Mutual Aid: A Factor of EvolutionKropotkin, Petr Alekseevich, kniaz
Science
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
Kropotkin, Petr Alekseevich, kniaz
Cooperation; Social groups; Social institutions
8. A weekly contribution of 6d. out of an 18s. wage, or of 1s. out of
25s., means much more than 9l. out of a 300l. income: it is mostly taken
upon food; and the levy is soon doubled when a strike is declared in a
brother union. The graphic description of trade-union life, by a skilled
craftsman, published by Mr. and Mrs. Webb (pp. 431 seq.), gives an
excellent idea of the amount of work required from a unionist.
9. See the debates upon the strikes of Falkenau in Austria before the
Austrian Reichstag on the 10th of May, 1894, in which debates the fact
is fully recognized by the Ministry and the owner of the colliery. Also
the English Press of that time.
10. Many such facts will be found in the Daily Chronicle and partly the
Daily News for October and November 1894.
11. The 31,473 productive and consumers' associations on the Middle
Rhine showed, about 1890, a yearly expenditure of 18,437,500l.;
3,675,000l. were granted during the year in loans.
12. British Consular Report, April 1889.
13. A capital research on this subject has been published in Russian in
the Zapiski (Memoirs) of the Caucasian Geographical Society, vol. vi. 2,
Tiflis, 1891, by C. Egiazaroff.
14. Escape from a French prison is extremely difficult; nevertheless a
prisoner escaped from one of the French prisons in 1884 or 1885. He even
managed to conceal himself during the whole day, although the alarm was
given and the peasants in the neighbourhood were on the look-out for
him. Next morning found him concealed in a ditch, close by a small
village. Perhaps he intended to steal some food, or some clothes in
order to take off his prison uniform. As he was lying in the ditch a
fire broke out in the village. He saw a woman running out of one of the
burning houses, and heard her desperate appeals to rescue a child in the
upper storey of the burning house. No one moved to do so. Then the
escaped prisoner dashed out of his retreat, made his way through the
fire, and, with a scalded face and burning clothes, brought the child
safe out of the fire, and handed it to its mother. Of course he was
arrested on the spot by the village gendarme, who now made his
appearance. He was taken back to the prison. The fact was reported in
all French papers, but none of them bestirred itself to obtain his
release. If he had shielded a warder from a comrade's blow, he would
have been made a hero of. But his act was simply humane, it did not
promote the State's ideal; he himself did not attribute it to a sudden
inspiration of divine grace; and that was enough to let the man fall
into oblivion. Perhaps, six or twelve months were added to his sentence
for having stolen--"the State's property"--the prison's dress.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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