Freeland
by
Theodor Hertzka
Part 3 out of 9
questioned their intellectual superiority, and chiefly because every one
who took part in the two expeditions was, as it were, pledged beforehand to
obedience. The new-comers, on the contrary, were persons of very various
capacities, and still more diverse in their requirements: there were among
them women and old persons, fathers with numerous children. There might
also be among them--and this was the greatest danger--ambitious persons, to
whom one could not assign the right place because their capacities would
not be known, and who would certainly refuse to obey.
Thus, Communism would most probably in a very short time produce universal
dissatisfaction, and that would lead to chaos. Consequently we had as
little power as we had right to introduce it. But we had not the least
occasion to do so. Why should not that take place at once which must take
place sooner or later--namely, the organisation of free labour, with all
the profits taken by the workers themselves? Because there was not yet
enough human material for the organisation of all the branches of industry?
What necessity was there to organise all branches at once; and, on the
other hand, what certainty was there that it would be possible or useful to
do so in the course of several weeks or months? To take an example: there
were several weavers among us, for whom at present there were no
companions, and who therefore were not in a position to start their
industry with reasonable hopes of success. What was there to prevent these
weavers, in the meantime, from engaging in some other occupation; and who
would guarantee that a little later on there would be weavers enough to set
up a factory; and that, should such a factory be set up, the conditions of
the settlement would be such as to make weaving sufficiently profitable to
justify the carrying of it on? And while it was admitted that there would
be at first more such torsos--such insufficient fragments--of future
branches of industry than there would be later on, this inconvenience was
more than counterbalanced by the fact that it was easier to begin a new
organisation among a small than among a large number of men. In every
respect it appeared advisable at once to organise production upon the basis
of free individual action. Of course it did not follow that the committee
did not possess, not merely the right, but also the duty, of making all the
provision in its power to facilitate and promote the work of organisation.
They would not confine themselves to the work of smoothing the way for the
members of the Society, but would utilise their knowledge and experience in
pointing out to the members the best way. They would assume no compelling
authority, but claimed to be the best--because the best-informed--advisers
of the members. Further, there was no doubt that the whole of the hitherto
acquired property, whether derived from the contributions of the members or
created in Freeland, since it belonged to the whole community and not to
the individual members, was at the disposal of the committee, and that the
committee would make a legitimate use of this its responsibility. The
members might therefore rest assured that no one should be left uncared for
or exposed to blind accident. The committee would act as advisers and
helpers to anyone who wished for their advice and help, not only now, but
at any time. In truth, what the committee purposed to do--conformably to
the Society's programme--differed from the above-mentioned demands in only
two points. The committee offered their advice, whilst they were asked to
command and to allow no scope to other and probably, in many points, better
counsel; and they offered both advice and help in the interest of each
separate individual, whilst they were asked to act in the interest of the
whole community alone.
These explanations gave general satisfaction, and afterwards, when those
detailed regulations had been decided upon which were partly in
contemplation and partly already in operation for the establishment of the
new forms of organisation, the last remnant of fear and hesitation
vanished.
The fundamental feature of the plan of organisation adopted was unlimited
publicity in connection with equally unlimited freedom of movement.
Everyone in Freeland must always know what products were for the time being
in greater or less demand, and in what branch of production for the time
being there was a greater or less profit to be made. To the same extent
must everyone in Freeland always have the right and the power--so far as
his capabilities and his skill permitted--to apply himself to those
branches of production which for the time being yield the largest revenue,
and to this end all the means of production and all the seats of production
must be available to everyone. The measures required, therefore, must first
of all have regard to these two points. A careful statistical report had to
register comprehensively and--which is the chief point--with as much
promptitude as possible every movement of production on the one hand and of
consumption on the other, as well as to give universal publicity to the
movement of prices of all products. In view of the great practical
importance of this system of public advertisement, care would have to be
taken to exclude deception or unintentional errors--a problem which, as
what follows will show, was solved in the most perfect yet simple manner.
And in order that the knowledge thus made common to everyone may be
actually and profitably made use of by everyone--which is possible only
when everyone is placed in a position to apply his capabilities to those
among the branches of labour in which he is skilled, and which for the time
being yield the highest revenue--provision must be made that everyone shall
always be able to obtain possession of the requisite means of production.
Of these means of production there are two classes--the powers of nature
and capital. Without these means of production, the most exact information
as to which are the branches of labour whose products are in greatest
demand, and which, therefore, yield the highest profits, would be of as
little use as the most perfect skill in such branches of production. A man
can utilise his power to labour only when he has command both of the
materials and forces supplied by nature, and of the appropriate instruments
and machines; and if he is to compete with his fellow-workers he must
possess both classes of the means of production as fully and as completely
as they. In order to grow wheat, a man must not only have land at his
command, but he must have land that is equally good for growing wheat as is
the land of the other wheat-growers, otherwise he will labour with less
profit and possibly with actual loss. And possession of the most fertile
land will not make the work possible, or at any rate equally profitable,
unless the worker possesses the requisite agricultural implements, or if he
possesses them in a less degree than his competitors.
Then as to capital: the Free Society undertook to place it at the disposal
of everyone who wished for it, and that without interest, on condition that
it was reimbursed out of the proceeds of production within a period the
length of which was to be determined by the nature of the proposed
investment. As the instruments of labour and the other capitalistic aids to
labour could be provided to any amount and of any quality, one part of the
problem was thereby solved.
The case was different with the natural powers, as representative of which
we will take the land with which those powers are bound up. No one has
produced the land, therefore no one has a claim of ownership upon it, and
everyone has a right to use it. But not merely has no one produced the
land, no one can produce it; the land, therefore, exists in a limited
quantity, and, moreover, the existing land is not all of the same quality.
Now, in spite of all this, how is it possible to satisfy everyone's claim
not merely to land, but to produce-bearing land?
In order to make this clear, the third and, in reality, most fundamental
predicate of economic justice must be expounded. When every worker is
promised the undiminished produce of his own labour, it is necessarily
assumed that the worker himself is the sole and exclusive producer of the
whole of this produce. But this he was, by no means, according to the old
economic system. The worker as such produced only a part of the product,
while another part was produced by the employer, whether he was landowner,
capitalist, or undertaker. Without the organising disciplinary influence of
the latter the toil of the worker would have been fruitless, or at least
much less fruitful; formerly the worker supplied merely the power, while
the organising mind was supplied by the employer.
It is not implied by this that the more intellectual element in the work of
production was formerly to be found exclusively or necessarily on the side
of the employer: the technicians and directors who superintend the great
productive establishments belong essentially to the wage-earners; and it
will be readily admitted that in many cases the higher intelligence is to
be found not in the employers, but in the workers. Nevertheless, in all
cases where a number of workers have had to be brought together and
accustomed to work in common, this work of organising has been the business
of the employer. Hitherto the worker has been able to produce for himself
only in isolation; whenever a number had to be brought together, in one
enterprise, a 'master' has been necessary, a master who with the
whip--which may be made either of thongs or of the paragraphs in a set of
factory regulations--has kept the rebellious together, and _therefore_--not
because of his higher intelligence--has swept the profits into his own
pocket, leaving to the workers, whether they belonged to the proletariat or
to the so-called intelligent classes, only so much as sufficed to sustain
them. Hitherto the workers have made no attempt to unite their productive
labours without a master, as free, self-competent men, and not as servants.
The employment of those powerful instruments and contrivances which science
and invention have placed in the hands of men, and which so indefinitely
multiply the profits of human activity, presupposes the united action of
many; and hitherto this united action has been taken only hand in hand with
servitude. The productive associations of a Schulze-Delitzsch and others
have effected no change in the real character of servitude; they have
merely altered the name of the masters. In these associations there are
still the employers and the workers; to the former belongs the profit, the
latter receive stall and manger like the biped beasts of burden of the
single employer or of the joint-stock societies whose shareholders do not
happen to be workers. In order that labour may be free and
self-controlling, the workers must combine as such, and not as small
capitalists; they must not have over them any employer of any land or any
name, not even an employer consisting of an association of themselves. They
must organise themselves as workers, and only as such; for only as such
have they a claim to the full produce of their labour. This organisation of
work without the slightest remnant of the old servile relationship to an
employer of some kind or other, is the fundamental problem of social
emancipation: if this problem be successfully solved, everything else will
follow of itself.
But this organisation was not nearly so difficult as it appears to be at
first sight. The committee started from the principle that the right forms
of the organisation of free labour were best found through the free
co-operation of all those who shared in this organisation. No special
difficulties were discovered in this. The questions which had to be dealt
with were of the simplest nature. For example: in order to set up an
iron-works, it was not at all necessary that the workers should all
understand the whole mechanism of the manufacture of iron. Two things only
were necessary--first, that the men should know what sort of persons they
ought to set at the head of their factory; and, secondly, that on the one
hand they should give those persons sufficient authority properly to
control the work, and, on the other hand, they should reserve to themselves
sufficient authority to hold the reins of their undertaking in their own
hands. Doubtless, very serious mistakes might be made in the organisation
of the managing as well as of the overlooking organs--there might be a
serious misproportion in the powers conferred. But the previously mentioned
unlimited publicity of all productive operations, which on other grounds
also would be demanded in the interest of the commonwealth, materially
lightened the task of the associations of workers; and as all the members
of each such productive association had in this decisive point exactly the
same interests, and their whole attention was always directed to these
interests, they learnt with remarkable speed to correct the mistakes they
had made, so that after a few months the new apparatus worked tolerably
well, and in a remarkably short time reached a high degree of perfection.
From the beginning there was nothing left to desire in the industry and
diligence of all the associates--a fact which might have been anticipated
in view of the full play given to self-interest as well as of the incessant
mutual encouragement and control of men who had equal rights and were
equally interested.
The committee therefore drew up a 'Model Statute' for the use of the
associations, not at all anticipating that it would really be preserved as
a model, but merely for the sake of making a beginning and of providing a
formula which the associations might use as the skeleton of the schemes of
organisation that their experience would enable them to devise. As a matter
of fact this 'Model Statute,' which was at first accepted almost unaltered
by all the associations, was in less than twelve months so much altered and
enlarged that little more than the leading principles of its original form
remained. These, however, were the following:
1. Admission into every association is free to everyone, whether a member
of any other association or not; and any member can leave any association
at any time.
2. Every member has a claim upon such a share of the net profits of the
association as is proportionate to the amount of work he has contributed.
3. Every member's contribution of work shall be measured by the number of
hours he has worked; the older members receiving more than those who have
joined the association later, in the proportion of a premium of _x_ per
cent. for every year of seniority. Also, a premium can be contracted for,
in the way of free association, for skilled labour.
4. The labour contribution of superintendents or directors shall, according
to a voluntary arrangement with every individual concerned, be reckoned us
equal to a certain number of hours of work per day.
5. The profits of the association shall be calculated at the end of every
year of business, and, after deducting the repayment of capital and the
taxes paid to the Freeland commonwealth, divided. During each year the
members shall receive, for every hour of work or of reckoned work, advances
equal to _x_ per cent. of the net profits of the previous year.
6. The members shall, in case of the dissolution or liquidation of on
association, be liable for the contracted loan in equal proportions; which
liability, so far as regards the still outstanding amount, attaches also to
newly entering members. When a member leaves, his liability for the already
contracted loan shall not cease. This liability for the debts of the
association shall, in case of dissolution or liquidation, be in proportion
to the claim of the liable member upon the existing property.
7. The highest authority of the association is the general meeting, in
which every member possesses an equal active and passive vote. The general
meeting carries its motions by a simple majority of votes; a majority of
three-fourths is required for the alteration of statutes, dissolution, or
liquidation.
8. The general meeting exercises its rights either directly as such, or
through its elected functionaries, who are responsible to it.
9. The management of the business of the association is placed in the hands
of a directorate of _x_ members, elected for _x_ years by the general
meeting, but their appointment can be at any time rescinded. The
subordinate business functionaries are nominated by the directorate; but
the fixing of the salaries--measured in hours of work--of these
functionaries is the business of the general assembly on the proposition of
the directorate.
10. The general meeting annually elects a council of inspection consisting
of _x_ members, to inspect the books and take note of the manner in which
the business is conducted, and to furnish periodical reports.
It will strike the reader at once that only with reference to the possible
dissolution of an association (section 6) is there a mention of what should
apparently be regarded as the principal thing--namely, of the 'property' of
the associations and of the claims of the members upon this property. The
reason of this is that any 'property' of the association, in the ordinary
sense, does not exist. The members, it is true, possess the right of
usufruct of the existing productive capital; but as they always share this
right with every newly entering member, and are themselves bound to the
association by nothing except their interest in the profits of their
labour, so there can be no property-interest in the association so long as
they are carrying on their work. And, in fact, that which everyone can use
cannot constitute property, however useful it maybe. There are no
proprietors--merely usufructuaries of the association's capital. And should
it be thought that this is in contradiction to the obligation to reimburse
the loaned productive capital of the associations, it ought not to be
overlooked that even this repayment of capital--except in the already
mentioned case of a liquidation--is done by the members merely in their
capacity of usufructuaries of the means of production. As the reimbursed
capital is derived from the profits, and these are divided among the
members in proportion to each one's contribution of work, every member
contributes to the reimbursement in proportion to the amount of work he
does. And when the subject is looked at more closely it will be seen that
the repayments are ultimately derived from the consumers of the commodities
produced by the associations; they form, of course, a part of the cost of
production, and must necessarily be covered by the price of the product.
That this shall take place fully and universally is ensured with infallible
certainty by the free mobilisation of labour. A production in which these
repayments were not completely covered by the price of the commodities
produced would fail to attract labour until the diminished supply of the
commodities had produced the requisite rise in price. When the repayments
have all been made, this part of the cost of production ceases; the
association capital may be regarded as amortised, and the prices of the
commodities produced sink--again under the influence of the free
mobilisation of labour; so that the members of the association individually
profit as little by the employment of burdenless capital as they suffered
before by the liquidation of their burden. Profit and loss are always
distributed--still thanks to the mobilisation of labour--equally among all
the workers of Freeland.
Thus it is seen that, in consequence of this simple and infallibly
operative arrangement, productive capital is, strictly speaking, as
ownerless as the land; it belongs to everyone, and therefore to no one. The
community of producers supplies it and employs it, and it does both in
exact proportion to the amount of work contributed by each individual; and
payment for the expenditure is made by the community of consumers--again by
each one in exact proportion to the consumption of each individual.
That an absolute and universally uniform level of profits should result
from this absolutely free mobility of labour neither was expected, nor has
it been attained. Often the inequality is not discovered until the
balance-sheets are drawn up, and therefore cannot until then be removed by
the ebb and flow of labour. But, besides this, there is an important and
continuous difference of gains--a difference which it is impossible to
equalise, and which has its intrinsic foundation in the difference in the
amount of effort and inconvenience involved in engaging in the different
branches of labour. Certainly it is not the same in Freeland as in other
parts of the world, where only too often the burden of labour is in inverse
ratio to its profitableness; with us difficult, burdensome, unpleasant
kinds of labour must without exception obtain larger gains than the easier
and more agreeable--so far as the latter do not demand special
skill--otherwise everyone would at once forsake the former and apply
themselves to the latter. Moreover, the premium allowed to the older
members in section 3--which varies in different associations from one to
three per cent. for each year, and therefore, in cases of long-continued
labour, amounts to a very respectable sum, and is intended to attach the
proved veteran of labour to the undertaking--prevents an absolute
equalisation of gains even in associations of exactly similar constitution.
Section 5 of the statutes requires a brief explanation. In the first year,
the calculation of the advances to be made to the association members could
not, of course, be based upon the net profits of the previous year, and the
committee therefore suggested a fixed sum of one shilling per hour. This
strikingly high rate will perhaps excite surprise, particularly in view of
the scale of prices that prevailed at the Kenia; and it may reasonably be
asked whence the committee derived the courage to hope for such a high rate
of profits as would justify the payment of such an advance. But this
valuation was not recklessly made, it was in truth the expression of
extreme prudence. The results of the associated productive labour hitherto
in operation had actually been much more favourable. The corn industry, for
example, had yielded a gross return of a little over 41,000 cwt. of
different cereals for a total expenditure of 44,500 hours of labour. The
average price of these cereals in Eden Vale at that time was not quite 3s.
per cwt., as we had grown more than we needed, and the export through
Mombasa yielded only 3s. on account of the still very primitive means of
transport. We had therefore, in round figures, agricultural produce worth
6000£. The cost of producing this was: materials 400£, amortisation of
invested capital (implements and cattle) 300£; so that 5,300£ remained as
net profit. As a tax to cover all those expenses which, in accordance with
our programme, had to be incurred by the commonwealth, and which will be
spoken of further on, not less than thirty-five per cent. was set aside.
Thus a round sum of 3,400£ remained as disposable profit. Divided by the
44,500 hours of labour, this gave 1s. 6d. for each hour. This was also
approximately the average profit of the other kinds of production, so far
as it was possible to assess it in the absence of a general market at the
Kenia. Thus it could be assumed with the utmost confidence that, had we
been able to control the prices of all commodities by means of supply and
demand, there would either have been paid, or might have been assessed, at
least a price equivalent to that which produced the agricultural profit.
For we could at once have produced--as far as our supply of labour
went--and disposed of cereal crops valued at 3s. per cwt. at Eden Vale;
therefore, in the period of work through which we had already passed
everyone was able to earn at least 1s. 6d. by one hour's labour. But, as
will presently be seen, we were entering upon the next period of work with
much improved means; therefore, apart from unforeseen contingencies, the
productiveness of our labour must very considerably increase, so that, in
granting an advance of one shilling for each hour of labour, we calculated
that we were advancing scarcely the half of the actual earnings--an
assumption that was fully borne out by the result. In later seasons it
became the practice of most associations to make the advance as much as
ninety per cent. of the net profits of the previous year.
As to the salaries of the directorate, these were from the beginning very
different in different associations. Where no extraordinary knowledge and
no special talent were necessary, the overseers were content to have their
superintendence valued at the price of from eight to ten hours of work per
diem. There were directors who received as much as the value of twenty-four
hours of work per diem, and in the very first year this amounted to an
income of about 850£. The functionaries of a lower grade received, as a
rule, the value of from eight to ten hours of work per diem. In most cases
the controlling council of inspection received no extra remuneration for
their duties.
The credit granted to the associations in the first year of work reached an
average amount of 145£ per head of the participating workers; and if it be
asked whence we derived the funds to meet the requirements of the total
number of our members, the answer is, from the members themselves. And the
reference here is not merely to those voluntary contributions paid by the
members on their joining the International Free Society, for these
contributions were in the first instance devoted to the transport service
between Trieste and Freeland, and would not have sufficed to supply our
associations with capital if they had all been devoted to that purpose. The
credit required in the course of the first year rose to nearly two million
pounds sterling, while the voluntary contributions up to that date did not
much exceed one million and a-half. The principal means which enabled us to
meet the requirements of our members were supplied us, on the one hand by
the Society's property hi disposable materials, and on the other hand by
the members' tax.
It should be mentioned here that, for the first year, the committee
reserved to itself the right of deciding the amount and the order of
granting the credit given. This, though merely negative, interference with
the industrial relations of the associations was not in harmony with the
principle of the producers' right of unconditioned self-control; but was so
far unavoidable, inasmuch as our commonwealth had not yet actually attained
to that high degree of productiveness of labour which is the assumed result
of the perfect realisation of all the fundamental principles of that
commonwealth. Later, when we were more fully furnished with the best means
of production which technical progress placed within our reach, and we were
consequently no longer occupied in provisionally completing and improving
what already existed, there could never be any question whether the surplus
of the current production would suffice to meet the heaviest fresh claims
for capital that could arise. It was different at the beginning, when the
need for capital was unlimited, and the means of supplying that need as yet
undeveloped. The Free Commonwealth could not offer more than it could
supply, and it had therefore to reserve to itself a right of selection from
among the investments that applied for credit. Thanks to the thorough
solidarity of interests created by the free mobility of labour, this could
happen without even temporarily affecting the essential material interests
of the producers by giving some a dangerous advantage over others. For if,
as was scarcely to be avoided, certain productions were helped or hindered
by the giving or withholding of credit, this was immediately and naturally
followed by such a shifting of labour as at once restored the equilibrium
of profits.
But this interference during the first year extended only to the
controlling of the amount and order of granting the credit asked, for, and
not to the way in which it was used. In this respect, from the very
beginning the principle of the producers' responsibility was carried out to
the fullest extent. As it was necessary for the producers to be successful
in order to repay the capital taken up, so it was their business to see
that care was taken to make a profitable use of such capital. It is true
that--as has been already stated--the consumers ultimately bear the cost of
production; but they do this, of course, only when and in so far as the
processes employed in production have been useful and necessary. If an
association should procure unnecessary or defective machinery, it would be
impossible for it to transfer to the purchasers of its commodities the
losses thus occasioned; the association would not have increased, but
diminished, its gains by such investments. It can therefore be left to the
self-interest of those who are concerned in the associations to guard
against such a waste of capital.
We now come to the question how it is possible to guarantee the equal right
of everyone to equally fertile land. This problem also is solvable in the
simplest manner by the free mobility of labour involved in the principle of
free association. As everywhere else in the world, there was in Freeland
richer and poorer land; but as more workers were attracted to the better
land than to the worse, and as, according to a well-known economic law, a
greater expenditure of labour upon an equal extent of land is followed by
_relatively diminishing_ returns, so the individual worker obtained no
higher net profit per hour of labour on the best land than upon the worst
land which could be cultivated at all.
On the Dana plateau, for example, by the expenditure of 32 hours of labour
48 cwt. of wheat could be produced per acre; in Eden Vale the same
expenditure of labour would produce merely 36 cwt. Therefore, as the cwt.
of wheat was worth 3s. 1-1/2d., and 1-1/2d. was sufficient to cover all
expenses, the land association in the Dana plateau had at the end of the
year a return of 4s. 6d. for every hour of work, and, after deduction of
tax and repayment of capital, 2s. 9d. for division among the members. The
members of the Eden Vale association, on the other hand, had only 2s. per
hour of labour to divide among the members; and as careful investigation
proved that this difference was due neither to accidental uncongeniality of
the weather nor to a less amount of labour, but to the character of the
soil, the consequence was that in the next year the newly arrived
agriculturists preferred the better land of the Dana plateau. There was now
an average expenditure of 42 hours of labour to the acre in the Dana
plateau, but in Eden Vale only 24; yet in the former place the additional
10 hours of labour did not yield the 1-1/2 cwt. per hour, as was the case
when the expenditure of labour was only 32 hours, but merely a scant 3
qrs.; that is, the returns did not rise from 48 cwt. to 63 cwt., but merely
to 55 cwt.--sank therefore to 1.34 cwt. per hour of labour. The consequence
was that the returns, notwithstanding the considerable increase in the
price of grain due to the improved means of communication, rose merely to
5s., of which 3s. per hour of labour was available for division among the
members. In Eden Vale, on the other hand, the gross returns were lessened
merely 3 cwt. by the withdrawal of eight hours of labour per acre; the
produce therefore now was 33 cwt. for 24 hours of labour, or 1.37 cwt. per
hour of labour. The Eden Vale association therefore numbered a trifle more
than that of Dana; and as Eden Vale was a more desirable place of
residence, and had more conveniences than the Dana plateau, the stream of
agriculturists flowed back to Eden Vale until, after two other harvests,
there remained a difference of profit of about five per cent. in favour of
the Dana plateau, and this advantage, with slight variations, continued
permanently.
But just as the principle of the solidarity of interests brought about by
the mobility of labour placed him who used the actually worse land in the
enjoyment of the advantages of the better land, so everyone, whatever
branch of production he might be connected with, participated in all the
various kinds of advantages of the best land; and, on the other hand, every
cultivator of the soil, like every other producer, derived profit from all
the increased productiveness of labour, in whatsoever branch of labour in
our commonwealth it might arise, just as if he were himself immediately
concerned in it. _All_ means of production are common property; the use
which any one of us may make of this common property does not depend upon
the accident of possession, nor upon the superintending care of an
all-controlling communistic authority, but solely upon the capacity and
industry of each individual.
CHAPTER IX
As already stated, the fundamental condition of the successful working of
the simple organisation described above was the completest publicity of all
industrial proceedings. The organisation was in truth merely a mode of
removing all those hindrances that stand in the way of the free realisation
of the individual will guided by a wise self-interest. So much the more
necessary was it to give right direction to this sovereign will, and to
offer to self-interest every assistance towards obtaining a correct and
speedy grasp of its real advantage.
No business secrets whatever! That was at once the fundamental law of Eden
Vale. In the other parts of the world, where the struggle for existence
finds its consummation not merely in exploiting and enslaving one another,
but over and above this in a mutual industrial annihilation--where, in
consequence of the universal over-production due to under-consumption,
competition is synonymous with robbing each other of customers--there, in
the Old World, to disclose the secrets of trade would be tantamount to
sacrificing a position acquired with much trouble and cunning. Where an
immense majority of men possess no right to the increasing returns of
production, but, not troubling themselves about the productiveness of
labour, must be content with 'wages'--that is, with what is necessary for
their subsistence--there can be no sufficient demand for the total produce
of highly productive labour. The few wealthy cannot possibly consume the
constantly growing surplus, and their endeavour to capitalise such
surplus--that is, to convert it into instruments of labour--is defeated by
the impossibility of employing the means of a production the products of
which cannot be consumed. In the exploiting world, therefore, there
prevails a constant disproportion between productive power and consumption,
between supply and demand; and the natural consequence is that the disposal
of the products gives rise to a constant and relentless struggle between
the various producers. The principal care of the exploiting producers is
not to produce as much and as well as possible, but to acquire a market for
as large as possible a quantity of their own commodities; and as, in view
of the disproportion above explained, such a market can be acquired and
retained only at the expense of other producers. There necessarily exists a
permanent and irreconcilable conflict of interest. It is different among
us. We can always be sure of a sale, for with us no more can be produced
than is used, since the total produce belongs to the worker, and the
consumption, the satisfaction of real requirements, is the exclusive motive
of labour. Among us, therefore, the disclosure of the sources of trade can
rob no one of his customers, since any customers whom he may happen to lose
must necessarily be replaced by others.
On the other hand, what reason has the producer in the world outside to
communicate his experiences to others? Can those others make any use of the
knowledge they would thus acquire, except to do him injury? And can he use
any such information when communicated to him, except to the injury of
others? Does he allow others to participate in his business when his is the
more profitable, or does another let him do so with the business of that
other when the case is reversed? If the demand for the commodities of a
producer increases, the labour market is open to him, where he can find
servants enough ready to work without inquiring about his profits so long
as they receive their 'wages.' Thus, elsewhere in the world, not even are
the consumers interested in the publication of trade practices, which
publication, moreover, as has already been said, would be a matter of
impossibility. Quite different is this among us in Freeland. We allow
everyone to participate in our trade advantages, and we can therefore
participate in the trade advantages of everyone else; and we are compelled
to publish these advantages because, in the absence of a market of
labourers who have neither will nor interest of their own, this publicity
is the only way of attracting labour when the demand for any commodities
increases.
And--which is the principal thing--whilst elsewhere no one has an interest
in the increase of production by others, among us every one is most
intensely interested in seeing everyone produce as easily and as well as
possible. For the classical phrase of the solidarity of all economic
interests has among us become a truth; but elsewhere it is nothing more
than one of those numerous self-deceptions of which the political economy
of the exploiting world is composed. Where the old system of industry
prevails, universal increase of production of wealth is a chimera. Where
consumption by the masses cannot increase, there cannot production and
wealth increase, but can be only shifted, can only change place and owner;
in proportion as the production of one person increases must that of some
one else diminish, unless consumption increases, which, where the masses
are excluded from enjoying the increasing returns of labour, can happen
only accidentally, and by no means step by step with the increasing power
of productiveness of labour. With us in Freeland, on the contrary, where
production--in view of the necessary growth of the power of consumption in
exactly the same proportion--can and does increase indefinitely so far as
our facilities and arts permit, with us it is the supreme and most absolute
interest of the community to see that everyone's labour is employed
wherever it can earn the highest returns; and there is no one who is not
profited when the labour of all is thus employed to the completest extent
possible. The individuals or the individual associations which, by virtue
of our organisation, are compelled to share an accidentally acquired
advantage with another, certainly suffer a loss of gain by this
circumstance looked at by itself; but infinitely greater is the general
advantage derived from the fact that the same thing occurs everywhere, that
productiveness is constantly increasing, and their own advantage therefore
compels the occurrence of the same everywhere. To how undreamt-of high a
degree this is the case will be abundantly shown by the subsequent history
of Freeland.
It remains now to say something of the measures adopted to ensure the most
extensive publicity of industrial proceedings. We start from the principle
that the community has to concern itself with the affairs of the individual
as little as possible in the way of hindering or commanding, but, on the
other hand, as much as possible in the way of guiding and instructing.
Everyone may act as he pleases, so far as he does not infringe upon the
rights of others; but, however he acts, what he does must be open to
everyone. Since he here has to do not with industrial opponents, but only
with industrial rivals, who all have an interest in stimulating him as much
as possible, this publicity is to his own advantage. In conformity with
this principle, when a new member was admitted by the outside agents, his
industrial specialty was stated, and the report sent as quickly as possible
to the committee. This was not done out of idle curiosity, nor from a
desire to exercise a police oversight; rather these data were published for
the use and advantage of the productive associations as well as of the new
members themselves. The consequence was that, as a rule, the new members on
their arrival at the Kenia found suitable work-places prepared for them,
such as would enable them at once to utilise their working capacity to the
best advantage. No one forced them to accommodate themselves to these
arrangements made without their co-operation, but as these arrangements
served their advantage in the best conceivable way, they--with a few
isolated exceptions--accepted them with the greatest pleasure.
The second and most important subject of publication were the trade reports
of the producers, of the associations as well as of the comparatively few
isolated producers. Of the former, as being by far the more important and
by their very nature compelled to adopt a careful system of bookkeeping, a
great deal was required--in fact the full disclosure of all their
proceedings. Gross returns, expenses, net returns, purchases and sales,
amount of labour, disposal of the net returns,--all must be published in
detail, and, according to the character of the respective data, either
yearly, or at shorter intervals--the amount of labour, for example, weekly.
In the case of the isolated producers, it sufficed to publish such details
as would be disclosed by the regulation about to be described.
The buying and selling of all conceivable products and articles of
merchandise in Freeland was carried on in large halls and warehouses, which
were under the management of the community. No one was forbidden to buy and
sell where he pleased, but these public magazines offered such enormous
advantages that everyone who did not wish to suffer loss made use of them.
No fee was charged for storing or manipulation, as it was quite immaterial,
in a country where everyone consumed in proportion to his production,
whether the fees were levied upon the consumers as such, or upon the same
persons in their character as producers in the form of a minimal tax. What
was saved by the simplification of the accounts remained as a pure gain.
Further, an elaborate system of warranty was connected with these
warehouses. Since the warehouse officials were at the same time the channel
through which purchases were made, they were always accurately informed as
to the condition of the market, and could generally appraise the warehoused
goods at their full value. The sales took place partly in the way of public
auction, and partly at prices fixed by the producers; and here also no
commission was charged to either seller or buyer.
The supreme authority in Freeland was at the same time the banker of the
whole population. Not merely every association, but every individual, had
his account in the books of the central bank, which undertook the receipts
and the disbursements from the millions of pounds which at a later date
many of the associations had to receive and pay, both at home and abroad,
down to the individual's share of profits on labour and his outlay on
clothes and food. A 'clearing system,' which really included everything,
made these numberless debit and credit operations possible with scarcely
any employment of actual money, but simply by additions to and subtractions
from the accounts in the books. No one paid cash, but gave cheques on his
account at the central bank, which gave him credit for his earnings,
debited his spendings to him, and gave him every month a statement of his
account. Naturally the loans granted by the commonwealth as capital for
production, mentioned in the previous chapter, appeared in the books of the
bank. In this way the bank was informed of the minutest detail of every
business transaction throughout the whole country. It not only knew where
and at what price the producers purchased their machinery and raw material
and where they sold their productions, but it knew also the housekeeping
account, the income and cost of living of every family. Even the retail
trade could not escape the omniscience of this control. Most of the
articles of food and many other necessaries were supplied by the respective
associations to their customers at their houses. All this the bank could
check to a farthing, for both purchases and sales went through the books of
this institution. The accounts of the bank had to agree with the statements
of the statistical bureau, and thus all these revelations possessed an
absolutely certain basis, and were not merely the results of an approximate
valuation. Even if anyone had wished to do so, it would have been simply
impracticable to conceal or to falsify anything.
This comprehensive and automatically secured transparency of the whole of
the productive and business relations afforded to the tax assessed in
Freeland a perfectly reliable basis. The principle was that the public
expenditure of the community should be covered by a contribution from each
individual exactly in proportion to his net income; and as in Freeland
there was no source of income except labour, and the income from this was
exactly known, there was not the slightest difficulty in apportioning the
tax. The apportionment of the tax was very simply made as soon as the
income existed, and that through the medium of the bank; and this was done
not merely in the case of the associations, but also of the few isolated
producers. In fact, by means of its bank the community had everyone's
income in hand sooner than the earners themselves; and it was merely
necessary to debit the earners with the amount and the tax was paid. Hence
in Freeland the tax was regarded not as a deduction from net income, but as
an outlay deducted from the gross product, just like the trade expenses. In
spite of its high amount, no one looked upon it as a burden, because
everyone knew that the greater part of it would flow back to him or to his,
and every farthing of it would be devoted to purposes of exclusively public
utility, which would immediately benefit him. It was therefore quite
correct to recognise no difference whatever between productive outlay by
the commonwealth and the more private outlay of the associations and
individuals, and accordingly to designate the former not as 'taxes,' but as
'general expenditure.'
This general expenditure, however, was very high. In the first year it
amounted to thirty-five per cent. of the net profits, and it never sunk
below thirty per cent., though the income on which the tax was levied
increased enormously. For the tax which the community in Freeland had
imposed upon themselves for the very purpose of making this increase of
wealth possible was so comprehensive in its objects as to make a most
colossal amount necessary.
One of its objects was to create the capital required for the purposes of
production. But it was only at first that the whole of this had to be met
out of the current tax, as afterwards the repayment of the loans partly met
the new demands.
A constantly increasing item of expenditure was the cost of education,
which swallowed up a sum of which no one outside of Freeland can have any
conception.
The means of communication also involved an expenditure that rose to
enormous dimensions, and the same has to be said of public buildings.
But the chief item of expenditure in the Freeland budget was under the head
of 'Maintenance,' which included the claims of those who, on account of
incapacity for work or because they were by our principles released from
the obligation of working, had a right to a competence from the public
funds. To these belonged all women, all children, all men over sixty years
of age, and of course all sick persons and invalids. The allowances to
these different classes were so high that not merely urgent necessities,
but also such higher daily needs as were commensurate with the general
wealth in Freeland for the time being, could be met. With this view the
allowances had to be so calculated that they should rise parallel with the
income of the working part of the population; the amounts, therefore, were
not fixed sums, but varied according to the average income. The average net
profit which fell to the individual from all the productive labour in the
country, and which increased year by year, was the unit of maintenance. Of
this unit every single woman or widow--unless she was a teacher or a nurse,
and received payment for her labour--was allotted thirty per cent.; if she
married, her allowance sank to fifteen per cent.; the first three children
in every household were allowed five per cent. each. Parentless orphans
were publicly supported at an average cost of twelve per cent. of the
maintenance unit. Men over sixty years and sick persons and invalids
received forty per cent.
It may at once be remarked that it would startle those unaccustomed to
Freeland ideas to hear the amounts of these allowances. In the first year
the maintenance unit reached 160£; therefore an unmarried woman or a widow
received 48£; a married woman 24£; a family with three children and a wife
48£; an old man or invalid 64£, which, in view of the prices that then
prevailed among us, was more than most European States give as pensions to
the highest functionaries or to their widows and orphans. For a cwt. of
fine flour cost, in that first year at the Kenia, 7s., a fat ox 12s.;
butter, honey, the most delicious fruits, were to be had at corresponding
prices. Lodgings cost not more at most than 2£ a year. In brief, with her
48£ a single woman could live among us in the enjoyment of many luxuries,
and need not deny herself to any material extent of those conveniences and
enjoyments which at that time were obtainable at all in Eden Vale. And
afterwards, when prices in Freeland were somewhat higher, the profits of
labour, and consequently the percentage of the maintenance allowance,
quickly rose to a much greater extent, so that the purchasing power of the
allowance constantly became more pronounced. But this was the intention of
the people of Freeland. Why? In the proper place this subject will be again
referred to, and then will in particular be explained why the women,
without exception, receive a maintenance allowance, and why teaching and
nursing are the only occupations of women that are mentioned. Here we
merely state that it naturally required a constantly increasing tax to
cover all these expenses.
Considerable items of expenditure were to be found under the heads,
'Statistics,' 'Warehouses,' and 'Bank'; but the relative cost of these
branches of the executive--notwithstanding their great absolute
growth--fell so rapidly in comparison with the taxable income, that in a
few years it had sunk to a minimal percentage of the total expenditure.
On the other hand, the departments of justice, police, military, and
finance, which in other countries swallow up nine-tenths of the total
budget, cost nothing in Freeland. We had no judges, no police organisation,
our tax flowed in spontaneously, and soldiers we knew not. Yet there was no
theft, no robbery, no murders among us; the payment of the tax was never in
arrears; and, as will be shown later on, we were by no means defenceless.
Our stores of weapons and ammunition, as well as our subsidies to the
warlike Masai, might be reckoned as a surrogate for a military budget. As
to the lack of a magistracy, we were such arrant barbarians that we did not
even consider a civil or a criminal code necessary, nor did we at that time
possess a written constitution. The committee, still in possession of the
absolute authority committed to it at the Hague, contented itself with
laying all its measures before public meetings and asking for the assent of
the members, which was unanimously given. For the settlement of
misunderstandings that might arise among the members, arbitrators were
chosen--at the recommendation of the committee--who should individually and
orally, to the best of their knowledge, give their judgment, and from them
appeal was allowed to the Board of Arbitrators; but they had as good as
nothing to do. Against vices and their dangerous results to the community,
we did not exercise any right of _punishment_, but only a right of
_protection_; and we esteemed _reformation_ the best and most effectual
means of protection. Since men with a normal mental and moral character, in
a community in which all the just interests of every member are equally
recognised, cannot possibly come into violent collision with the rights of
others, we considered casual criminals as mentally or morally diseased
persons, whose treatment it was the business of the community to provide
for. They were therefore, in proportion to their dangerousness to the
community, placed under surveillance or in custody, and subjected to
suitable treatment as long as seemed, in the judgment of competent
professional men, advisable in the interest of the public safety.
Professional men in the above sense, however, were not the justices of the
peace, who merely had to decide _whether_ the accused individual should
undergo the reforming treatment, but medical men specially chosen for this
purpose. The man who was under surveillance or in custody had the right of
appealing to the united Board of Medical Men and Justices of the Peace, and
publicly to plead his case before them, if he thought that he had been
injured by the action of the medical man set over him.
The appointment of the officers for public buildings, means of
communication, statistics, warehouses, central bank, education, &c., was
vested provisionally in the committee. The salaries were reckoned in
hour-equivalents, like those of the functionaries of the associations; and
these salaries ranged from 1,200 to 5,000 labour hours per annum, which in
the first year amounted to from 150£, to 600£. The agents in London,
Trieste, and Mombasa were each paid 800£ per annum. These agents remained
only two years at their foreign posts, and then had a claim to
corresponding positions in Freeland. To each of its own members the
committee gave a salary of 5,000 hour-equivalents.
Each member of the committee was president of one of the twelve branches
into which the whole of the public administration of Freeland was
provisionally divided. These branches were:
1. The Presidency.
2. Maintenance.
3. Education.
4. Art and science.
5. Statistics.
6. Roads and means of communication.
7. Post--including later the telegraph.
8. Foreign affairs.
9. Warehouses.
10. Central bank.
11. Public undertakings.
12. Sanitation and administration of justice.
These are, in general outlines, the principles upon which in the beginning
Freeland was organised and administered. They stood the test of experience
in all respects most satisfactorily. The formation of the associations was
effected without the slightest delay. As the majority of the members who
successively arrived were unknown to each other, it was necessary in
filling the more responsible positions provisionally to follow the
recommendations of the committee; in most cases, therefore, provisional
appointments were made which could be afterwards replaced by definitive
ones. The already mentioned kinds of productive labour--agriculture,
gardening, pasturage, millering, saw-mills, beer-brewing, coal-mining, and
iron-working--were considerably enlarged and materially improved by the
increase of labour which daily arrived with the Mombasa caravans. A great
number of new industries were immediately added. Ono of the first--most of
the material of which was imported and only needed completing--was a
printing-office, with two cylinder machines and five other machines; and
from this office issued a daily journal. Then came in quick succession a
machine-factory, a glass-works, a brickyard, an oil-mill, a chemical-works,
a sewing and shoe factory, a carpenter's shop, and an ice-factory. On the
first day of the new year the first small screw steamboat was launched for
towing service in the Eden lake and the Dana river. This was at short
intervals followed by other and larger steamers for goods and passengers,
all constructed by the ship-building association, which, on account of its
excellent services, increased with extraordinary rapidity.
At the same time the committee employed a not inconsiderable part of the
newly arriving strength in public works; and the workers thus employed had
naturally to be paid at a rate corresponding to the average height of the
general labour-profit, and even at a higher rate when specially trying work
was required. These public works were, in the first instance, the
provisional house-accommodation for the newly arriving members. It was
arranged that every family should be furnished with a separate house,
whilst for those who were single several large hotels were built. The
family houses were of different sizes, containing from four to ten
dwelling-rooms, and each house had a garden of above 10,000 square feet.
Every new-comer could find a house that was convenient to him as to size
and situation, and might pay for it either at once or by instalments. Not
fewer than 1,500 such houses had to be got ready per month; they were
strongly built of double layers of thick plunks, and the average cost was
about 8£ 10s. per room. For the use of hotel rooms, sixpence per week per
room was sufficient to cover the amortisation of the capital and the
expenses of management.
Together with the dwelling-houses, the building of schools was taken in
hand; and as it was anticipated that for some time from 1,000 to 1,200
fresh school-children would arrive per month, it was necessary to make
provision to secure a continuous increase of accommodation. These schools,
as well as the private houses, were of course erected, some in Eden Vale
and some on the Dana plateau, and were only of a provisional character, but
light, airy, and commodious. It was also necessary to secure a timely
supply of teachers, a task the accomplishment of which the committee
connected with another scarcely less important question. There was in
Freeland a great disproportion in the comparative number of the sexes,
particularly of young men and young marriageable women. Of the 460 pioneers
who had reached the Kenia between June and September, very few had either
wives or betrothed in the old home; and among the later arrivals there was
a preponderance of young unmarried men. It was not to be expected that the
immediate future would bring an adequate number of young unmarried women
unless some special means were adopted; but this forced celibacy could not
continue without danger of unpleasant social developments in a community
that aimed at uniting absolute freedom with the strictest morality. In
Taveta and Masailand, a few isolated cases of intrigue with native girls
and wives had occurred. At the Kenia, our young people had, without
exception, resisted the enticements of the ugly Wa-Kikuyu women; but our
young people could not permanently be required to exercise a self-denial
which, particularly in this luxurious country, would be contrary to nature.
It was therefore necessary to attract to Freeland young women who would be
a real gain not only to the men whom they married, but also to the country
that received them. We had merely to make the state of affairs known in
Europe and America, and to announce that women who remained single were in
Freeland supported by the State, and we should very soon have had no reason
to complain of a lack of women. But whether we should have been pleased
with those whom such an announcement might bring is another question. We
preferred, therefore, to instruct our representatives in the old home to
engage women-teachers for Freeland. The salary--180£ for the first
year--was attractive, and we had a choice of numberless candidates. It was
therefore to no one's injury if these highly cultured women, most of whom
were young, gave up their teaching vocation not long after they reached
Freeland and consented to make some wooer happy. The vacated place was at
once filled by a new teacher, who quite as quickly made room for a fresh
successor.
In this way, for several years Freeland witnessed a constant influx of
quickly marrying women-teachers, though our representatives had no
instructions to make their choice of the candidates for our teacherships
depend in any way upon the suitability of such persons as candidates for
matrimony. Our announcement in the leading newspapers of the old home was
seriously meant and taken. 'Well-qualified cultured women-teachers wanted.
Salary 180£ for the first year; more afterwards.' Elderly women who seemed
suitable for teachers were sometimes appointed; but young, sprightly women
are in the nature of things better fitted than old and enfeebled ones to
educate children, and thus we obtained what we needed without exhibiting
the least partiality. Later, this announcement was no longer needed; for it
gradually became known, especially in England, France, and Germany, that
young women-teachers found in Freeland charming opportunities of becoming
wives; so that the permanent preponderance of men among the general
immigrants was continually balanced by this influx of women-teachers.
The next problem to which special attention was given during this first
year of the new government was that of the post. The courier-service
between Eden Vale and Mombasa no longer sufficed to meet the demands of the
increased intercourse. The mails had grown to be larger in quantity than
could be transported in saddlebags, and they had to be more quickly
carried. It was most desirable that letters and despatches should pass
between Mombasa and Freeland at a more rapid rate than a little over sixty
miles a day, which had hitherto been the maximum. With this in view, the
road to Mombasa was thoroughly repaired. It should be remembered that this
road had not been 'constructed' in the Western sense of the term, but was
mainly in the condition in which nature had left it, nothing having been
done but to remove wood that stood in the way, fill up holes, and build
bridges. As the so called dry season extends from September to February,
very little rain had yet fallen; nevertheless our heavy waggons, which were
daily passing to and fro, had in places, where the ground was soft, made
deep ruts; and it was to be expected that the long rainy season beginning
in March would completely stop the traffic in some places if the road was
not seen to in time. Demestre, the head of the department for road
construction, therefore engaged 2,000 Swahili, Wa-Kikuyu, and Wa-Teita in
order at once to repair the worst places, and afterwards to improve the
whole of the road.
In the meantime, our general postmaster, Ferroni, had organised a threefold
transport and post service. For ordinary goods a luggage-service was
established, running uninterruptedly day and night, the oxen teams being
still retained. The old waggons, carrying both passengers and luggage, had
been obliged to halt longer at certain stations in the day than at others,
for the meal-times; and, apart from this, they were often delayed on the
way by the travellers. The new luggage-waggons stayed nowhere longer than
was necessary to give time to change the oxen and the attendants, and thus
gained an average of four hours a day, so that under favourable conditions
they could reach Eden Vale in twelve days. Of course passengers were not
taken. A second kind of service was arranged for express goods, and here
elephants were the motive power. Mrs. Ellen Ney's Indians, assisted by
several of our own people, who had been initiated into the secrets of the
catching and taming of these pachyderms, had trained several hundred of
these animals. Thirty-five elephants were placed at stages between Eden
Vale and Mombasa, and upon their backs from ten to twelve hundredweight of
the most various kinds of goods were daily carried in both directions. This
elephant-post covered the 600 miles and odd between the coast and Eden Vale
in seven or eight days. For the third and fastest service mounted couriers
were employed; only there were twenty-two instead of only ten relays, and
sixty-five fresh horses were used, so that, with an average speed of over
eleven miles an hour, the whole journey was made in two days and a half.
They carried merely despatches and letters; but from Mombasa they also
carried a packet of European and American newspapers for our Eden Vale
newspaper. (All newspapers sent to private persons were carried by the
elephant-post.) A few months later, our representative in Mombasa effected
an arrangement between the Sultan of Zanzibar and the English and the
German governments, in accordance with which a telegraph-line was
constructed between Mombasa and Zanzibar at the common cost of the
contracting parties. This very soon made it possible for us to communicate
with and receive answers from all parts of the civilised world in five or
six days; and our newspaper was able every Wednesday--its publishing
day--to report what had happened three days before in London or New York,
Paris or Berlin, Vienna or Rome, St. Petersburg or Constantinople. For
passengers, besides the oxen-waggons, which, on account of their greater
comfort, were retained for the use of women and children, there were
express-waggons drawn by horses, which made the journey in ten days.
For the rest, the mode of life at the Kenia had meanwhile altered but
little, with the exception of the fact that Eden Vale, which before the
arrival of the first waggon-caravan was only a large village, in the course
of a few months grew to be a considerable town of more than 20,000
inhabitants. On the Dana plateau, where at first there were only a few
huts, two large villages had sprung up--one at the east end near the great
waterfall, and inhabited by the workers in several factories; the other
nearer to Eden Vale, and the home of an agricultural colony. A very
noticeable air of untroubled joyousness and unmistakable comfort was common
to all the inhabitants of Freeland. The manner of life was still very
primitive, in harmony with the provisional character of the houses and the
dress; on the other hand, as to meat and drink there was abundance, even
luxury. The meals were in the main still arranged as they had been at first
by the earliest comers; only the women had soon invented a number of fresh
and ingenious modes of utilising the many delicate products of the country.
The list of aesthetic and intellectual enjoyments within reach had not been
considerably enlarged. The journal; a library founded by the Education
Bureau, and daily enriched by newly arriving chests of books, so that by
the New Year it contained 18,000 volumes, which did not by any means meet
the demand for reading, particularly during the hot midday hours; several
new singing and orchestral societies; reading or debating circles; and two
dozen pianos--these were all that had been added to the original stock of
means of recreation. But there was frequent hunting in the splendid woods;
and excursions to the more accessible points of view were the order of the
day. In short, the Freelanders endeavoured to make life as pleasant as
possible with such a temporarily small variation in the programme of
pleasures and intellectual recreation. In spite of all drawbacks, happiness
and content reigned in every house.
With respect also to the hours of labour, the system originally adopted was
on the whole retained. The men worked for the most part between 5 and 10
A.M. and between 4 and 6 P.M.; the women, assisted by natives, took care of
the home and of the children when they were not at school. Yet no one felt
bound to observe these hours--everyone worked when and as long as he
pleased; and several associations, the work of which would not well bear
the interruption of meal-times, introduced a system of relays which ensured
the presence of a few hands at work during the hot hours. But as no one
could be compelled to work during those hours, it became customary to pay
for the more burdensome midday work a higher rate than for the ordinary
work, and this had the effect of bringing the requisite number of
volunteers. The same held good for the night work that was necessary in
certain establishments.
CHAPTER X
At the end of our first year of residence at the Kenia, Freeland possessed
a population of 95,000 souls, of whom 27,000 were men belonging to 218
associations and engaged in eighty-seven different kinds of work. In the
last harvest--there are here two harvests in the year, one in October after
the short rainy season, and the other in June after the long rainy
season--36,000 acres had yielded nearly 2,000,000 cwt. of grain,
representing in value the sum of 300,000£, and giving to the 10,800 workers
an average profit of nearly 2s. 6d. for every hour of labour. But it must
not be supposed that all these workers spent their whole time in
agricultural pursuits; except during sowing and harvest a great many
agriculturists found profitable employment for the labour which would have
been superfluous in the fields in the neighbouring industrial
establishments. The average profit of all the industries was a little
higher than that of agriculture; and as it was usual to work about forty
hours a week, the average weekly earnings of an ordinary worker of moderate
application were 5£ 5s.
Next to agriculture, the iron-works and machine-factories gave employment
to the greatest number; in fact, if we take not the temporary employment of
a large number of men, but the total number of labour-hours devoted to the
work, as our measure, then these latter industries employed much more
labour than agriculture. And this is not to be wondered at, for all the
associations needed machinery in order to carry on their work to the best
advantage. In other countries, where the wages of labour and the profit of
labour are fundamentally different things, there is a fundamental
distinction between the profitableness of a business and the theoretical
perfection of the machinery used in it. In order to be theoretically useful
a machine must simply save labour--that is, the labour required for
producing and working the machine must be less than that which is saved by
using it. The steam-plough, for example, is a theoretically good and useful
machine if the manufacture of it, together with the production of the coal
consumed by it, swallows up less human labour than on the other hand is
saved by ploughing with steam instead of with horses or cattle. But the
actual profitableness of a machine is quite another thing--out of Freeland,
we mean, of course. In order to be profitable, the steam-plough must save,
not labour, but value or money--that is, it must cost less than the labour
which it has saved would have cost. But elsewhere in the world it by no
means follows that it costs less because the amount of labour saved is
greater than that consumed by the manufacture of the steam-plough and the
production of the coal it uses. For whilst the labour which the improved
plough saves receives merely its 'wages,' with the bought plough and the
bought coal there have to be paid for not only the labour required in
producing them, but also three items of 'gain'--namely, ground-rent,
interest, and undertaker's salary. Thus it may happen that the
steam-plough, between its first use and its being worn out, saves a million
hours of labour, whilst in its construction and in the total quantity of
coal it has required, it may have consumed merely 100,000 hours of labour;
and yet it may be very unprofitable--that is, it may involve very great
loss to those who, relying upon the certainty of such an enormous saving of
labour, should buy and use it. For the million hours of labour saved mean
no more than a million hours of _wages_ saved; therefore, for example,
10,000£, if the wages are merely 1£ for a hundred hours of labour. For the
construction of the plough and for the means of driving it 100,000 hours of
labour are required, which alone certainly will have cost 1,000£. But then
the rent which the owners of the iron-pits and the coal-mines charge, and
the interest for the invested capital, must be paid, and finally the
profits of the iron-manufacturer and the coal-producer. All this may, under
certain circumstances, amount to more than the difference of 9,000£ between
cost of labour in the two cases respectively; and when that is the case the
Western employer loses money by buying a machine which saves a thousand per
cent. of his labour. With us the case is quite different: the living labour
which the steam-plough spares _us_ is hour for hour exactly as valuable as
the labour-time which has been bestowed upon the plough and has been
transformed into commodities; for in Freeland there is no distinction
between the profit of labour and the wages of labour, and in Freeland,
therefore, every theoretically useful--that is, every really
labour-saving--machine is at the same time, and of necessity, profitable.
This is the reason why in Freeland the manufacture of machines is
necessarily of such enormous and constantly increasing importance. One half
of our people are engaged in the manufacture of ingenious mechanical
implements, moved by steam, electricity, water, compressed or rarefied air,
by means of which the other half multiply their powers of production a
hundredfold; and it follows as a natural consequence that among us the
employment of machinery has developed a many-sidedness and a perfectness of
which those who are outside the limits of our country have no conception.
The most important manufacture taken in hand before the end of this first
year was that of steam-ploughs and--worked provisionally by animal
labour--seed-drills and reaping-machines sufficient for the cultivation of
the 64,000 acres which were to be brought under the plough for the October
harvest. We calculated that, by the initial expenditure of 3,500,000 hours
of labour, we should save at least 3,000,000 hours of labour yearly. In
other parts of the world that would have been a great misfortune for the
workers who would thus have been rendered superfluous, while the community
would not have profited at all. We, on the contrary, were able to find
excellent employment for the labour thus saved, which could be utilised in
producing things that would elevate and refine, and for which the increased
productiveness of labour had created a demand.
A second work, which had to be carried out during the next year, was the
improvement of the means of communication by deepening the bed of the Dana
from the flour-mill above the Eden lake to the great waterfall on the Dana
plateau, and by the construction of a railway across the Dana plateau. With
this were to be connected rope-lines on several of the Kenia foot-hills for
the use of the miners and the foresters.
That all the existing industries were enlarged, and a great number of new
ones started, will be taken for granted. It should be mentioned that only
such factories were erected in Eden Vale or on the upper course of the Dana
as would pollute neither the air nor the water; the less cleanly
manufactures were located at the east end of the Dana plateau, close upon
or even below the waterfall. Later, means were found of preventing any
pollution whatever of the water by industrial refuse.
The town of Eden Vale had grown to contain 48,000 souls and covered more
than six square miles, with its small houses and gardens, and its numerous
large, though still primitively constructed, wooden public buildings. The
herds of cattle, and the horses, asses, camels, elephants, and the newly
imported swine--all of which had increased to an enormous extent--were for
the main part transferred to the Dana plateau, while the wild animals were
excluded by a strong stockade drawn round the heights that encircled Eden
Vale.
We were driven to this last somewhat costly measure by an incident which
fortunately passed off without serious consequences, but which showed the
necessity of being protected against marauding animals. The noise of the
town had for months made the wild animals which once abounded in Eden Vale
avoid our immediate neighbourhood. But in the surrounding woods and copses
there were still considerable numbers of antelopes, zebras, giraffes,
buffaloes, and rhinoceroses; the elephants alone had completely
disappeared. One fine evening, just before sunset, an enterprising old
rhinoceros bull approached the town, and, enraged by some dogs--of which we
had imported a good number, besides those that were descended from the dogs
we brought with us--made his way into one of the principal streets of the
town. This street led to a little grove which was a favourite playground
for children, especially in the evening, and which was full of children
when the savage brute suddenly appeared among them. The children were in
charge of several women-teachers, who, as well as the children, lost their
heads at sight of the monster, which was snorting and puffing like a
steam-engine. Teachers and children fled together, chased by the
rhinoceros, which, singling out a little fugitive, tossed her like a
feather into the air. Seeing one of the teachers, who had fallen in her
fright, lying motionless on the ground, the rhinoceros chose her as his
next victim, and was within a few steps of her when the dogs, which had so
far contented themselves with barking, now fell in a body upon the beast as
if they recognised the danger of the women and children, and, by biting its
ears and other tender parts, drew its fury upon themselves. The struggle
was an unequal one, and in a few moments the rhinoceros had slain two of
the brave dogs and severely wounded three others; but the rest persisted in
their attack, and thus gave the children and their attendants time to save
themselves. The little girl who had been tossed was merely frightened, and
found safety in one of the houses near by. The rhinoceros, when he had put
several more of the dogs _hors de combat_, trotted off, and was soon out of
sight of the men who had hastened to the rescue with all kinds of weapons.
Such a scene could not be allowed to be repeated. The next day it was
resolved to surround Eden Vale with a fence, and the work was at once
begun. As the Kenia rocks formed a secure defence on one side, it was
necessary only to construct a semicircular barrier. On the ridge of the
surrounding heights, with timber obtained on the spot, a barrier five feet
high was constructed, strong enough to resist the attacks of any wild
beast, and extending about twenty miles. This protection was intended
simply to keep out rhinoceroses, elephants, and buffaloes; antelopes,
zebras, even giraffes and such like, if they had a fancy for leaping the
barrier, could do no harm. Nor did we need any protection against beasts of
prey--lions and leopards--for these had for months entirely left the
neighbourhood. When this barrier was completed, except for a distance of
about 220 yards, we had a great hunt, by which all the wild beasts that
were still in the valley were driven to this opening and then chased out.
The chain of hunters was so close that we had every reason to be sure that
not an animal was left behind. Two rhinoceroses and a buffalo made an
attempt to break the chain, but were shot down. The opening in the barrier
was then closed up, and there was no longer any wild quadruped worth
mentioning in the whole of Eden Vale.
On the other hand, the groves and woods within the barrier became
increasingly populous with tame antelopes of all kinds, which were
accustomed to return to their owners in the evening. Very soon there was
not a family--particularly with children--in Eden Vale which did not
possess one or more tame antelopes, monkeys, or parrots; and elephant cubs,
under two years of age, wandered by dozens in the streets and in the public
places, the pampered pets of the children, who were remarkably attached to
these little proboscidians. An elephant cub is never better pleased than
when he has as many children as he can carry upon his back, and he will
even neglect his meals in order to have a frolic with his two-legged
comrades.
At the beginning of the second year our European agents informed us that
the rate of increase of members had assumed very large proportions. The
notices of Freeland which had been published in the journals--
correspondents of some of the principal European and American journals had
visited us--had naturally very powerfully quickened the desire to
emigrate; and if all the indications did not deceive us, we had to expect,
during the second year of our residence at the Kenia, an influx of at
least twice, probably thrice, as many as had come during the first year.
Provision had, therefore, to be made for the requisite means of transport.
As many of the more wealthy new members paid for passages in ships
belonging to foreign companies, instead of waiting to take their turn in
our own ships, the most urgent part of the work was that of increasing the
means of transport from Mombasa. A thousand new waggons were therefore
purchased as speedily as possible, together with the requisite number of
draught-cattle; and they were set to work in the order of purchase from
March onwards. At the same time our London agent bought first six, and
shortly afterwards four more, steamships of from 4,000 to 10,000 tons
burden, and adapted them to our requirements so that each ship could carry
from 1,000 to 3,000 passengers. By means of these new steamships the
traffic through Trieste was increased; the largest ships took passengers
from thence as the most favourably situated point of departure for the
whole of the middle of Europe. Twice a week, also, a ship went from
Marseilles, and once a month another from San Francisco across the Pacific
Ocean. After a third set of a thousand waggons had been ordered to provide
for emergencies, we thought we had made adequate provision for the
transport of immigrants during the second year.
So stood affairs when Demestre approached the committee with the
declaration that our primitive method of transport from Mombasa could not
possibly suffice to meet the requirements of the strong permanent tide of
immigration which promised to set in. We must at once think about
constructing a railway between Eden Vale and the coast. The cost would be
covered by the immigrants alone, and the incalculable advantage that would
accrue to the whole of our industry would be clear profit. When he spoke of
the covering of the cost by the immigrants he did not mean to propose that
they should pay for travelling on the railway. The fare, however high it
were fixed, would not suffice to cover the cost; and he did not propose to
levy any direct payment for transport by rail, any more than had been done
for transport by waggon. What he referred to was the saving of time. The
waggons did the journey on an average in fourteen days, and after the
fatigues of the journey the immigrants needed a rest of several days before
they were ready for work. By rail the 600 miles and odd could comfortably
be done in twenty-four hours; there would thus be an average saving of
twelve labour-days. When it was considered that, among the 250,000 or
300,000 immigrants who might be expected to arrive yearly for some time to
come, there would be between 70,000 and 80,000 persons able to work, the
railway would mean a gain for them of from 800,000 to 1,000,000
labour-days. At present the average daily earnings amounted to 15s., and
the 800,000 labour-days therefore represented a total value of 600,000£.
But before the railway was finished the average value of labour in Freeland
would probably have doubled; and when he said that the railway would in the
first year of its working yield to the immigrants at least a million pounds
sterling he was certainly within the mark. Every year would this gain
increase in proportion to the increased productiveness of labour in
Freeland.
On the other side was the cost of construction of the line; he would not
speak of the cost of working, for, though there was no doubt that it would
be less than the cost of working the transport services hitherto in
operation, yet the saving might be left out of sight as not worth
mentioning. The cost of constructing a railway to the coast could not be
definitely calculated, particularly as the route was not yet decided upon.
Whether the route of our caravan-road should be, with slight alterations,
retained; whether another route to Mombasa should be chosen; or whether the
coast should be reached at quite another point, nobody could say at
present, when only one of the routes had been surveyed at all, and that
only very imperfectly. But on the supposition that no better route could be
found than the old one, or that this should be ultimately chosen on
technical grounds, he could positively assert that the railway could not
possibly cost nearly so much as the savings of the immigrants would amount
to in the course of a few years. And, in consequence of the way in which
labour was organised in Freeland, every increase in the produce of labour
was converted into immediate gain to the whole community.
We should therefore proceed at once to construct the railway, even if it
were merely to the advantage of the immigrants. That it was not merely to
their advantage, however, was self-evident, since the profit which the
community would derive from the cheapening and facilitating of the goods
traffic would be infinitely greater--so great that it could not be even
approximately calculated. He merely wished to throw a few rays of light
upon the economic result of the railway. Assuming that the line would be
completed in three years, we should then have a population of about a
million, and there was no doubt that when we had sufficient means of
transport we should be able easily to produce ten million hundredweight of
grain for export. Such a quantity of grain at the Kenia then represented
one and a-half million pounds sterling. If the cost of transport sank from
five or six shillings per cwt., the current price--independently of the
fact that a greater quantity could not then be conveyed--to one shilling,
or at most eighteen-pence, which might be looked upon as the maximum
railway freight for 600 miles, then the value of the above quantity of
grain would be raised to a round two million pounds sterling. In short, he
was firmly convinced that the railway, even at the highest probable cost,
must fully pay for itself in three or four years at the latest. He
therefore proposed that they should at once send out several expeditions of
skilled engineers to find the most suitable route for the future line. They
should not proceed too cautiously, for even a considerable difference in
cost would be preferable to loss of time.
Everything that Demestre urged in support of his project was so just and
clear that it was unanimously adopted without debate; in fact, everyone
secretly wondered why he had not himself thought of it long before. The
only thing to do now, therefore, was to trace the route of the future
railway. In the first place, there was the old route through Kikuyu into
Masailand, thence to the east of Kilimanjaro, past Taveta and Teita, to
Mombasa. A second and possibly more favourable route was thought of, which
led also southwards, and reached the coast at Mombasa, but took a direction
two degrees further east, through Kikuyu, into the country of the Ukumbani,
and thence followed the valley of the Athi river to Teita. This track might
probably shorten the distance by more than a hundred miles. The third, the
shortest route to the ocean, led directly east, following the Dana, through
the Galla lands, to the Witu coast; here eventually nearly half the
distance might be saved, for we were but about 280 miles from the coast in
a straight line.
It was decided that these three routes should be examined as carefully as
would be possible in the course of a few months; for the beginning of the
construction of the line was not to be delayed more than half a year.
Demestre was appointed to examine the old route, with which he was already
well acquainted. Two other skilful engineers were sent to the Athi and the
Dana respectively, each accompanied, as was Demestre, by a staff of not
less qualified colleagues. But these two latter expeditions, having to
explore utterly unknown districts, inhabited by probably hostile tribes,
had to be well armed. They were each 300 strong, and, besides a sufficient
number of repeating-rifles, they took with them several war elephants, some
cannons, and some rockets. All these expeditions were accompanied by a
small band of naturalists, geologists in particular. They started in the
beginning of May, and they were instructed to return, if possible, in
August, before the short rainy season.
Whilst our attention was fixed principally upon the east in making
provision for the enormous influx expected from Europe and America, an
unexpected complication was brought about in the west by means of our
allies, the Masai. In order to find a new field for their love of
adventure, which they could no longer bring into play against the Swahili,
Wa-Duruma, Wa-Teita, Wa-Taveta, and Wa-Kikuyu, whom we had made their
allies, the Masai fell upon the Nangi and Kavirondo, who live west of Lake
Baringo, and drove off a large number of their cattle. But when the
patience of these large tribes was exhausted, they forgot for a time their
mutual animosities, turned the tables upon the Masai, and overran their
country. In this war the Masai suffered a great deal, for their opponents,
though not equal to them in bravery, far surpassed them in numbers. If the
Masai had but got together in time, they might have easily collected in
their own country an army equal to the 18,000 Kavirondo and Nangi who took
the field against them: but they were thrown into confusion by the
unexpected attack, got together a poor 7,000 _el-moran_, and suffered utter
defeat in two sanguinary engagements. More than a thousand of their
warriors fell, and the swarms of the victors poured continuously over the
whole country between the Lakes Baringo and Naivasha, sweeping all the
Masai before them, and getting an immense booty in women, children, and
cattle. This was at the beginning of May; and the Masai, who knew not how
to escape from their exasperated foes except by our aid, sent couriers who
reached the Kenia with their petitions for help on the 10th of the month.
This help was of course at once granted. On the day after the messengers
reached us, 500 of our horsemen, with the still available cannons and
rockets, and with twenty-four elephants, started in forced marches for the
Naivasha, where the Masai, favoured by the character of the country,
thought they could hold out for a time. Our men reached their destination
on the 16th, just after our allies had met with another reverse and were
scarcely able to hold out another day. Johnston, who led our little army,
scarcely waited to refresh his horses before he sent word to the Kavirondo
and the Nangi that they were to cease hostilities at once; he was come, not
as their enemy, but as arbitrator. If they would not accept his mediation,
he would at once attack them; but he warned them beforehand that successful
resistance to his weapons and to those of his people was impossible.
Naturally, this threat had no effect upon the victorious blacks. It is true
they had already heard all sorts of vague rumours about the mysterious
white strangers; and the elephants and horses, which they now saw, though
at a distance, were not likely to please them. But their own great numbers,
in comparison with the small body of our men, and chiefly their previous
successes, encouraged them, after their elders had held a short _shauri_,
to send a defiant answer. Let Johnston attack them; they would 'eat him up'
as they meant to eat up the whole of Masailand.
Johnston anticipated such an answer, and had made the necessary
preparations. As soon as he had received the challenge he caused his men to
mount at once, told the Masai not to join in the fight at all, and then he
attacked the Kavirondo and Nangi. This time he did not rely upon the effect
of blank-cartridges, not because an entirely bloodless battle would
scarcely have satisfied the Masai's longing for revenge, but because he
wished to end the whole war at a single stroke. He therefore allowed his
men to approach within 550 yards of the blacks, who kept their ground; and
then, whilst the horsemen charged the enemy's centre, he directed several
sharp volleys from the cannons and rockets against them. Naturally, the
whole order of battle was at once broken up in wild flight, though not many
men fell. Those who fled westward Johnston allowed to escape; but the main
body of the enemy, who tried to get away along the banks of the Naivasha to
the north, were cut off by 400 of our men, whilst he kept with the other
hundred between the blacks and the Masai, principally for the purpose of
preventing the latter from falling upon the conquered. Our 400 horsemen,
who made a wide circle round the fugitives, much as sheep-dogs do around a
scattering flock of sheep, soon brought the Kavirondo and Nangi to a stand,
who, when they found themselves completely surrounded, threw down their
weapons and begged for mercy. Johnston ordered them to send their elders to
him, as he did not intend to do them any further harm, but merely wished to
bring about peace between them and the Masai.
As might be supposed, the peace negotiations were brief, for Johnston did
not require anything unjust from the conquered, who were completely at his
mercy. They were to give up all their prisoners and booty; and, after they
had taken an oath to keep the peace with us and the Masai, they should
remain unmolested. In the meantime, however, until the prisoners and the
booty had been given up--for only a part of both had fallen into our hands,
the Kavirondo having sent off the greater part to their own country several
days before--they were to remain upon one of the Naivasha islands as our
prisoners. Those who thus remained numbered more than 10,000, and included
some of the chief men of their nation. The Kavirondo and Nangi accepted
these terms; in the course of the afternoon and night they were ferried
across to one of the neighbouring islands, and twelve of their number were
sent home to bring back the booty.
Johnston, having caused the Masai leaders to be brought before him,
administered to them a very severe reprimand. Did they think that we should
continue to be friends with thieves and robbers? Had he not told them that
the swords which we had given to their _leitunus_ would snap asunder like
glass if drawn in an unrighteous cause? And in the war with the Kavirondo
and Nangi were not the Masai in the wrong? 'We have saved you from the just
punishment with which you were threatened, for the alliance which we had
contracted still stood good when you were defeated; but we dissolve that
alliance! I stay here until the Kavirondo and Nangi have brought back their
booty, which shall be handed over to you in its entirety; but, after that,
do not expect anything more from us. We can live in friendship with only
peaceable honourable people. Henceforth the Kavirondo and Nangi are our
friends; woe to you in the future if you ever break the peace; our anger
will shatter you as the lightning shatters the sycamore-tree!'
The Masai were completely cowed. This unlooked-for dissolution of a
friendship which had for a year past been their chief pride, and which had
just been their salvation in extremity, was more than they were able to
bear. But Johnston preserved a severe attitude towards them, and finally
insisted upon their leaving his camp. When the _leitunus_ and _leigonanis_
returned to their people with the terrible news that their friendship with
the white brethren was at an end there were exhibited the most extravagant
signs of distress. The whole camp of the Masai rushed over to ours; but
Johnston ordered them to be told that, weaponless though they were, he
would fire upon them if they dared to come near. This was repeated several
times during the next few days. The Masai sent messengers throughout the
whole country, called together the wisest of their elders, and again and
again endeavoured to induce Johnston to treat with them; but he remained
inexorable, had his camp entrenched, and threatened to shoot every Masai
who attempted to enter it.
In ten days the Kavirondo and Nangi messengers returned with the prisoners
and the cattle. Johnston now bade the Masai elders appear before him that
he might hand over to them what he had won for them in battle. The Masai
came, and took advantage of the opportunity of making their last attempt to
appease the terrible white man. Johnston might keep all that he--not
they--had recovered; they were willing to regard the loss they had suffered
as the just punishment of their crime; they were ready to do yet more if he
would but forgive them and give them his friendship again. It was to this
point that Johnston had wished to bring these people, whom he knew right
well. He showed himself touched by their appeal, but said that he could
grant nothing without the knowledge and consent of the other leaders in
Eden Vale. He would report to the great council the repentance of the Masai
people; and it was for the council to decide what was to be done. On the
19th and 20th of June, the days appointed for the commemoration of the
alliance with us, they were to come with their fellow-countrymen to the
place of rendezvous on the south shore of Naivasha lake; there should they
receive an answer.
It is unnecessary to say that Johnston's threats were not seriously meant.
The alliance with the Masai was of too much importance to us for us to wish
it dissolved. But Johnston had been instructed by the committee to use
every means to restrain the Masai from plundering in the future and to
induce them to keep the peace with all their neighbours. And the committee
were well aware that extreme measures were necessary to attain these ends,
for to convert the Masai into a peaceable people meant nothing less than to
divest them of their characteristic peculiarities. They are in truth a
purely military nation. War is their peculiar business--their organisation
and habits of life all have reference to war. They differ from all their
neighbours, being ethnographically distinct, for they are not negroes, but
a bronze-coloured Hamitic race evidently related to the original
inhabitants of Egypt. They carry on no industry, even their cattle-breeding
being in the hands of their captured slaves; while they themselves are in
youth exclusively warriors, and in age dignified idlers. The warriors, the
_el-moran_, live apart and unmarried--though by no means in celibacy--in
separate kraals; the older married men--the _el-morun_--also live in
separate villages. They buy their weapons of the Andorobbo who live among
them; and the small amount of corn which the married men and their wives
consume--for the _el-moran_ eat only milk and flesh--they buy of
neighbouring foreign tribes. Their morals are exceptionally loose, for the
warriors live in unrestrained fellowship with the unmarried girls--the
Dittos; and the married women allow themselves all conceivable liberties,
without any interference on the part of their husbands. Notwithstanding all
this, these dissolute plundering earls form the finest nation of the whole
district east of the Victoria Nyanza--brave, strong, ingenuous,
intelligent, and, when they are once won, trustworthy. To convert them into
industrious and moral men would be a grand work and would make our new
home, in which we could not go far without coming into collision with them,
truly habitable to us.
But it was very difficult to accomplish this. Their military organisation
had to be broken up, their immorality suppressed, their prejudice against
labour overcome. That this was by no means impossible was proved by many
past examples. The Wa-Kwafi, living to the south and west of them, as well
as the Njemps on the Baringo lake, are either of pure Masai extraction or
have much Masai blood in their veins; yet they practise agriculture and
know nothing of the _el-moran_ and Ditto abuse. But the change had been
effected among these by the agency of extreme want. It was only those Masai
tribes who were completely vanquished by other Masai and robbed of all
their cattle that were dispersed among agricultural negro tribes, whose
customs they had to adopt, while they unfortunately gave up their good
characteristics along with their bad ones. Johnston's task now was to see
if it wore not possible by rational compulsion to effect such a change in
them as in other instances had been effected by want. How he prosecuted his
attempt we have seen.
When Johnston released the Kavirondo and Nangi prisoners, he invited them
to send, on the 19th, as numerous an embassy as possible of their elders to
Naivasha, where we would confirm the newly formed alliance and seal it with
rich presents. He left the whole of his army at Naivasha, partly to cover
the retreat of the discharged prisoners, and partly to watch the booty (the
Masai still hesitated to take back the booty, and even forbade their
captured wives and children to leave our camp), while he himself,
accompanied by only a few horsemen, hastened to Eden Vale, there to get
further instructions. The proposal which he laid before the committee was
that everything should now be demanded from the Masai--the iron could be
forged if struck when it was hot; and as conditions of the renewal of
friendship he suggested the following three points: dissolution of the
_el-moran_ kraals, emancipation of all slaves whatever, formation of
agricultural associations. Of course we were not to be content with the
statement of these demands, but must ourselves take in hand the work of
carrying them out. Particularly would it be necessary to assist the Masai
in the organisation of the agricultural associations, to furnish them with
suitable agricultural implements, and to give them instruction in rational
agriculture. Finally, and chiefly, was it necessary to win over the
_el-moran_ by employing them in relays as soldiers for us. The ideal of
these brown braves was the routine of a military life. The alliance with
the Kavirondo and Nangi might lead to hostile complications with Uganda,
the country adjoining Kavirondo, when we could very well make use of a
Masai militia, and thus accomplish two ends at once--viz. the complete
pacification and civilisation of Masailand, and assistance against Uganda,
the great raiding State on the Victoria Nyanza, with which sooner or later
we must necessarily come into collision.
The committee adopted these suggestions after a short deliberation. Five
hundred fresh volunteers (as a matter of course, all our expeditions
consisted of volunteers) from among our agriculturists were placed under
Johnston's orders, as agricultural teachers for the Masai; whilst a part of
the five hundred men already at Naivasha were selected to superintend the
military training of the _el-moran_. Further, Johnston received for his
work the whole of the ploughs which had been thrown out of use in Freeland
by the introduction of steam-machinery. There were not less than 3,000 of
these ploughs, as well as a corresponding number of harrows and other
agricultural implements. With these were also granted 6,000 oxen accustomed
to the plough, as well as supplies of seeds, &c. The committee at once
telegraphed to Europe for 10,000 breechloaders and a million cartridges,
with 10,000 sidearms, which were supplied cheaply by the Austrian
Government out of the stock of disused Werndl rifles, and could reach
Naivasha by the end of June. Five complete field-batteries and eight
rocket-batteries were at the same time ordered in Europe; these, however,
were not for the Masai militia, but for our own use in any future
contingencies. An English firm promised to deliver two weeks later 10,000
very picturesque and strikingly designed complete uniforms, of which,
moreover, our Eden Vale sewing-factory speedily got ready several hundred
made of our large stores of brightly coloured woollen goods, so that the
_el-moran_ were able to see, on the 19th and 20th of June, the splendours
in store for them.
Thus furnished, Johnston left Eden Vale on the 12th of June, and reached
the shore of the Naivasha on the 16th, leaving his caravan of goods a few
days' march behind him. The elders and _leitunus_ of all the Masai tribes,
as well as the ambassadors of the Kavirondo and Nangi, already awaited him.
The negotiations with the latter were soon ended: the conditions of
alliance were again discussed, rich presents exchanged (the Kavirondo had
brought several thousand head of cattle for their magnanimous victors), and
on this side nothing further stood in the way of the approaching
covenant-feast. We had thus secured trustworthy friends as far as the
Victoria Nyanza, a great part of the shore of which was in the hands of the
Kavirondo; in return for which, it is true, we had undertaken--what we did
not for a moment overlook--the heavy responsibility of protecting the
Kavirondo against all foes, even against the powerful Uganda.
The Masai, on the other hand, were at first greatly troubled by the
conditions demanded of them. Johnston's eloquence, however, soon convinced
them that their acceptance of these conditions was not merely unavoidable,
but would be very profitable to themselves. He overcame their prejudice
against labour by showing them that an occupation to which we powerful and
rich white men were glad to devote ourselves could be neither degrading nor
burdensome. They were not to suppose that we intended them to grub about in
the earth, like the barbarous negroes, with wretched spades; the hard work
would be done by oxen; they need only walk behind the implements, which
were already on the way ready to be distributed among them. A few hours'
light work a day for a few months in the year would suffice to make them
richer than they had ever been made by the labour of their slaves. Even the
_el-moran_ were won over without very much difficulty by the promise that,
if they would only work a little in turns, they should now be trained to
become invincible warriors like ourselves, and should receive fine clothing
and yet finer weapons. And when at last the endless caravan with the oxen
and the agricultural implements arrived; when the wonderful celerity with
which tire ploughs cut through the ground was demonstrated; and when
Johnston dressed up a chosen band of _el-moran_ in the baggy red hose and
shirts, the green jackets, and the dandyish plumed hats, with rifle,
bayonet, and cartridge-box, and made them march out as models of the future
soldiery, the resignation which had hitherto been felt gave way to
unrestrained jubilation. The Masai had originally yielded out of fear of
our anger, and more still of the danger lest our friendship to the
surrounding tribes might lead to the unconditional deliverance of the Masai
into the hands of their hereditary foes. The numerous embassies which had
appeared from all points of the compass (for the Wa-Kikuyu, Wa-Taveta,
Wa-Teita, and Wa-Duruma--even the Wa-Kwafi and Swahili tribes--had sent
representatives laden with rich presents to take part in the Naivasha
festival) were significant reminders to them. But now they accepted our
terms with joy, and were not a little proud of being able to show to the
others that they were still the first in our favour.
And as the Masai, when they have made any engagement, are honourably
ambitious--unlike the negroes--to keep it, the carrying out of the
stipulations was a comparatively easy and speedy matter. A hasty census,
which we made for several purposes, showed that there were some 180,000
souls in the twelve Masai tribes scattered over a district of nearly 20,000
square miles, from Lykipia in the extreme north to Kilimanjaro in the
south. The country, although dry and sterile in the south-west, is
exuberantly fertile in the east and north, and--particularly around the
numerous ranges of hills, which rise to a height of 15,000 feet--equals in
beauty the Teita, Kilima, and Kenia districts, and could well support a
population a hundred times as large as the present one; but the perpetual
wars and the licentiousness of the people have hitherto limited the
increase of the population. Among the 180,000 were about 54,000 men capable
of labour, the _el-moran_ being included in that number. We handed over to
the Masai 12,000 yoke-oxen, in exchange for which we received the same
number of oxen for fattening. Our 500 agricultural instructors now looked
out for the most suitable arable ground for their pupils, whom they
organised into 280 associations similar to ours, without a right of
property in the soil and with the amount of labour as the sole measure of
the distribution of produce. The instructors taught them the use of the
implements; and were able, two months later, to report to Eden Vale, with
considerable satisfaction, that above 50,000 acres had been sown with all
kinds of field-produce. The harvest proved to be abundantly sufficient not
only to cover all the needs of the Masai, but also to secure to their white
teachers, both agricultural and military, the payment then customary in
Freeland.
While in this way, on the one hand, the agricultural associations were set
to work, on the other hand some 300 military instructors initiated relays
of 6,500 _el-moran_ into the mysteries of the European art of war. The
26,000 Masai warriors were divided into four companies, each of which was
put into uniform and exercised for a year. The rifles remained our
property, the uniforms became the property of the Masai warriors, but could
be worn only when the owners were on duty. There was no pay for peace
duty--rather, as above mentioned, the Masai defrayed the cost of their
military training out of the proceeds of their agriculture.
The agricultural as well as the military instructors made themselves useful
in other ways, by imparting to their pupils all kinds of skill and
knowledge. There were no specially learned men among them, but they opened
up a new world to the Masai, exercised a refining and ennobling influence
upon their habits and morals, and in a surprisingly short time made
tolerably civilised men of them. The Masai, on their part, enjoyed their
new lives very much. They were well aware that their altered condition made
them the object of all their neighbours' envy, whilst they were still more
highly respected than before. And, what was the main thing--at the
beginning at least--they enjoyed their new wealth and their increased
honour without finding their labour at all painful to those needs. For in
this fortunate country it required very little labour expended in a
rational way to get from the fruitful soil the little that was there looked
upon as extraordinary wealth. He who twice a year spent a few weeks in
sowing and harvesting could for the rest of the year indulge in the still
favourite luxury of _dolce far niente_. In later years, when the needs of
the Masai had been largely multiplied by their growing culture, more labour
was required to satisfy those needs; but in the meantime our pupils had got
rid of their former laziness; and it may be confidently asserted that not
one of them ever regretted that we had imposed our civilisation upon his
nation. On the contrary, the example of the Masai stimulated the
neighbouring peoples; and, in the course of the following years, the most
diverse tribes voluntarily came to us with the request that we would do
with them as we had done with the Masai. The suppression of property in the
soil among those negro races who--unlike the Masai and most of the other
peoples of Equatorial Africa--possessed such an institution in a developed
form, in no case presented any great difficulty: the land was voluntarily
either given up or redefined. Nowhere was property in land able to assert
itself along with labour organised according to our principles.
CHAPTER XI
The meeting of the International Free Society at the Hague had, as the
reader will remember, conferred full executive power upon the committee for
the period of two years. This period expired on the 20th of October, when
the Society would have to give itself a new and definitive constitution,
and the powers hitherto exercised by the committee would have to be taken
over by an administrative body freely elected by the people of Freeland. On
the 15th of September, therefore, the committee called together a
constituent assembly; and, as the inhabitants were too numerous all to meet
together for consultation, they divided the country into 500 sections,
according to the number of the inhabitants, and directed each section to
elect a deputy. The committee declared this representative assembly to be
the provisional source of sovereign authority, and required it to make
arrangements for the future, leaving it to decide whether it would empower
the committee to continue to exercise its executive functions until a
constitution had been agreed upon, or would at once entrust the
administration of Freeland to some new authority. After a short debate, the
assembly not only decided unanimously to adopt the former course, but also
charged the committee with the task of preparing a draft constitution. As
such a draft had already been prepared in view of contingencies, the
committee at once accepted the duty imposed upon it. Dr. Strahl, in the
name of the committee, laid the draft constitution 'upon the table of the
House.' The assembly ordered it to be printed, and three days after
proceeded to discuss it. As the proposed fundamental law and detailed
regulations were extremely simple, the debate was not very long-winded;
and, on the 2nd of October, the laws and regulations were declared to be
unanimously approved, and the new constitution was put in force.
The fundamental laws were thus expressed:
1. Every inhabitant of Freeland has an equal and inalienable claim upon the
whole of the land, and upon the means of production accumulated by the
community.
2. Women, children, old men, and men incapable of work, have a right to a
competent maintenance, fairly proportionate to the level of the average
wealth of the community.
3. No one can be hindered from the active exercise of his own free
individual will, so long as he does not infringe upon the rights of others.
4. Public affairs are to be administered as shall be determined by all the
adult (above twenty years of age) inhabitants of Freeland, without
distinction of sex, who shall all possess an equal active and passive right
of vote and of election in all matters that affect the commonwealth.
5. Both the legislative and the executive authority shall be divided into
departments, and in such a manner that the whole of the electors shall
choose special representatives for the principal public departments, who
shall give their decisions apart and watch over the action of the
administrative boards of the respective departments.
In these five points is contained the whole substance of the public law of
Freeland; everything else is merely the natural consequence or the more
detailed expression of these points. Thus the principles upon which the
associations were based--the right of the worker to the profit, the
division of the profit in proportion to the amount of work contributed, and
freedom of contract in view of special efficiency of labour--are naturally
and necessarily implied in the first and third fundamental laws. As the
whole of the means of labour were accessible to everyone, no one could be
compelled to forego the profit of his own labour; and as no one could be
forced to place his higher capabilities at the disposal of others, these
higher capabilities--so far as they were needed in the guidance and
direction of production--must find adequate recompense in the way of
freedom of contract.
With reference to the right of maintenance given to women, children, old
men, and men incapable of working, by the second section, it may be
remarked that this was regarded, in the spirit of our principles, as a
corollary from the truth that the wealth of the civilised man is not the
product of his own individual capabilities, but is the result of the
intellectual labour of numberless previous generations, _whose bequest
belongs as much to the weak and helpless as to the strong and capable_. All
that we enjoy we owe in an infinitely small degree to our own intelligence
and strength; thrown upon these as our only resources, we should be poor
savages vegetating in the deepest, most brutish misery; it is to the rich
inheritance received from our ancestors that we owe ninety-nine per cent.
of our enjoyments. If this is so--and no sane person has ever questioned
it--then all our brothers and sisters have a right to share in the common
heritage. That this heritage would be unproductive without the labour of us
who are strong is true, and it would be unfair--nay, foolish and
impracticable--for our weaker brethren to claim an _equal_ share. But they
have a right to claim a fraternal participation--not merely a charitable
one, but one based upon their right of inheritance--in the rich profits won
from the common heritage, even though it be by _our_ labour solely. They
stand towards us in the relation, not of medicant strangers, but of
co-heirs and members of our family. And of us, the stronger inheritors of a
clearly proved title, every member of the common family demands the
unreserved recognition of this good title. For we cannot prosper if we
dishonour and condemn to want and shame those who are our equals. A healthy
egoism forbids us to allow misery and its offspring--the vices--to harbour
anywhere among our fellows. Free, and 'of noble birth,' a king and lord of
this planet, must everyone be whose mother is a daughter of man, else will
his want grow to be a spreading ulcer which will consume even us--the
strong ones.
So much as to the right of maintenance in general. As to the provision for
women in particular, it was considered that woman was unfitted by her
physical and psychical characteristics for an active struggle for
existence; but was destined, on the one hand, to the function of
propagating the human race, and, on the other hand, to that of beautifying
and refining life. So long as we all, or at least the immense majority of
us, were painfully engaged in the unceasing and miserable struggle to
obtain the barest necessities of animal life, no regard could be paid to
the weakness and nobility of woman; her weakness, like that of every other
weak one, could not become a title to tender care, but became inevitably an
incitement to tyranny; the nobility of woman was dishonoured, as was all
purely human and genuine nobility. For unnumbered centuries woman was a
slave and a purchasable instrument of lust, and the much-vaunted
civilisation of the last few centuries has brought no real improvement.
Even among the so-called cultured nations of the present day, woman
remained without legal rights, and, what is worse, she was left, in order
to obtain subsistence, to sell herself to the first man she met who would
undertake to provide and 'care for' her for the sake of her attractions.
This prostitution, sanctioned by law and custom, is in its effects more
disastrous than that other, which stands forth undisguised and is
distinguished from the former only in the fact that here the shameful
bargain is made not for life, but only for years, weeks, hours. It is
common to both that the sweetest, most sacred treasure of humanity, woman's
heart, is made the subject of vulgar huckstering, a means of buying a
livelihood; and worse than the prostitution of the streets is that of the
marriage for a livelihood sanctioned by law and custom, because under its
pestilential poison-breath not only the dignity and happiness of the
living, but the sap and strength of future generations are blasted and
destroyed. As love, that sacred instinct which should lead the wife into
the arms of the husband, united with whom she might bequeath to the next
generation its worthiest members, had become the only means of gain within
her reach woman was compelled to dishonour herself, and in herself to
dishonour the future of the race.
Happiness and dignity, as well as the future salvation of humanity, equally
demanded that woman should be delivered from the dishonourable necessity of
seeing in her husband a provider, in marriage the only refuge from material
need. But neither should woman be consigned to common labour. This would be
in equal measure prejudicial both to the happiness of the living and to the
character and vigour of future generations. It is as useless as it is
injurious to wish to establish the equality of woman by allowing her to
compete with man in earning her bread--useless, because such a permission,
of which advantage could be taken only in exceptional cases, would afford
no help to the female sex as a whole; injurious, because woman cannot
compete with man and yet be true to her nobler and tenderer duties. And
those duties do not lie in the kitchen and the wardrobe, but in the
cultivation of the beautiful in the adult generation on the one hand, and
of the intellectual and physical development of the young on the other.
Therefore, in the interests not only of herself, but also of man, and in
particular of the future race, woman must be altogether withdrawn from the
struggle for the necessaries of life; she must be no wheel in the
bread-earning machinery, she must be a jewel in the heart of humanity. Only
one kind of 'work' is appropriate to woman--that of the education of
children and, at most, the care of the sick and infirm. In the school and
by the sick-bed can womanly tenderness and care find a suitable
apprenticeship for the duties of the future home, and in such work may the
single woman earn wages so far as she wishes to do so. At the same time,
our principles secured perfect liberty to woman. She was not forbidden to
engage in any occupation, and isolated instances have occurred of women
doing so, particularly in intellectual callings, but public opinion in
Freeland approved of this only in exceptional cases--that is, when special
gifts justified such action; and it was our women chiefly who upheld this
public opinion.
The fact that the maintenance allowance for women was fixed at one-fourth
less than that for men--and the constituent assembly confirmed not only the
principle, but the proposed ratio of the different maintenance
allowances--was not the expression of any lower estimate of the _claim_ of
woman, but was due simply to the consideration that the _requirements_ of
woman are less than those of man. We acted upon the calculation that a
woman with her thirty per cent. of the average labour-earnings of a
Freeland producer was as well provided for as a maintenance-receiving man
with his forty per cent.; and experience fully verified this calculation.
Not only had the single woman or the widow a right to a maintenance, but
the married woman also had a similar right, though only to one-half the
amount. This right was based upon the principle that even the wife ought
not to be thrown upon the husband for maintenance and made dependent upon
him. As in housekeeping the woman's activity is partly called forth by her
own personal needs, it was right that some of the burden of maintenance
should be taken from the husband, and only a part of it left as a common
charge to both. With the birth of children, the family burden is afresh
increased, and, as this is specially connected with the wife, we increase
her maintenance allowance until it reaches again the full allowance of a
single woman--that is, thirty per cent. The allowances would be as follows:
A childless family 15 per cent.
A family with one child 20 "
" " two children 25 "
" " three or more children 30 "
A working widow with a child 5 "
" " " two children 10 "
" " " three or more children 15 "
An independent woman 30 "
" " " with a child 35 "
" " " with two children 40 "
" " " with three or more children 45 "
Just as the women's and children's maintenance-claims accumulated according
to circumstances, so was it with those claims and the claims of men unable
to work, and old men. The maximum that could be drawn for maintenance was
not less than seventy per cent. of the average income, and this happened in
the cases--which were certainly rare--in which a married man who had a
claim had three or more children under age.
The fourth fundamental principle--the extension of the franchise to adult
women--calls for no special comment. It need only be remarked that this law
included the negroes residing in Freeland. This was conditioned, of course,
by the exclusion from the exercise of political rights of all who were
unable to read and write--an exclusion which was automatically secured by
requiring all votes to be given in the voter's own handwriting. We took
considerable pains not only to teach our negroes reading and writing, but
also to give them other kinds of knowledge; and as our efforts were in
general followed by good results, our black brethren gradually participated
in all our rights.
A more detailed explanation is, however, required by the fifth section of
the fundamental laws, according to which the community exercised their
control over all public affairs not through _one_, but through several
co-ordinated administrative boards, elected separately by the community. To
this regulation the administrative authorities of Freeland owed their
astonishing special knowledge of details, and the public life of Freeland
its equally unexampled quiet and the absence of any deeply felt, angry
party passions. In the States of Europe and America, only the executive
consists of men who are chosen--or are supposed to be thus chosen--on
account of their special knowledge and qualification for the branches of
the public service at the head of which they respectively stand. Even this
is subject to very important limitations; in fact, with respect to the
parliamentary constitutions of Europe and America, it can be truthfully
asserted that those who are placed at the head of the different branches of
the administration only too often know very little about the weighty
affairs which they have to superintend. The assemblies from which and by
whose choice parliamentary ministers are placed in office are, as a rule,
altogether incapable of choosing qualified men, for the reason that
frequently there are none such in their midst. It does not follow from this
that parliamentary orators and politicians by profession do not generally
understand the duties of their office better than those favourites of power
and of blind fortune who hold the helm in non-parliamentary countries; but
experts they are not, and cannot be. Yet, as has been said, the organs of
the executive at least _ought_, to be such, and by a current fiction they
are held to be such; and a man who specially distinguishes himself in any
department thereby earns a claim--though a subordinate one--to receive
further employment in that department of the public service. For the
legislative bodies outside of Freeland, on the other hand, special
knowledge is not even theoretically a qualification. The men who make laws
and control the administration of them, need, in theory, to have not the
least knowledge of the matters to which these laws refer. The support of
the electors is usually quite independent of the amount of such knowledge
possessed by the representatives, who are chosen not as men of special
knowledge, but as men of 'sound understanding.'
But this is followed by a twofold evil. In the first place, it converts the
public service into a private game of football, in which the players are
Ignorance and Incapacity. The words of Oxenstiern, 'You know not, my son,
with how little understanding the world is governed,' are true in a far
higher degree than is generally imagined. The average level of capacity and
special knowledge in many of the branches of public service in the
so-called civilised world is far below that to be found in the private
business of the same countries. In the second place, this centralised
organisation of the public administration, with an absence of persons of
special qualification, converts party spirit into an angry and bitter
struggle in which everything is risked, and the decision depends very
rarely upon practical considerations, but almost always upon already
accepted political opinions. Incessant conflict, continuous passionate
excitement, are therefore the second consequence of this preposterous
system.
An improvement is, however, simply impossible so long as the present social
system remains in force. For, so long as this is the case, the public
welfare is better looked after by ignorant persons who act independently of
professional knowledge than it would be if professional men had power to
further the interests of their own professions at the expense of the
general public. For the interests of specialists under an exploiting system
of society are not merely sometimes, but generally, opposed to those of the
great mass of the people. Imagine a European or American State in which the
manufacturers exercised legislative and executive control over
manufactures, agriculturists over agriculture, railway shareholders over
the means of transport, and so forth--the specialist representatives of
each separate interest making and administering the laws that particularly
concerned their own profession! As under the exploiting system of society
the struggle for existence is directed towards a mutual suppression and
supplanting, so must the consequences of such a 'constitution' as we have
just supposed be positively dreadful. In those cases which are grouped
together under the heading of 'political corruption,' where isolated
interests have succeeded in imposing their will upon the community, the
shamelessness of the exploitage has exceeded all bounds.
But it is different in Freeland. With us no separate interest is
antagonistic to or not in perfect harmony with the common interest.
Producers, for example, who in Freeland conceive the idea of increasing
their gains by laying an impost upon imports, must be idiotic. For, to
compel the consumers to pay more for their manufactures would not help
them, since the influx of labour would at once bring down their gains again
to the average level. On the other hand, to make it more difficult for
other producers to produce would certainly injure themselves, for the
average level of gain--above which their own cannot permanently rise--would
be thereby lowered. And exactly the same holds good for all our different
interests. In consequence of the arrangement whereby every interest is open
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