[Leval pg 4 continued]
The door would be bolted, and the little girls not allowed out during the working hours. Everybody laughs, the parties concerned more than the others.
Many collectivists express their view in turn, and it is decided that in every workshop a woman delegate shall supervise the apprentices. Those who do not attend on two consecutive occasions without good cause will be dismissed. But the man who would have them kept under lock and key was implacable; he suggests quite seriously, or so it seemed, that to punish them when their work was unsatisfactory the young girls should be made to fast for two or three days. To that there is a general roar of laughter.
New problem: The nomination of a new hospital director (and we learn that the director is a woman, which is fairly unusual). This hospital has been converted into an Old People's Home, but they are now being treated at home by a doctor who joined the Collective and the cantonal hospital is at their disposal for allurgent cases or serious illnesses. This again poses a problem of jurisdiction. It is a general hospital. It is a question of ascertaining whether or not it comes under the municipal Council reconstituted following the publication of the decree emanating from the Valencia government. [Note: the government of the Republic of Spain, located now in Valencia, was composed of anti-fascists, including pro-capitalists and pro-Stalinists who opposed the Collectives; failure to break completely free from the control of these anti-egalitarian forces was a major, arguably fatal, weakness of the egalitarian revolution.--editor] If it does, the hospital is everybody's responsibility, collectivists and individualists, and the latter must also share in the expenses. So far the Collective have paid everything, and its enemies have take [sic] advantage of its bounty. A matter for further study.
Following the examination of questions of less importance the chairman closes the session. The assembly has lasted 2 1/2 hours. Most of those who took part were peasants from the village or its environs, accustomed to rise early, and who at that time of the year had worked twelve or fourteen hours.
Yet no one left before the end of the discussions, not even those who had remained standing as there were not enough seats to go round. No woman or child had gone to sleep. Eyes had remained wide open, and faces as wide awake. One read on them, at the end, as much, often amused, interest as one had observed at the beginning. And the chairman, at the same time paternal, fraternal, and the teacher, had to insist to prevent a much longer agenda.
The final resolution adopted concerned the frequency of assemblies which from being held monthly were to take place weekly.
And the collectivists made their different ways home to bed commenting on the discussions and resolutions adopted as they went. Some lived a fair distance away and travelled either on foot or on bicycles.