§ 32

Why is the New City so orderly and yet so free? How is it that life seems to run so smoothly, and yet without monotony? Trades are located as they were in Ancient Greece and Rome, in a measure also in Europe and England in better times than ours were a while ago. Chaos is no more. The hundred headed hydra, personified in “the middle-man,” that robber of the earnings of labour, is becoming extinct, owing in large measure to the more extended use of the market, where as we have seen practically any article can be purchased at a reasonable price which leaves a reasonable profit for the producer. This has led to a diminution of shops, which are no longer heterogeneously planted in residential quarters. Every tradesman has to take out a licence for which he pays, the money going to the Commune. There is the Butchers’ Quarter, a blessing indeed. No longer are wayfarers offended by the barbarous sights of bleeding corpses, of blood sprinkling the footways. If such horrors must be, they are hidden. No butcher is permitted to make a public display of his bloody trade. Meat, when not sold in the Market, is found in a district set apart for a necessary, if disgusting, trade, but its products are not before the public eye. The shop is not on the street, it is located behind it. The same law applies to poulterers, indeed, to all trades which, of necessity, contain objectionable matter. A large, but not universal, part of the fish trade is carried on by the weekly market; but, owing to the swift destruction of freshness, and fish being a health-giving food (besides being cheap) there is a considerable demand for fresh as well as salt water fish, therefore shops for its sale are a necessity. Fishmongers alike with butchers have their locality.

Those trades which are disconnected with unpleasant associations are not excluded from public gaze. Only those of them which produce litter are restricted in residential quarters. Silversmiths, and all shops associated with handicrafts, are permitted on the public streets, of which they are ornaments, but these also take out a licence, but the tax is smaller than for objectionable trades. The order thus established is in no sense inconvenient. Electric tramways (only one line is permitted) run in the broad streets. They are not allowed in the narrow. The lovely city of Florence has been well nigh spoiled by liberty to run trams in streets not more than 25 feet wide. The English Communes took note of that. When facilities for quick locomotion are not regulated, they constitute a nuisance, are destructive of peace, and become a tyranny. “Companies” pretended to study the convenience of citizens, in reality studied their own financial success, and let other considerations take their chance.

All foreign goods of whatever kind, save those provided by British Colonies, are taxed. Free trade is only permitted to the colonials. Since this has been a law of all the Communes, British trade has increased, British output is larger, and greater activity of production has proved the wisdom of a law which encourages local enterprises. Every householder is bound to keep clean the footway immediately touching his habitation, but the cleanliness of the roadway is under the direction of the Commune. Wandering over every portion of the city in my dream I have seen no squalor. Poverty there is and always must be, but squalor, the result of want of self respect and bad early training, no! The people have risen above it. Where industry is (not industrialism) squalor can find no place. A man who keeps the tools of his trade in good order, who is proud of the work of which they are the implements, and who respects his home, is particular about “appearances.” So is a good wife, so are good sons and daughters.