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Monday July 21,2008
By Gabriel Milland Political Correspondent
THE acre is set to be banned after the EU announced that Labour has agreed to the abolition of yet another part of the British way of life.
The traditional unit of land size will go the way of the pound, gallon and inch in the list of forbidden units of measurement.
The Government’s surrender – buried in the small print of an EU document last week – could also make it more likely that miles will be removed from road signs in favour of the kilometre.
Shadow Europe Minister Mark Francois said the acre should stay and the British people should be able to decide how they want to calculate the size of a field or building plot.
He added: “Whether we use hectares or acres should be a matter for Britain to decide, not the EU. Once again this weak Labour Government has meekly given up yet another of Britain’s rights to Brussels.”
Virtually all land in the UK is sold in acres. The official Land Registry also uses acres. But from January 1, 2010 all official documents and advertisements in Britain and Ireland will have to refer to land in metric hectares instead.
The move was agreed at a meeting of the EU’s agriculture and fisheries committee. Other EU nations sent full cabinet ministers to Brussels but Britain was only represented by the low-ranking Jonathan Shaw, the Minister for Rural Affairs.
The size of an acre was first regulated in English law under Edward I, who ruled from 1272 to 1307. An acre was originally the amount of land capable of being ploughed by one man and an ox in a single day.
Britain’s EU membership has already meant the disappearance of pounds and ounces prompting “metric martyrs” like market trader Neil Herron to risk going to jail rather than sell bananas by the kilo. (来源：英语学习门户网站EnglishCN.com)
The acre was supposed to be protected with the mile, the troy ounce and the pint.
Only America, Liberia and Burma still resist the metric system. |
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