St Nicotine of the Peace Pipe

by Edward Vincent Heward

And breathes contentment round the humble hearth.

The utterances of the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, calling attention to the vast consumption of tobacco in these islands have given force and significance to the question, and naturally they suggest the further inquiry as to how we stand in the matter in relation to the past and to other civilised nations. On the threshold of the inquiry figures present themselves pointing directly to the conclusion that the British nation is spending upon the indulgence almost as much money as it does on the time-honoured staff of life, our daily bread. Certainly this aspect of the subject is somewhat startling. If the consumption of tobacco has grown to such a magnitude that it threatens to exceed that of wheat, then, clearly its consideration has become a question of national importance. It is the purpose of this chapter to lay before the reader some facts, statistical, botanical, and chemical, relating to this Indian weed which has done more to set good people by the ears than the whole world of Flora besides. To this end it will be necessary to ponder for a brief space on the skeleton forms and figures embalmed in State Blue Books.

Board of Trade returns are not what may be called recreative reading for leisure hours, but looked at good-naturedly we soon come to regard them as we should sure-footed sumpter mules carrying the account books of commerce. A little searching and sifting among their packs, brings us upon figures which plainly tell the story of a steady, constant growth of the smoking habit, and that it has, within the last half-century, increased in strength more than two-fold. The ratio per head of the population, briefly stated, is as follows: In 1841, when the population of Great Britain, and approximately of Ireland, was 26,700,000, the quantity of tobacco cleared through the Custom-house for consumption in this kingdom was 23,096,281 lbs., or 13¾ ounces for each inhabitant. In 1861, with a population of 28,887,000, the quantity of tobacco imported for home consumption amounted to 35,413,846 lbs., showing that its use had increased to 19½ ounces per head. Ten years later (1871) the proportion was 23 ounces for each person. And in 1891 the ratio per head had risen to 26 ounces; the quantity imported being 60,927,915 lbs. for a population of 38,000,000. Put plainly, this increase of consumption may only mean that the man who, in 1841, smoked only one pipe a day, in 1891 found himself so much better off that he could afford to smoke two.

Here, however, we come upon an important factor which, in calculating the weight of tobacco actually consumed, must be taken into account. Dr. Samuel Smiles, in the course of his investigations into the subject, discovered that in the process of manufacturing the leaf into the tobacco of commerce, water was added to the extent of 33 per cent. of the whole. The Statistical Office of the Customs has courteously furnished the writer of these lines with the further information that ‘Raw tobacco when imported contains naturally 13 per cent. of moisture, but when it is cut up for sale, the total moisture must not exceed 33 per cent.’[2]

In estimating the weight of the weed actually consumed, it will be necessary to make an addition of 20 per cent. to the weight of the manufactured leaf imported. Since 1891 there has been a gradual increase in the quantity imported. In the financial year 1904-5 the total of all kinds amounted to 107,862,489 lbs. Of this 83,374,670 lbs. was retained for Home use, giving 1.95 lbs. per head of the population, and yielding a revenue to the national exchequer of £13,184,767.

As to the cost to the nation of this enormous quantity of tobacco, the official returns state that the declared value in 1895 was, for manufactured £1,256,313, and for unmanufactured £2,097,603, together £3,353,916. It is clear, however, that these figures can have little or no significance from the consumer’s standpoint. Besides the declared value and the Customs duty, there is to be taken into account the cost of manufacture and all the expenses incidental thereto; the retail dealer’s profits, varying from about 20 per cent. in the poorer districts, to 75 per cent. in the best west-end shops. It may be mentioned also that the Customs duties vary, according to the kind of the tobacco imported, from 3s. 6d. to 5s. a pound weight, and that the price for which it is sold to the merchant, ranges from 1s. 6d. per pound. No satisfactory data upon which a fair estimate can be based are to be found here. But, if an average price per ounce be taken, as a starting point, of the charge made by the tobacconist to the consumer of all the various kinds, from the patrician Havana to the plebeian ‘rough-cut,’ then we may arrive at a fairly reasonable estimate. Sixpence an ounce is rather below than above the average price paid for the weed. At this rate, however, a total annual expenditure is reached of £31,304,108. Then there is the almost endless variety of nick-nacks which accompany the use of tobacco, from the dhudeen and metal tobacco box of the Irish peasant, to the lordly, gold-mounted meerschaum and amber pipe, with cases, pouches, jars, pipe-racks, and all the paraphernalia the nicotian epicure demands for the use and adornment of his favourite indulgence. And how is the cost of these accessories to be obtained? If, out of the 40,000,000 inhabiting these islands there should be 10,000,000 smokers, each spending on an average 2s. 6d. only a year on these things, then would the annual outlay to the consumer mount up to the grand total of £32,554,108.

Again the writer has to acknowledge his indebtedness to the statistical branch of the Customs for the interesting information that the quantity of wheat consumed in this kingdom in 1895 was about 27,500,000 quarters—770,000,000 lbs.—and that the average value was 24s. a quarter, making a total value of £33,000,000. Thus we see how nearly the sum expended upon tobacco-smoking approaches to the sum spent upon wheat. Comparing the quantities of the two commodities we can only say, so much the better for the consumer of wheat, who obtains in weight about fifteen times more of bread than he could purchase of tobacco for the same sum—bearing in mind that wheat requires 45 per cent. of water for its conversion into bread. And herein lies the secret of the large consumption of tobacco: bread is so cheap, the poor man can afford to indulge in a little more of his comforter than he could formerly.

Commenting upon the vast increase in the consumption of tobacco, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was so mindful of the public interest as to give expression to his matured conviction that ‘Everything spent on tobacco by those who have enough to eat is waste.’ Acknowledging himself to be a non-smoker, and perhaps prejudiced, he would only appeal to smokers whether this was not waste: ‘It is calculated,’ said Sir Michael, ‘by the Customs authorities that no less a value than £1,000,000 is literally thrown into the gutter in the shape of the ends of cigarettes and cigars. It is all the better for the revenue, but I think it may be a subject of consideration for smokers.’

Looked at broadly, all such considerations are relative—relative to the numbers who smoke and to their ability to spend. Naturally we turn to our neighbours across the silver streak and ask what they are doing; are they more frugal than we are in the use of the weed? Germany, always to the fore where painstaking and close attention to minutiæ is required, tells us that Holland uses the leaf at the rate of a trifle over 7 lbs. per head of her population; Austria, 3.8 lbs.; Denmark, 3.7 lbs.; Switzerland, 3.3 lbs.; Belgium, 3.2 lbs.; Germany, 3 lbs.; Sweden and Norway, each 2.3 lbs.; France, 2.1 lbs.; Italy, Russia, Spain may be classed together with a consumption of 1¼ lb.; while the United States rises in the scale to 4½ lbs. for each inhabitant. There is much virtue in figures; they give us the comforting assurance that after all we are not so bad as our neighbours by a pound or more, taking the average consumption of the leading nations of the world. So we may be permitted a little longer to smoke our pipe in peace undeterred by fearful forebodings of evil to come.

But then the whole world smokes, and what the whole world does must surely have some show of justification. It is estimated that two thousand millions of pounds weight are consumed every year, and that its money value far exceeds five hundred million pounds sterling; its production finds remunerative employment for countless thousands of families. In America alone the tobacco plantations cover an area of 400,000 acres, and in the labour of cultivation 40,000 persons win their daily bread. And what of the million of money wantonly thrown into the gutter every year? The smoker may well pause over his pipe and consider what this may really mean. One million pounds divided among forty million people would give sixpence to each. That every man, woman, and child should in this manner waste sixpence a year is doubtless much to be deplored; in the eyes of our excellent guardian of the public purse it is reprehensible. But is the whole of this money or money’s worth really lost past recovery? Investigations made at the instance of the Board of Inland Revenue concerning the fate that befalls cigar ends have been the means of revealing a curious aspect of our complex social system. Amid the crowd, the bustle and din of struggling humanity, glimpses may be caught of a quiet fellow-being plodding along the highways and byways of the great metropolis, with a bag slung over his shoulder, and his eyes fixed on the gutters intent upon picking up these unconsidered trifles, or wending his way to the side door of some hotel or hall where convivial souls do congregate of an evening, and there doing a little private business with the janitor, who pours into his bag these spoils of the night’s revelry. And so it comes about that out of the gutters and waste places of the earth there ultimately return to the manufacturer the sorry remains of the once-treasured Indian weed. Many a young hopeful of slender purse hugs with pride his penny or twopenny cigar clad in a new coat, little dreaming of its having in a former existence shone, glow-worm like, in another sphere. Then there are ‘fancy mixtures’ made up for the pipe, enticingly scented with an odour unknown to the weed, and which, as if ashamed of the connection, vanishes in the burning, leaving not a trace behind, save wonder at what can have become of it, for the smoker gets none. And have we not always in view the lowly wayfarer along life’s by-paths, whose feet have trodden thorny places and stumbled, maybe? He sees in the castaway an emblem of himself, and fraternally picks out of the gutter a little consolation for the buffets of the day; for tobacco has been aptly called the poor man’s anodyne. And so life is rounded off with a smoke. Possibly thoughts such as these mingle with the smoker’s reflections on the subject of waste to the consideration of which Sir Michael invited their attention. But the economic phase the question presents may be safely left to settle itself; for, after all, the cost of the indulgence is the merest trifle compared with the price paid for it in, say, Jacobean time, when paternal governments, out of a too tender regard for the interests of their loving subjects of mean estate, levied a tax upon tobacco which if converted into the coinage of the present day would be equivalent to six or seven times the sum for which it may now be purchased from the tobacconist. Curiously enough, another Michael (Drayton), well-nigh three hundred years ago (Polyolbion, 1613), raised his voice more in sorrow than in anger against the extravagance of his times, as compared with the days