Tobacco monopoly

“ But, while the purchase of tobacco is monopolized by a company, and they pay for that monopoly a heavy price to the government, they doubtless are at liberty to fix such places and terms of purchase, as may enable them to make good their engagements with government. I see no more reason for obliging them to give a greater price for tobacco than they think they can afford, than to do the same between two individuals treating for a horse, a house, or anything else. ”

“ Profit from tobacco monopoly and foreign trade.Among the various causes which have contributed to produce so favorable an alteration, the chief one have been the establishment of the tobacco monopoly, on behalf of the crown, and the opening of the port of Manila to the flag of other nations, at peace with Spain. ”

“ When they become so, it will remain to look about for the best palliative this monopoly can bear. My present idea is, that it will be found in a prohibition to the Farmers General, to purchase tobacco any where but in France. You will perceive by this, that my object is to strengthen the connection between this country and my own in all useful points. I am of opinion, that twenty-three thousand hogsheads of tobacco, the annual consumption of this country, do not exceed the amount of those commodities, which it is more advantageous to us to buy here than in England, or elsewhere ”

“ A tax imposed upon an article at a certain stage of its production or manufacture may enforce the expediency or necessity of a state monopoly. Where the supervision of the state agents must be so close as to interfere with the conduct of the industry, the state intervenes and itself controls the manufacture and sale. Tobacco has long been subject to this fiscal régime, and, proving so productive of revenue, there is little to be said against a monopoly by the state of its manufacture and sale. ”

“ The monopoly of the purchase of tobacco in France, discourages both the French and American merchant from bringing it here, and from taking in exchange the manufactures and productions of France. It is contrary to the spirit of trade, and to the dispositions of merchants, to carry a commodity to any market where but one person is allowed to buy it, and where, of course, that person fixes its price, which the seller must receive, or reexport his commodity, at the loss of his voyage thither. ”

“ If State monopolies prevent free competition, at least they are able, they say, to give some compensation to those who are hurt. In the tobacco monopoly hundreds of millions were set aside by the German government for this purpose, but even that was not considered sufficient. ”

“ With this background of a substantial monopoly, amounting too ver two-thirds of the entire domestic field of cigarettes, and to over 80% of the field of comparable cigarettes, and with the opposition confined to several small competitors, the jury could have found from the actual operation of the petitioners that there existed a combination or conspiracy among them not only in restraint of trade, but to monopolize a part of the tobacco industry. ”

“ New competition dare not enter such a field, unless it be well supported by comparable national advertising. Large inventories of cigarettes, and large sums required for payment of federal taxes in advance of actual sales, further emphasize the effectiveness of a well financed monopoly in this field against potential competitors if there merely exists an intent to exclude such competitors. Prevention of all potential competition is the natural program for maintaining a monopoly here, rather than any program of actual exclusion. ”

“ The produce of the Tobacco Monopoly will never equal, in the account of the yearly receipts of the Republic, the amount given by the estimates of the Vice-regal Government; because the profits are now divided amongst nineteen States, instead of being concentrated, as before, in one focus: but the effect upon the general interests of the country is the same, as these profits enable the States, in part, to cover their Contingent, and thus tend, though by a more circuitous route, to increase the Public Revenue. ”

“ In addition, the Government, that is to say, the Grand Council, should take over the monopoly of the tobacco import and the timber export. By using tobacco in the same way as European governments use coinage, an immense revenue could be very cheaply obtained. The Grand Council should sell the tobacco to the individual traders who work the West African markets, allowing no other tobacco to be used in the trade ”

“ While the advantages of an increase of revenue to the crown, a diminution of impost on the people, and a payment in merchandise instead of money, are conjectured as likely to result to France from a suppression of the monopoly on tobacco, we have also reason to hope some advantages on our part ”

“ In France, our tobacco is subject to a royal monopoly, which makes the king the sole purchaser, and subjects the seller to the necessity of taking the price which his agents will give. In Germany, our tobacco, and other articles, are heavily dutied, and liable to a transit duty, in addition, when they have to ascend the Rhine, or other rivers, to penetrate the interior. ”

“ The polos means the obligation to work a certain number of days in neighborhood works.—Montero y Vidal.
14 The tobacco monopoly was arranged by Governor Basco y Vargas in pursuance of a royal order of February 9, 1780. Although opposed by certain classes, especially the friars, the monopoly was organized by March 1, 1782, and approved by royal order May 15, 1784. Under the monopoly, however, quantities of tobacco always escaped the vigilance of the government, and could be bought at much cheaper rates than the government tobacco. ”

“ The cultivation of tobacco has, upon this account, been most absurdly prohibited through the greater part of Europe, which necessarily gives a sort of monopoly to the countries where it is allowed; and as Virginia and Maryland produce the greatest quantity of it, they share largely, though with some competitors, in the advantage of this monopoly. ”

“ Of these eighty millions, thirty are constituted by the single article of tobacco. Could the whole of this be brought into the ports of France, to satisfy its own demands, and the residue to be re-vended to other nations, it would be a powerful link of commercial connection. But we are far from this. Even her own consumption, supposed to be nine millions, under the administration of the monopoly to which it is farmed, enters little, as an article of exchange, into the commerce of the two nations. ”

“ In Asheville Tobacco, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that where a state statute authorized the creation of local tobacco boards to regulate tobacco sales at auctions, and where the states did not continue to supervise the decisions of these boards, the board's actions were not protected by Parker immunity. This principle has also been applied in state granted monopoly cases. ”

“ But the conditions were opposed to his scheme, for the use of tobacco is general throughout the empire, and a proposition to increase its price by taxation or modify its free manufacture and distribution excited a widespread opposition. France maintains a full monopoly, and finds it too profitable to be lightly set aside unless some equally profitable source of revenue is discovered to make good the loss its abolition would involve. ”

“ In a country in which all the men, and nearly all the women are habitual and even constant smokers, tobacco, must necessarily be an article of national importance. So valuable is its production that the government has continued to maintain the monopoly of its sale, and, previous to the revolution, managed to obtain an annual clear revenue of from one to two millions and a half of dollars, with a gross income, occasionally, of over seven millions and a half. ”

“ Since IC wouldn't corrupt a susceptible race with tobacco when there were much cheaper legal ways, the logical answer was that it wasn't expensive on this planet—which argued that Antar was being set up for plantation operations—in which case tobacco addiction was a necessary prerequisite and the concentration of IC population made sense.
Now tobacco, as any Earthman knew, was the only monopoly in the Confederation, and Earth had maintained that monopoly by treaty and by force, despite numerous efforts to break it. ”

“ In the United States the weed exhausts four hundred thousand acres of excellent land, and employs forty thousand sickly and cadaverous cigar and tobacco makers. In England, where there is a duty upon tobacco of seventy-five cents a pound, and upon cigars of nearly four dollars a pound, the government derives about six million pounds sterling every year from tobacco. The French government gets from its monopoly of the tobacco trade nearly two hundred million francs per annum, and Austria over eighty million francs. ”

“ The temptation takes them on their weakest side when it presents itself in the form of tobacco, for the Spaniards are a nation of smokers. The manufacture and sale of tobacco is a monopoly of the Government, and yields a large revenue, amounting, I believe, to fifteen millions of dollars. ”

“ But almost everywhere it is either heavily taxed or a Government monopoly; in the latter case it is always exceedingly bad. We ourselves import tobacco worth about £4,500,000 in the year, and pay a heavy duty. ”

“ By interdicting the domestic cultivation of tobacco, all that is consumed must be imported, and a customs duty offers a ready instrument for making the plant, in whatever form it enters, contribute its dues to the exchequer. In Russia, as in the United States, where tobacco is a domestic product, the tax is imposed upon its manufacture, and this method requires supervision but no monopoly of the state. ”

“ To such proportions has the tobacco industry grown that in Osaka (the [139] Manchester of Japan) no fewer than forty factories provide remunerative employment for thousands of work-people—chiefly women and girls. In 1895 Japan exported close upon three million pounds weight of tobacco, the estimated value of which was £23,466. Under the influence of an overmastering passion to mould their institutions on the model of those of Europe, the Government have thought well to lay hands upon the tobacco industry; henceforward it is to be a Government monopoly. ”

“ I soon realised that I had exposed my tobacco to confiscation, disregarding a warning given me by a Japanese passenger on our steamer across the Pacific. I had previously tried the cigarettes sold in the native shops but couldn't become accustomed to them. Relieved of my American supply I decided to give up smoking altogether—for a time. Tobacco is a government monopoly in Japan and there is a prohibitive duty on all foreign importations of it. ”

“ The representatives of the powers take note of the Shereefian Government's intention to extend to tobacco of all kinds the monopoly existing in the case of snuff. They reserve the right of their citizens, subjects, and protégés to be duly indemnified for damages which the said monopoly may cause such of them as carry on a tobacco business established under the present system. In case no amicable agreement shall be reached, the damages shall be fixed by experts designated by the Maghzen and the Diplomatic Body, in conformity with the provisions governing expropriation for public purposes. ”

“ Government buys up each year from the planters the entire crop of tobacco at a fixed price, and exports it partly in leaf, but for the most part in cigars, the right to manufacture which no one possesses but the Government. The monopoly of tobacco was, after great difficulties had been encountered, first introduced into the Philippines in 1787 by Don José Basco, the then Governor-general. ”

“ He has richly deserved and will continue to deserve it, whenever occasions shall arise of rendering service to the United States. These occasions will continually occur. Though the abolition of the monopoly of our tobacco cannot be hoped under the present circumstances, changes are possible which may open that hope again. ”

“ The profits on the lottery go directly p. 189into the pockets of the Government, who are also supplied with very extensive and important patronage by the vast number of petty posts which the system employed for collecting tickets places at their disposal. The tobacco monopoly is farmed out to a company, on whom any loss would fall in the first instance ”

“ Of course, when they are smoked and disliked no one uses them, and they become unsaleable, so that when Government finds that there are few or no purchasers, [295] and that their stock is accumulating, they are obliged to use a better class tobacco in their manufacture, upon which people begin to buy from them again. ”

“ Indeed, the history of the combination is so replete with the doing of acts which it was the obvious purpose of the statute to forbid, so demonstrative of the existence from the beginning of a purpose to acquire dominion and control of the tobacco trade, not by the mere exertion of the ordinary right to contract and to trade, but by methods devised in order to monopolize the trade by driving competitors out of business, which were ruthlessly carried out upon the assumption that to work upon the fears or play upon the cupidity of competitors would make success possible. ”

“ Likewise the two corporations acquired for cash, by issuing stock, and otherwise, control of many competing corporations, now going concerns, with plants in various states, Cuba and Porto Rico, which manufactured, bought, sold, and distributed tobacco products or related articles throughout the United States and foreign countries, and took from the parties in interest covenants not to engage in the tobacco business. ”