Part 14 (1/2)

The reason you have not seen the cannons is that the exercise-ground lies some distance outside of the town--a necessary arrangement, as some of the guns used are monsters of 200 tons, whose thunder would ill accord with the idyllic peace of our Eden Vale. The young men are so familiar with this kind of toy, and many of them have, after profound ballistic studies, brought their skill to such perfection, that in my opinion they would show themselves as superior to their European antagonists in artillery as they would in rifle-practice. The same holds good of our hors.e.m.e.n. In brief, we have no army; but our men and youths handle all the weapons which an army needs infinitely better than the soldiers of any army whatever. And as, moreover, for the purposes of our great prize-contests there exists an organisation by means of which, out of the 2,500,000 men and youths whom Freeland now possesses capable of bearing arms, the best two or three hundred thousand are always available, we think it would he a very easy thing to ward off the greatest invading army--a danger, indeed, which we do not seriously antic.i.p.ate, as we doubt if there is a European people that would attack us. Rifles and cannons collected for use against us would very soon--without our doing anything--be directed against those who wished us ill.'

To this I a.s.sented. We then discussed several other topics connected with the education of the young; and I took occasion to ask how it was that the before-mentioned voluntary insurance against old age and death in Freeland was effected on behalf of only the insurer himself and his wife, and not of his children. According to all I had seen and heard, indifference towards the fate of the children could not be the reason. I therefore asked David to tell me why, whilst we in Europe saved chiefly for the children, here in Freeland nothing was laid by for them.

'The reason,' explained David, 'lies here; the children are already sufficiently provided for--as sufficiently as are those who are unable to work, and the widows. And this is necessarily involved in the principle of economic justice; for if the children were thrown upon the voluntary thrift of their parents--as they are with you--they would be made dependent upon conduct upon which they in truth could exercise no influence. If I accustom myself to requirements which my maintenance-allowance could not enable me to satisfy, it lies in my own power permanently to secure what I need by means of an insurance-premium. If I neglect to do this, it is my own fault, and I have no right to complain when I afterwards have to endure unpleasant privations. The case is the same with my wife, for she exercises the same influence over the management of the household as I do. My children, on the other hand, would suffer innocently if they were thrown upon our personal forethought for what they would need in the future. They must, therefore, be protected from any privation whatever, independently of anything that I may do. And that is the case. What we bequeath to our children, and bequeath it in all cases, is the immense treasure of the powers and wealth of the commonwealth delivered into their care and disposition. Just think.

The public capital of Freeland already amounts to as much as 6,000 for every working inhabitant; and last year this property yielded to everyone who was moderately industrious a net income of 600, and the ratio of income is, moreover, constantly growing year by year.'

'But,' I interposed, 'suppose a child is or becomes incapable of work?'

'If he is so from childhood, then the forty per cent. of the maintenance-unit, to which in such a case he has a right, is abundantly sufficient to meet all his requirements, for he neither can nor should have an independent household. If he _becomes_ incapable of work, after he has set up a household and perhaps has children of his own, it would be his own, not his parents' fault, if he had neglected to provide for this emergency--a.s.suming, of course, that he considered it necessary to make such provision.'

'Very well; I perfectly understand that. But how is it with those who are orphaned in infancy? Is no provision made for such? It cannot possibly accord with the sentiments of Freeland parents who live in luxury to hand over their children to public orphanages?'

'As to orphanages, it is the same as with hospitals,' answered David. 'If by orphanages you mean those barracks of civilised Europe or America, in which the waifs of poverty are without love, and after a mechanical pattern educated into the poor of the future, there are certainly none such among us. But if you mean the inst.i.tutions in which the Freeland orphans are brought up, I can a.s.sure you that the most sensitive parents can commit their children to them with the most perfect confidence. Of course, nothing can take the place of parental love; but otherwise the children are cared for and brought up exactly as if they were in their parents' house. The s.e.xes dwell apart by tens in houses which differ in nothing from other Freeland private houses; and they are under the care of pedagogically trained guardians, whose duty it is not to teach them, but to watch over them and attend to all their domestic wants. Food, clothing, play,--in short, the whole routine of life is in every respect similar to that of the rest of Freeland. They are taught in the public schools; and after they have pa.s.sed through the intermediate schools, the young people themselves decide whether they will go to a technical school or to a university. Until their majority they remain in the adoptive home selected for them by the authorities, and then, if they are not yet able to maintain themselves, they enjoy the general right of maintenance-allowance. What more could the most affectionate care of parents do for them? Not even the most intangible reproach can attach to training in such a public orphanage, for the children are not the children of poverty, but simply orphans.'

'But I imagine that orphans from better houses are adopted by relatives or acquaintances, particularly if the parents make full provision for their support,' I answered.

'In case there are such houses to which the children can go, the parents need make no provision for their maintenance, but merely a testamentary declaration, and the children will then be transferred to such houses without becoming any pecuniary burden to their adoptive parents. For in such a case the commonwealth pays to the household in question an equivalent to what would have been the cost of maintenance at the orphanage; and as, besides the ordinary expenses of living in every Freeland house, the fee for personal superintendence must be paid out of this equivalent, the allowance will not be much more than the child will cost its foster-parents. Thus no parental provision is needed to save the orphans from being dependent upon the liberality or goodwill of strangers.

But I should tell you that this interposition of friendly or even related families on behalf of orphans is exceptional. Unless circ.u.mstances are very much in favour of such an arrangement, Freeland parents prefer to leave their children to the care of the public orphanages. And this is very intelligible to all who have had opportunities of observing the touching tenderness of the guardian angels who rule in these houses, and of the intimate relations which quickly develop between the children and their attendants. Our Board of Maintenance, supported by our Board of Education, lays great weight upon this part of its duty. Only the most approved masters and mistresses--and the latter must also be experienced nurses--are appointed as guardians of the orphans; and to have been successfully occupied in this work for a number of years is a high distinction zealously striven after, particularly by the flower of our young women.'

'I can quite understand that,' I said. 'May I, in this connection, ask how you deal with the right of inheritance in general, and of inheritance of real property in particular? For here, in property in houses there seems to me to be a rock upon which your general principles as to property in land might be wrecked. It is one of the fundamental principles of your organisation that no one can have a right of property in land; but houses--if I have been rightly informed--are private property. How do you reconcile these things?'

'Everyone,' answered David, 'can dispose freely of his own property, at death as in life. The right of bequest is free and unqualified; but it must be noted that between husband and wife there is an absolute community of goods, whence it follows that only the survivor can definitively dispose of the common property. The right of property in the house, however, cannot be divided; and it is not allowable to build more than one dwelling-house upon a house-and-garden plot. Finally, the dwelling-house must be used by the owner, and cannot be let to another. If the house-plot be used for any other purpose than as the site of the owner's home, the breach of the law involves no punishment, and no force will be brought to bear upon the owner, but the owner at once loses his exclusive right as usufructuary of the plot. The plot becomes at once, _ipso facto_, ground to which no one has a special right, and to which everyone has an equal claim. For, according to our views, there is no right of property in land, and therefore not in the building-site of the house; and the right to appropriate such ground to one's own house is simply a right of usufruct for a special purpose. Just as, for example, the traveller by rail has a claim to the seat which he occupies, but only for the purpose of sitting there, and not for the purpose of unpacking his goods or of letting it to another, so I have the right to reserve for myself, merely for occupation, the spot of ground upon which I wish to fix my home; and no one has any more right to settle upon my building-site than he has to occupy my cus.h.i.+on in the railway, even if it should be possible to crowd two persons into the one seat. But neither am I at liberty to make room for a friend upon my seat; for my fellow-travellers are not likely to approve of the inconvenience thereby occasioned, and they may protest that the legs and elbows of the sharer of my seat crowd them too much, and that the air-s.p.a.ce calculated for one pair of lungs is by my arbitrary action shared by two pair. Just so my house-neighbours are not likely to approve of having my walls and roof too near to theirs, and will resent the arbitrary act by which I fill the air-s.p.a.ce of the town with more persons than the commonwealth allows.

'Now, in the exercise of my right of usufruct of a definite plot of ground, I have inseparably connected with this plot something over which I have not merely the right of usufruct, but also the right of property--namely, a house. Consequently my right of usufruct pa.s.ses over to the person to whom--whether gratuitously or not--I transfer my right of property in the house. Therefore I can sell, or bequeath, or give away my house without being prevented from doing so by the fact that I have no right of property in the building-site.

'But if, through any circ.u.mstances independent of my labour or of the building cost, the site on which my house stands acquires a value above that of other building-sites, this increased value belongs not to me, but to those who have given rise to it, and that is, without exception, the community. Let us suppose that building-ground in Eden Vale has acquired such an exceptional value, while there are still sites available throughout Freeland for milliards of persons: this local increase of value can be attributed merely to the fact that the excellent streets, public grounds, splendid monuments, theatres, libraries--in short, the public inst.i.tutions of Eden Vale--have made living in this town more desirable than in any other place in the country. But these public inst.i.tutions are not my work--they are the work of the community; and I have no right to put into my pocket the increased ground-value derived from the common enjoyment of these inst.i.tutions. All that I myself have expended upon the house and garden belongs to me, and on a change of owners.h.i.+p must be either made good to me or put to my credit; but the ground-price--and, indeed, the whole of it--belongs to the commonwealth; for building-sites which offer no advantages over any others are, in view of the still existing surplus of unoccupied ground, valueless. The commonwealth, therefore, has, strictly speaking, a right at any time to claim this value or an equivalent; and if the question were an important one, it would be advisable actually to exercise this right--that is, from time to time, or at least on a change of owners.h.i.+p, to a.s.sess the value of the sites of houses and gardens, and to appropriate the surplus of the sale-price to the public treasury.

'In reality, in view of our other arrangements, this question of the value of building-sites in Freeland is of no importance whatever. It must not be forgotten that our private houses are not lodging-houses, but merely family dwellings. As I have already said, every contract to let renders absolutely void the occupier's right of exclusive usufruct of the house-site. He who lets his house has, by the very act of doing so, made his plot masterless.

A secret letting is prevented by our general const.i.tution, and particularly by the central bank, which we will visit next. Thus the increased value which may be acquired by a building-plot cannot become a question of importance, and we are able to refrain altogether from interfering with free trade in houses. We buy, sell, bequeath, and give away our dwelling-houses, and no one troubles himself about it. I may remark, in pa.s.sing, that up to the present there has been no noticeable increase in the prices of sites. A man pays for his house what the house itself is held to be worth, the trifling differences being due to the greater or less taste exhibited in the structure, the greater or less beauty of the garden, &c., &c. But that the Eden Vale plots, for example, as such, have a special value cannot be a.s.serted, as there are still many thousands freely available to anyone, but which are not taken. The conveniences of life are pretty evenly distributed throughout Freeland, and no town can boast of attractions which are not balanced by attractions of other kinds in other towns. Eden Vale, for instance, possesses the most splendid buildings, and is distinguished by incomparable natural beauty; hence it is less adapted to industries, and has no agricultural colony in its neighbourhood. Dana City, on the other hand, which is specially suitable for industry, and is in the midst of agricultural land, is unattractive to many on account of its ceaseless and noisy business activity. And, in general, we Freelanders are not fond of large towns; we love to have woods and meadows as near us as possible, and those who are able to live in the country do it in preference to living in towns. Of course, there is not likely to be any lack of rural building-sites; hence there can never be any ground-price proper among us. If, however, building-ground should acquire a price, we are in any case protected by our way and manner of building and living from such prices as would give rise to any material derangement of our property relations. Whether a family residence has a higher or a lower value is, therefore, after all, only a question of subordinate interest, and it is not worth the trouble, in order to equalise the differences in value which arise, to bring into play an apparatus which, under the circ.u.mstances, might lead to chicanery.'

I agreed with him. Wis.h.i.+ng, however, to understand this important matter in all its relations, I supposed a case in which the opportunity of gaining an extraordinarily high profit was connected with a certain definite locality, and asked what would happen then. 'Let us imagine that in a small valley surrounded by uninhabitable rocks or marshes, a mine of incalculable value is discovered, the exploitation of which would give twice or thrice as much profit as the average profit in Freeland at that time. Naturally everyone will labour at this mine until the influx of workers produces an equilibrium in the profits. If there were sufficient s.p.a.ce round the mine for dwelling-houses, nothing would stand in the way of this equalisation of profits; but as, in the supposed case, the s.p.a.ce is limited, only the first comers will be able to work at the mine; all later comers--unless they camp out--will be as effectually excluded from competing as if an insuperable barrier had been raised round the mine. The fortunate usufructuaries of the few building-sites will, therefore, be in the pleasant situation of permanently pocketing twice or thrice the average proceeds of labour--let us say, for example, 1,600 a year, whilst 600 is the average.

Consequently their early occupation of the ground will be worth 1,000 a year to them, exactly the same as to a London house-owner the lucky circ.u.mstance that his ancestors set up their huts on that particular spot on the banks of the Thames is worth his 1,000 or more a year. That this is the rule and is the princ.i.p.al source of wealth, not only in London, but everywhere outside of Freeland, whilst in this country it would require an extraordinary concurrence of circ.u.mstances to produce similar phenomena, makes no difference in the fact itself that it can occur everywhere, and that, if you know of no means to prevent it, the ground-rent you have fortunately got rid of might revive among you. Nay, in this--I will admit extreme--case the Freeland inst.i.tutions would prove themselves a hindrance to the national exploitation of such a highly profitable opportunity for labour, the most intense utilisation of which would evidently be to the general interest. If such a case occurred in Europe or America, the fortunate owners would surround the mines with large lodging-barracks, from which certainly they would without any trouble derive enormous profits, but which at the same time would make it possible to extract the rich treasures from the earth. Your Freeland house-right, on the contrary, would in such a case prevent the exploitation of the treasure of the earth, merely in order that an exceptional increase of the wealth of individuals should be avoided. And yet it is characteristic of your inst.i.tutions as a whole to render labour more productive than is possible under an exploiting system of industry. A correct principle, however, must be correct under all circ.u.mstances.'

'That is also my view,' answered David; 'but in such cases even your Western law affords a means of help--namely, expropriation. Let it be a.s.sumed that we could by no means whatever make the neighbourhood of the mine accommodate a greater number of dwelling-houses; then, in the public interest, we would redeem the houses already existing at the mine, and in their place we would erect large lodging-houses after the pattern of our hotels. If that would not suffice to accommodate as many workers as were required in order to bring the profit of labour at the mine into equilibrium with the average profit of the country, we would proceed to the last resource and expropriate the mine for the benefit of the commonwealth.

By no means would even such a very improbable contingency present any serious difficulties to the carrying out of our principles. For you will certainly admit that the undertaking of a really monopolist production by the commonwealth is not contrary to our principles. If you would deny it, you must go farther, and a.s.sert that in working the railways, the telegraphs, the post, nay, even in a.s.suming the ultimate control of the community, there is to be found a violation of the principle of individual freedom.'

'You are only too right,' I answered, 'and I cannot defend myself from the charge of harbouring a doubt which would have been seen to be superfluous if I had only been unreservedly willing to admit that the people of Freeland, whatever might happen, would probably make the wisest and not the stupidest provision against such a contingency as I imagined. The ground of that inconceivable stubbornness with which we adherents of the old are apt to resist every new idea is, that we imagine difficulties, which exist only in our fancy, and most unnecessarily suppose that there is no other way of surmounting those imaginary difficulties than the stupidest imaginable. We then triumphantly believe we have reduced the new ideas _ad absurdum_; whilst we should have done better to have been ashamed of our own absurdities.'

With this fierce self-accusation I will close my letter to-day; but not without telling you in confidence that in making it I was thinking less of myself than of--others.

CHAPTER XVIII

Eden Vale: Aug. 6, ----

Yesterday, accompanied by the two English agents, we inspected the Freeland Central Bank. The comprehensive and--as a necessary consequence-- exceedingly simple clearing system excited the highest admiration of the two experienced gentlemen. The remarkably small amount of cash required to adjust the accounts of the whole of the gigantic business transactions drew from Lord E---- the inquiry why Freeland retained gold as a measure of value. He thought that, as the Freelanders already made the value of a unit of labour-time the standard of calculation in their most important affairs, the simplest plan would be to universalise this method--that is, to declare the labour-hour to be the measure of value, the money-unit.

This would, he thought, far better harmonise with the general social order of Freeland, in which labour is the source and basis of all value.

The director of the bank (Mr. Clark) replied: 'That is a view which has been repeatedly expressed by strangers; but it is based simply upon confounding the _measure of value_ with the _source of income_. For labour alone is not the source of value, though most Socialists adopt this error of the so-called cla.s.sical economists as the ground of their demands. If all value were derived from labour and from labour alone, then even among you in the old exploiting world everything would be in favour of the workers, for even there the workers have control over their working power.