Repartimiento

“ How then can we rightly order the distribution of the land? In the first place, the number of the citizens has to be determined, and also the number and size of the divisions into which they will have to be formed ”

“ You must divide every single thing into two halves, in order that you may not quarrel about the inequality of the division." When the two fools heard this, they divided every single thing into two equal parts, house, beds, et cetera; in fact all their wealth, even the cattle. ”

“ Often, that is true, but the purpose of the co-operative movement is not merely the elimination of the grocer, but the centralization and the systematization of the purchasing power of the working class. ”

“ One relates to the persons, and the other to their acts: Are the “servants” who propose to pull up the tares in summer, and the “reapers” who are commanded to make the separation in harvest, the same, or different persons? and is the separation proposed by the servants substantially the same in kind with that which is ultimately effected by the reapers, or is it different?
I think the servants and the reapers are substantially identical. The troop of servants who haunt a rich man’s house, and the band of labourers who reap his patrimonial fields, stand far apart in our land and our day. ”

“ This was the introduction of the boy-sorter system, and while it presently assisted the department to play off against the men who were fighting for a better wage and other improvements, it efficiently furthered that principle of economy which was to be the all and end-all of those who governed. ”

“ Couriers are despatched in every direction. In short, I have never had occasion to use more reserve than at this moment, when the real feeling of this nation, which has long been compelled to be our enemy, reveals itself in a way most flattering to us. ”

“ Another illustration of the application of coöperative principles is found in the organization of the men of a village into details, or reliefs, as bearers of the catafalque of a specified size, each having its own leader. Whenever a funeral is to take place, notice is sent to the head of the division whose turn it is to serve, and he calls upon the men of his detail in a regular order. If any one is not on hand to take his turn, he is subjected to a fine. ”

“ If the system of co-operation were general, competition, and the increase of population that would have to be provided for, and which would lead either to subdivision, or to an increase of co-operators upon each farm, would inevitably bring the style of living down to a point at which it would be no better than it is now in the Visp Valley. ”

“ To compare together the three bases, not on their political reason, but on the ideas on which the Assembly works, and to try its consistency with itself, we cannot avoid observing that the principle which the committee call the basis of population does not begin to operate from the same point with the two other principles, called the bases of territory and of contribution, which are both of an aristocratic nature. ”

“ In every separate factory, again, there is division of labour; there is the manager, the chief clerk, the assistant clerks; the foremen of different departments, the timekeeper, the engine-tenter, and stokers, the common labourers, the carters, errand boys, porters, &c., all in addition to the actual mechanics of different kinds and ranks who do the principal work. Thus the division of labour spreads itself throughout the whole of society, from the Queen and her Ministers, down to the errand boy, or the street scavenger. ”

“ In the new frame in which European society was now cast, the population of each country may be considered as composed, in unequal proportions, of two distinct nations or races, the conquerors and the conquered: the first the proprietors of the land, the latter the tillers of it. ”

“ To the same class belong suits for partition, which are either for a division in severalty of lands before held in common, or else for a sale of the whole land, and a division or investment of the proceeds for the benefit of those who, but for the sale, would have had interests in the land. ”

“ But, as is most usual, if the mass of troops to be encamped at some one point is much larger, there is no alternative but to make a collection in common within the circle of districts marked out for the purpose, collecting sufficient for the supply of one of the parts of the army, a brigade or division, and afterwards to make a distribution from the common stock thus collected. ”

“ So complete, indeed, has hitherto been the separation, so strongly marked the line of demarcation, between the different grades of labourers, as to be almost equivalent to an hereditary distinction of caste; each employment being chiefly recruited from the children of those already employed in it, or in employments of the same rank with it in social estimation, or from the children of persons who, if originally of a lower rank, have succeeded in raising themselves by their exertions. ”

“ Another equally important principle is, that in each local circumscription there should be but one elective body for all local business, not different bodies for different parts of it. Division of labor does not mean cutting up every business into minute fractions; it means the union of such operations as are fit to be performed by the same persons, and the separation of such as can be better performed by different persons. ”

“ It proves not only this, but also that the labouring population has not increased in an equal degree; and that in this instance as well as in that of France, the division of the land, even when excessive, has been compatible with a strengthening of the prudential checks to population. ”

“ Division teaches how to divide a number into two or more equal parts, as in the division of prize-money.
[39] Division is of great importance, whether political, ecclesiastical, commercial, civil, or social. Nothing is more likely to destroy your opponents than a split. Divide et impera is the true Machiavelian policy of all governments.
Numbers, that is the multitude, are to be divided, in a variety of ways,—by mob orators, or by mob-sneaks, or by parliamentary flounderers, or by mystifying pulpit demagogues. ”

“ Gentlemen, I call an organisation of this kind a Guild, but you can call it what you like. It is the only organisation that will abolish wagery, that is, will prohibit labour from being a commodity obeying the Laws of Supply and Demand. ”

“ Combination and Division of Labor Increase Productiveness. In the enumeration of the circumstances which promote the productiveness of labor, we have left one untouched, which is co-operation, or the combined action of numbers. Of this great aid to production, a single department, known by the name of Division of Labor, has engaged a large share of the attention of political economists ”

“ For if the ten children must live apart, they would need ten several rooms, ten tables, ten attendants, and the income otherwise in proportion. Is it not for this very reason, that where there is a great number of servants, they have all one table, that the expense may not be so great? For so it is, division always makes diminution, concord and agreement make increase. ”

“ Instead of distributing the product of the nation directly to its members, which would seem the most natural and obvious method, it would actually appear that you had given your minds to devising a plan of hand to hand distribution, involving the maximum of personal humiliation to all classes of recipients. ”

“ In primitive or archaic society as households grow unwieldy there is a partition which involves partition of property as well as of the household. Indeed in Hindu law partition is thought of as partition of the household primarily and as partition of property only incidentally. Also in Roman law the old action for partition is called the action for partitioning the household. ”

“ In the midst of the old division of labor, grown up spontaneously and upon [100] no definite plan, which had governed the whole of society, now arose division of labor upon a definite plan, as organized in the factory; side by side with individual production appeared social production. The products of both were sold in the same market, and, therefore, at prices at least approximately equal. But organization upon a definite plan was stronger than spontaneous division of labor. ”

“ The local committee had kindly pointed out the most suitable man to take charge of each community, and to him would be consigned the rations to be distributed to each family and person within his charge, for which receipt and distribution he became as responsible as a merchant. ”

“ Their chief economic [Pg 109] propositions are: land to be held by individuals or companies for such time and in such allotments as they use only; redistribution to take place as often as the members of the community shall agree; what constitutes use to be decided by each community, presumably in town meeting assembled; disputed cases to be settled by a so-called free jury to be chosen by lot out of the entire group; members not coinciding in the decisions of the group to betake themselves to outlying lands not occupied, without let or hindrance from any one. ”

“ We have then to consider the great number of tradespeople, artificers, and shopkeepers required to supply the wants of the former classes; add to these, the common labourers, servants, market people, itinerant venders, porters, water carriers, fruiterers, and the seminaries, hospitals, and prisons; and if, as is said to be the case, the employées, the military, the professional men, and all their families, together with priests and friars, amount to 80,000 persons, we may easily account for the other 80,000, without the necessity of filling up a blank with the utterly destitute. ”

“ Each trader occupied a special district, where, by a division of his forces in a chain of stations, each of which represented about 300 men, he could exercise a right of possession over a certain amount of assumed territory. ”

“ One of them having increased to a size that is either too great for co-ordination under so rude a structure, or else that is greater than the surrounding country can supply with game and other wild food, there arises a tendency to divide; and as in such communities there are ever occurring quarrels, jealousies, and other causes of division, there soon comes an occasion on which a part of the tribe separates under the leadership of some subordinate chief, and migrates. ”

“ A division of territory into a number of specific groups, each absolutely monopolized by one interest, seems to be the only logical outcome of the consolidations which have been already accomplished. ... ”

“ In uniting the population into such co-operative communes the already existing co-operative societies will be of great importance. The wider the sphere of work of the co-operatives, the wider the circle of the population included, the more organised will the distribution of products become, and the more frequently will these co-operatives be changed into organs of supply for the whole population. ”

“ Here I beg leave to observe to your Lordship that if settlers are sent out, and the convicts divided amongst them, this settlement will very shortly maintain itself, but without which this country cannot be cultivated to any advantage. At present I have only one person (who has about an hundred convicts under his direction) who is employed in cultivating the ground for the publick benefit, and he has returned the quantity of corn above mentioned into the publick store. ”

“ In the case of supplementary allotment of lands on the basis of the normal food-and-labour unit, should the quantity of lands of any kind be insufficient in a given district, the family is to be allotted a corresponding quantity of land of another kind. ”

“ We are frequently told that the tribal relations must be broken up; that the reservation system must be abandoned, &c. Whatever is to be the ultimate end and result of the policy stated, it is certain that habits grown up in the course of centuries will not at once yield to a mere word of command. ”

“ In cities house refuse should be collected every day, and the sorting should be done at once by the collector, with the intelligent co-operation of the householder. Things dissimilar in nature should never be mixed. The first division is into putrescible and non-putrescible, and the former should be sent forthwith to the farmer to be dug into the ground. ”

“ When the trading and planting occupations of the people are terminated, and provisions begin to fail them, which occurs generally in June, the chiefs assemble a council for the purpose of deliberating upon the further arrangements necessary to be made. This assembly decrees a feast to be prepared on a certain day, to which all the distinguished [pg290] men of the nation are to be invited, and one of their number is appointed to have it prepared in his own lodge. ”

“ Among our last draft of recruits was a newly-joined officer who had been at the military business before. What he liked about us was that we are Territorials, immune from this new "platoon" system. "I like people," he said, "who call half a company a half-company." ”

“ In the one case two houses are arrayed against each other; in the other, a house is divided against itself. It is the same railroad company running parallel lines in competition with each other.
But all these considerations, grave as they are, are of small importance when compared with the danger that the division of the labors of two societies, running mainly along the color line, would be construed as lending the sanction of the denomination to caste separation. ”