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train and Tiflis with regret at having to part so soon with these new
friends.
The special train had been a royal train. It was replete with every
comfort. There were bathrooms even, and an excellent kitchen. The
food department was in the hands of a Russian family, a widowed
mother and three children. They were a family of good birth whose
fallen fortunes had been relieved in this way by the Social
Democrats as a reward for saving the life of the President, always in
danger from the violent extremists of both sorts. The mother was a
stout, comfortable body, and the girls beautiful creatures of the
Slavonic type.
We were received in the waiting room at Tiflis by the President, M.
Jordania, and his suite. The floor was carpeted with rich and costly
rugs. On the walls hung portraits of Karl Marx and the principal
Georgian Socialists. An orderly crowd waited outside and cheered us
as we left for our quarters in the residence of the departed American
Commissioner.
Our first business in Tiflis was to attend the special session of
Parliament called in our honour, to hear a speech of welcome from
each of the eight political parties represented in that Parliament. The
Georgian Parliament is elected on a franchise which gives every
man and woman of twenty the vote. At the last election, which was
conducted on a basis of strictest proportional representation, 102
Social Democrats were elected out of a total of 130. The nationalities
represented by this 130 are six, and there are five women in the
House. The secretary to the Speaker is also a woman, and a very
able one. Distinctions of sex do not exist in Georgian politics or in
Georgian industry. Equal pay for equal work is the ruling economic
dictum.
For the purposes of an election the whole country, with a
population of about 4,000,000, is one constituency. As a natural
corollary of this the districts have almost unlimited powers of self-
government. The model is a combination of Swiss and British. There
is no second Chamber. The President of the Republic is also the
Prime Minister. He is elected annually, and cannot hold office for
more than two consecutive years. Elections are organized and
carried through by national and local Election Commissions. The
twenty-one members of the national Election Commission are
elected by the Members of Parliament. The insane, the criminal,
deserters from the army and insolvents may not vote.
The domestic policy of the Socialist Government of Georgia is the
gradual socialization of land and industry. Having guaranteed
themselves as far as possible from enemies within the State by
establishing themselves upon a thoroughly democratic basis, they
have sought to accomplish what was expected of them by disturbing
as little as might be the private interests and ordinary pursuits of the
citizens.
They have established a system of peasant proprietorship. This it
was less difficult to do than might have been expected on account of
the fact that 90 per cent. of the land had already been mortgaged by
spendthrift proprietors. The law establishing the land in the hands of
the peasants was finally promulgated on January 25, 1919. The
amount of land allowed to each peasant is strictly limited to seven
acres, or thirty-five acres for a family of five. The old landlord may
have his seven acres if he will cultivate it himself, or within his own
family. I met landlords who submitted cheerfully to the new system
and noble ladies who rejoiced in their new-found economic liberties.
But again I say, a knowledge of newer methods of production is
necessary to make the rich soil yield all that it is capable of yielding,
and quantities of machinery must be imported if the area of soil
under cultivation is to be increased. Only 24 per cent. of the land in
Georgia was cultivated as against 31.5 per cent. in Russia, 55 per
cent. in France and 57.4 per cent. in Italy in pre-war days.
There is an excellent Co-operative Movement in Georgia which is
working up a national co-operative scheme of production and
distribution for the peasants. By this means it is hoped to guard the
interests of the consumer, so apt to be at the mercy of the cultivators
of the soil in a country of fallen exchanges, and at the same time
leave the peasants free in the possession and cultivation of their
land.
No attempt, so far as I could discover, has been made to destroy
private industry and individual enterprise, nor even to interfere with
either beyond the need for protecting the vital interests of the
workers and the necessity for safeguarding the interests and liberties
of the country. The shops and bazaars of Tiflis were open, not closed
and their windows boarded up as in Moscow and Petrograd. The
principal streets of Tiflis and Batoum were a pleasant contrast to the
Nevski Prospect.
The Ministry of Labour consists of two Commissars. For its
purposes Georgia is divided into four districts: Tiflis, Koutais,
Sokhum and Batoum. The officials of the Ministry are chosen from
candidates elected by the Trade Unions. This important department
has five sections: (1) the Chamber of Tariffs, which fixes wages and
salaries; this is controlled by a committee comprising ten employers,
ten workpeople and one representative of the Ministry of Labour; (2)
the Chamber of Reconciliation; it is not obligatory that an employer
or union should appeal to this body for help in the settlement of a
dispute, but once having appealed its decision is binding upon both;
(3) The Commission of Insurance, which insures workpeople against
accidents of all kinds; (4) The Committee of Relief, which insures
against sickness and old age, and (5) The Labour Exchange, for the
supply and regulation of labour. There is a universal eight hours’ day
in Georgia. Overtime is permitted in certain circumstances, but must
be paid for at the rate of a time and a half. Holidays are fixed by law,
and those who are obliged to work in holiday time must be
remunerated with a double wage. Employers who dismiss
workpeople must provide compensation, a law which does not
invariably work out happily for workpeople or for masters.
The price of bread in the open market at the time of our visit was
30 roubles a pound. For the workers the same bread was 5 roubles.
It was possible for us to buy 3,800 roubles with an English pound.
All this interesting information was given to us during numerous
and protracted interviews with members of Government departments
and Trade Union officials. The most distinguished of this number was
M. Jordania, the President Prime Minister. He is a man of tall and
stately and even aristocratic bearing. But there is not the slightest
shadow of doubt of his democratic sympathies and real belief in
Socialism. He wears a well-trimmed beard, has fine dark eyes and
sensitive, shapely hands. He speaks well and clearly, has a rich fund
of humour and is adored by his people.
We had the pleasure of meeting the President’s aged mother in
her simple home at Goria. She was dressed in the native woman’s
dress, a stiff, black silk skirt, very full and touching the ground all
round. A long-sleeved jacket covered the embroidered blouse. Over
her head she wore a white veil which was attached to a black velvet
circlet fixed squarely on the head. The veil fell down the back almost
to the edge of the skirt. On either side of the sweet old face were old-
fashioned ringlets, a part of the general costume and style of the
women. This tiny old lady of lovely and hospitable spirit could not
understand or appreciate a subdivision of land which robbed her
loved son of a large part of his patrimony; but with gentle firmness he
pointed out that the new law was for all alike, the rich as well as the
poor, and that those who had more must give to those who had
none.
In a quiet part of the garden is a sacred spot where a loved child
lies buried. It is beautifully kept, and a garden seat facing the west is
placed near the grave. We bent our heads at this sacred family
shrine in a common feeling of sympathy and understanding.
After a very happy two weeks in Georgia, we left for the homeward
trip. The special train brought us to Batoum overnight. The day we
spent in wandering about the city’s bazaars. Everything was
ridiculously cheap for those possessed of English money, though for
some curious reason which I never explored the Turks and
Armenians whose shops we visited were forbidden to accept English
pounds. Some did accept them on the guarantee of our guide, an
English-speaking Georgian, that no evil would come to them as a
consequence. We bought astrakhan caps, Russian boots, silver-
mounted daggers, drinking-cups, silver chains, furs, and jewelled
belts for a mere trifle. In one shop there was a magnificent set of
ermine skins for £70 which would have sold for ten times the money
in England or America had any one of us had enough business
instinct to buy. Persian and Turkish carpets were selling for a mere
song!
The British Delegation of three kept together during this
promenade. There is no reason for making a special note of this fact
except this—that each of us can testify to the falsity of a Reuter’s
report circulated throughout England at a later date that Mr. Ramsay
Macdonald was mobbed in the streets of Batoum by a number of
Bolsheviks! Mr. Macdonald was one of our party. We saw no
Bolsheviks in Batoum. And the only semblance of a crowd was
when, in a Turkish quarter, the unveiled Englishwoman showed
herself in the shortest dress that had been seen in that quarter since
the last batch of American women passed that way! The Turkish
women go black veiled still, generally by their own choice, and their
dresses almost touch the ground.
Before the steamer sailed M. Marquet and I drove along the sea-
front to inspect the tents we imagined we saw from a distance,
bordering the coast. They were not tents in the regular sense, but
rude shelters improvised with poles and tattered garments, which
sheltered the most miserable and squalid mass of wild-eyed human
beings it has been my lot to see. It was said they were Greek
refugees who had fled the approach of the Nationalist Turks. A pro-
Bolshevik critic of the Georgians censured them severely for not
having provided for these unfortunates; but when huge masses of
people suddenly hurl themselves upon a community out of nowhere,
organization is not simple, especially when means are limited. The
condition of some of the German prisoners’ camps in England in the
early days of the war was very far from perfect; but the suddenness
of the contingency, no less then the proportions of the problem,
offered a reasonable explanation of the unsatisfactoriness of things.
The steamer which took us back to Constantinople brought Herr
Kautsky and his wife to Georgia. Kautsky had been detained in
Rome with fever for two weeks.
We had a perfect voyage to Constantinople. The sea was as
smooth as a mill-pond, and a heavenly moon lighted our path across
the waves at night. At Trebizond several of the party went on shore
and braved the questionings of the Turko-Bolshevik Governor; but
they saw nothing for their pains but a bazaar which was very much
inferior to those of Constantinople.
We spent two days in Constantinople waiting for the
transcontinental express. During those days I talked with several
people who claim to speak authoritatively about affairs in Turkey, and
checked my impressions of the earlier visit. Lunch at the British
Military Mission and an interview with a Turkish prince of the blood
rounded off an experience of the city and its problems, too brief to
justify the record of anything more serious than general impressions,
liable to be modified upon closer acquaintance.
And perhaps the clearest impression of all that I received was that
of the disinterestedness of the British Government in Turkish affairs.
France and Italy were clearly up to the eyes in intrigue for positions
of commercial and industrial advantage in Turkey. With this in view
they were manifestly encouraging in his defiance Mustapha Kemal