IX 9th September 1997
This is the last year without a Combine Harvester - the time has come to resolve the frustration of harvesting with or without somebody elseʼs good will. We have the will and the wherewithal to take it into our own hands. The farm has placed an order for a small but fine Harvester of Finnish design, with a three meter fifty cutting-saw, called Sampo, manufactured by Fabryka Maszyn Zniwnych (Factory of Harvesting Machines) in Płock. We are expecting delivery within a few weeks, but its employment will wait a year. I admired Alvar Aalto perhaps more than any other architect, for his true modernity combined with organic freedom, without limitations of a strict formula. Consequently I always had a belief in the quality of Finnish design - so we have great hope for this machine. We are sowing this autumn with new confidence because the crop, in the fullness of time, will be respected by being gathered with our own hands.
There is a village combine: old and reliable and giving long standing service to local farmers, whose small fields have priority before our requirement, so that regretfully it was never available to us, whilst in future we might be able to offer help to neighbours, of course, after our fields are cut. The arrangements with an engineer-farmer, owner of a good combine, promised well at the beginning but in fact were the worst. He did not start cutting till 30 min past midnight of the 15th after breaking a number of promises. The result of the harvest was the same, within a few tons, as last year, at a very high expense. We had a small Dorzynki celebration in a restaurant, and before leaving for London I appointed a new team under a young man who although not a farmer offers good promise. His name is J - and he has been trained as a bricklayer and builder which promises well for the farm!
The news of Dianaʼs death reached me in Antwerp and I wrote with sadness to Tony Blair about the mistake of not granting her Ambassadorial protection, when her HRH was taken away. Back in Leszczyn, on the day of her funeral, we laid foundations for a Diana Garden, with ancient bricks, to be- come a rose garden situated at the end of the North Avenue. The other features are: South the main entrance, East a pre-war statue of Our Lady which once looked at the Manor until the villagers after the war turned her to look at the village, and West the Old Manor itself - her garden will do well there: a hundred yards from the Centre of Europe.
The world appears to us to be for the first time economically at peace, in the sense that there are no longer exorbitant or Draconian dictates of economic interest or assertions of rights because of them, even if we allow for local rivalry between Europe and USA or elsewhere. We are aware of the stringent exploitation of the countries of the third world, but this is an exploitation of the weak by the strong, stemming from greed, not from an inbuilt need, which can be corrected by a change of policy, which many societies desire and demand. To pay the right price for bananas, making them a luxury in the West, is not a matter of survival even if it may be so for a banana importing company.
It is no longer a competition, as it once was, for limited wealth, by powerful groups, whether British or French empires, or Russia, America, Japan or Germany. So far as the existing world powers are concerned, they are working to increase the wealth of their communities, not struggling for survival; they all have ample means available whether in trade or in technological advancement. The wealth has now become unlimited because of the productive capacity of all countries, which means that human beings everywhere can now produce enough to sustain modern life: and that having made the earth habitable across the globe, they must also make it comfortable for themselves. Some businessmen, either fearing going under, or bubbling with uncontrolled greed, distort todayʼs rhythm of life, by rushing forward at an exaggerated pace or dictating hallucinatory policies to our society. Their fortunes, however inimical at times, are part of our today. The society should not fear to lean on them aiming for better tenets: like pleasure of work and fulfilment in life. And we will succeed - so long as we do not join the business of rambunctious waste in making exaggerated consumption its only aim.
It can be asserted that the distortion of human rights had always its beginning in a commercial exploitation of one section of a community by another, whether of Helots by Spartans or now in South Africa, or of Hutus by Tutsis, always becoming euphemistically explained, as a fight for justified or sacred rights. But these economy based hang-ups, causing strife are seen as receding. What still remains in many malign corners of the world, whether in Corsica or Sri Lanka, is an animosity fuelled by pride, or ancient history - but losing now the wealth as basis for the enmity makes the hates easier to fade, as is happening with new wealth in Eire. Our policy can therefore be to throw unlimited wealth at any conflict.
One has to reflect that utopian views have littered the history of the world, whether with Plato, or More, Baconʼs Atlantis, or “fais ce que voudras” of Rabelais or even with Tolstoy - and none did fare very well. These lost dreams undermined the belief, in the betterment of mankindʼs lot, asserting with Malthus that all progress is doomed or with Machiavelli that there are no ideal solutions, and that evil paves the road for the good - but today we may infer from the riches at mankindʼs disposal that a new pattern is emerging and that it is the evil, with hate or envy, which are being orphaned as ideas, because of the riches of the world. They will be shredded by a society that takes the cue from practical solutions, available in commerce and in human dignity. The Dominant Philosophy of today is found - in the belief in a Modern World of Plenty.
