Having myself encountered many disappointments in books, claiming to expound new and important ideas both in physical and economic science, I was fully prepared for another failure here. But I quickly found that this was really what it claimed to be, and I at once did all I could to call public attention to it, first in one of my annual addresses to the Land Nationalisation Society (in 1892), and much more fully in a chapter I wrote for Edward Carpenter’s _Forecasts of the Coming Century_, published in 1897. This chapter I republished, with some important additional facts and arguments, in 1900, in my _Studies, Scientific and Social_; yet all appears to have been in vain. If the authors of the “Unemployed Workmen Bill” had drawn it so as to follow closely Mr. Mills’ scheme, and had fully explained this scheme in their speeches by means of the facts, illustrations, and methods so well and concisely given in his book, I feel sure that the result of the debate would have been very different, and that not only Socialists, but the whole body of Labour Members, a large majority of Liberals, and even many Conservatives, would have voted in its favour; in which case the Government would have been obliged either to adopt it, or to bring in a Bill of their own on similar lines. The chief reason why Mr. Mills’ scheme, if embodied in a Bill, should, and I think would, receive the support of a large majority in the present House of Commons is, that it utilises and combines in an admirable manner the most important, and at the same time the least disputable, methods of both Socialism and Individualism. To illustrate this I will give a few condensed extracts from his summary of the main features of his proposals, with some remarks of my own. (1) In each county or union, tracts of land from 2,000 acres upwards shall be purchased or taken over by the State or Local Authority, and be prepared with suitable houses, buildings, tools, machines, etc., for the accommodation of about 4,000 or 5,000 occupants, men, women, and children; with skilled foremen and organisers to carry out the various operations of agriculture, and the trades and manufactures required to produce food, clothing, and other necessaries for the inhabitants. (2) It is shown, by the facts and calculations of experts, that the labour of a properly assorted population, for four hours daily, will, when in full working order (say after a year), produce _all_ the necessaries of life in abundance. One hour more is added for the costs of skilled supervision and another hour for the maintenance and schooling of the children, and for the support of the aged and the sick as they arise. (3) In order to effect this the ordinary methods and rules of the best kinds of industrial work must be adopted; but, after working hours, all will be as completely free from control by the various industrial officials as the people of any prosperous and well-ordered town or village.