Lord Harris on Monday asked the Government to take off
all penalties from the cultivation of tobacco in the United Kingdom. He said it had been grown as far north as Scotland, that it was still grown in Belgium, and that in Ireland the average crop was 1,000 lbs. an acre. The Government, through Lord Sudeley, pleaded the extreme difficulty of raising an Excise duty on the plant, but were willing to allow experiments to be made in certain specified localities. The concession is quite right, but we fear the experiments will come to little. Coarse tobacco can be grown in England, but if the Excise- tax equals the duty, it can never compete with the tobacco raised either in Virginia or Bengal. Tobacco, owing to the size of the leaf, is one of the cheapest of agricultural products, its cost being due to the difficulties of preparation, the heavy duties, and the strength of the taste for special• kinds of the weed. Men habituated to one variety, will pay anything rather than use an inferior, or, for that matter, a superior one. If this were not the case; three districts of Bengal would supply all the better tobacco of the world,
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