Some interest has been excited this week by the struggle,
or "war," between the American Tobacco Trust and the Imperial Tobacco Company, a rival British combination, for the control of all retail distributors of the plant. The Imperial offered the retailers a bonus for their adhesion, promising to divide among them a sum of £50,000 a year. That seems a large offer, but it was immediately capped by the Americans, who offered £200,000 and all their profits for four years. This, they doubtless thought, must " fetch " the distributors; but the speculators had mistaken British character. The retailers • almost unanimously preferred their own ways and an open market, and through their AssOciations rejected both offers. They " wished to be neutral, and would listen to nothing," many of them said, except a guarantee of 25 per cent. upon all tobacco they sold, an arrangement which would involve audit- ing on an unprecedented scale. The Americans must therefore change their plan of attack.
