WCP3705

[1]¹

Parkstone, Dorset

July 12th. 1894

My dear Flurscheim

I was glad to hear from you again. I have read with interest the papers you have sent me abut the Mexican Colony and am sorry to see what troubles you are having with it. I rather regret you should have devoted your energy & means to an experiment among people so little suited to true cooperative work as the Americans. They are saturated with the idea of land-speculation & great enterprises, while their exaggerated ideas of personal liberty render them [2] unsuited to the early stages of an experiment in which subordination to rule & system is essential to success. D.[r] Hertzka's² scheme seems to me more likely to succeed though it is of course handicapped by the expense & risk of going to so distant & difficult a country as Central Africa. I doubt if any voluntary association of miscellaneous members will succeed in a cooperative colony. ^{3 Success} would be more likely [two deleted and illegible words] with even paupers from our workhouses! because they would submit to rule and would appreciate the benefits of good living and the gradual improvement of their condition. Then, [3] when a new generation grew up under cooperative conditions the community could become self-governing. Any community founded on the principle of trading with the outside world, except for the purpose of obtaining necessaries not procurable on their own land, is I think doomed to failure. In such a climate as Mexico everything necessary, even tea, & coffee, & sugar, could be produced — metals required for tools & machinery being along purchased , and the independence should be aimed at from the beginning. The true economy of cooperation depends upons the immediate exchange of products without middlemen or capitalists intervening. Directly you trade & compete with outside capitalists, who have a hundred times your capital & the command of underpaid [4] labour, you must fail.

As to Hyder⁴ I only see him once a year; and at the last Annual Meeting ^{in April,} he seemed quite well. Moreover, his work with the Vase is a continuous holiday, full of interest & excitement. It is curious that the discovery of his ill-health should come from Ogilvi 12,000 miles away. However, I will communicate with Moberly on this matter.

Thanks for your kind invitation to Lugans. I should like to see the Alps once again but the difficulties of getting away are greater each year. I find also that I am subject to bronchitis & other chest attacks which at my age cannot be trifled with, and I can take care of myself better at home. Are [illegible word] you coming to England again, and have you given up the idea of your son going to Oxford?

Yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

I send this to Lugans as I do not know whether "Saxon les Bains" is in Switzerland or Italy, & you do not say.⁵