Page:Karl Kautsky - Georgia - tr. Henry James Stenning (1921).pdf/58

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civilisation must also be raised by an improvement in education. In this province significant progress has been made by the Socialist Government, in spite of its lack of resources.

Finally, it is absolutely necessary for the prosperity of Georgia, so to develop its industry that as far as possible the raw materials arc made use of in the place where they are produced. Paper factories and furniture factories to realise the wealth in the form of wood, factories for preserving fruit and vegetables, spinning and weaving sheds for wool, silk and cotton are above all necessary. Next to them are wanted factories for the production of implements and simple machinery for agriculture.

We have seen that the municipalities and the co-operative societies have already commenced to work on these lines. But we have also pointed out that they can only proceed very slowly, if they are to maintain a secure looting and avoid mistakes. Moreover, they suffer from want of capital.

Here there must also be some assistance from abroad if the development is to be rapid and energetic. Only the Western Powers and America have the resources and experience available to permit large undertakings of this kind to be established and properly directed. But! capitalism still prevails in those countries. For the present, help can only take the form of the investment of foreign capital in Georgian industrial undertakings.

Foreign loans to stabilise the State finances, to build railways and construct irrigation and drainage works, and foreign capital to establish factories, are urgently necessary in the interests of the Georgian people, and of the Georgian proletariat as well. Where capitalist economy is still the order of the day, the worker thrives best with a rapidly growing industrial capital. A suspension of capitalist growth hits him the hardest.

The Georgian Socialist Government found itself in

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