The Rate Of Wages Should In All Countries Bear A Just Proportion To The
Price Of Food, And Should The
Habits of the Cypriotes remain unchanged,
and their diet retain its simple character, there is no reason to
anticipate a
Rate that would eventually exceed 10 shillings or 11
shillings a week. If we determine upon low wages, we must keep down the
price of food. The Turkish administration had peculiar municipal laws
upon this subject which are still in force in some localities, but have
been abrogated in Limasol. I have already mentioned that the price of
meat was fixed at a certain sum per oke, so that good and bad sold at
the same figure, and resulted in the inferior qualities being sent to
market, while the best never appeared. Fish, fruits, and vegetables were
rated in the same manner, and the municipal authorities ruled, and fixed
a standard price for everything; good and bad all shared alike. By this
extraordinary legislation, which to the English mind is inconceivable,
the finest cauliflowers and the most common varieties would sell exactly
at the same price; no matter what the quality of vegetables might be,
all were reduced to the same level. Fish was simply fish. The best
varieties and the most inferior were included in the same despotic law.
Salmon and stickleback, turbot and sprat, herrings and soles, would (had
they existed) have been sold at so much a pound independent of their
qualities. The result was that if your servant went to market to buy a
fine species of fish, the seller insisted upon his taking a due
proportion of inferior trash that was hardly eatable. "All was fish that
came to the net;" little and big, good and bad, fetched the same price.
Such a system would ensure the worst of everything; what gardener would
devote his energies to producing fine varieties, if a common field
cabbage would rival his choicest specimens at the same price, but at a
minimum of labour?
It was evident that the lowest class of vegetables would represent the
garden produce, as this absurd rule was a premium for indolence, whereas
free competition, that would have assured high prices to the best
qualities, would have stimulated the cultivators in their productions.
This argument was so indisputable that the chief commissioner (Colonel
Warren, R.A.) determined at all hazards to introduce free markets into
Limasol; and although opposed to the conservative ideas of his municipal
council, he carried out his views of a healthy competition and free and
unrestricted trade, which would awaken the Cypriotes to the fact that
labour properly directed would ensure the best qualities, that would
benefit the producer by securing the best prices.
Self-evident facts in an English community may be utterly misconstrued
in Cyprus. The Cypriote has never been accustomed to unrestricted
freedom, but like his own ox in the plough, he requires a certain amount
of control, and his energies must be directed by a driver or ruler.
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