by Karel Čapek
Needless to say, the moment the first laws on the Newts were passed there were people who, in the name of juridical logic, argued that if human society was placing certain obligations upon the salamanders then it must also grant them certain rights. Any state enacting laws for the Newts ipso facto recognised them as responsible and free individuals, as legal subjects, and indeed as its citizens, in which case there was a need to regularise their civic status vis-a-vis the state under whose legislation they were living. It would, of course, be possible to regard the Newts as foreign immigrants, but the state could not then impose on them certain services or duties during periods of mobilisation or war, as was being done throughout civilised countries everywhere (with the exception of Britain). We would surely expect the Newts to defend our coastline in the event of a warlike conflict, in which event we could not deny them certain civil rights, such as the vote, the right of assembly, representation on various public bodies, and so on.16 It was even proposed that the salamanders should have some kind of submarine autonomy; but these and similar reflections remained purely academic and produced no practical results, if only because the Newts had never anywhere claimed any civil rights.
Another great discussion, likewise without direct interest or intervention on the part of the Newts, centred on the question of whether Newts could be baptised. The Catholic Church from the very outset consistently held the view that they could not: since the Newts, not being descended from Adam, had not been conceived in original sin, they could not be purged from such sin through the sacrament of baptism. Holy Church did not wish to decide, one way or another, whether the Newts had an immortal soul or any other share in divine grace and salvation; its goodwill towards them could only be expressed by remembering them in a special prayer which would be read on certain days alongside the prayer for the souls in Purgatory and alongside the plea for unbelievers.17 Matters were not as simple for the Protestant Churches: while conceding to the Newts an intelligence and hence the ability to comprehend Christian teachings, they nevertheless hesitated to make them members of the Church and hence brothers-in-Christ. They therefore confined themselves to publishing (in abridged form) a Holy Scripture for Newts, on waterproof paper, and distributing it in millions of copies. There was also some thought of compiling for the Newts (analogously to Basic English) a kind of Basic Christian, a basic and simplified Christian doctrine; however, efforts along these lines triggered off so many theological disputes that the idea was abandoned.18 Certain religious sects (especially in America) had no such scruples: they dispatched their missionaries to the Newts to preach to them the True Faith and to baptise them in accordance with Holy Writ’s injunction: Go ye therefore and teach all nations. However, only a handful of missionaries succeeded in penetrating the wooden fences which divided the salamanders from the humans: the employers stopped them from getting to the Newts so they should not needlessly keep them from working. Occasionally one might come upon a preacher standing at the tarred fence, among the dogs which would be furiously barking at their enemies on the far side, fruitlessly but fanatically proclaiming the Word of God.
As far as is known, monism achieved a somewhat greater following among the Newts; some of them also believed in materialism, the gold standard and other scientific doctrines. One popular philosopher, George Sequenz by name, even developed a special religious teaching for Newts, its central and highest article of faith being belief in the Great Salamander. Admittedly, this faith gained no adherents among the Newts at all, but it had quite a following among humans, especially in the big cities, where a huge number of secret temples of the salamander cult sprang up virtually overnight.19 At a later period and almost universally the Newts themselves came to accept a different faith, whose origin among them is unknown; this involved adoration of Moloch, whom they visualised as a giant Newt with a human head; they were reported to have enormous submarine idols made of cast iron, manufactured to their orders by Armstrong or Krupp, but no further details ever leaked out of their cultic rituals since they were conducted under water; they were, however, believed to be exceptionally cruel and secret. It would seem that this faith gained ground rapidly because the name Moloch reminded them of the zoological molche or the German Molch, the terms for Newt.
The preceding chapters will have made it clear that the Newt Problem was initially, and indeed for a considerable time, viewed in the light of whether, and to what extent, the Newts were reasoning and fairly civilised creatures capable of enjoying certain civil rights, even though on the margin of human society and the human order. In other words, it was a domestic issue for each individual state, an issue resolved within the framework of civil law. For a number of years it never occurred to anyone that the Newt Problem might have far-reaching international significance or that it might become necessary to deal with the salamanders not merely as intelligent individual beings but also as a Newt collective or indeed a Newt nation. In point of fact the first step towards such a concept of the Newt Problem came from those somewhat eccentric Christian sects which attempted to baptise the Newts, basing themselves on the scriptural injunction: Go ye therefore and teach all nations. This was the first implication that the Newts were something like a nation.20 But the first truly international and fundamental acknowledgment of Newt nationhood came in that famous manifesto of the Communist International signed by Comrade Molokov and addressed to ‘all oppressed and revolutionary Newts of the whole world’.21 Even though this manifesto did not seem to have any direct effect on the Newts themselves, it nevertheless produced considerable reverberations in the international press and was copiously imitated in the sense that fiery appeals began to rain down upon the salamanders from the most varied quarters, calling on them to join this or that ideological, political or social programme of human society as a massive Newt entity.22
At that point the International Labour Office in Geneva began to take up the Newt Problem. There two views clashed sharply: one recognised the Newts as a new working class and demanded that all social legislation affecting working hours, paid holidays, sickness and old-age insurance, etc., should be extended to them; the opposing view was that the Newts represented a dangerous competition to the human workforce and that Newt labour should quite simply be prohibited. This suggestion was opposed not only by the representatives of the employers but also by the workers’ delegates, who pointed out that the Newts were no longer merely an army of workers but also a large and ever growing body of consumers. They demonstrated that employment had recently increased to an unprecedented degree in the metal industry (working tools, machines and metal idols for Newts), in armaments, chemicals (underwater explosives), paper making (textbooks for Newts), cement, timber, synthetic foodstuffs (Salamander Food) and many other branches of industry. The shipping tonnage had risen by 27 per cent over pre-Newt figures, and coal by 18.6 per cent. Indirectly, as human employment and prosperity increased, turnover rose also in other industries. Most recently the Newts had been placing orders for various parts of machinery according to their own designs; these they themselves assembled below water into pneumatic drills, hammer-drills, submarine engines, printing machinery, underwater transmitters and other equipment of their own design. These products they paid for by an increased work performance: already one-fifth of world production by heavy industry and precision engineering was dependent on Newt orders. Abolish the salamanders and you could close down one-fifth of the factories; instead of the present prosperity you would have millions of unemployed. Naturally enough, the International Labour Office could not disregard these objections; finally, after long negotiations, a compromise solution was reached to the effect that ‘the above-mentioned employees of group S (amphibians) may only be employed below or in the water, or on the foreshore up to a maximum of 10 metres from the high water line; that they must not mine coal or extract oil from the seabed; that they must not manufacture paper, textiles or artificial leather from seaweed for consumption on dry land’, and so on. These restrictions on Newt productio
n were laid down in a code of nineteen paragraphs which we do not propose to quote in detail if only because, needless to say, no one took any notice of them. But as a generous and truly international solution of the Newt Problem from the economic and social standpoint the above-mentioned code was a meritorious and impressive achievement
Matters did not move so fast with the international recognition of the Newts in the sphere of cultural relations. When the much-quoted article, ‘The Geological Composition of the Seabed near the Bahamas’, first appeared in the scientific press over the signature of one John Seaman, no one realised that this was in fact the work of an erudite salamander. But when reports and papers in the field of oceanography, geography, hydrobiology, higher mathematics and other exact sciences began to arrive at scientific congresses or at the secretariats of various academies and learned societies, this caused a good deal of embarrassment and indeed resentment, as voiced by the famous Dr Martel: ‘That vermin’s got anything to teach us?!’ The japanese scientist Dr Onoshita, who was bold enough to quote a Newt study (it was something about the evolution of the yolk sac in the tadpoles of the deep sea fish Argyropelecus hemigymnus Cocco) was boycotted by the scientific community and committed harakiri. For academic science it was a point of honour and of status consciousness to ignore any scientific work performed by Newts. The greater was the attention (not to say scandal) caused by the gesture of the Centre universitaire de Nice23 when it invited Dr Charles Mercier, a highly erudite Newt from Toulon harbour, to give a guest lecture (which in fact he delivered with considerable success) on the theory of conic sections in non-Euclidian geometry. That event was attended also by Mme Maria Dimineanu, a delegate representing Geneva organisations; that splendid and generous lady was so taken by the modest behaviour and by the learning of Dr Mercier (‘Pauvre petit,’ she was said to have remarked, ‘il est tellement laid!’) that she made it the goal of her tireless life to get the Newts accepted as members of the League of Nations. In vain did statesmen explain to the eloquent and energetic lady that, since they had no state sovereignty of their own and nowhere in the world did they have their own state territory, the salamanders could not be members of the League of Nations. Mme Dimineanu thereupon began to canvas the idea that the Newts should have their own territory somewhere in the world and their own submarine state. That idea, of course, was rather unwelcome if not actually dangerous; in the end, however, a lucky solution was found: a special Commission for the Study of the Newt Question would be set up under the League of Nations, with two Newt delegates to be invited to sit on it. At Mme Dimineanu’s insistence the first to be so invited was Dr Charles Mercier of Toulon; the other was some Don Mario, an obese and learned Newt from Cuba, a research worker in the field of plankton and neritic epiplankton. This marked the highest international recognition which the Newts had achieved of their existence until then.24
We therefore see the salamanders in strong and steady ascent. Their numbers are already estimated at 7 billion, even though civilisatory progress has dramatically reduced their birth rate (to some twenty to thirty tadpoles per female annually). They have already settled more than 60 per cent of all the world’s shores; so far the polar coastlines are uninhabited, though Canadian Newts have begun to colonise the Greenland coast, where they have actually pushed the Eskimos further inland and seized control of fishing and the blubber trade. Hand in hand with the material advancement has gone their civilisatory progress: they have joined the ranks of enlightened nations with compulsory education, and they can boast of hundreds of underwater newspapers appearing in millions of copies, of exemplarily endowed scientific research instititutes, and so forth. Obviously, this cultural progress has not always or everywhere taken place without domestic opposition; though we know exceedingly little about the Newts’ internal affairs, there are certain indications (for instance the discovery of Newts with their noses or heads bitten off) that for a longish period there reigned a protracted and fierce ideological struggle between the Old Newts and the Young Newts. The Young Newts were evidently in favour of progress without reservations or restrictions; they declared that it was imperative, even under water, to catch up with dry-land culture of all kind, not excepting football, flirtation, fascism and sexual perversions; the Old Newts, on the other hand, clung conservatively to natural Newtism and refused to give up their good old animalic habits and instincts; they certainly rejected all feverish chasing after novelty, regarding it as a decadent phenomenon and a betrayal of inherited Newt ideals. They fulminated also against all foreign influences to which today’s misguided youth so blindly succumbed, and they inquired whether such apeing of humans was worthy of proud and self-respecting Newts.25 We can visualise the coining of such slogans as Back to the Miocene! Down with Humanising Influences! Fight for pure Newtship! And so on. Undoubtedly all the preconditions existed for a deep generation conflict of opinions and for a profound spiritual revolution in the evolution of the salamanders. We regret that we are unable to illustrate this in greater detail; we can only hope that the Newts have benefited from the conflict as much as possible.
So we now find the salamanders on the road to their finest flowering; but the human world, too, is enjoying unprecedented prosperity. New continental coasts are being feverishly constructed, new dry land is emerging from where shallows used to be; artificial air support islands are springing up in the middle of the ocean. Yet all that is nothing compared to the gigantic technical projects for the complete reconstruction of our globe, projects now merely awaiting someone to finance them. Newts are working without respite in the seas everywhere and on the shores of all the continents during the hours of darkness; they appear to be content and do not demand anything for themselves except employment - holes to be drilled into the banks and passages to their dark living quarters. They have their submarine and underground cities, their deep-down metropolises, their Essens and Birminghams on the sea bottom, at a depth of twenty to fifty metres. They have their overcrowded factory districts, their harbours, transport links and agglomerations of millions. In short, they have their own, more or less unknown26 but, as it seems, technically highly advanced world. Admittedly they have no blast furnaces or smelters of their own, but humans supply them with metals in exchange for their labour. They have no explosives of their own, but these too are sold to them by humans. Their energy source is the sea with its high and low tides, with its currents and temperature gradients. Although their turbines were supplied to them by humans, the Newts know how to use them; but what else is civilisation than the ability to make use of things invented by someone else? Even if, for the sake of argument, the Newts have no original ideas of their own they can perfectly well have their own science. True, they have no music or literature of their own but they manage perfectly well without; indeed people are beginning to think that this is marvellously modern of them. So there you are - already humans can learn something from the Newts. And small wonder: what other example are people to follow if not success? Never before in human history has so much been manufactured, constructed or earned as in this great age. Say what you will, the Newts have brought enormous progress to the world, as well as an ideal called Quantity. ‘We people of the Newt Age,’ is a phrase uttered with justified pride; good heavens, how can you compare us with that outmoded Human Age with its ponderous, finicky and useless fuss that went by the name of culture, the arts, pure science, and what have you! Real, self-assured Newt Age people will no longer waste their time meditating on the Essence of Things; they will be concerned solely with numbers and mass production. The world’s entire future lies in a continually increased consumption and production - so we need even more Newts to produce even more and consume even more. The Newts are quite simply Quantity: their epoch-making achievement lies in their huge numbers. Only now can human ingenuity attain its full scope because now it works on a vast scale, at maximum productive capacity and a record economic turnover. In short: this is a great age. So what is still lacking to make this universal contentment and
prosperity into a Happy New Age? What is still standing in the way of that dreamed-of Utopia with its technological triumphs and magnificent vistas opening up for man’s prosperity and Newt industry, further and further into infinity?
In fact, nothing. For now the Newt Business will be crowned with statesmanlike foresight, to ensure that nothing should come adrift in the machinery of the New Age. In London, a conference of maritime states is being held to elaborate and approve an International Salamander Convention. The high contracting parties agree amongst each other that they will not dispatch their Newts into the territorial waters of other states; that they will not permit their Newts to infringe, in any way whatsoever, the territorial integrity or acknowledged sphere of interests of any other state; that they will not, in any way whatsoever, interfere in the Newt affairs of other maritime states; that in the event of a clash between their and foreign salamanders they will submit to arbitration by the Hague Court; that they will not arm their Newts with any weapons of a calibre in excess of that customary in underwater pistols against sharks (the so-called Safranek Gun or shark gun); that they will not permit their Newts to enter into any close relations with the salamanders of other sovereign states; that they will not permit their Newts to build new continents or extend their territory without the previous approval of the Permanent Maritime Commission in Geneva, and so on. (There were in all thirty-seven articles.) On the other hand, a British proposal that the maritime powers should undertake not to subject their Newts to compulsory military training was defeated; so was a French proposal that the salamanders should be internationalised and placed under the International Newt Authority for the Regulation of World Waters; so was a German proposal that each Newt should have the emblem of the state whose subject it was branded upon it, as was also another German proposal that each maritime state should be allowed a certain number of Newts on the basis of a numerical ratio. Also defeated was an Italian suggestion that states with a surfeit of salamanders should have new colonisable coasts or seabed plots assigned to them, and a Japanese proposal that the Japanese nation, as a representative of the coloured races, should exercise an international mandate over the Newts (since these were black by nature).27 Most of these proposals were shelved for discussion at the next conference of maritime powers; for a number of reasons, however, that conference never met.
