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Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2502, 24 July 1888, Page 2

Some little time ago we referred to a 3-hcme put forward by a clergyman of the Church of England, for solving the problem of national pauperism by establishing industrial farm colonies in different parts of the United Kingdom. The principle of the scheme as it appeared to be was to provide work for the unemployed of all classes on the cooperative plan, and at the same time be entirely self supporting and reproductive. It has been said by a great authority that Mr Ballance's Village Settlement measures provided a practical solution to the social trouble of the "unemployed" which fills the large cities. There is no doubt that it affords an invaluable auxiliary to the occupationof the country by a settled population of small holders, and considerably alleviates the distress of the working class who crowd in large oeutres. But admirable as it is, the scheme under the Ballance Act does not reach far enough ;it does not relieve the State of the care and expense of its indigent poor. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that pauperism is on the increase in the colony. The blot on our political body sprang up with the progress of the Public Works policy, and has been left a shameful legacy to the taxpayer as one of the penalties for a prodigal career. The Charitable Aid institutions, by whose means the State legalises pauperism, degrade the people, stifle the pliilantrophic instinct 3 in the human breast, and check the efforts of private charily and benevolent enterprises.

This great question, which in the Mother Country has, with the rapid iuurease, of population and huge cities, assumed such an acute stage, occupies the minds of great statesmen, philantrophists and thinkers. We have before us a work, entitled Poverty of the State, by Herbert V. Mills, containing details of the scheme of industrial organisations to which reference has been made. The " New Economy " may appear at the first blush, as an elaboration of Communistic and Socialistic doctrines. A careful consideration of the proposals and arguments set foith by the author, will, however, convince one that he ia influenced by the one great desire to remedy the fearful sufferings of the masses, and also that he lias hit upon a remedy. It has always been our belief that the cure for British pauperism lay in an organised system of emigration ; the State for the first time in its hiatory to follow the footsteps of private enterprise, and establish on the many vacant spaces to be found in the Empire well ordered colonies to which to transport its surplus and unemployed [jopul ition. Mr Mills, howuver, proposes to colonise the United Kingdom itself with the piiupor c.'.uoes. He finds that the whole secret of so many thousands of people in every city being idle, is not owing to tho unwillingness of othere to

give them work, but because there ia not work to give them. The division of labour is so unequal, with the aid of mechanical contrivances, and the workers so numerous, that they push out a vast number of their unfortunate fellowinen and fellowwomun, and thrust them iiito enforced idleness. Mr Mills, who at the outset states the problem he grapples with —namely, "to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless,', tells us in the following words how the truth was brought home to him : —

I first bej?an to think the problem possible of solution one cold morning in December, when visiting some destitute poor in Liverpool. I found in a certain house a baker out of work, and next door to him a tailor out of work, and next door again a shoemaker in the sainu plight. I could not forget, for many days, that none of them had what could be called a pair of boots, and none of them a proper suit of clothes, and they wore all exceedingly anxious to get bread ; and yet, although one was a baker, and one a tailor, and one a shoemaker, they could not stir hand or foot to help each other. I found on enquiry that their helplessness arose from the fact that if they produced any of these commodities, they must produce them for sale; that in order to sell them they must take them to the market; that the bread market, the shoe market, and the clothes market were already overstocked by men who had the advantages of modern machinery to help their production ; and therefore the three neighbours could not compete, they could not help each other. I was not satisfied with the explanation, and still wondered whether these three men could not, under proper conditions, have produced bread and clothing and shoes for each other, regardless of the market. From that moment I began to believe that the poverty of England was, in a great measure, capable of reform. Mr Mills forthwith proposes to utilise the work houses, with their existing accommodation and the shelter they already afford, to form centres of large co-oper-ative estates which shall provide work of every description for the indoor and outdoor poor of each district. There will be no competition with outside private enterprise or trade, but every thing necessary for the comfort and sustenance of the dwellers on the estates shall be produced by their own labour and skill. Work is thus found for the unemployed, " lack of work being an evil for which workmen cannot be properly blamed, but is an inevitable consequence of the way we live and conduct our business." There will no loneer be a population forced to idleness. Mr Mills devotes several chapters of his book to a description of the English Workhouse, the system of indoor, outdoor, and casnal parish relief with its degrading and emasculating effects ; the history of the poor-law, and the causes of poverty and of experiments that have been made to cope with it. He then proceeds to sketch out in detail the proposed co-operative estates, as the true remedy which will effectually purge the nation of this fearful reproach, and he gives us a graphic description of the " beggar colonies," which have long been established at Ommerschans and Veenhuigen, in Holland, which have been a remarkable success, and a source of great happiness to the very poor. It is not possible in the limited space of a single newspaper article to deal completely with a question so large and so pregnant with important economic issues. We must pursue the subject in succeeding articlrs. giving our readers interesting particulars of Mr Mills' scheme, from which we, may gain many useful lessons applicable to our own conditions.