WCP2201

[1]¹

Inverquharity

26 Dec’ 93

My dear D^r. Wallace

I received yr postcard & subsequent letter of 16 Nov,² & was delighted to get the latter. I am writing to one or 2 friends to try to get me some of the mature yams, that will grow for you; but these may be difficult as they are only found in virgin forest land of a certain kind & (I think near rotten old stumps only, & I don't happen to know any people living in these back parts & doing clearing just now. I am sorry the last bulbs I sent came to grief. I will send the next in a stronger casing. I am getting a supply, a better one than before; they are now in their natural earth waiting till it is time to take them up. Also I have asked L. Rodway, a Dentist but an enthusiastic botanist to get me as many orchid bulbs as he can & he has promised to do so. ^{I think he knows all there are, or nearly.} Also any seeds of curious plants I will send. One of the orchids I have got is called the Ant³ orchid because it has an artificial (so to speak) ant standing at the entrance [2] to the flowers, in exact imitation of the actual observer & one doesn't know why an ant should attract other insects but Rodway tells me that when an insect lights on the ant the ant buts him up with a spring against the back of the flower & so jams them against the pollen & then lets them go. I have also got a plant, not an orchid or at any rate it has no bulb which has a spring under it like an arm arm placed akimbo & when irritated the arm springs up & hits itself on the top of the head so to speak. I don't know why. I shall try to get the seed of it.

I am much interested in the Parish Councils Bill, but judging by the papers [illeg.] & Swinton have sent me, this then ^it makes a distinct movement in our direction it is likely to fall very far short of the essentials we want. The main things we want are [illeg.] compulsory purchase without needless formalities or expense power to let with security of [illeg.] & absolute free hand to make what improvement the tenant likes. It is an advance to see the Daily News even noticing any proceeding of [3] our Society. I exchange notes now & then with Max Hirsch Presid^t of Victorian Single Tax League, & was much struck with his proposal to aim at getting the whole land value, not leaving the Landlord in as tax gatherers or in any shape, & sent his letter to L & L, with comment of my own, but looking over my comment (written hastily) I see I have said more than I intended & appear to be almost a convert to Single Tax, wh^h is far from being the case. –

The Trade depression here is dreadful, & scores of men coming to me constantly for employment. I give them all (nearly) a day or 2 to help them on & gratified they are for it. Not one of the scores I have employed has ever ask me what wages I mean to give but took the work offered there and then; & not one has grumbled at the wages I have paid them. I give them all 10/- a week & keep — they have to sleep where they can — some in an old flea haunted hut, some in the barn some in the [illeg.] & cook for themselves: but not [4] has grumbled, not one has misbehaved. I may almost say that every one has given a fair day's work according to his ability, some a first clean day's work & plenty have thanked me on leaving for the few days work I have given. This in the Australian Colonies the "working Man's Paradise"! I began giving a month's work then down to a week, half a week, & now down to 2 days — as they came too thick & my means ran short. It is wonderful how patient & well behaved too the men are. I see them coming by more gaunt & dilapidated every month — nearly all but possessed of nothing but the clothes they stand up in & little of that. I have been taking up their case in the papers as you may imagine, I don't know whether with any effect, but a [illeg.] movement is being made by the govt & by others for "getting the people on the land" but in an absurd way that must fail. They have yet so far as to recognise that the Land question is in some way [5] at the bottom of the difficulty but they don't in the least understand how. They don't dream of forcing infe use the withheld opportunity already appropriated but are proposing to put them on the unalienated unalienated Crown lands – that is on the land so poor, so far off or so densely timbered that Capitalists won't have them — & they propose to put the men who happen to be unemployed on these refuse lands, without [illeg.], without any ^special desire to go there or knowledge of what to do when they get there — to select these men carefully, superintend & control them — advance them money & so on — all artificial & unnatural process that can't succeed —

I have hammered at them trying to explain that we want simply to force into use the withheld opportunity all around us, & things will then right themselves — the arable lands in the settled districts & along the Railway line now held under sheep — the mineral [6] locks Squallet only by dummy companies defying the labor clauses that bind them & employ so many men — the withheld building sites all round every turn causing overcrowding at the centres & forcing up all city rents &c but so far I don't seem to have converted anybody. –

As to our Minerals, we have all sorts, but chiefly tin, silver & gold (in that order)[.] We have also copper, iron, coal, all sorts, but the 3 first named are the chief ones — so far. As to gold I have a better opinion of it than you have. Putting aside that it is an object of beauty & ornament, wh. all nations & races have prized on that account & useful for that alone — there is the more important recommendation of its being the best standard of value – yet discovered, the least fluctuating, the most durable & portable & so on. It would be worth getting for that reason v & for another. I have [illeg.] all my money [illeg.] so [7] far, [illeg.] have concentrated last venture in one gold mine wh. we are opening up & which promises exceedingly well. There are 32.000 shares in it & I am making own 450 such shares to the L. N. as my contribution, felling deep regret & almost shame that for 2 last years I have not been able to contribute my social offerings. I hope the mine will turn out well if only for L. N. sake. It will I hope yield – once it begins to pay – at least as much as I have been accustomed to give. Perhaps all mineral should, as you say, be worked for the general good but as they are not, I & the L. N. may as well have the benefit of it rather than others & less desirable people. – for my part, as long as there is not downright waste, I would develop all minerals without stint, in full confidence that natures bad storehouse will yield either fresh stores of them as yet undiscovered or substitute of some good for them — For example us & the anticipated exhaustion of Englands coal. I feel quite calm, as electricity is evidently going [8] since at all that coal formerly gave — light, heat, power — & we are daily getting nearer to the time when we shall be able to call on the forces of Nature now running to waste the winds, the waves, the tides, the currents – to supply the electricity. As to food supply we be are within sight though not within touch of what will make Malthus shrivel up & disappear — [illeg.] ammonia sufficient & we can make these barren lands bear & the rich lands bear more – to an indefinite, unimaginable extent, & yet here is 4/5 of the air all round us, waiting to supply us with the chief principle of ammonia, [2 words illeg.]. I know that other elements are wanted besides ammonia, but ammonia is far & away the Chief option & given that, the food difficulty is practically settled.

I do not pretend to understand the currency question, & it would take too much of my limited brain power away from other subjects to go in for it. But I quite agree with you that "cheap money" will do very little good in presence of withheld opportunities. I liked P. Wicksteed last article in the papers in Bi [illeg.] – it helped me to understand the matter better. The Bi [illeg.] chief argument I understand is that 2 metals to choose between, the cheaper will always drive out the dearer. But that has its inconveniences. Hoping you will find time to drop me a line now & again as you have [illeg.] done.

I am | Always yrs sincerely | A. J. Ogilvy⁴ [signature]