What was a problem for the tobacco farmers? They were forced to trade with England at low prices.
They were forced to stop planting more tobacco.
They were forced to trade only in the colonies.
They were forced to trade at higher prices.

Tobacco in Colonial Virginia
Contributed by Emily Jones Salmon and John Salmon
Tobacco was colonial Virginia's most successful cash crop. The tobacco that the first English settlers encountered in Virginia—the Virginia Indians' Nicotiana rustica—tasted dark and bitter to the English palate; it was John Rolfe who in 1612 obtained Spanish seeds, or Nicotiana tabacum, from the Orinoco River valley—seeds that, when planted in the relatively rich bottomland of the James River, produced a milder, yet still dark leaf that soon became the European standard. Over the next 160 years, tobacco production spread from the Tidewater area to the Blue Ridge Mountains, especially dominating the agriculture of the Chesapeake region. Beginning in 1619 the General Assembly put in place requirements for the inspection of tobacco and mandated the creation of port towns and warehouses. This system assisted in the development of major settlements at Norfolk, Alexandria, and Richmond. Tobacco formed the basis of the colony's economy: it was used to purchase the indentured servants and slaves to cultivate it, to pay local taxes and tithes, and to buy manufactured goods from England. Promissory notes payable in tobacco were even used as currency, with the cost of almost every commodity, from servants to wives, given in pounds of tobacco. Large planters usually shipped their tobacco directly to England, where consignment agents sold it in exchange for a cut of the profits, while smaller planters worked with local agents who bought their tobacco and supplied them with manufactured goods. In the mid-seventeenth century, overproduction and shipping disruptions related to a series of British wars caused the price of tobacco to fluctuate wildly. Prices stabilized again in the 1740s and 1750s, but the financial standings of small and large planters alike deteriorated throughout the 1760s and into the 1770s. By the advent of the American Revolution (1775–1783), some planters had switched to growing food crops, particularly wheat; many more began to farm these crops to support the war effort. In the first year of fighting, tobacco production in Virginia dropped to less than 25 percent of its annual prewar output.

As citizens grow increasingly wary of whose interests are being represented in the public policy arena, especially in light of recent sensational scandals showing a cozy relationship between professional lobbyists and lawmakers, a crisis of confidence is engulfing many democratic societies across the european and north american continents. public perceptions of undue influence peddling, in which special interest groups exercise too much sway over government for self-serving purposes, have led to growing demands for the regulation of lobbyists and transparency of the policymaking process. the united states and canada have been struggling for decades to refine their systems of lobbyist regulation. of all the shortcomings of the north american model of lobbyist regulation – and there are many – transparency is not, for the most part, one of them. many european countries have also been experimenting with systems of lobbyist regulation. until recently, however, the european national experiments have produced very different results among themselves and in comparison with the north american counterparts. surprisingly, some of the earliest efforts to regulate lobbying occurred among new democratic countries in eastern europe rather than the more advanced industrial democracies of western europe. this observation stands in stark contrast to the north american experience, where lobbyist regulation emerged as an effort to manage a highly developed class of professional lobbyists within the strictures of long-standing democratic principles. the authors find that the answer to this anomaly lies in the fact that early european lobbyist regulations focused not on  transparency  as a means to regain public confidence in government, but on providing business interests with  access  to lawmakers as a means to bolster fledgling economies. this focus on access is quickly giving way to demands for transparency as many european governments, racked by scandal, are striving to salvage the public's trust. propelled largely by example from a reluctant european parliament and commission, which are themselves attempting to convince europe that a regional government is in its own interest, several european countries are beginning to make a transition from weak systems of lobbyist regulation, which emphasize business access, to strong systems of lobbyist regulation, which emphasize public transparency. in order to discern ‘best’ practices for achieving transparency through lobbying regulation, the authors first chart the regulatory systems of the united states and canada. that is followed by an analysis of all of the european lobbying regimes. the oft-expressed objection to this new trend toward transparency in europe – that professional lobbyists view such regulations as overly burdensome – is undercut by research on european and american lobbyists’ attitudes toward regulation, which are generally quite favorable. like everyone else, lobbyists realize that they have an image problem and that the best way to address that problem is by operating in the broad daylight of public transparency. finally, the authors offer recommendations on how to enhance transparency in policymaking, drawing from detailed comparisons of the north american and european models of lobbyist regulation.