Book: Freeland

T >> Theodor Hertzka >> Freeland




'He made a curious impression upon us, this director. We said nothing, but
resolved to sound these Freelanders further. We went into the great
warehouses to get clothes, linen, &c., on credit. It succeeded admirably.
The salesmen--they were clerks, as we found--asked for a draft on the
central bank; and when we replied that we had no account there as yet, they
said it did not matter--it would be sufficient if we gave a written
statement of the amount of our purchases, and the bank, when we had an
account there, would honour it. It was the same everywhere. Mackay or Gould
cannot get credit in New York more readily than we did in Freeland.

'After a few days, we began to take steps towards establishing our
association. As I have said, we had at first no fear of exciting distrust.
But it was inconvenient that the Freeland constitution insisted upon
publicity in connection with every act, date, and circumstance connected
with business. We knew that we had nothing to fear from police or courts of
justice; but what should we do if the Freeland public were to acquire a
taste for the proposed association and wish to join it? Naturally we could
not admit outsiders as partners, but must keep the thing to ourselves,
otherwise our plan would be spoilt. We tried to find out if there were any
means of limiting the number of participators in our scheme. We minutely
questioned well-informed Freelanders upon the subject. We complained of the
abominable injustice of being compelled to share with everybody the benefit
of the splendid "idea" which we had conceived, to reveal our business
secrets, and so forth. But it was all of no use. The Freelanders remained
callous upon this point. They told us that no one would force us to reveal
our secrets if we were willing to work them out with our own resources; but
if we needed Freeland land and Freeland capital, then of course all
Freeland must know what we wanted to do. "And if our business can employ
only a small number of workers--if, for example, the goods that we wish to
make, though they yield a great profit, yet have a very limited
market--must we also in such a case let everybody come in?" "In such a
case," was the answer, "Freeland workers will not be so stupid as to force
themselves upon you in great numbers." "Good!" cried I, with dissembled
anger; "but if more should come in than are needed?" The people had an
answer even to this; for they said that those workers that were not needed
would withdraw, or, if they remained, they would have to work fewer hours,
or work in turns, or do something of that sort; opportunity of making
profitable use of spare time was never lacking in Freeland.

'What was to be done? We should be obliged to give our plans such a
character as to prevent the Freeland workers from having any wish to share
in them. But this must not be done too clumsily, as the people would after
all smell a rat, or perhaps join us out of pure philanthropy, in order to
save us from the consequences of our folly. We ultimately decided to set up
a needle-factory. Such a factory would be obviously--in the then condition
of trade--unprofitable, but the scheme was not so absolutely romantic as to
bring the inquisitive about our necks. We therefore organised ourselves,
and had the satisfaction of having no partners except a couple of
simpletons who, for some reason or other, fancied that needle-making was a
good business; and it was not very difficult to pet rid of these two. The
next thing was to fix the amount of capital to be required for the
business--that is, the amount of credit we should ask for at the central
bank. We should very naturally have preferred to ask at once for a million
pounds sterling; but that we could not do, as we should have to state what
we needed the money for, and a needle-factory for forty-eight workers could
not possibly have swallowed up so much without bringing upon us a whole
legion of investigating critics in the form of working partners. So we
limited our demand to 130,000£, and even this amount excited some surprise;
but we explained our demand by asserting that the new machines which we
intended to use were very dear.

'But now came the main anxiety. How were we to get this 130,000£, or the
greater part of it, into our pockets? Our people had elected me director of
the first "Eden Vale Needle-factory Association," and, as such, I went the
next day into the bank to open our account there and to obtain all the
necessary information. The cashier assured me that all payments authorised
by me should be at once made; but when I asked for a "small advance" of a
few thousand pounds, he asked in astonishment what was to be done with it.
"We must pay our small debts." "Unnecessary," was his answer; "all debts
are discharged here through the bank." "Yes, but what are my people and I
to live upon in the mean time, until our factory begins to work?" I asked
with some heat. "Upon your work in other undertakings, or upon your
savings, if you have any. Besides, you cannot fail to get credit; but we,
the central bank, give merely productive credit--we cannot advance to you
what you consume."

'There we were with nothing but our credit for 130,000£, and we began to
perceive that it was not so easy to carry off the money. Certainly we could
build and give orders for what we pleased. But what good would it do us to
spend money upon useless things?

'The worst was that we should have to begin to work in earnest if we would
not after all excite a general distrust; so we joined different
undertakings. But we would not admit that we were beaten, and after mature
reflection I hit upon the following as the only possible method of carrying
out the swindle we had planned. The central bank was the channel through
which all purchases and sales were made, but, as I soon detected, did not
interfere in the least with the buyer or the person who ordered goods in
the choice of such goods as he might think suitable. We had, therefore, the
right to order the machinery for our needle-factory of any manufacturers we
pleased in Europe or America, and the central bank would pay for it. We,
therefore, merely had to act in conjunction with some European or American
firm of swindlers, and share the profits with them, in order to carry off a
rich booty.

'At the same time, it occurred to me that it would be infinitely stupid to
make use of such a method. It was quite plain that very little was to be
gained in that way; but, even if it had been possible for each of us to
embezzle a fortune, I had lost all desire to leave Freeland. The chances
were that I should be a loser by leaving. I was a novice at honest work,
and any special exertion was not then to my taste. Yet I had earned as much
as 12s. a day, and that is 180£ a year, with which one can live as well
here as with twice as much in America or England. Even if I continued to
work in the same way, merely enough to keep off _ennui_, my income would
very soon increase. In the worst case, I could live upon my earnings here
as well as 400£ or 500£ would enable me to live elsewhere; and there was
not the slightest prospect of being able to steal so much. The result was
that I declined to go away. Firstly, because I was very happy here;
intercourse with decent men was becoming more and more pleasant and
attractive to the scoundrel, which I then was; and then--it struck me as
rather comical--I began to get ashamed of my roguery. Even scoundrels have
their honour. In the other parts of the world, where _everyone_ fleeces his
neighbour if he can, I did not think myself worse than the so-called honest
people: the only difference was that I did not adhere so closely to the
law. There, all are engaged in hunting down their dear neighbours; that I
allowed myself to hunt without my chart did not trouble my conscience much,
especially as I only had the alternative of hunting or being hunted. But
here in Freeland no one hunted for his neighbour's goods; here every rogue
must confess himself to be worse than all the rest, and indeed a rascal
without necessity, out of pure delight in rascality. If one only had the
spur of danger which in the outer world clothed this hunting with so much
poetry! But here there was not a trace of it! The Freelanders would not
even have pursued us if we had bolted with our embezzled booty; we might
have run off as unmolested as so many mangy dogs. No; here I neither would
nor could be a rascal. I called my companions together to tell them that I
resigned my position as director, withdrew altogether from the company, and
meant to devote myself here to honest work. There was not one who did not
agree with me. Some of them were not quite reconciled to work, but they all
meant to remain. One specially persistent fellow asked whether, as we were
once more together by ourselves, and might not be so again, it would not be
a smart trick if we were to embezzle a few thousand pounds before we became
honest folks; but it did not even need a reference to the individual
responsibility of the members of the association for the debts that the
association contracted in order to dispose of the proposition of this last
adherent to our former rascality. Not only would they all stay here, but
they would become honest--these hardened rogues, who a few weeks before
were wont to use the words _honest_ and _stupid_ as synonyms. So it came to
pass that the fine plan, in devising which the "smartest fellows" of New
England had exhausted their invention, was silently dropped; and, if I am
well informed, not one of the forty-six of us has ever uttered a
complaint.'

The second proposal brought before the united representatives of
Freeland--the repayment of the larger or smaller contributions which most
of the members had up to then paid on admission into the Society--involved
the disbursement of not less than 43,000,000£. The members had always been
told that their contributions were not repayable, but were to be a
sacrifice towards the attainment of the objects of the Society.
Nevertheless, the government of Freeland considered that now, when the new
commonwealth no longer needed such a sacrifice, it was only just to
dispense with it, both prospectively and retrospectively. The generous
benefactors had never based any claim to special recognition or higher
honour upon the assistance they had so richly afforded to the poorer
members; in fact, most of them had even refused to be recognised as
benefactors. Neither was this assistance in any way inconsistent with the
principles upon which the new community was founded; on the contrary, it
was quite in harmony with those principles that the assistance afforded by
the wealthy to the helpless should be regarded as based upon sound rational
self-interest. But when the time had come when, as a consequence of this so
generously practised rational egoism, the commonwealth was strong enough to
dispense with extraneous aids, and to repay what had been already given, it
seemed to us just that this should be done.

This proposal was unanimously accepted without debate, and immediately
carried into execution. All the contributors received back their
contributions--that is, the amounts were placed to their credit in the
books of the central bank, and they could dispose of them as they pleased.

With this, the second epoch of the history of Freeland may be regarded as
closed. The founding of the commonwealth, which occupied the first epoch,
was effected entirely by the voluntary sacrifices of the individual
members. In the second period, this aid, though no longer absolutely
necessary, was a useful and effective means of promoting the rapid growth
of the commonwealth. Henceforth, grown to be a giant, this free
commonwealth rejected all aid of whatever kind that did not spring out of
its regular resources; and, recompensing past aid a thousand-fold, it was
now the great institution upon whose ever-inexhaustible means the want and
misery of every part of the world might with certainty reckon.




_BOOK III_




CHAPTER XIII


Twenty years have passed away--twenty-five years since the arrival of our
pioneers at the Kenia. The principles by which Freeland has been governed
have remained the same, and their results have not changed, except that the
intellectual and material culture, and the number and wealth of the
inhabitants have grown in a continually increasing ratio. The immigration,
by means of fifty-four of the largest ocean steamers of a total of 495,000
tons register, had reached in the twenty-fifth year the figure of 1,152,000
heads. In order to convey into the heart of the continent as quickly as
possible this influx to the African coast from all parts of the world, the
Freeland system of railways has been either carried to or connected with
other lines that reach the ocean at four different points. One line is that
which was constructed in the previous epoch between Eden Vale and Mombasa.
Four years later, after the pacification of the Galla tribes, the line to
the Witu coast through the Dana valley was constructed. Nine years after
that, a line--like all the other principal lines in Freeland,
double-railed--along the Nile valley from the Victoria Nyanza and the
Albert Nyanza, through the equatorial provinces of Egypt, Dongola, the
Soudan, and Nubia, was connected with the Egyptian railway system, and thus
brought Freeland into railway communication with the Mediterranean.
Finally, in the twenty-fourth year, the finishing touch was given to the
great Equatorial Trunk Railway, which, starting from Uganda on the Victoria
Nyanza, and crossing the Nile where it leaves the Albert Nyanza, reaches
the Atlantic Ocean through the valleys of the Aruwhimi and the Congo. Thus
we possess two direct railway communications with the Indian Ocean, and one
each with the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Naturally, the
Mombasa line was largely superseded by the much shorter Dana line; our
passenger trains run the 360 miles of the latter in nine hours, while the
Mombasa line, despite its shortening by the Athi branch line, cannot be
traversed in less than double that time. The distance by rail between Eden
Vale and Alexandria is 4,000 miles, the working of which is in our hands
from Assuan southward. On account of the slower rate of the trains on the
Egyptian portion, the journey consumes six days and a half; nevertheless,
this is the most frequented route, because it shortens the total journey by
nearly two weeks for all the immigrants who come by the Mediterranean
Sea--that is, for all Europeans and most of the Americans. The Grand
Equatorial Trunk Line--which, by agreement with the Congo State, was
constructed almost entirely at our cost and is worked entirely by us--has a
length of above 3,000 miles, and travellers by it from the mouth of the
Congo can reach Eden Vale in a little less than four days.

Eden Vale, and the Kenia district generally, have long since ceased to
receive the whole influx of immigrants. The densest Freeland population is
still to be found on the highlands between the Victoria Nyanza and the
Indian Ocean, and the seat of the supreme government is now, as formerly,
in Eden Vale; but Freeland has largely extended its boundaries on all
sides, particularly on the west. Freeland settlers have spread over the
whole of Masailand, Kavirondo, and Uganda, and all round the shores of the
Victoria Nyanza, the Mutanzige, and the Albert Nyanza, wherever healthy
elevated sites and fruitful soil were to be found. The provisional limits
of the territory over which we have spread are formed on the south-east by
the pleasant and fertile hill-districts of Teita; on the north by the
elevated tracts between the lakes Baringo and Victoria Nyanza and the Galla
countries; on the west by the extreme spurs of the Mountains of the Moon,
which begin at the Albert lake; and on the south by the hilly districts
stretching to the lake Tanganika. This makes an area of about 580,000
square miles. This area is not, however, everywhere covered with a compact
Freeland population; but in many places our colonists are scattered among
the natives, whom they are everywhere raising to a higher and freer
civilisation. The total population of the territory at this time under
Freeland influence amounts to 42,000,000 souls, of whom 26,000,000 are
whites and 10,000,000 black or brown natives. Of the whites 12,500,000
dwell in the original settlement on the Kenia and the Aberdare range;
1,500,000 are scattered about over the rest of Masailand, on the north
declivities of the Kilimanjaro and in Teita; the hills to the west and
north of Lake Baringo have a white population of 2,000,000; round the
Victoria Nyanza have settled 8,500,000; among the hills between that lake
and Lakes Mutanzige and Albert 1,500,000; on the Mountains of the Moon,
west of Lake Albert Nyanza, 3,000,000; and finally, to the south, between
these two lakes and Lake Tanganika, are scattered 2,000,000.

The products of Freeland industry comprehend almost all the articles
required by civilised men; but mechanical industry continues to be the
chief branch of production. This production is principally to meet the home
demand, though the productive capacity of Freeland has for years materially
surpassed that of all the machine-factories in the rest of the world. But
Freeland has employment for more machinery than the whole of the rest of
the world put together, for the work of its machines takes the place of
that of the slaves or she wage-labourers of other countries; and as our
26,000,000 whites--not to reckon the civilised negroes--are all
'employers,' we need very many steel and iron servants to satisfy our
needs, which increase step by step with the increase of our skill.
Therefore comparatively few of our machines--except certain specialties--go
over our frontiers. On the contrary, agriculture is pursued more largely
for export than for home consumption; indeed, it can with truth be asserted
that the whole of the Freeland corn-produce is available for export, since
the surplus of the corn-production of the negroes which reaches our markets
is on an average quite sufficient to cover our home demand. In the
twenty-fourth year there were 22,000,000 acres of land under the plough,
which in the two harvests produced 2,066,000,000 cwt. of grain and other
field-produce, worth in round figures 600,000,000£. To this quantity of
agricultural produce must be added other export goods worth 550,000,000£;
so that the total export was worth 1,150,000,000£. On the other hand, the
chief item of import goods was that of 'books and other printed matter';
and next to this followed works of art and objects of luxury. Of the
articles which in other countries make up the chief mass of outside
commerce, the Freeland list of imports shows only cotton goods, cotton
being grown at home scarcely at all. This item of import reached the value
of 57,000,000£. The import of books--newspapers included--reached in the
previous year 138,000,000£, considerably more than all the rest of the
world had in that same year paid for books. It must not be inferred that
the demand for books in Freeland is entirely, or even mainly, covered by
the import from without. The Freeland readers during the same year paid
more than twice as much to their home publishers as to the foreign ones. In
fact, at the date of our writing this, the Freelanders read more than three
times as much as the whole of the reading public outside of Freeland.

The above figures will show the degree of wealth to which Freeland has
attained. In fact, the total value of the productions of the 7,500,000
producers during the last year was nearly seven milliard pounds sterling
(7,000,000,000£.) Deducting from that amount two milliards and a-half to
cover the tax for the purposes of the commonwealth, there remained four
milliard and a-half as profit to be shared among the producers, giving an
average of 600£ to each worker. And to produce this we worked only five
hours a day on the average, or 1,500 hours in the year; so that the average
net value of an hour's labour was 8s.--little less than the average weekly
wage of the common labourer in many parts of Europe.

Almost all articles of ordinary consumption are very much cheaper in
Freeland than in any other part of the civilised world. The average price
of a cwt. of wheat is 6s; a pound of beef about 2-1/2d., a hectolitre
(twenty-two gallons) of beer or light wine 10s., a complete suit of good
woollen clothing 20s. or 80s., a horse of splendid Arab stock 15£, a good
milch cow 2£, &c. A few articles of luxury imported from abroad are
dear--_e.g._ certain wines, and those goods which must be produced by
hand-labour--of which, however, there are very few. The latter were all
imported from abroad, as it would never occur to a Freelander to compete
with foreigners in hand-labour. For though the harmoniously developed,
vigorous, and intelligent workers of our country surpass two- or three-fold
the debilitated servants of Western nations in the strength and training of
their muscles, they cannot compete with hand-labour that is fifty- or a
hundred-fold cheaper than their own. Their superiority begins when they can
oppose their slaves of steel to the foreign ones of flesh and bone; with
these slaves of steel they can work cheaper than those of flesh and bone,
for the slaves which are set in motion by steam, electricity, and water are
more easily satisfied than even the wage-labourers of 'free' Europe. These
latter need potatoes to fill their stomach, and a few rags to cover their
nakedness; whilst coal or a stream of water stills the hunger of the
former, and a little grease suffices to keep their joints supple.

This superiority of Freeland in machinery, and that of foreign countries in
hand labour, merely confirms an old maxim of experience, which is none the
less true that it still escapes the notice of the so-called 'civilised
nations.' That only the relatively rich nations--that is, those whose
masses are relatively in the best condition--very largely employ machinery
in production, could not possibly long escape the most obtuse-minded; but
this undeniable phenomenon is wrongly explained. It is held that the
English or the American people live in a way more worthy of human nature
than, for example, the Chinese or the Russians, because they are richer;
and that for the same reason--namely, because the requisite capital is more
abundant--the English and Americans use machinery while the Chinese and
Russians employ merely human muscles. This leaves unexplained the principal
question, whence comes this difference in wealth? and also directly
contradicts the facts that the Chinese and the Russians make no use of the
capital so liberally and cheaply offered to them, and that machine-labour
is unprofitable in their hands as long as their wage-earners are satisfied
with a handful of rice or with half-rotten potatoes and a drop of spirits.
But it is a part of the _credo_ of the orthodox political economy, and is
therefore accepted without examination. Yet he who does not use his eyes
merely to shut them to facts, or his mind merely to harbour obstinately the
prejudices which he has once acquired, must sooner or later see that the
wealth of the nations is nothing else than their possession of the means of
production; that this wealth is great or small in proportion as the means
of production are many and great, or few and small; and that many or few
means of production are needed according as there is a great or a small use
of those things which are created by these means of production--therefore
solely in proportion to the large or small consumption. Where little is
used little can be produced, and there will therefore be few instruments of
production, and the people must remain poor.

Neither can the export trade make any alteration; for the things which are
exported must be exchanged for other things, whether food, or instruments
of labour, or money, or some other commodity, and for that which is
imported there must be some use; which, however, is impossible if there is
no consumption, for in such a case the imported articles will find as
little sale as the things produced at home. Certainly those commodities
which are produced by a people who use neither their own productions nor
those of other people, may be lent to other nations. But this again depends
upon whether foreigners have a use for such a surplus above what is
required at home; and as this is not generally the case, it remains, once
for all, that any nation can produce only so much as it has a use for, and
the measure of its wealth is therefore the extent of its requirements.

Naturally this applies to only those nations whose civilisation has reached
such a stage that the employment of complex instruments of labour is
prevented, not by their ignorance, but simply by their social political
helplessness. To such nations, however, applies in full the truth that they
are poor simply because they _cannot_ eat enough to satisfy themselves; and
that the increase of their wealth is conditioned by nothing else than the
degree of energy with which the working classes struggle against their
misery. The English and the Americans _will_ eat meat, and therefore do not
allow their wages to sink below the level at which the purchase of meat is
possible; this is the only reason why England and America employ more
machinery than China and Russia, where the people are contented with _rice_
or _potatoes_. But we in Freeland have brought it to pass that our working
classes are secure of obtaining the whole profit of their labour, however
great that profit may be; what, therefore, could be more natural than that
we should employ as much machinery as our mechanicians can invent?

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