Socialism -- Great Britain; Unemployed -- Great Britain; Working class -- Great Britain
The farmers and labourers, as well as mechanics or others, who might
be living upon the land thus taken over, would have the option of
remaining upon it in the capacities for which they were severally
fitted, as superintendents, foremen, or labourers; or if they preferred
to leave would receive a reasonable “compensation for disturbance.”
* * * * *
There are always people who will not be satisfied with any proposed
remedy for a great evil unless it deals with every possible phase and
form of it, so as to abolish it completely at once, and for ever. Some
of these will be sure to object that the worst of the unemployed--the
tramps and the men who will not work under any conditions--will still
remain; and they will ask triumphantly: “How will you bring these into
your system? They will flock into your colonies in winter to enjoy
the good living and do nothing to earn it.” There are two replies to
this objection, which is really no valid objection at all. In the first
place, it was not for _this_ class of men that the “Unemployed Workmen
Bill” was brought into Parliament, or for whom legislation has been
promised by the Government. It was not of _these_ unfortunates that
either Socialists or Liberals drew such vivid pictures of undeserved
misery, but of the genuine workmen, the men or women whose one object
in life is to obtain _work_, however hard, however it may injure their
own health or shorten their lives, in order that they may _save their
families from starvation_, or from the deservedly hated workhouse. The
whole of this great and successful agitation has been in behalf of
those willing and anxious to work, but to whom by our actual social
organisation it is forbidden. It was for them only that the “Right to
Work” was demanded--not the right to _food_ while refusing to _work_.
It is a sufficient reply to the objectors, therefore, that Mr. Mills’
proposal really solves the problem as regards those very classes of
workers for whom the “Right to Work” clause was drawn.
But, secondly, it is certain that the system of co-operative colonies
here explained _would_, in the course of a few years, absorb also the
so-called unemployable, who are in reality by no means numerous, and
have _never yet been offered_ the kindly assistance, the sympathetic
treatment, the amount of liberty and the congenial surroundings they
would find in these colonies. General Booth’s experience at his Essex
colony has shown that a considerable proportion of these men are easily
reclaimable, and the system there is far less favourable and less
educational than it would be in our proposed co-operative colonies.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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