All young men of the age of twenty are required to enrol themselves
within three days. Agnes’ brother is among this number. The “National
Bulwark,” as it is called, is to be organised and armed with all speed.
The spacious buildings of the War Ministry were to have been converted
into a vast infant’s school for the sake of the fine gardens adjoining.
(This school was to have been, too, the scene of my wife’s labours.) It
is, however, now determined to leave things as they were.
The internal affairs of the country render it necessary that the
National Bulwark should be called out earlier than had been intended,
and also that the organisation be on a far larger scale than had been
at first contemplated. The New Provincial Councillors are constantly
sending urgent requests for military assistance to aid them in the work
of establishing the new laws in country districts and in small towns.
Hence, it has been decided to establish at convenient centres all over
the country, a battalion of infantry, a squadron of cavalry, and a
battery. In order to ensure better security the troops are composed of
men chosen from districts lying far asunder.
These country boors and louts must be brought to reason. They actually
go the length of objecting to the nationalisation--or as the official
term runs, the communalisation--of their private means, their
possessions in the shape of acres, houses, cattle, farm stock and the
like. Your small owner in the country will insist on remaining where
he is, and sticking fast to what he has got, in spite of all you can
tell him of the hard lot he has from sunrise to sunset. People of this
sort could be left quietly where they are, but then the mischief is, it
would greatly interfere with the vast scheme for the organisation of
production. So there is no other way than to compel these thick-headed
people by sheer force to see what is to their advantage. And when
the whole organisation is once in full swing such persons will soon
be convinced of the benefits that have been conferred upon them by
Socialism.
Upon its becoming known that all the big landed estates and large farms
had been declared State property, all farm servants and agricultural
labourers at once attached themselves zealously to our side. But
these people are now no longer content to remain where they were. A
great desire for a change has come over them, and they all make for
the larger towns, chiefly for Berlin. Here, in Frederick St., and
_unter den Linden_, may now be seen daily the most outlandish-looking
individuals from the remotest parts of the country. Many of them
arrive with wives and families, and with the scantiest means. But they
nevertheless clamour for food and drink, clothing, boots, and what not
of the best and dearest. They had been told, they say, that everybody
in Berlin lived on the fat of the land. I wish such were only really
the case!
But, of course, we can’t do with these backwoodsmen here, and they
are to be bundled off back to where they came from, which will cause
some little bitterness. It would be a pretty state of things if the
magnificent scheme of the Government for regulating production and
consumption were to be made sixes and sevens of in this fashion by a
capricious wandering to and fro of people from the provinces. We should
have them at one time swarming down like flights of locusts upon the
stores accumulated here, to the neglect of necessary labours in their
own parts; whilst at other times, when the fit took them not to come,
we should behold all the stuff that had been got in in anticipation of
their visit, spoiling on our hands.
It would unquestionably have been better if those regulations which
have only just been issued had been issued at the very first. According
to these regulations no one can now temporarily leave his place of
residence without first providing himself with a leave-of-absence
ticket; and no one can make a permanent removal without receiving
such directions from higher quarters. It is, of course, intended that
Berlin shall still remain a much-visited capital; but people are not
to come and go in a capricious, aimless way, but only, as the _Onward_
simply and clearly sets forth, in a manner which shall accord with
the carefully prepared calculations and plans of the Government. The
socialistic State or, as we now say, the Community, is in earnest
as respects the obligation on all persons alike to work; and it,
therefore, is fully determined not to permit any vagabondism of any
kind, not even any railway vagabondism.
Yesterday the Chancellor made another telling speech in that convincing
manner which, as the _Onward_ truly remarks, is so peculiarly his own.
The question had been raised in the House whether an attempt should
not be made to tranquillise the disaffected country districts by
aggregating local possessions into local groups, instead of impounding
such possessions for the benefit of the whole Community? These detached
groups were to be called Local Produce Associations, each inhabitant
of a district being a unit of the local group. “It is high time,” said
the Chancellor, in his speech, “that errors such as these--errors which
reach back to the time of Lassalle, and which were fully disposed of
at the Erfurt Conference of 1891--should be set at rest for ever. It
is evident that the results of the establishment of various Local
Produce Associations would be to introduce competition between the
several associations. Then, again, the varying nature of the quality
of the land must inevitably tend to produce gradations of prosperity
and non-prosperity, and in this way to open a kind of back-door to
the return of capital. A well-digested scheme for the regulation of
production and consumption, and an intelligent distribution of the
craftsmen in each several department over the whole State, are things
which cannot admit of any individualism, any competition, any personal
or local independence. Socialism can never consent to do things by
halves.” (Loud applause.)