'For the cultivation of the land, as well as for productive purposes generally, self-governing associations shall be formed, each of which shall share its profits among its members in proportion to their several contributions to the common labour of the association. Anyone shall have the right to belong to any association and to leave it when he pleases.
'The capital for production shall be furnished to the producers without interest out of the revenue of the community, but it must be re-imbursed by the producers.
'All persons who are incapable of labour, and women, shall have a right to a competent allowance for maintenance out of the revenue of the community.
'The public revenue necessary for the above purposes, as well as for other public expenses, shall be provided by a tax levied upon the net income of the total production.
'The International Free Society already possesses a number of members and an amount of capital sufficient for the commencement of its work upon a moderate scale. As, however, it is thought, on the one hand, that the Society's success will necessarily be in proportion to the amount of means at its disposal, and, on the other hand, that opportunity should be given to others who may sympathise with the movement to join in the undertaking, the Society hereby announces that inquiries or communications of any kind may be addressed to the office of the Society at the Hague. The International Free Society will hold a public meeting at the Hague, on the 20th of October next, at which the definitive resolutions prior to the beginning of the work will be passed.
'For the Executive Committee of the International Free Society,
'Karl Strahl.
'The Hague, July 18 ...'
This announcement produced no little sensation throughout the world. Any suspicion of mystification or of fraud was averted by the name of the acting representative of the Executive Committee. Dr. Strahl was not merely a man of good social position, but was widely known as one of the first political economists of Germany. The strange project, therefore, could not but be seriously received, and the journals of the most diverse party tendencies at once gave it their fullest attention.
Long before the 20th of October there was not a journal on either side of the Atlantic which had not assumed a definite attitude towards the question whether the realisation of the plans of the Free Society belonged to the domain of the possible or to that of the Utopian. The Society itself, however, kept aloof from the battle of the journals. It was evidently not the intention of the Society to win over its opponents by theoretical evidence; it would attract to itself voluntary sympathisers and then proceed to action.