VIII 14th July 1997
I visited a friend, who has a farm of 2500 acres (1000 ha) near Canterbury, to compare farming in the two countries. He was surprised with the freedom that Polish farmers have in this post-modern age. We farm similar crops: wheat, barley and rapeseed, with different results, his average yield being 8 tons per hectare, while we would be happy with 5. His sales are on contracted basis, while we can choose to sell to a brewery, a bakery, an animal food producer, or to a firm exporting abroad, with prices and other facilities, such as transport, or time of invoice payment, being negotiated in our favour. He harvests at 17 % to 22 % moisture - having large drying sheds, whilst we must stop at 15 % for wheat and barley and 8-10 % for rapeseed. We both store in silos though he has 4500 ton capacity while we hold 250; nevertheless we both can choose our time for selling. Significant difference arises in sowing, he is contracted to buy his sowing grain, while we buy a small quantity of the best grain from a research station, sowing it on 5 to 10 hectares, to use it in the following year as our main sowing grain. We clean it and ʻbeitzʼ (sterilize) it, usually with a foreign, anti-fungus product of high quality, producing good second-sowing material, with a great saving. The law in England does not allow preparation of own grain, which takes away the freedom, sacred through the ages, of holding your own sowing grain.
The Manor is being repaired to make it into a farming crafts museum containing rooms to display old aspects of local agriculture, and retaining a room to preserve the family tradition. The problem we had was the presence of long-term squatters who were slowly destroying the remnants of the building, and a legal order had to be obtained to empty the house. Helping them with finance and alternative accommodation was not sufficient and certain amount of pressure needed to be exerted to make them finally move on the day ordered by the court. In anticipation of an affray the police were notified and an ambulance ordered, the sight of which finally convinced them to make a move. An older lady in the group expressed her view by saying: ʻYou, a Pole, have cost us more than all the Germansʼ. The house I left sixty years ago was finally empty and I could wander in it freely, with my memories and without bad conscience. The office of Conservation of Buildings in Płock extended full support and involved itself in observing and monitoring our building proposals.
Leszczyn lies at the ʻcentre of gravityʼ of the Continent, in the Centre of Europe. Drawing a line between Yary furthest east in the Urals and Cape St Vincent in the west and another between Nordcap, north promontory of Norway and south to Xhandra in Crete, near the site of the first capital city of Europe, we join the extreme geographic locations whose medians cross over Leszczyn. There are other claims for this distinction, the nearest being at Pi?tek 50 kilometres away, but ours stands up well, with a more precise calculation. Facing the fact that definitions are often complicated and even misleading, we decided not to leave it at that but to create a symbol, which makes easier to represent an idea. We therefore planted two Avenues, one North-South and another East-West, with 250 Lombardy poplars. At the crossing point are the remains of a stump of a large chestnut, struck recently in our sight by lightening, as if to indicate for us the precise Centre. A tree under which - in the far off days, we had afternoon teas and learned to play bridge. The contrasts between North and South, the warm Mediterranean and cool North Sea lands, and between East and West, growing from vastness to richness, make one aware of the variety in the European peninsula growing out of Asia, where little Leszczyn at its centre may yet one day become its capital!
The MCI fiasco for British Telecom shows us that European business men are not capable of dealing with Americans. This is not the first time, and it exemplifies American ability to dispose of businesses which are about to go bust, or suffer great losses - by a quick sale beforehand to the naïve British or Continentals. Conversely, they display their ingenuity in searching out creative enterprises in Europe to buy early, on the cheap before the full value is realized, as for instance Bill Gates is doing in his present venture in Cambridge. These episodes remind one of past financial disasters suffered in USA, by for instance Barclays in property fiasco in California or earlier in New England, or their loss of rights against special taxation, or of Banque de Lyon buying an insurance company, with official encouragement to prevent its collapse, now being sued for an alleged illegal transaction - and many other similar stories. Normally it could be possible to view these events as simply American sound commercial sense, but not in the context of the overall picture, which includes recent industrial spying by CIA in France and elsewhere. Nor is it easy for us to forget the arcane machinations to spoil the success of Concorde, the finest plane ever built, by stopping its sales internationally. There is a continuous use of politics, even military and of intimidation to obtain these, so called, commercial successes.
Is Europe in the process of entering an economic war with USA, which one side is waging without fear or favour, fully aware of its nature, and the other naively assuming that its losses are a result of superior American know-how and industry? No doubt this had been the case for a long time and their industry taught the world much in this century, whether with Frederic Winslow Taylor or with Ford, but now things have become more even, both in inventiveness and productivity. Their superiority can however be still observed in two areas: in the financial management of assets, which usually represents using money to make money, and in the legal aspects, which is largely the use of own laws, as if they were international - taking an unfair advantage of foreign industry or commerce. In Russia for instance American advisers are teaching them today the capitalist system, resulting in great financial transfers, not to mention the resulting murderous activities in London, and creating a wild money-laundering in New York - which is now being referred to, even by Mr Yeltsin who after all is friendly with them, in critical terms, as “pulling the world towards a uni-polar order, to dictate order, in a multi-polar world”.
Some think that socialist principles are out of date because capitalist activities can produce great wealth, but can that capitalism sustain itself for ever on a slogan of market mechanism. Capitalism has conspired to give to ʻbusiness for business sakeʼ a fascination and importance it never had before. We no longer make things for the sake of making them, but for money: one makes a chair not to sit on but for profit. Our magazines and newspapers become commercial travellers, proclaiming the gospel of business competition; if the profit is greater in producing say, embroidered lingerie than food, we may ask, why grow wheat? And when left to the businessman to produce it for profit, oneʼs best white bread from finest winter wheat - will disappear with other dreams.
And the same view can no doubt assert itself in other fields: education for profit, health for profit, gambling dens might replace libraries for profit, prisons for profit, soldiering for profit, making mercenaries sold for profit, without the need to consider right or wrong. Observing this universal and yet very novel preoccupation with business one may recognize that it is leaving behind the tenets established by the Western Civilization, and leading where not many, on reflection, will want to follow. It leads to a crude business philosophy, asserted as being based on immutable traits of human nature, choosing one while ignoring others, which largely identifies it with fake morality or nationalism, spelling out an intolerant doctrine of competition leading back to permanent strife. For instance one notices that the cut throat competition against small building firms at local level has eliminated a valuable service unit and replaced it by sub-departments of mammoth firms which are both less efficient and more expensive. This wild competition at every level of society may gradually translate commercialism into a defunct civilisation.
In Leszczyn we want efficiency and profit - but it goes, like the love of climbing a mountain, for the pride of achievement and joy of learning a proud trade, together with a glad team - even if its cost has to be paid for. Capitalism of today is only one of the financial economies available to man and it seems to us there is no reason why we could not evolve one based on the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, backed with mathematics.
