and cigar wrapper leaf from Dutch East Indies (Sumatra and Borneo, purchased at Ans sterdam and Rotterdam, Holland) and is the finest and highest priced tobacco in the world. Our imports of Turkish to- bacco, for use principally in cigarettes, is becoming of considerable import ance and is rapidly increasing. This imported tobacco bears a very high rate of import duty for the protection of cigar leaf growers in the United states and for revenue, which is at the rate of sl.S5 per pound on wrap pers and 35 cents per pound for tll- CTS, with reciprocity discount of 20 per cent in the case of Cuban imports Adding this duty to the declared value of the imported tobacco and cigars causes it to exceed the value of our exports more than 30 per cenr.
 In 1908 for instance the value of all exports of tobacco from the Unit ed States, including cigars and cigar cites, was in round figures $40 coo, O0o The imports of all kinds amounted to $26,500.000, but after the duty was added $49.00O,o00.
 The normal production Of tobacco of all types and grades in the United States at the present time is 9OO,- o0o,00o pounds. This would mean that We are consuming at home 600. 900, 444 pounds of our own tobacco. since we export 3O0,000.000 pounds and in ad- dition the thirty-odd million pounds of the fancy grades that We buy from other countries. When this tobacco is put into the various forms in which it is used the cost to the ultimate con sumers runs into several hundred mill lions of dollars.
 There are no statistics available but assuming that 10000 of Birmir gham's total population of 1o0.000 people use the weed. Birmingnam's tobacco bill Is probably over 5000 per day. These figures are nothing more than a guess and they may be ridiculous. but if so