PAID FOR NOT WORKING

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 104, 26 January 1935, Page 18

PAID FOR NOT WORKING

£BOO For Not Growing Hops

Here are four examples of the crazy things that are happening in Britain to-day under the queer kind of State Socialism with which we are bein, shackled (says the “Sunday Express”). A man recently bought two hop kilns and some land in the hop-growing country of Kent.- He had no intention of growing hops, but altered the kilns into a house, and used the land as a hen farm.

A few weeks ago he was surprised to receive a letter offering him £l3O for his hop quota—the license which allows him to sell a certain quantity of hops under the Hop Producing scheme. He took no notice, thinking it was a joke. Then came another letter, raising the offer to £3OO. This time he consulted his lawyer, who suggested that he should wait. Further offers were made, and now he has sold his hop quota for £BOO. For not producing hops, under the Hop Producing Scheme, he therefore gets £BOO.

Under the 1935 pig consignments, which begin on New Year’s Day—and which have been fixed in connection with the Pigs Marketing Scheme—tiie railway companies are to be eutitlcd to 2/1 for each pig transported from the farm to the curing factory. If tiie producer carts the pig to the railway station himself, he will be able to keep -6d. of that. If he carts it all the way to the factory he will be able to keep a further 1/2.

But 1/2 plus 6d. is 1/8, and the difference between that and the 2/1 is sd. This sd. the railway companies will keep—not for carrying the pigs, but for not carrying the pigs.

But that is not the worst.

One big pig and bacon concern in the north engages a slaughterer to kill Ihe pigs before they go to its factory. It docs all the carting itself, from the farm to the slaughterhouse and then to the factory.

But "whereas, if it carted the pigs all the way in the live state it would get the 1/8 rebate mentioned above, because it carts them part of the way in carcase form it gets no rebate at all

But the railway company still gets its full 2/1 per pig—for not carrying the pigs. Under the Potato Marketing Scheme registered growers are each allotted a quota of potatoes that they may produce.

If they do not wish to grow any potatoes, and if they thus shirk their share of tiie task of producing the nation’s food, that need not worry them. They just transfer their quota to somebody else, and get a transfer fee —clear profit—for not growing potatoes.

Tiie same thing is happening in eon nection witli the Coal Marketing Act.

A quota is allocated to the various pits. Many pits, instead of producing their coal, are selling their quota certificates to other pits.

The money they receive from the pits that buy their quota certificates they just put into their pockets—a reward for not producing coal. And the Secretary for Mines, in a recent report, has had to complain tiiat some of these people who are being paid for not producing coal are “asking exorbitant fees for the transfer of their quota certificates.”