"It's unbelievable that there are still unemployed people in a country like ours." In the office of the Mei organ, Meng Hu, a commissioner of the Ministry of Agriculture who had just returned from a survey in Huxi, said in surprise: "Aren't we planning the economy? How can there still be unemployment? This is not scientific! ”

"There are also people who plan the economy and plan outside the plan." Wei Boqiu, the head of the Mei Agency, was concentrating on carving a piece of precious rosewood with a knife, which was almost finished at this time, and seemed to be a suffering priest. The priest wore a noose around his neck, and his expression was lifelike in horror and despair, which made Meng Hu feel a little creepy.

"For example, people who were assigned to the construction team after coming to the mainland were supposed to be assigned to new settlements in the west after the project was completed. However, the temporary conditions of the new settlement are limited, and there are not many people to arrange for a while, so they can only wait in line. During this period, except for occasionally participating in the construction of municipal projects in some places to earn pocket money, they only had to do odd jobs. ”

"Then there are those who enter the country illegally, such as those in Central and Southern Europe, who are hired by private owners when they have temporary identification, and who remain in their factories or farms for various reasons after obtaining official status. Sometimes business is not doing well, or the boss feels the need to hire as many people as before, and they are fired. ”

Wei Boqiu put down the carving knife in his hand, picked up the wet towel handed to him by the secretary and wiped his hands, and then continued: "The last case is that the official residents of the mainland send money to relatives in the old continent, so that they can take a boat to the east coast. And when these relatives came to the East Coast, they were not skilled enough. There are also various reasons such as language barriers, cultural habits, etc. As a result, they are unable to find a long-term job in some large factories. They can only survive as hawkers, odd jobs, or hired by private owners. Such people are generally Livonians. ”

"All three of them are waiting for the construction of the next new settlement, hoping that they will be assigned five acres of farmland and a house and, if lucky, a female slave." Wei Boqiu picked up the dye to color the wood carving and said, "But their luck is not good. With the increasing number of immigrants from the Ming Dynasty, the Executive Committee is now more interested in directly assigning the new Shandong immigrants to new settlements. As for the old nationals, a small number were also recruited to farm in the west, in order to better help the new immigrants get used to the institutions and culture of the East Coast. But the number has been greatly reduced.

"In addition, the old city also needs them to do some less skilled work, such as the shipbuilding industry zone in Zhenhai County, where a large number of private supporting factories need a large number of such workers. They don't need much specialized knowledge and skills, so the salary is not destined to be high. In the past, when the Spaniards and Ottomans were in high demand, they needed to export three to four times as much canvas, cables, skins, anchor chains, and barrels every month. In those boom years, private bosses tended to recruit new workers on a large scale and expand production; But once demand drops, they don't hesitate to lay off workers to reduce production capacity. All this has led to the precarious living conditions of this ordinary group of workers. If you zoom in to the annual statistics, their average monthly income is actually less than 4 yuan. ”

"So what are you going to do? In addition to the introduction of a so-called Social Security Relief Act. What else is being done? Menghu listened to Wei Boqiu introduce some of the situation in China as if he was listening to a story. He himself did not have much interest in government affairs, his interest was in travel and exploration, which had to do with his personality. He often kept a diary of some of his expeditions, which he published in National Geographic, a newly converted pheasant magazine.

Of course, since he is a member of the Crossing Crowd, he can't do things according to his own temperament. He was often hired by the military department to lead expeditions to explore various areas within and outside the Eastern Coast Republic and to draw maps. Sometimes, he is also assigned by the Government Council or the intelligence services to conduct social or economic surveys to give those in power a clearer understanding of the economic or social situation in the country so that they can better formulate policies.

This time, he accepted the employment of the Government Council and led a team to the Yazi Lake basin to make statistics on the state of forest resources in China. The Executive Committee is currently preparing a Forest Law to regulate the country's chaotic forest harvesting industry and the blurred boundaries of property rights for forest resources.

"The new Social Security Relief Law is definitely about to be introduced, and the core idea of the law is actually two: the introduction of price subsidies for low-income groups of workers (including urban workers and agricultural workers) in the consumption of daily necessities; High income tax will be levied on high-income groups (including skilled workers, senior technicians, wealthy farmers, military officers, etc.), and the threshold will be adjusted from 2 yuan to 5 yuan. Wei Boqiu didn't raise his head to color the wood carving, but he still spoke.

"But the rural problem must also be solved, and the current imbalance between industry and agriculture should not continue. In the past, we lacked experience in governing the country and made some mistakes that we took for granted, but now that we have realized it, we must correct it. At present, the work in the villages is very unpleasant, and many grassroots village cadres protect and conceal the real property of the villagers in their villages, and a considerable number of peasants who meet the conditions for the collection of property tax have evaded taxes. We found this problem in many places in our investigation, and now it has to be solved. In addition, the female slaves distributed to the peasants should not be free of charge in the future. ”

"The peasants are really doing pretty well." Meng Hu agreed: "In my research in the 11 towns in the north and south of the Yazi Lake area, I found that they are really rich. Especially in the Ping'an County area, which was developed earlier, every house has been renovated, and each family has at least three livestock and a flock of chickens and ducks; Many people built new barns to store surplus grain from the harvest; On average, each adult male consumes cured meat, two beers and one liquor per week. Many people bought new furniture and leather goods; There are also people who brew wine privately, or sell grain to some deep processing workshops or enterprises in violation of regulations, and this price is often higher than the government's unified purchase price. All in all, they do not need to spend more than two-thirds of their income on necessities like the urban working class, and at the same time have more access to cash, and the quality of life is indeed not comparable to that of workers. ”

"So that's why the Executive Committee is preparing for the Corn Law." Wei Boqiu finally finished the work in his hand, only to see him take a closer look, and then put the work on the bookshelf next to him. After doing all this, he smiled at Meng Hu and said, "Your investigation report is rich in content and detailed information, which just complements the economic investigation of our Mei Agency. Now the Executive Committee makes decisions much simpler. The "Grain Law" must be resolutely enforced, some private workshops or enterprises will no longer have the power to purchase grain from the private sector, all grain must be purchased and sold by the government, and the price will be set twice a year by the Ministry of Agriculture according to the situation, and the summer grain and autumn grain will be set before the harvest and widely announced. In the past, the collection of agricultural taxes has been dragged on, and there is no proper practice, but now it must be strictly enforced. ”

"Hehe, knives are all cut on peasants." Meng Hu smiled slightly and said: "In the past, it was said that industry and agriculture scissors were poor, and agriculture subsidized industry. His grandmother's, we are still in the initial stage, that is, industrial subsidized agriculture. It is no wonder that the workers are dissatisfied, after all, they create most of the country's wealth, but the distribution mechanism is unfair to them, and now these laws are intensively introduced, and the target is already obvious. ”

"The country has been created in a hurry, and the system is full of loopholes, and now there are some problems, which naturally need to be adjusted. There is nothing to be ashamed of this, a mistake is a mistake, and it can be corrected in time. "The situation you investigated about the large number of illegal logging of primeval forest resources in the Huxi area is also very valuable. Many villagers go to the forest to cut down the stout trees and then go back to use them for various purposes. Some people are even reluctant to spend money on honeycomb coal, and instead cut down trees for fuel. Unfortunately, they often cut down trees without planting new saplings, which reduces the size of the forest. Although our country is still small in population and has a fairly large forest area, this trend is not right and must be curbed. ”

The situation that Wei Boqiu is talking about is actually universal. In a dozen or so townships in the north, large tracts of commons (i.e., unallocated land) closer to villages have been cut down for trees, except in sparsely forested areas in the south. There are even some exaggerated practices, that is, some villagers burn a small forest as a whole and then plant some crops on it, and the harvest is often quite impressive, but this comes at the cost of destroying valuable forest resources.

Previously, States did not have a clear legal statement on these acts, which made them cumbersome to deal with. Now the Executive Committee is planning to introduce the "Forest Law", which is to unify the management of forest resources on the commons, and any private logging or burning of land will be defined as illegal. In the same way, more similar laws such as the Mineral Resources Law and the Lake and River Management Law will definitely be promulgated in the future to further improve the domestic rules and regulations.

"By the way, what are these wood carvings that you make for a style? All of them are priests, and they are also priests of suffering, and their expressions are still so lifelike, and some even look ......" After chatting about business, Meng Hu looked at the row of wood carvings on Wei Boqiu's bookshelf, and suddenly frowned and said as he considered his sentences.

"Looks familiar, doesn't it?" Wei Boqiu smiled faintly and said, "These are all the priests of the underground lecture society that I personally interrogated and then executed, and they are all carved according to their true faces, of course, they are lifelike. ”

"I ...... I went back to work on the report. Meng Hu suddenly felt a little cold in this room, so he immediately packed up his things and left Mei's office. (To be continued......)