On the other hand, opinion is general that the compulsory labor colony as represented by the beggar colony or compulsory workhouse is of great value as a deterrent and as a custodial institution. None of the countries would, I believe, give up the colony idea, although statements were frequently made that the colony should be smaller, classifications more developed and that the efforts to influence for the better the individual colonists should be more frequent and varied. At Merxplas the secretary general of the Belgian department of justice, the administrative head of the Belgian system, stated to me that Belgium is planning numerous smaller colonies to take the place of Merxplas. The feeling is pronounced in Belgium, Holland and Germany that the most that can be achieved by any present method of dealing with vagrants is the gradual reduction of the number of vagrants, the deterrence of many would-be vagrants, and the segregation of a large number of inevitable vagrants and beggars where they may do the least harm to society at a minimum expense to society. Although vagrants in the colonies and the workhouses manifest in general a restlessness and a frequent desire for liberty, they are themselves aware that their condition in general is better in the colonies than outside. Indeed, at Merxplas, and particularly at Veenhuizen the American visitor finds a beauty of landscape and a condition of intensive development of garden and meadow, grove and forest, canal and highway that renders both institutions scenically beautiful. The Prussian compulsory workhouse, Brauweiler, is most attractively located in a renovated cloister, the original buildings of which are 1,000 years old. The spacious rooms, the impressive arched corridors, the striking central courts of the cloister as well as the well preserved cloister church dating back to the tenth century, are all impressive and even awe-inspiring. The workhouse prisoners eat in cloistered passages where 500 years ago the monks had their daily meals. The prisoners worship in a church used by royalty and nobles at the time of the crusades. Even a spreading mulberry tree in one of the court yards, furnishing shade from time to time for some of the inmates, was planted a thousand years ago by the founders of the monastery. In Rummelsburg, adjacent to Berlin, the walled workhouse embraces ample grounds, a spacious garden and attractive buildings. At Veenhuizen in Holland, the heath has been made to blossom like the rose and no finer views of Holland scenery can be found than those in the midst of the 7,000 acres embraced by the colony.