Evening star., 1926-01-07
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL y. COLLINS.

The government of France has an
asset which in a period of IS years
will produce about lao, 900 900, 900
francs income; a trading Yankee Of
fers to buy it for IS. 900, 900 900 francs,
half cash and the balance in yearly
installments.
Query: Why did the American
expect serious consideration of his
bargain offer"? One answer, sug
gested by an official. is that France
needs the money, and that "a bird
in the hand" has a greater value
than a flock in the bushes. The cash
offer of 100000, 900 amounts to
$3.50 900 900 even at today's exchange
values.
This asset is the French govern
ment's monopoly of tobacco. Although
France has refused the offer, there
may be future negotiations. hence it
is interesting to analyze what 1t Is
that the would-be investors covet.
Every doughboy Of the A. E. F.
knows the quality of French tobacco.
Few would walk a kilometer for
chameau' French smokes are i'm
possible. yet French consumers are
willing to use enough to net the
treasury nearly 1000. 100000 francs
profit annually. This fact gives rosi-
ness to the Imagination Of the Ameri-
can Colonel Sellers" who sees mil
! lions in It" under American standards
of quality and the push of improved
advertising and methods Of diStribu-
ton Under the government handling
the distribution is almost exclusively
reserved for occupation Of former
soldiers or their widows, hence
patriotism, as we'll as national in
come, is a factor in the negotiations.
II
France is not the only country
which uses a monopoly of tobacco as
| a source of national income, and in
all cases the same low quality is found
wherever the traffic is a monopoly
Portugal, Spain, Italy, Czechoslovallta,
| Sweden, Poland, Turkey and Japan.
What brilliant field there appears for
major American enterprise in buying
up government monopolies which are
| frayed at the edges, renovating, de-
odorizing and rejuvenating them.
French matches. too, are monopoliZed
| by the government. What If French
| matches could be made to strike fire.
| In ancient days nearly all taxes were
| thus farmed out to enterpriSing in
vestors, though 1t Is not recorded that
the prcfteering tax collectors were
very popular.
Whether possession of the French
| tobacco monopoly by Americans would
greatly benefit American tobacco grow.
] ers is not held to be a certainty. The
| investors might be more interested in
| their own dividends than in patriot.
ically upbuilding the fortunes of their
confreres in the tobacco fields of Vir.
ginia. (All America is counted as
| "Virginia'' when Europeans talk OF
| tobacco)
1t might transpire that the Amer.
| ican-Franco Tobacco Trust would dis
cover how to increase tobacco fields
in France and Algiers. and it is GER
tain that they would use French labor
for making tobacco products, rather
than higher priced American cigar and
cigarette makers. All cigarette paper
| used in America comes from France
so the freight on what would be need
! ed in France with the expected in
creased demand would benefit French
mills rather than American. France
has a protective tariff on tobacco
products. although leaf tobacco is ad
mitted free.
The French are not the greatest
smokers in the world. We Americans
smoke so per cent more per capita
than they do. Some years ago statis-
tics indicated that the English and
Scotch used Ia pounds Of tobacco per
capita annually; the French, 2.S
pounds; Belgians, At pounds; Swiss,