CHAPTER VI.
It was intended that the government should consist of a Leader, two Prime Advisers, twelve Privy Counsellors, and two hundred-and-fifty Tribunes, all elected by the people. As a preliminary measure, however, only fifty Inaugurators were chosen by the Teuto-Scottish Parliament, and upon these devolves the selection of the swarms of women who clamoured to become members of the new republic. The Inaugurators were divided into five committees, consisting of ten members each. These were named respectively the Financial, the Medical, the Social, the Political, and the Religious.
The Financial Committee was the first which the candidate had to face. No woman was accepted for membership who could not invest a certain sum of money in New Amazonian consols. This rule served a twofold purpose. It prevented the intrusion of women whose poverty would make them a burden to the rest of the community, which above all things required a fair start. And, by making every member a partner in the monetary venture, it ensured the personal interest of every inhabitant of the country in its permanent prosperity.
The Medical Committee was next entrusted with a careful examination of all those who had been able to satisfy Committee number one. Every woman who bore the slightest trace of disease or malformation about her was rigorously rejected, and those who passed the second stage satisfactorily were handed over to the tender mercies of the Social Committee, whose mission it was to enquire into the antecedents of the candidates, and weed out such as were likely to prove discreditable to the rest.
Few of the women, having reached this stage of the examinations, found any difficulty in agreeing to the conditions of committees four and five. They were simply required to take an oath of allegiance to the new government, and to swear to obey any laws or rules which might be made by the Constitution. They also vowed to merge all religious differences, and to conform to whatever religious doctrines might be ultimately agreed upon as a safe basis for the establishment of a national church.
When all these preliminaries were duly gone through, the candidate paid her money, received satisfactory security for it, signed certain documents, and was henceforth a duly enrolled citizen of New Amazonia, pledged to respect all its laws, and entitled to participate in all its benefits.
When the inaugural committees, satisfied that the enterprise could now be floated without further delay, decided to remove the scene of their operations to Dublin, as the capital city of the new republic had hitherto been called, there was great excitement in London.
A banquet was given in honour of the pioneers of the movement, and the Teuto-Scottish Government entered so cordially into the spirit of the great enterprise, as to ensure free travelling expenses to their future home to all accepted New Amazonians who were willing to avail themselves of the privilege.
In many cases this was a great boon, for although no men were accepted as colonists, the future was provided for by the admission of all the healthy children of enrolled citizens. As only a small proportion of the adventurers were women who had been married, the number of children was small enough to be comfortably provided for.
Proclamations had been issued announcing many benefits which were to fall to the lot of the very small remnant of the Irish nation, and it was anticipated that when they found themselves to be enjoying equal privileges with the new comers they would lose the resentful demeanour they had hitherto maintained, and be amenable to the dictates of kindness and reason.