SUGAR WASTAGE.

Taihape Daily Times, 15 January 1918, Page 6

SUGAR WASTAGE.

"CONTROL" IN THE OLD

COUNTRY.

SUGAR THROWN INTO THE SEA.

BED TAPE RUN MAD

LONDON, October 26

Some of us have entertained hopes that one result of the war would bo the substitution of common sense for red tape in Government departments. Thousands of business men have been "absorbed" by the Government in connection with the Food Control and other neW-departments which been created during the war, but common sense is, apparently, a plant that" cannot survive transplantation into official soil. Men whom we know were simply Al men of business while they were in the commercial world, seem. to lose all initiative once they take service under the Government, and permit themselves to be swathed in the swaddling bands of officialism whielt are composed of red tape and precedent. We are short of sugar in the 1 OTd ; Country. Our good ladies' of the i house who were wont to buy by s fhe jpbrfflcly now find themselves having :.;fo -eke> out ounces, and to wait ih long queues at grocer's stores in order to -.secure a share of the restricted ' 'quantities available. To every hQusewi,f£ sugar is a most valuable comniodjtty, ;a,nd thft man who can take home.,a, by the way of a surprise- present AQE the wife or landlady nmkes,,surer: ; c>f absolution for small than he could have done with a silk 'blouso in pre-war days... think that under th,e ( circumstances, the Government would, look ; .upon the. man from overseas who brought.home small quantities of sugar as .a person to be encourgaed, but the .Sugar, Control Board set up by .it is evidently composed of men imbued with the notion that the strict observance of their cumbrous import regulations is of far more importance than the augmentation of our sugar supply. They won't permit a seaman or other seafarer to bring into this country so much as a single pound of sugar without a license and to obtain that is apparently an achievement involving the would-be importer in a great deal more trouble than the sugar is worth even in these times. The consequence is that thousands of pounds of sugar brought to the country in small quantities have been dumped overboard to sweeten the waters of our harbours and docks

The most glaring case of wastage was that which occurred in an armed transport. A large number "of men had brought sugar home with them as presents for their families. They found that they could not land f£, and not having time to waste in the necessary formalities, threw their 3 -'parcels- overboard. - c * neD

The facts are these. A cepfcaiw wM- ; ber of ships trade betw-een-^the- ;J Wea# Indies and British ports.'- are- few 5 in these times, and so fas 'its cargo space is concerned limited to certain definiteies. The officers and .men.ofcihe -these-'' ships, however, who mostly 6n> the "West Coast, have the.-opportunity-' of bringing sugar home with them—small quantifies that, up-'>. in Jamaica or elsewhere.3.Where.-tike-* ship arives at British port..the Customs officer goes on board in way-

and asks if anybody has anything to declare. Somebody admits that he Has a bag of sugar and wants to pay the duty on it. -Have you a licenser' asks the Customs man. '/No." "Then your sugar must go back to Jamaica. You can't land it." It is not the Customs man's fault. The regulation is that no sugar may : be landed without a license. Tne result is that either the would-be importer is a law-abiding citizen and takes the sugar back again whence it came, or hurls the lot overboard, orif he is not a particular partysmuggles it ashore without paying any Yman who worked in a certain ship brought home with him a small bag !of sugar. He'could not land it, said ! the Customs so he wrote off for a lic- ! ense. In reply he received a postcard j saying that the matter should have attention but long before the "attcn- • tion" was given his ship 7iad sailed again and had taken that small bag of sugar back to the West Indies. This sort of thing had been happening every week for months at British | ports. Who has benefited by the wastI age? No one individually. Sugar prices are officially fixed,