Freeland

T >> Theodor Hertzka >> Freeland

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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
to everyone, and no one has either the right or the might to reserve any
advantage to himself alone, we are fortunately able to entrust the decision
of all questions affecting material interest to those who are the most
directly interested--therefore, to those who possess the most special
knowledge. Not merely do the legislature and the executive thereby acquire
in the highest degree a specialist character, but there disappears from
public life that passionate prepossession which elsewhere is the
characteristic note of party politics. As a well-understood public interest
and sound reason decide in all matters, we have no occasion to become
heated. At our elections our aim is not 'to get in one of our party,' but
the only thing about which opinions may differ is which of the candidates
happens to be the most experienced, the most apt for the post. And as, in
consequence of the organisation of our whole body of labour, the
capabilities of each one among us must in time be discovered, mistakes in
this determining point in our public life are scarcely possible.

As the constituent assembly retained the twelvefold division of the
governing authority, there were henceforth in Freeland, besides the twelve
different executive boards--which in their sphere of action were to some
extent analogous to the ministries of Western nations--twelve different
consultative, determining, and supervising assemblies, elected by the whole
people, in place of the single parliament of the Western nations. These
twelve assemblies were elected by the whole of the electors, each elector
having the right to give an equal vote in all the elections; but the
distribution of the constituencies was different, and the election for each
of the twelve representative bodies took place separately. Some of these
elections--those, namely, for the affairs of the chief executive and
finance, for maintenance, for education, for art and science, for
sanitation and justice--took place according to residence; the elections in
the other cases according to calling. For the latter purpose, the whole of
the inhabitants of Freeland were divided, according to their callings, into
larger or smaller constituencies, each of which elected one or more
deputies in proportion to its numbers. Of those callings which had but few
followers, several of the more nearly allied were united into one
constituency. Membership of the respective constituencies depended upon the
will of the elector--that is, every elector could get his or her name
entered in the list of any calling with which he or she preferred to vote,
and thus exercise the right of voting for the representative body elected
by the members of that calling.

The highest officers in the twelve branches of the executive were appointed
by the twelve representative bodies; the appointment of the other officers
was the business of the chiefs of the executive. In all the more important
matters all these had to consult together beforehand upon the measures that
were to be laid before the representative bodies.

The discussions of the different representative bodies, as a rule, took
place apart, and generally in sessions held at different periods. Several
of the bodies sat permanently, others met merely for a few days once a
year. The numerical strength of these specialist parliaments was different:
the smallest--that for statistics--consisted of no more than thirty
members, the four largest of a hundred and twenty members each. When
matters which interested equally several different representative bodies
had to be discussed, the bodies thus interested sat together. Disputes as
to the competency of the different bodies were impossible, as the mere wish
expressed by any representative body to take part in the debates of another
sufficed to make the subject under consideration a common one.

The natural result of this organisation was that every inhabitant of
Freeland confined his attention to those public affairs which he
understood, or thought he understood. In each branch of the administration
he gave his vote to that candidate who in his opinion was the best
qualified for a seat in that branch of the administration. And this, again,
had as a consequence a fact to Western ideas altogether incredible--namely,
that every branch of the public administration was in the hands of the most
expert specialists, and the best qualified men in all Freeland. Very soon
there was developed a highly remarkable kind of political honour,
altogether different from anything known in Western nations. Among the
latter, it is held to be a point of honour to stick to one's party
unconditionally through thick and thin, to support it by vote and influence
whether one understands the particular matter in question or not. The
political honour of a citizen of Freeland demands of him yet more
positively that he devote his attention and his energy to public affairs;
but public opinion condemns him severely if--from whatever motive--he
concerns himself with matters which he plainly does not understand. Thus it
is strictly required that the elector should have some professional
knowledge of that branch of the administration into which he throws the
weight of his vote. The elections, therefore, are in very good hands;
attempts to influence the electors by fallacious representations or by
promises would, even if they were to be made, prove resultless. There is no
elector who would vote in the elections of the whole twelve representative
bodies. The women, in particular, with very few exceptions, refrain from
voting in the elections in which the separate callings are specially
concerned; on the other hand, they take a lively interest in the elections
in which the electors vote according to residence; and in the elections for
the board of education their votes turn the scale. Their passive franchise
also comes into play, and in the representative bodies that have charge of
maintenance, of art and science, of sanitation and justice, women
frequently sit; and in that which has charge of education there are always
several women. They never take part in the executive. By way of completing
this description, it may be mentioned that the elected deputies are paid
for their work at the rate of an equivalent of eight labour-hours for each
day that they sit.

After the constituent assembly had passed the constitution it dissolved
itself, and the election of the twelve representative bodies was at once
proceeded with. Punctually on the 20th of October these bodies met, and the
committee handed its authority over into their hands. The members of the
committee were all re-elected as heads of the different branches of the
administration, except four who declined to take office afresh. The
government of Freeland was now definitively constituted.

In the meantime, the three expeditions sent to discover the best route for
a railway to the coast had returned. The expedition which had been
surveying the shortest route--that through the Dana valley to the Witu
coast--had met with no exceptional difficulty as to the land, and the
expectation that this, by far the shortest, would prove to be also
technically preferable had been verified. Nor in any other respect had any
serious difficulty been encountered within about 125 miles from Kenia. But
from thence to the coast the Galla tribes offered to the expedition such a
stubborn and vicious opposition that the hostilities had not ceased at the
end of two months, and several conflicts had taken place, in which the
Galla tribes had always been severely punished; but this did not prevent
the expedition from having to carry out its thoroughly peaceful mission in
perpetual readiness to fight. A railway through that region would have had
to be preceded by a formal campaign for the pacification or expulsion of
the Galla tribes, and could then have been constructed only in the midst of
a permanent preparedness for war. This route had therefore, provisionally
at least, to be rejected.

There were not less weighty reasons against the route over Ukumbani along
the Athi river. Along the river-valley the road could have been made
without special technical difficulty, but, particularly on the second half
of it, the route lay through unhealthy swamps and jungles, which could not
immediately be brought under cultivation. And if a route were chosen which
would leave the valley proper and pass among the adjoining hills, the
technical conditions would not be more favourable, nor the estimated cost
less, than a line along the third route following the old road to Mombasa.
This third route was therefore unanimously fixed upon. It had in its favour
the important circumstance that it passed through friendly districts, which
at no very distant future would most probably be settled by Freeland
colonists. That it was the longest and the most expensive of the three
could not, therefore, prevent us from giving it the preference, unless the
difference in cost proved to be too great--which, as the event showed, was
not the case.

The work was begun forthwith. Powerful and novel machines of all kinds
were, in the meantime, constructed in great number by our Freeland
machine-factories, and, furnished with these, 5,000 Freeland and 8,000
negro workers began the work at eighteen different points, not including
the eleven longer and the thirty-two shorter tunnels--with a total length
of twenty-four miles--each of which formed a separate part of tin work. The
rails, of the best Bessemer metal, were partly made by ourselves, and were
partly--those for the distance between Mombasa and Taveta--brought from
Europe. Two years after the turning of the first sod the part between Eden
Vale and Ngongo was ready for traffic; three months later the part between
Mombasa and Taveta; and nine months later still the middle portion between
Ngongo and Taveta. Thus exactly five years after our pioneers had first set
foot in Freeland, the first locomotive, which the day before had seen the
waves of the Indian Ocean breaking upon the shore at Mombasa, greeted the
glaciers of the Kenia with its shrill whistle.

That this extensive work could be completed in so short a time and with so
little expenditure of labour we owed to our machinery; which also enabled
us to keep the cost within comparatively moderate limits, despite the fact
that we had necessarily to pay our workers at a rate at which no railway
constructors were ever paid before. Our Freeland railway constructors, who
had at once formed themselves into a number of associations, earned in the
first year 22s. a day each, and in the third year 28s. a day, though they
worked only seven hours a day. Notwithstanding this, the whole 672 miles,
most of it tolerably difficult work through hills, cost only 9,500,000L, or
a little over 14,000L per mile. Our 13,000 workers did more with their
magnificent labour-sparing machines than 100,000 ordinary workers could
have done with pick and barrow; and the employment of this colossal
'capital'--valued at 4,000,000L--was profitable because labour was paid at
so high a rate.

As a matter of course, a telegraph was laid between Eden Vale and Mombasa
together with this double-railed railway.

Whilst these works were in progress and the incessantly growing population
of Freeland was brought into closer connection with the old home, important
changes had been brought about in our relations with our native African
neighbours--changes in part pacific, in part warlike, and which exercised a
not less important influence upon the course of development of our
commonwealth.

In the first place, the Masai of Lykipia and the lake districts between
Naivasha and Baringo, had, at their own initiative and at their own cost,
though under the direction of some of our engineers, constructed a good
waggon-road, 230 miles long, through their whole district from the Naivasha
lake northwards, and then eastwards through Lykipia as far as Eden Vale.
They declared that their honour and their pride were offended by having to
pass through a foreign district when they wished to visit us, the only
practicable road having been one through the country of the Wa-Kikuyu. So
strong was their desire to be in immediate touch with our district that,
when a part of the hired Wa-Taveta road-makers, on account of some
misunderstanding, left them in the lurch, the Masai themselves took their
places, and, taking turns to the number of 3,000, they carried on the work
with an energy which no one could have supposed to be possible in a people
who not long before had been so averse to labour. We decided to reward this
proof of strong attachment and of great capacity by an equally striking act
of recognition. When the Masai road was finished, and a deputation of the
elders and leaders of all the tribes made a jubilant and triumphant entry
by it into Eden Vale, we received them with great honour, and gave them
presents for the whole Masai people which were worth about as much as the
new road had cost. In addition, the 6,500 Werndl rifles, which had hitherto
been only lent to the Masai, and 2,000 horses were given them as their own
property in token of our friendship and respect. It goes without saying
that the weapons were received by this still martial people with great
enthusiasm. And the horses were almost more valuable still in their eyes;
for riding was the one among all our arts which the Masai most admired, and
among all our possessions which they esteemed most highly were our horses.
But we had hitherto been very frugal with our horses, and we had given away
only a few to individual natives in Masailand and Taveta in recognition of
special services. The number of horses in Freeland had, partly by breeding,
but mainly by continuous systematic importation, increased during the first
two years to 26,000; but we expected at first to make more use of horses
than was afterwards found to be necessary, and that was the reason why this
noble animal, which we had been the first to establish in Equatorial
Africa, was still a much-admired rarity everywhere outside of Freeland,
particularly in Masailand, where the horse was regarded as the ideal of
martial valour.

In the second place, it should be mentioned that the civilisation of the
Masai, as well as of the other tribes in alliance with us, made rapid
progress. The _el-moran_, when once they had become accustomed to light
work, and had given up their inactive camp-life, allowed themselves to be
induced by us to enter early upon the married state. Our women succeeded in
uprooting the Ditto abuse. Several of the ladies, with Mrs. Ney at their
head, undertook a tour through Masailand, and offered to every Masai girl
who made a solemn promise of chastity until marriage, admission into a
Freeland family for a year, and instruction in our manners, customs, and
various forms of skilled labour. So great was the number who accepted this
offer, that they could not all be received into Freeland at once, but had
to be divided into three yearly groups. Yet even those who could not be
immediately received were decorated with the insignia of their new
honour--a complete dress after the Freeland pattern, their barbarian wire
neck-bands, leg-chains, and ear-stretchers, as well as their coating of
grease, being discarded--and they were solemnly pronounced to be 'friends
of the white women.' So permanent was the influence of this distinction
upon the Masai girls, who had not given up their ambition along with their
licentious habits, that not one of them proved to be unworthy of the
friendship of the virtuous white ladies. The Masai youth were so zealous in
their efforts to win the favour of the girls who were thus distinguished,
that the latter were all very soon married. That at the end of the year
there was an eager competition for the girls who were returning home is as
much a matter of course as that those who in the meantime had married, even
if they had had children, had not forfeited their right to a residence in
Freeland--a circumstance that led to not a few embarrassments. The ultimate
result was that in a very short time the once so licentious Masailand was
changed into a model country of good morals. The hitherto prevalent
polygamy died out, and several hundred good schools arose in different
parts of the country, which in that way made gigantic strides towards
complete civilisation.

In the meantime, in the north-west, among our Kavirondo friends on the
north shore of the Victoria Nyanza, events of another kind were preparing.
The Kavirondo, a very numerous and peaceable agricultural and pastoral
tribe, touched Uganda, where, during recent years, there had been many
internal struggles and revolutions. Unlike the other peoples whom we have
become acquainted with, and who lived in independent, loosely connected,
small tribes under freely elected chiefs with little influence, the
Wangwana (the name of the inhabitants of Uganda) have been for centuries
united into a great despotically governed State under a _kabaka_ or
emperor. Their kingdom, whose original part stretches along the north bank
of the Victoria Nyanza, has been of varying dimensions, according as the
fierce policy of conquest of the _kabaka_ for the time being was more or
less successful; but Uganda has always been a scourge to all its
neighbours, who have suffered from the ceaseless raids, extortions, and
cruelties of the Wangwana. Broad and fertile stretches of country became
desert under this plague; and as for many years the _kabaka_ had been able,
by means of Arab dealers, to get possession of a few thousand (though very
miserable) guns, and a few cannons (with which latter he had certainly not
been able to effect much for want of suitable ammunition), the dread of the
cruel robber State grew very great. Just at the time of our arrival at the
Kenia there was an epoch of temporary calm, because the Wangwana were too
much occupied with their own internal quarrels to pay much attention to
their neighbours. After the death of the last _kabaka_ his numerous sons
terribly devastated the country by their ferocious struggles for the rule,
until in the previous year one of the rivals who was named Suna (after an
ancestor renowned both for his cruelty and for his conquests) had got rid
of most of his brothers by treachery. The power was thenceforward
concentrated more and more in the hands of this _kabaka_, and the raids and
extortions among the neighbouring tribes at once recommenced. Suna's anger
was directed particularly against the Kavirondo, because these had allowed
one of his brothers, who had fled to them, to escape, instead of having
delivered him up. Repeatedly had several thousand Wangwana fallen upon the
Kavirondo, carried off men and cattle, burnt villages, cut down the
bananas, destroyed the harvests, and thus inflicted inhuman cruelty. In
their necessity the Kavirondo appealed to the northern Masai tribes for
help. They had heard that we had supplied the Masai with guns and horses;
and they now begged the Masai to send a troop of warriors with European
equipments to guard their Uganda frontier. As payment, they promised to
give to every Masai warrior who came to their aid a liberal maintenance and
an ox monthly, and to every horseman, two oxen.

Less on account of this offer than to gratify their love of adventure, the
Masai, having first consulted us in Freeland, consented. We saw no
sufficient reason to keep them from rendering this assistance, although we
were by no means so certain as to the result as were our neighbours, who
considered themselves invincible now they were in possession of their new
weapons. We offered to place several experienced white leaders at the head
of the troops they sent to Kavirondo; but as we saw that our martial
friends looked upon this as a sign of distrust and were a little displeased
at the offer, we simply warned them to be cautious, and particularly not to
be wasteful of the ammunition they took with them.

At first everything went well. Wherever the Wangwana marauders showed
themselves they were sent home with bleeding heads, even when they appeared
in large numbers; and after a few months it seemed almost as if these
severe lessons had induced the Wangwana to leave the Kavirondo alone in
future, for a long time passed without any further raids. But suddenly,
when we were busy getting in our October harvest, there reached us the
startling news of a dreadful catastrophe which had befallen our Masai
friends in Kavirondo. The _kabaka_ Suna had only taken time to prepare for
an annihilating blow. While the former raids had been made by bodies of
only a few thousand men, this time Suna had collected 30,000, of whom 5,000
bore muskets; and, placing himself at their head, he had with these fallen
upon the Kavirondo and Masai unexpectedly. He surprised a frontier-camp of
900 Masai with 300 horses when they were asleep, and cut them to pieces
before they had time to recover from their surprise. The Masai thus not
only lost more than a third of their number, but the remainder of them were
divided into two independent parts, for the surprised camp was in the
middle of the cordon. But, instead of hastily retreating and waiting until
the remaining force had been able to unite before taking the offensive, one
of the Masai leaders, as soon as he had hurriedly got some 500 men
together, was led by his rage at the overthrow of so many of his comrades
to make a foolhardy attack upon the enormously over-numbering force of the
enemy; he thereby fell into an ambush, and, after having too rashly shot
away all his cartridges, was, together with his men, so fearfully cut down
that, after a most heroic resistance, only a very few escaped. Our friend
Mdango, who now took the command, was able to collect only 1,100 or 1,200
Masai on the other wing; and with these he succeeded in making a tolerably
orderly retreat into the interior of Kavirondo, being but little molested
by Suna, whose eye was kept mainly fixed upon collecting the colossal
booty.