SECTION 4.—SOME OBJECTIONS MET (2)

It will be seen that this is a miniature factory, but still it is a factory, and worked on principles that will admit of illimitable extension, and may, I think, be justly regarded as an encouragement and an exemplification of what may be accomplished in endless variations.

V.—Again, it is objected that the class whose benefit we contemplate would not have physical ability to work on a farm, or in the open air.

How, it is asked, would tailors, clerks, weavers, seamstresses, and the destitute people, born and reared in the slums and poverty-hovels of the towns and cities, do farm or any other work that has to do with the land? The employment in the open air, with exposure to every kind of weather which accompanies it, would, it is said, kill them off right away.

We reply, that the division of labour before described would render it as unnecessary as it would be undesirable and uneconomical, to put many of these people to dig or to plant. Neither is it any part of our plan to do so. On our Scheme we have shown how each one would be appointed to that kind of work for which his previous knowledge and experience and strength best adapted him. Moreover, there can be no possible comparison between the conditions of health enjoyed by men and women wandering about homeless, sleeping in the streets or in the fever-haunted lodging-houses, or living huddled up in a single room, and toiling twelve and fourteen hours in a sweater's den, and living in comparative comfort in well-warmed and ventilated houses, situated in the open country, with abundance of good, healthy food.

Take a man or a woman out into the fresh air, give them proper exercise, and substantial food. Supply them with a comfortable home, cheerful companions, and a fair prospect of reaching a position of independence in this or some other land, and a complete renewal of health and careful increase of vigour will, we expect, be one of the first great benefits that will ensue.

VI.—It is objected that we should be left with a considerable residuum of half-witted, helpless people.

Doubtless this would be a real difficulty, and we should have to prepare for it. We certainly, at the outset, should have to guard against too many of this class being left upon our hands, although we should not be compelled to keep anyone. It would, how ever, be painful to have to send them back to the dreadful life from which we had rescued them. Still, however, this would not be so ruinous a risk, looked at financially, as some would imagine. We could, we think, maintain them for 4s. per week, and they would be very weak indeed in body, and very wanting in mental, strength if they were not able to earn that amount in some one of the many forms of employment which the Colony would open up.

VII.—Again, it will be objected that some efforts of a similar character have failed. For instance, co-operative enterprises in farming have not succeeded.

True, but so far as I can ascertain, nothing of the character I am describing has ever been attempted. A large number of Socialistic communities have been established and come to grief in the United States, in Germany, and elsewhere, but they have all, both in principle and practice, strikingly differed from what we are proposing here: Take one particular alone, the great bulk of these societies have not only been fashioned without any regard to the principles of Christianity, but, in the vast majority of instances, have been in direct opposition to them; and the only communities based on co-operative principles that have survived the first few months of their existence have been based upon Christian truth. If not absolute successes, there have been some very remarkable results obtained by efforts partaking somewhat of the nature of the one I am setting forth. (See that of Ralahine, described in Appendix.)

VIII.—It is further objected that it would be impossible to maintain order and enforce good discipline amongst this class of people.

We are of just the opposite opinion. We think that it would —nay, we are certain of it, and we speak as those who have had considerable experience in dealing with the lower classes of Society. We have already dealt with this difficulty. We may say further—

That we do not propose to commence with a thousand people in a wild, untamed state, either at home or abroad. To the Colony Over-Sea we should send none but those who have had a long period of training in this country. The bulk of those sent to the Provincial Farm would have had some sort of trial in the different City Establishments. We should only draft them on to the Estate in small numbers, as we were prepared to deal with them, and I am quite satisfied that without the legal methods of maintaining order that are acted upon so freely in workhouses and other similar institutions, we should have as perfect obedience to Law, as great respect for authority, and as strong a spirit of kindness pervading all ranks throughout the whole of the community as could be found in any other institution in the land.

It will be borne in mind that our Army system of government largely prepares us, if it does not qualify us, for this task. Anyway, it gives us a good start. All our people are trained in habits of obedience, and all our Officers are educated in the exercise of authority. The Officers throughout the Colony would be almost exclusively recruited from the ranks of the Army, and everyone of them would go to the work, both theoretically and practically, familiar with those principles which are the essence of good discipline.

Then we can argue, and that very forcibly, from the actual experience we have already had in dealing with this class. Take our experience in the Army itself. Look at the order of our Soldiers. Here are men and women, who have no temporal interest whatever at stake, receiving no remuneration, often sacrificing their earthly interests by their union with us, and yet see how they fall into line, and obey orders in the promptest manner, even when such orders go right in the teeth of their temporal interests.

"Yes," it will be replied by some, "this is all very excellent so far as it relates to those who are altogether of your own way of thinking. You can command them as you please, and they will obey, but what proof have you given of your ability to control and discipline those who are not of your way of thinking?

"You can do that with your Salvationists because they are saved, as you call it. When men are born again you can do anything with them. But unless you convert all the denizens of Darkest England, what chance is there that they will be docile to your discipline? If they were soundly saved no doubt something might be done. But they are not saved, soundly or otherwise; they are lost. What reason have you for believing that they will be amenable to discipline?"

I admit the force of this objection; but I have an answer, and an answer which seems to me complete. Discipline, and that of the most merciless description, is enforced upon multitudes of these people even now. Nothing that the most authoritative organisation of industry could devise in the excess of absolute power, could for a moment compare with the slavery enforced to-day in the dens of the sweater. It is not a choice between liberty and discipline that confronts these unfortunates, but between discipline mercilessly enforced by starvation and inspired by futile greed, and discipline accompanied with regular rations and administered solely for their own benefit. What liberty is there for the tailors who have to sew for sixteen to twenty hours a day, in a pest-hole, in order to earn ten shillings a week? There is no discipline so brutal as that of the sweater; there is no slavery so relentless as that from which we seek to deliver the victims. Compared with their normal condition of existence, the most rigorous discipline which would be needed to secure the complete success of any new individual organisation would be an escape from slavery into freedom.

You may reply, "that it might be so, if people understood their own interest. But as a matter of fact they do not understand it, and that they will never have sufficient far-sightedness to appreciate the advantages that are offered them."

To this I answer, that here also I do not speak from theory. I lay before you the ascertained results of years of experience. More than two years ago, moved by the misery and despair of the unemployed, I opened the Food and Shelter Depots in London already described. Here are a large number of men every night, many of them of the lowest type of casuals who crawl about the streets, a certain proportion criminals, and about as difficult a class to manage as I should think could be got together, and while there will be 200 of them in a single building night after night, from the first opening of the doors in the evening until the last man has departed in the morning, there shall scarcely be a word of dissatisfaction; anyway, nothing in the shape of angry temper or bad language. No policemen are required; indeed two or three nights' experience will be sufficient to turn the regular frequenters of the place of their own free will into Officers of Order, glad not only to keep the regulations of the place, but to enforce its discipline upon others.

Again, every Colonist, whether in the City or elsewhere, would know that those who took the interests of the Colony to heart, were loyal to its authority and principles, and laboured industriously in promoting its interests, would be rewarded accordingly by promotion to positions of influence and authority, which would also carry with them temporal advantages, present and prospective.

But one of our main hopes would be in the apprehension by the Colonists of the fact that all our efforts were put forth on their behalf. Every man and woman on the place would know that this enterprise was begun and carried on solely for their benefit, and that of the other members of their class, and that only their own good behaviour and co-operation would ensure their reaping a personal share in such benefit. Still our expectations would be largely based on the creation of a spirit of unselfish interest in the community.

IX. Again, it is objected that the Scheme is too vast to be attempted by voluntary enterprise; it ought to be taken up and carried out by the Government itself.

Perhaps so, but there is no very near probability of Government undertaking it, and we are not quite sure whether such an attempt would prove a success if it were made. But seeing that neither Governments, nor Society, nor individuals have stood forward to undertake what God has made appear to us to be so vitally important a work, and as He has given us the willingness, and in many important senses the ability, we are prepared, if the financial help is furnished, to make a determined effort, not only to undertake but to carry it forward to a triumphant success.

X.—It is objected that the classes we seek to benefit are too ignorant and depraved for Christian effort, or for effort of any kind, to reach and reform.—

Look at the tramps, the drunkards, the harlots, the criminals. How confirmed they are in their idle and vicious habits. It will be said, indeed has been already said by those with whom I have conversed, that I don't know them; which statement cannot, I think, be maintained, for if I don't know them, who does?

I admit, however, that thousands of this class are very far gone from every sentiment, principle and practice of right conduct. But I argue that these poor people cannot be much more unfavourable subjects for the work of regeneration than are many of the savages and heathen tribes, in the conversion of whom Christians universally believe; for whom they beg large sums of money, and to whom they send their best and bravest people.

These poor people are certainly embraced in the Divine plan of mercy. To their class, the Saviour especially gave His attention when he was on the earth, and for them He most certainly died on the Cross.

Some of the best examples of Christian faith and practice, and some of the most successful workers for the benefit of mankind, have sprung from this class, of which we have instances recorded in the Bible, and any number in the history of the Church and of the Salvation Army.

It may be objected that while this Scheme would undoubtedly assist one class of the community by making steady, industrious workmen, it must thereby injure another class by introducing so many new hands into the labour market, already so seriously overstocked.