Agricultural colonies; Poor -- Great Britain; Salvation Army; Unemployed -- Great Britain
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?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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