The Evening Star SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2756, 16 December 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1871.

Now that the programme of the socalled New Social Movement is to hand, the most strait-laced of the laissez faire school of political economists must admit that the professed object is benevolent, and worthy of consideration. The seven resolutions adopted were: — “ 1. To rescue the families of our workmen from the dismal lanes, crowded alleys, and unwholesome dw Kings of our towns, and plant them out in the clear, where, in the middle of a garden, in a detached homestead, in wholesome air and sunshine, they may live and grow up, strong, healthy, and pure, under the influence of a well-ordered home. , „ . „ -< 2. To enable'tins to be effectually carried out, there roust be created a perfect organisation for the self-government of counties, town, and villages, with powers for the acquisition and disposal of land for the common good. “3. The next condition of the well-being of the skilled workman is that a day’s labor shall consist of eight hours of honest work. “4, In addition to schools for elementary education, there shall be provided schools for practical knowledge and technical skill in the midst of their homesteads. “5. For the moral and physical wellbeing of the people, places of public recreation, knowledge, and refinement, shall be organised as parts of the public service. “ 6. Public markets shall be erected in every town for the sale of goods in small quantities, of best quality, at wholesale prices. “7, There shall bo provided a great extension of the organisation of the public service on the model of the Post-office, for the common good. ” The objection to this scheme is that however desirable, most of the proposals are clearly impracticable. We have no doubt that much might be done by the co-operation of intelligence with capital. We never have had any doubt that by proper arrangements the cost of living of both rich and poor might be much reduced, with many advantages of relief from care, anxiety, and domestic toil. There is no reason, excepting the absence of combined action, why the working classes should not enjoy every benefit of fresh country air, and luxuries that are now beyond their reach, although they must not expect to have a “ detached homestead in the “ middle of a garden,” That is a bit of sentimentalism handed down from the poets. It is an idea that may be realised in the Colonies, where high wages and cheap land render such paradises possible. But at Home, near towns, where instead of an allotment of a quarter of an acre fetching fifty or one hundred pounds, it is cheap at one or two thousand or more, other plans must be followed, which we believe in the end will result from the development of the co-operative principle. The true social problem to be solved is how to realise the greatest amount of comfort, instruction, and leisure at the least possible expense. We believe society is not prepared to consider this question earnestly. If it be pointed out that a building could be constructed so as to give separate residences to one or two hundred families, with lofty, well-ventilated rooms, the temperature of which could be regulated so as to be at all times agreeable, without the clilt, grime, danger, and annoyance of open fires ; that those families could secure for themselves a table abundantly provided with substantial food and delicacies : that there might be connected with the village building a hospital for the sick, where they might be tended by members of their own family, aided by skilled nurses: that household drudgery might be done by hired labor: that a school might be attached, a hall for amusement, and a library and reading loom : that a sewage system might be adopted that would tend to health and the profit of the establishment by fertilising the grounds attached for the production of vegetables and fruit: that elegant grounds and shrubberies might be formed; and that all this could be done, and good salaries given to a school muster, a clergyman, and a doctor, for little more than one half that it now costs the same number of families in separated cottages, some person, without giving the matter the slightest consideration would jump up and say “Oh, this is communism.” Once this plan was under consideration amongst a few, in Victoria. Before it y#s ripe, however, an architect, anxious to be beforehand, seized the idea; an associatiop was formed under his auspices —but, instead of co-operation, detached

villa residences became the leading features : as a matter ef course, the whole affair fell to the ground, and matters remained as they were. The value of legitimate co-operation is not understood in its social effects. There is no need for aristocratic help : all that men have to do is to help themselves, to separate the veal from the ideal, to consider what is possible, and to adopt means to secure it. Much of the rubbishly nonsense about living on one’s own land will have to be thrown overboard j and if living in earnest is to be secured, men and women will have to fix in their own minds higher ■ standards of liberty and self-subordina-tion than we have yet reached. When they are prepared to submit to self-im-posed restraints based on mutual regard and respect, it is quite within their own power to secure all that is proposed by the new social movement.