The universal dwelling-house lottery has taken place, and we are now
in possession of our new home; but I cannot exactly say that we have
bettered our position. We used to live S.W., at the front of the house,
on the third storey. Oddly enough, a dwelling has fallen to our lot
on the very same premises, only it happens to be at the back of the
house, and quite in the back-yard, in fact. It is likewise on the third
storey. My wife’s disappointment is considerable. She had given up all
thought of a small villa, but she still clung to the hope of getting a
neat suite of rooms on an elegant flat.
I have always been rather choice in the matter of having a nice home.
Hitherto we have had two good-sized rooms, two smaller ones, and
the kitchen, for our family of six persons. True, the two smaller
chambers in which grandfather and the children used to sleep can now
be dispensed with, and the kitchen is now no longer a necessary part
of a dwelling, inasmuch as the State cookshops are on the eve of being
opened. But I had none the less ventured to hope that at least two or
three neat and pretty rooms would fall to our share; but instead of
this, we have got only a small room with one window, and a little poky
garret similar to those in which servants used to sleep. The rooms are,
too, somewhat darker and lower than our old ones. This is the whole
extent of the accommodation.
Not that I would by any means convey that there has been the least
unfairness. Our municipal body is quite straightforward, and none but
rogues can give more than they are possessed of. It was set forth
only yesterday, at a meeting of the Council, that our city has only
one million rooms for its two millions of inhabitants. But the demand
for space for various public and benevolent purposes has, in the
socialistic Community, immensely increased, and the space hitherto
employed for such purposes only suffices to cover a small fraction
of the present requirements. In the first place, room had to be
found, in schools and various houses of maintenance, for a million of
people, young and old. Furthermore, accommodation has been provided in
hospitals for 80,000 people.
But it is clear that such public interests must take precedence
of private ones. Hence it is only natural and right that the best
and largest houses, more particularly at the West End, have been
appropriated to these purposes. In the inner city, shops and magazines
are crowded together, and many of the basements of these are fitted up
as State cookshops for the million inhabitants who are not consigned
to public institutions. Back-yard premises in suitable situations are
being adapted as central wash-houses for this million. It will thus
be seen that the setting apart of so much separate space for separate
purposes has had the effect of materially curtailing the accommodation
for private dwellings.
At the commencement of the new regime it was found, as already stated,
that in round numbers one million rooms were at the disposal of
the authorities. Of these, after deducting the requirements of the
various public institutions, some 600,000 more or less smallish rooms
remain, to which, however, must be added several hundred thousand
kitchens (now become superfluous), attics, and garrets. As there are
one million persons to provide for, it is at once seen that the space
allotted is about one room per head; and in order to observe the utmost
impartiality in the disposal of these rooms, they were assigned by
lottery, each person from the age of twenty-one to sixty-five years,
irrespective of gender, receiving a lottery ticket. And, indeed, this
system of raffling is an excellent means of regulating the principle
of equality wherever the essential features are disproportionate. The
social democrats in Berlin, even under the old regime, had introduced
this system of raffling for seats at the theatres.
Upon the completion of this casting lots for residences, exchanges
of the rooms that had fallen to the various ticket-holders were
permissible. Those persons who desired to remain together, such as
married couples, for instance, but who had got their quarters in
different streets, houses, or storeys, were allowed to exchange as
best they could. For my part, I had to put up with a tiny room, a mere
cupboard of a place, adjoining the room which had fallen to my wife’s
lot, and, in order to get this cupboard, I had to give up my nice room
in a neighbouring house to a young man to whom the cupboard had fallen;
but the main thing, after all, is that we do not get separated.
Not that all married couples have, by any means, yet been successful
in obtaining a satisfactory exchange of rooms. There may be even some
who do not take any particular pains to secure this end. Marriage is a
private affair; and, therefore, officially, there can be no lotteries
of larger dwellings for married people, and of smaller ones for those
who are single. Were such the case, then, the termination of a marriage
contract, for instance (which ought to be attainable at any moment),
might have to be put off until single rooms for the individuals
concerned were procurable. As it now is, each compound dwelling formed
by the two halves to a marriage contract can, at a moment’s notice, on
the termination of the contract, be resolved into its original halves.
All you have to do is to make a division of the furniture, and the
thing is settled.
Thus we see that everything in the new Community has been settled in
a logical and sagacious manner. All the arrangements guarantee full
personal liberty to every man and every woman; and how humiliated must
those feel who used to maintain that Socialism meant the subjugation of
the individual will.
Not that considerations of the above kind are personally of any moment
to my better half and me; whether happiness or sorrow comes we shall
stick together to the end of life’s journey.
On our removal here we had, unfortunately, to leave a number of our
things behind us. The new quarters were too small to stow away even the
remnant that had been left to us after the day of the furniture-vans.
As a matter of course, we have stuffed our little place as full as
it will hold, so that we can scarcely move about. But the fact is,
this old servant’s closet of mine is so wretchedly small that it is
precious little that I can get into it. It has fared no better with
numerous persons. At the general removal vast numbers of things were
left standing in the streets, for the simple reason that their owners
could find no room for them in their new dwellings. These things were
collected and carted away in order to augment as far as possible the
still sparse outfit of the numerous public institutions.
However, we do not allow this to distress us in the least. The problem
is to supersede the old-fashioned system of limited and meagre private
existences, and to organise, in the new society, the life of the
general public on such a vast and grand scale that all those bodily and
mental good things, which were once only enjoyed by a favoured class,
shall now be within the reach of everybody. The opening of the State
cookshops to-morrow is to be followed by the opening of the new popular
theatres.