The Hollesley Bay Farm Colony was established in 1905 by the Central Unemployed Body; the total expenditure on it between 1905 and March 31, 1912, was £178,253, the total realized by sales of produce of the colony during the same period was £41,755, showing a net loss during that time of £136,498. (See _Sixth Report Central (Unemployment) Body_, 1913, pp. 7 and 16.) Mr. John Burns, President of the Local Government Board, speaking in the House of Commons, March 13, 1908 (_Parliamentary Debates_, Vol. 186, 70), said in regard to the Hollesley Bay colony: “The labour and the work of these men is brought into competition with the local market gardeners and farmers, and when I go down to Hollesley Bay I am confronted with small deputations of professional decent agricultural labourers and servants of market gardeners, complaining of the fact that our attempt, well-intentioned, charitably inclined, and fed with State money, on behalf of the unemployed, is dispossessing the decent agricultural labourer.” The South Ockenden Farm Colony was established by the West Ham Guardians. Mr. John Burns said, in regard to it: “In the whole time that that colony has been in operation—and no one will but admit that I have given it the most generous and the most fatherly assistance—out of the 790 who have gone through that colony, its object being to train men for the land and to take them back to the land, there is not a recorded instance of the men going back to agricultural work” (_Parliamentary Debates_, Vol. 186, 70). On the same occasion Mr. Burns referred to the Laindon colony established by the Poplar Guardians: “I saw an old agricultural labourer between sixty and sixty-five years old, digging in a field within 200 yards of the colony, getting 15_s._ or 16_s._ per week”—Mr. Burns had previously mentioned that the average cost per week per man on the colony was 24_s._—“I said to him, ‘How long does it take you to dig an acre of land?’ He said, ‘It takes me a fortnight to dig an acre of that land.’ I went across the rail and found on the public works sixty-seven able-bodied men ... taking ten days to dig an acre and a half.” Thus, in the colony each man was digging at the rate of one acre in 446 days, while the old agricultural labourer on the adjoining land was digging one acre in 14 days. It will be remembered that the express object of the Central Unemployed Body in setting up these colonies was to provide productive work for the unemployed. No wonder that Mr. Burns, with his great experience, expressed himself in the following terms, July 19, 1906 (_Parliamentary Debates_, Vol. 161, 425):—