VOLTAIRE THE PHILANTHROPIST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12609, 25 June 1904, Page 1 (Supplement)

VOLTAIRE THE PHILANTHROPIST.

;;:?'•: . -' f •« ,i, , ♦ ..'."TT;,' (:>''-.. i:... 1 , Fekntjv VotTAmx is the name of a little hamlet near Geneva;. Switzerland. ■:■"%% was, here that .Voltaire, sometime sceptic mil scoffer, "proved himself the first great prac- ■.'■ ■.■-■■, ■■■-■ t ,t . . ... rr *"**" tical philanthropist of his century. He purchared there an estate which bore the namia of the hamlet,, He immediately?; be©«im)i interested . in the . poverty-stricken .people, and although then past seventy years of K b began to help the.people by teaching them to help themselves. In "The Lifilt of Voltaire" Mr.'S.Qi'.Talkntyre writes Voltaire's work, which does not answer the unkindly memory' in which . Valteiro is held in English-speaking entries, In 1767 he could write that he had formed a colony at Farney ; that he had established there .three merchants, several artists, aji/l a doctor, and wis building houses for their ' In .1769 he recanted with -m honest'; pride that bo had iju*>dnipkd the ■number; of _y?ii: : parishioners, ird that there was not a?poor man among them ; fiat hi; had under his immediate supervision twe handred workers, and was the means of life to everyone r?nntl him, . ■.';: >:"^yr;;M*' : i^^^^^^Bitf; From the first Voltaire had cultivate! silkworms. He was iMver the man *.on am idle hobby. Why should no use fee made of the cilk? Before 176? the Feraey theati? was turned . ; nto a' silkworm nursery- From bray»Geneva caffie'.stotilng»weavwe, gW to colonise in the place, fVolt-aire, always ahre & the advantages oi a good advertisement, sent- to the Duchess de Choiseul tho first pair : 'ci. silk stockings ever made on bis looms. If 'would bin wear tb«n they most he the mode;" 4; t What stocking would ■ not - look .beaatifu? on -ft' foot so charming? .The lady (accepted his stockings and his " compliments, showed both to; her, friends, and? thus put some' fifty to a hundred people put of the way of wr,nt. Voltaire established Geneva watchnukers fct;Feraey, and Ferxtey was soon'v'ißdim.g watches to China, Spain, Italy, Uussia, Holland, America, Turkey,, Portugal,, and North Africa, besides carrying on. a considerable trade with Paris. As if he found weaving and watchmaking insufficient for his energy, by 1772 L? had started a lacemaking industry. If he wanted a reward lor all this trouble, he had it. The miserable hamlet' bad 1 become a thriving village, and the desert place blossomed like a rosi l . The master's corn fed his people. His bees produced excellent honey and wax (and his hemp, andflu made linen. ' ■■■■■■'Here dwelt i together, as. one. family ;.Cal>lj<|-.; lies and Huguenots. When Gex was devastated by famine in 1771 Voltaire imported corn from Sicily and sold it much, undiir cost to the poor people of the proyincii.Their sufferings and sorrows were his own. It might well."warm his old heart 'to iwe his little colony firm on "those twogrtisifc. pivots of the wealth :>f a {State, be it little or great, freedom or trade and . freed on* •' of conscience." „_' ".: