Palestine]
of Beirut was 13,455,000 kg., fetching, at pre-war prices, about 1,500,000 frs., so that the sale in the whole country may well approximate to 2,500,000 frs. To the Lebanon the monopoly has not applied, salt being sold by the Public Debt to dealers and others in amounts of not less than 50 kg.
The conditions of the tobacco monopoly, which has been in the hands of the Régie cointéressée des Tabacs de l'Empire ottoman since 1883, were revised in 1914. Except in the Lebanon, which has hitherto been excluded from its operations, the Régie has the sole right to control and purchase all tobacco grown, to collect duty on imported and exported tobaccos, and to manufacture and sell tobacco in its various forms. Cigarettes, tobacco, &c., are sold at fixed prices and only on licensed premises, whose holders receive a commission. Tombac, or water-pipe tobacco, which is both imported from Persia and grown in the country (p. 92), is also controlled, but is subject to special regulations. Imported tombac pays a duty of 4 piastres per kg.; that grown at home, so far as not bought by the Régie, may be sold or exported, paying duty at the same rate. The annual value of the tobacco and tombac normally sold is perhaps fourteen to fifteen million francs.
(2) Foreign Trade
No very clear statistics of foreign commerce are available. The official statistics include Adalia and Mersina with the Syrian ports, and the trade of these two places does not concern Syria, though it is true that it is not large. Secondly, these statistics confine themselves to trade with foreign countries, excluding the considerable traffic with other parts of the Ottoman Empire, and so do not do full justice to the country as an entity. They can, however, be supplemented to some extent from British Consular reports where the figures are collected for the several ports, though unfortunately not on a consistent system, those for Beirut, Tripoli, Haifa, Latakia, and Saida giving quantities only and
