THE Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1894. STATE FARMS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2727, 20 October 1894, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1894. STATE FARMS.

Much waa said some years ago concerning the establishment of State Farms, where persons temporarily unemployed could find a home, and persons incapable of fighting life’s battle in the ordinary way could find employment and be selfsnpporting, instead of being dependent on charitable aid. Nothing better than this could be suggested. It was favored by the late Sir Harry Atkinson and the late John Ballance, but lately it appears to be overlooked altogether. The present Government at one time contemplated starting a State Farm in several places, but with the exception of some experiment made in the North Island we hoar of nothing else being done in this direction. In our opinion it is a great mistake to lose sight of this excellent work. The number becoming dependent on charitable aid is increasing every year, and unless something is done to relieve the oppressive weight of the rates thus rendered necessary settlers will find it difficult to bear the burden. The best way is to establish State Farms, and place such of the dependents on charitable aid as are able to do work on it, and however little they may do they will be able to keep themselves. By this means the ratepayers will, be relieved of taxation, a home will be established for the homeless, and much good will be done. There are several of these colonies in Germany, and the following ia a report recently made of one of them by a'magistrate who visited it officially ;

“ I found two hundred and twenty-five colonists, mostly occupied on the fields, and working cheerfully though it was , pouring with rain. They were of all Glasses —men who had been in the army, men who had been to college. It is a mistake to think of the out-of-work, the i and submerged, are of the lower only- There waa a former eustomf an " " -fficial among them, there was a nouse 4 been in the civil service ; man who hau who had been a there was another . -m-ated too Landwehr officer, and one dee- ’—bo with the iron cross ; there was a man v.. had served in Algiers, another who had been a well-to-do gentleman farmer, and another au inspector of a coal mine; there waa a surgeon, there were schoolmasters who had lost their pupils, there were clerks, waiters—in fact, there were all sorts and conditions of men. Here they were; they had come starving, they had come ragged. They were decently clothed now and looked well fed, and the work I found them doing was not playwork. A house-father and some brothers (deacons) are set over them, and you cannot help seeing how these just live to be an example to them, help them, comfort them, show them how to work. I marvelled how such a number of by no means easy customers, considering their antecedents, could be managed as one family. About one-half of their number before coming here, were ‘ known to the policeabout one-fifth were actual convicts ; but they apparently gave no trouble—the wheels of that queer household seem wonderfully oiled. I simply marvelled. (This magistrate forgot there is an oil called brotherly kindness). There are strict rules to be observed in the colony, but there is no punishment. They are spoken to if insubordinate, they are exhorted, and if that avails not, they are just dismissed; yet a man rarely need be dismissed, — they are thankful enough to obey while in the colony. During the first fourteen mouths, 1200 in all have been admitted. Of these, only 48 (3£ per cent that is) ran away from the colony; 966 left fop regular employment, and of these 830 have Been actually placed by means of the Labour! Committee iu connection with the colony. The the houses, everything is a pattern of l fao meu are » ell cared for, the food is the simplest, but sufficient and wholesome— a^ ove the provisioning of the army—for ‘' Bo men arrive starving, and as labour is at once required of them, they must be fed up.” From this it will be seen that society is just as miscellaneous in Germany as one might expect to meet on » State Farm in New Zealand. Yet hero we have tib.sohite evidence of the willingness with which they all worked and obeyed the rules and regulations by which the colony is governed. There are 26 of those colonies iu Germany, and hero is a description of how men are treated on fint entering the place : “Any one presenting himself is admitted, those of the province having first claim. The clothes he wears, if worth anything, which hardly ever if the case, are disinfected and put away against the time of his leaving; for every man, as a preliminary, is put into a new suit of clothes. This is a wonderful stroke of Chistian genius ; a man feels a mw creature ; ho has put on rocpectability. But there is nothing of the uniform about these clothes; the meu are not treated as convicts — not even as charily

boys. They may choose wh4t they fancy out of a large stock of clothing always on hand. And they generally choose in accordance with their former condition of life; so by their very clothes, and by their own doing, there is a sort of distinction of olass in the colony. They have to pay for their clothes; money they have none, so the articles are given them on credit, against which their labour is set.” The colonist then signs a contract in which he admits the clothes are stolen if he runs away, and is liable to be prosecuted for theft, but the men never run away. They agree also to work for their food, and they never complain although they have to work from eight to twelve hours a day. After they are in the colony for a fortnight they receive twopence per day, and if they work well they get fivepence per day after they have been there a month. In this way some of the worst land in Germany has been coverted into smiling fields, and the poor, friendless, homeless creatures have been saved f romthe agonies of death from starvation. What has proved successful in Germany would prove equally efficacious in New Zealand. For this reason we trust that the proposed State Farms will again be resuscitated, and that they will be an established fact in our midst before long.