WCP3705

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

July 12th. 1894

My dear Flurscheim¹

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. It ^Success would be more likely to succeed 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 this 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 Hyder³ 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 Moberly⁴ 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 not 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