There is an excellent Co-operative Movement in Georgia which is working up a national co-operative scheme of production and distribution for the peasants. By this means it is hoped to guard the interests of the consumer, so apt to be at the mercy of the cultivators of the soil in a country of fallen exchanges, and at the same time leave the peasants free in the possession and cultivation of their land.
No attempt, so far as I could discover, has been made to destroy private industry and individual enterprise, nor even to interfere with either beyond the need for protecting the vital interests of the workers and the necessity for safeguarding the interests and liberties of the country. The shops and bazaars of Tiflis were open, not closed and their windows boarded up as in Moscow and Petrograd. The principal streets of Tiflis and Batoum were a pleasant contrast to the Nevski Prospect.
The Ministry of Labour consists of two Commissars. For its purposes Georgia is divided into four districts: Tiflis, Koutais, Sokhum and Batoum. The officials of the Ministry are chosen from candidates elected by the Trade Unions. This important department has five sections: (1) the Chamber of Tariffs, which fixes wages and salaries; this is controlled by a committee comprising ten employers, ten workpeople and one representative of the Ministry of Labour; (2) the Chamber of Reconciliation; it is not obligatory that an employer or union should appeal to this body for help in the settlement of a dispute, but once having appealed its decision is binding upon both; (3) The Commission of Insurance, which insures workpeople against accidents of all kinds; (4) The Committee of Relief, which insures against sickness and old age, and (5) The Labour Exchange, for the supply and regulation of labour. There is a universal eight hours’ day in Georgia. Overtime is permitted in certain circumstances, but must be paid for at the rate of a time and a half. Holidays are fixed by law, and those who are obliged to work in holiday time must be remunerated with a double wage. Employers who dismiss workpeople must provide compensation, a law which does not invariably work out happily for workpeople or for masters.
The price of bread in the open market at the time of our visit was 30 roubles a pound. For the workers the same bread was 5 roubles. It was possible for us to buy 3,800 roubles with an English pound.
All this interesting information was given to us during numerous and protracted interviews with members of Government departments and Trade Union officials. The most distinguished of this number was M. Jordania, the President Prime Minister. He is a man of tall and stately and even aristocratic bearing. But there is not the slightest shadow of doubt of his democratic sympathies and real belief in Socialism. He wears a well-trimmed beard, has fine dark eyes and sensitive, shapely hands. He speaks well and clearly, has a rich fund of humour and is adored by his people.
We had the pleasure of meeting the President’s aged mother in her simple home at Goria. She was dressed in the native woman’s dress, a stiff, black silk skirt, very full and touching the ground all round. A long-sleeved jacket covered the embroidered blouse. Over her head she wore a white veil which was attached to a black velvet circlet fixed squarely on the head. The veil fell down the back almost to the edge of the skirt. On either side of the sweet old face were old-fashioned ringlets, a part of the general costume and style of the women. This tiny old lady of lovely and hospitable spirit could not understand or appreciate a subdivision of land which robbed her loved son of a large part of his patrimony; but with gentle firmness he pointed out that the new law was for all alike, the rich as well as the poor, and that those who had more must give to those who had none.
In a quiet part of the garden is a sacred spot where a loved child lies buried. It is beautifully kept, and a garden seat facing the west is placed near the grave. We bent our heads at this sacred family shrine in a common feeling of sympathy and understanding.
The foreign policy of this Socialist Republic is better understood when a little of its history is known. The Georgians are a race of enormous antiquity. Their exact origin is still a matter of dispute amongst the savants. It is now generally believed they are descended from the ancient Babylonians. They are certainly not Slavs. Nor is their language a Slavonic language. They are usually a dark-skinned race, tall and graceful, with aquiline features and flashing black or dark brown eyes. The typical Georgian man is superbly handsome, passionate in love and brave in war. The typical Georgian woman has a world reputation for beauty, too often blighted, as in most countries of fighting men, by the hard tasks which ought to be done by men.
A treaty with Catherine the Great guaranteeing their independence to the Georgians did not save them from definite annexation to the Russian Empire in 1801. Since then it has been a hundred years of struggle for freedom for a gallant people whose unfortunate land lay in the route of march towards the realization of Russia’s age-long ambition, the possession of Constantinople and the command of the Straits.