Norwich bulletin., 1917-08-04

were sent to China in the last fiscal year, the year ending with June, an other billion to the Straits Settle ments. a hundred million to Siam, an other hundred to Hong Kong and about 10 millions to our own Philip pines.
 The Oriental likes his short smoke, as will be testified by every visitor to that part of the world, and while China grows large quantities of to- bacco, and the Chinaman is expert in | he manufacture of cigarettes, never
 theless the American cigarette has grown in popularity in the Orient with remarka ble rapidity. Ten years
 ego our exports of American cigar cites to China amounted to but about
 4o0,0oO,eC0 a year. an average of one
 cigarette per annum for each China
 man. Now. in the fascal year 1917,
 the total to China was 1000 900, GOO, or
 an average of 10 per capita for every
 Chinanlan, while the fact that anoth-
 CT billion went to the Straits Settle
 Tnents and Malayan Peninsula where
 large numbers of Chinanen are em-
 ployed in the tin mines and rubber plantations, shows that the popular ity of the American cigarettes extends to the Chinaman in whatever country. Even the Philippines, which grow large quantities of tobacco and send millions of dollars worth to us, took last year about 10 millions of our cig- arettes, chiefly for the use of the 50,-
 
 Siamese, who have many of the Chin ese characteristics and many Chinese living among them, showed their taste for the American smoke" by taking over 5o,o60, 900 of them last year at a cost of about $275.o00. The American cigarette has grown in fla vor with marvellous rapidity, especi- ally in the Orient despite the fact that tobacco and labor for the production of domestic cigarettes arc extremely plentiful in that part of the world.
 Our total exportation of cigarettes never reached as much one million dollars in value prior to 1890. In 1896 it crossed the g, GOO, ,0oo line but did not reach the million line until 1913 In 1914 the total of the cigar cites exported was S4, 900. in 1915 s4.325. 900, and in 1917 more than dou- bed the total number exported in 1917 being over billion and the value ap- proximatcly s12,o0eoo
 About go per cent. of the cigarettes exported go to the Orient, those to China in 1916 were about 4,000, 900 900, dement's of which Singapore Is the chief port, then Siam. Hong Kong and the Philippines. Japan takes but few. and this is also true of Korea. Brit ish India. Ceylon and the Dutch East Indies. Europe shows no interest in the American cigarette, the total ex- port to all Europe in 1918 being about S126,000 in value. or approximately 3 per cent Of the total exports.
 Meantime the American smoker has also developed a taste for foreign grown tobacco for cigarettes and was importing great quantities of it when 1 the war cut off the available sup ply. Turkish tobacco for cigarettes | became popular in the United States 1 6 bout dozen years ago and the i'm l ports from Turkey in recent years rivaled those from Cuba, though Of an entirely different quality of tobacco The total of tobacco imported from | Turkey in Europe and Asia in recent years was in 1909 about 6 million pounds. and in 1914 the year immedi- l ately preceding the war, about 25 million pounds, practically all of it for | use in nanufa curing cigarettes The | entry of Turkey into the war greatly | reduced the possibility of continuing | our imports of her products, and the t receipt of Turkish tobacco in the fs- cal year 1915 was about one-half that of 1914, while in 1916 and 1917 the im-