HAPPY RESULT

Hokitika Guardian, 10 June 1932, Page 7

HAPPY RESULT

SAVED BY IMPORT DUTY. ./ COVENT GARDEN PEA-SHELLERS LONDON, June 8. One of the happy results of an import duty on agricultural produce is that it spells prosperity to the peashellers of Covent Garden Market. The import duty on shelled peas stands"at 37s 4d per cwt, and that'on unsllelled peas at only 9s 4d. The differentiation has been made in order to secure the continued -employment of the women engaged, in .the skilled industry of green-pea shelling. Foreign crops, which are marketed .well in advance of. the home-grown time when they might otherwise have joined the army, of the unemployed: t Watch*''them at.-work••.••(writes-<fi. “Morning Post” representative). under the glmclow of the Opera House. Each worker was knee-deep in a pile of cast, off pods which grew momentarily higher, despite the efforts of two labourers to sweep the refuse into a cart. 30 PODS A MINUTE. The slowest of the workers will empty 30 pods in a minute. The basins fill almost as quickly as they can be emptied. Each woman as with one hand ■she lifts a fresh pod, skins and strips its predecessor with the other. The peas are afterwards exposed to adjoining stalls for the inspection of expert buyers. As I watched the operations the employer arrived, and surveyed with evident satisfaction the growing pile of pods. He appeared to be unconscious of the fact that the women had hovered on the brink of unemployment—or perhaps ho knew better. “Makes no difference to the price, anyway,” he as he grasped a handful of the shelled peas. “Good peas these,” he said,"as he flung them to the four winds. “Spanish, you know; English come in from June to November.” He passed on through the little crowd of onlookers, inured though they be to the sights of the Market, with whom the pea-sheLlers are a never-failing source of attraction