With a sudden change of tone and manner, Crooks then went on to tell the House that if an able-bodied man out of a job was driven into the workhouse, he generally remained a workhouse inmate for the rest of his life. It degraded and demoralised him. It took away his muscle to stand up and fight for himself. If the Local Government Board would permit Guardians to take land, this man could be put to useful work. Even able-bodied men of the "in-and-out" type would be better for being put to work on the land under powers of compulsory detention. Of course, these men should be allowed to go out if they really desired to look for other work. What they should not be allowed to do was to drag their wives and children about the country, vagrants bringing up more vagrants. Employment on farm colonies would quickly get rid of the tramp difficulty. Such men, trained in useful agricultural work, if they felt they had little chance in this country, would then have some equipment for the colonies. A country like Canada, for instance, had no use for men who had simply been loafing about English towns, but would very quickly find work for men who had had a little training and discipline on the land. It would be better for the whole community that something of this sort should be done than that we should go on with the present system of doles and relief, whose effects, like idleness, only demoralised. The appeal to the House on that occasion fell on deaf ears. The winter of 1904 was made memorable to him by the creation of the Central Unemployed Committee. For several years he had urged that the Poor Law Unions of London should be empowered to form a central committee to deal with the unemployed on well-organised lines. With the several Unions acting separately, confusion and waste followed on well-meaning efforts. The genuine unemployed received little real help. Few public men took his scheme for a central organisation seriously at first. He was well-nigh worn out with his failures when unexpectedly the then President of the Local Government Board came to his aid. Crooks, with several other Members of Parliament, had waited upon Mr. Long in deputation. The result was the calling together of the famous Unemployed Conference at the Local Government Board on October 14th, 1904. To that Conference the Poplar Guardians sent Crooks and Lansbury, armed with a series of carefully-thought-out proposals. Some of them found a ready acceptance on the part of Mr. Long. Others were adopted by the succeeding Government. Since those Poplar proposals have already figured prominently in unemployed schemes and promise to appear in projects yet to be framed, the substance of them is here set out:-- 1. The President of the Local Government Board to combine the London Unions for the purpose of dealing with the unemployed and the unemployable. 2. Such central authority to take over the control of all able-bodied inmates in London workhouses.