Victorian Village Settlements.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 210, 6 March 1895, Page 2

Victorian Village Settlements.

(Per Press Association.) Sydney, March 5. Rev. Dr Strong, a leading spirit in the establishment of Victorian village settlements, is visiting Sydney. He admits the settlements are only a partial success. There were several causes to account for this. The Board of Management has insufficient powers in enforcing rules of discipline, and the men are not accustomed to the work, being neither skilful nor seized with the idea of working for their own good. They showed no more self-help than if working for a master. They abandoned settlements as soon as outside employment was offered, or were enticed away to cheap lands available under the new Settlement Bill. They were also crippled by want of private assistance, which had fallen off in consequence of the existing depression. Some settlers, he thought, were doing well, and he hoped that with further Government assistance good work would be done, in spite of the fact that the hopes of the promoters had been disappointed. He believed that the scheme had been started on right lines and was a severe object lesson, from which good might come. He found that the great difficulty of co-operative settlement was the moral one. Men accustomed to work for wages took a long time to act independently.