The colonists in Eden Vale looked upon me--the Society's plenipotentiary, who had organised our expedition to the Kenia and procured the necessary means--as their president in the full sense of the word: I might have commanded and I should have been obeyed. But, on the other hand, I acted not only in harmony with my own inclination, but also according to the evident intention of the committee, when I assumed merely the position of president of an association of men who had power to manage their own affairs. Whenever it was possible, I consulted my colleagues previous to making any arrangements, and acted in accordance with the will of the majority; and only in the most urgent cases, or when orders had to be given to persons who were absent, did I act independently. The distribution of the work to different groups was made by arrangement between all the members concerned, and the superintendents of the several branches of work were elected by their special colleagues. Though in all essential matters the views and proposals of myself and of those more particularly in my confidence were always carried out (so that if in what I have written I had, for brevity's sake, said 'I arranged,' 'I designed,' it would have been essentially correct), yet this was due entirely to the fact that my confidants were the intellectual leaders of the colony, and the others voluntarily subordinated themselves to them. Moreover, we all knew that the present was only a provisional arrangement. In the meanwhile, no one worked for himself; all that we produced belonged not to the producer, not even to the whole of the producers, but to the undertaking upon the common property of which we were, in return, all living. In a word, the Free Society which we wished to found was not yet founded--it was in process of forming; and for the time we were, in reference to it, nothing more than persons employed according to the old custom, and differed from ordinary wage-earners simply in the fact that it was left to ourselves to decide what we should keep for our own maintenance and what we should set apart as the employer's share of the gains. If any evil-intentioned colleague had compelled me to do so, I not only had the right, but was resolved, to assume the attitude of the 'plenipotentiary.' That I was able to avoid doing this contributed no little to heighten the mutual pleasure we all experienced, and very materially facilitated the transition to the ultimate form of our organisation; but this did not alter the fact that our life and work, both on the journey and at the Kenia, were carried on under the social forms of the old system. During this period the hours of work, whether of overseer or simple workman, white or negro, at Eden Vale were alike for all--from 5 A.M. to 10 A.M. and from 4 P.M. to 6 P.M.; only in the harvest-time were one or two hours added. All work ceased on Sundays.