In Darkest England and the Way Out Part 28

Prayer after meals, etc. Their continuance in the factory is subject to their good behaviour--both at home as well as at work.

In one instance only have we had any trouble at all, and in this solitary case the girl was so penitent she was forgiven, and has done well ever since. I think that, without exception, they are Salvation Soldiers, and will be found at nearly every meeting on the Sabbath, etc. The binding of Salvation Army publications-- "The Deliverer,"

"All the World," the Penny Song Books, etc., almost keep us going.

A little outside work for the end of the months is taken, but we are not able to make any profit generally, it is so badly paid.

It will be seen that this is a miniature factory, but still it is a factory, and worked on principles that will admit of illimitable extension, and may, I think, be justly regarded as an encouragement and an exemplification of what may be accomplished in endless variations.

V.--Again, it is objected that the cla.s.s whose benefit we contemplate would not have physical ability to work on a farm, or in the open air.

How, it is asked, would tailors, clerks, weavers, seamstresses, and the dest.i.tute people, born and reared in the slums and poverty-hovels of the towns and cities, do farm or any other work that has to do with the land? The employment in the open air, with exposure to every kind of weather which accompanies it, would, it is said, kill them off right away.

We reply, that the division of labour before described would render it as unnecessary as it would be undesirable and uneconomical, to put many of these people to dig or to plant. Neither is it any part of our plan to do so. On our Scheme we have shown how each one would be appointed to that kind of work for which his previous knowledge and experience and strength best adapted him. Moreover, there can be no possible comparison between the conditions of health enjoyed by men and women wandering about homeless, sleeping in the streets or in the fever-haunted lodging-houses, or living huddled up in a single room, and toiling twelve and fourteen hours in a sweater's den, and living in comparative comfort in well-warmed and ventilated houses, situated in the open country, with abundance of good, healthy food.

Take a man or a woman out into the fresh air, give them proper exercise, and substantial food. Supply them with a comfortable home, cheerful companions, and a fair prospect of reaching a position of independence in this or some other land, and a complete renewal of health and careful increase of vigour will, we expect, be one of the first great benefits that will ensue.

VI.--It is objected that we should be left with a considerable residuum of half-witted, helpless people.

Doubtless this would be a real difficulty, and we should have to prepare for it. We certainly, at the outset, should have to guard against too many of this cla.s.s being left upon our hands, although we should not be compelled to keep anyone. It would, how ever, be painful to have to send them back to the dreadful life from which we had rescued them. Still, however, this would not be so ruinous a risk, looked at financially, as some would imagine. We could, we think, maintain them for 4s. per week, and they would be very weak indeed in body, and very wanting in mental, strength if they were not able to earn that amount in some one of the many forms of employment which the Colony would open up.

VII.--Again, it will be objected that some efforts of a similar character have failed. For instance, co-operative enterprises in farming have not succeeded.

True, but so far as I can ascertain, nothing of the character I am describing has ever been attempted. A large number of Socialistic communities have been established and come to grief in the United States, in Germany, and elsewhere, but they have all, both in principle and practice, strikingly differed from what we are proposing here: Take one particular alone, the great bulk of these societies have not only been fashioned without any regard to the principles of Christianity, but, in the vast majority of instances, have been in direct opposition to them; and the only communities based on co-operative principles that have survived the first few months of their existence have been based upon Christian truth. If not absolute successes, there have been some very remarkable results obtained by efforts partaking somewhat of the nature of the one I am setting forth.

(See that of Ralahine, described in Appendix.)

VIII.--It is further objected that it would be impossible to maintain order and enforce good discipline amongst this cla.s.s of people.

We are of just the opposite opinion. We think that it would --nay, we are certain of it, and we speak as those who have had considerable experience in dealing with the lower cla.s.ses of Society.

We have already dealt with this difficulty. We may say further--

That we do not propose to commence with a thousand people in a wild, untamed state, either at home or abroad. To the Colony Over-Sea we should send none but those who have had a long period of training in this country. The bulk of those sent to the Provincial Farm would have had some sort of trial in the different City Establishments. We should only draft them on to the Estate in small numbers, as we were prepared to deal with them, and I am quite satisfied that without the legal methods of maintaining order that are acted upon so freely in workhouses and other similar inst.i.tutions, we should have as perfect obedience to Law, as great respect for authority, and as strong a spirit of kindness pervading all ranks throughout the whole of the community as could be found in any other inst.i.tution in the land.

It will be borne in mind that our Army system of government largely prepares us, if it does not qualify us, for this task. Anyway, it gives us a good start. All our people are trained in habits of obedience, and all our Officers are educated in the exercise of authority. The Officers throughout the Colony would be almost exclusively recruited from the ranks of the Army, and everyone of them would go to the work, both theoretically and practically, familiar with those principles which are the essence of good discipline.

Then we can argue, and that very forcibly, from the actual experience we have already had in dealing with this cla.s.s. Take our experience in the Army itself. Look at the order of our Soldiers. Here are men and women, who have no temporal interest whatever at stake, receiving no remuneration, often sacrificing their earthly interests by their union with us, and yet see how they fall into line, and obey orders in the promptest manner, even when such orders go right in the teeth of their temporal interests.

"Yes," it will be replied by some, "this is all very excellent so far as it relates to those who are altogether of your own way of thinking.

You can command them as you please, and they will obey, but what proof have you given of your ability to control and discipline those who are not of your way of thinking?

"You can do that with your Salvationists because they are saved, as you call it. When men are born again you can do anything with them.

But unless you convert all the denizens of Darkest England, what chance is there that they will be docile to your discipline? If they were soundly saved no doubt something might be done. But they are not saved, soundly or otherwise; they are lost. What reason have you for believing that they will be amenable to discipline?"

I admit the force of this objection; but I have an answer, and an answer which seems to me complete. Discipline, and that of the most merciless description, is enforced upon mult.i.tudes of these people even now. Nothing that the most authoritative organisation of industry could devise in the excess of absolute power, could for a moment compare with the slavery enforced to-day in the dens of the sweater.

It is not a choice between liberty and discipline that confronts these unfortunates, but between discipline mercilessly enforced by starvation and inspired by futile greed, and discipline accompanied with regular rations and administered solely for their own benefit. What liberty is there for the tailors who have to sew for sixteen to twenty hours a day, in a pest-hole, in order to earn ten shillings a week?

There is no discipline so brutal as that of the sweater; there is no slavery so relentless as that from which we seek to deliver the victims. Compared with their normal condition of existence, the most rigorous discipline which would be needed to secure the complete success of any new individual organisation would be an escape from slavery into freedom.

You may reply, "that it might be so, if people understood their own interest. But as a matter of fact they do not understand it, and that they will never have sufficient far-sightedness to appreciate the advantages that are offered them."

To this I answer, that here also I do not speak from theory.

I lay before you the ascertained results of years of experience.

More than two years ago, moved by the misery and despair of the unemployed, I opened the Food and Shelter Depots in London already described. Here are a large number of men every night, many of them of the lowest type of casuals who crawl about the streets, a certain proportion criminals, and about as difficult a cla.s.s to manage as I should think could be got together, and while there will be 200 of them in a single building night after night, from the first opening of the doors in the evening until the last man has departed in the morning, there shall scarcely be a word of dissatisfaction; anyway, nothing in the shape of angry temper or bad language. No policemen are required; indeed two or three nights' experience will be sufficient to turn the regular frequenters of the place of their own free will into Officers of Order, glad not only to keep the regulations of the place, but to enforce its discipline upon others.

Again, every Colonist, whether in the City or elsewhere, would know that those who took the interests of the Colony to heart, were loyal to its authority and principles, and laboured industriously in promoting its interests, would be rewarded accordingly by promotion to positions of influence and authority, which would also carry with them temporal advantages, present and prospective.

But one of our main hopes would be in the apprehension by the Colonists of the fact that all our efforts were put forth on their behalf.

Every man and woman on the place would know that this enterprise was begun and carried on solely for their benefit, and that of the other members of their cla.s.s, and that only their own good behaviour and co-operation would ensure their reaping a personal share in such benefit. Still our expectations would be largely based on the creation of a spirit of unselfish interest in the community.

IX. Again, it is objected that the Scheme is too vast to be attempted by voluntary enterprise; it ought to be taken up and carried out by the Government itself.

Perhaps so, but there is no very near probability of Government undertaking it, and we are not quite sure whether such an attempt would prove a success if it were made. But seeing that neither Governments, nor Society, nor individuals have stood forward to undertake what G.o.d has made appear to us to be so vitally important a work, and as He has given us the willingness, and in many important senses the ability, we are prepared, if the financial help is furnished, to make a determined effort, not only to undertake but to carry it forward to a triumphant success.

X.--It is objected that the cla.s.ses we seek to benefit are too ignorant and depraved for Christian effort, or for effort of any kind, to reach and reform.--

Look at the tramps, the drunkards, the harlots, the criminals.

How confirmed they are in their idle and vicious habits. It will be said, indeed has been already said by those with whom I have conversed, that I don't know them; which statement cannot, I think, be maintained, for if I don't know them, who does?

I admit, however, that thousands of this cla.s.s are very far gone from every sentiment, principle and practice of right conduct. But I argue that these poor people cannot be much more unfavourable subjects for the work of regeneration than are many of the savages and heathen tribes, in the conversion of whom Christians universally believe; for whom they beg large sums of money, and to whom they send their best and bravest people.

These poor people are certainly embraced in the Divine plan of mercy.

To their cla.s.s, the Saviour especially gave His attention when he was on the earth, and for them He most certainly died on the Cross.

Some of the best examples of Christian faith and practice, and some of the most successful workers for the benefit of mankind, have sprung from this cla.s.s, of which we have instances recorded in the Bible, and any number in the history of the Church and of the Salvation Army.

It may be objected that while this Scheme would undoubtedly a.s.sist one cla.s.s of the community by making steady, industrious workmen, it must thereby injure another cla.s.s by introducing so many new hands into the labour market, already so seriously overstocked.

To this we reply that there is certainly an appearance of force in this objection; but it has, I think, been already answered in the foregoing pages. Further, if the increase of workers, which this Scheme will certainly bring about, was the beginning and the end of it, it would certainly present a somewhat serious aspect. But, even on that supposition, I don't see how the skilled worker could leave his brothers to rot in their present wretchedness, though their rescue should involve the sharing of a portion of his wages.

(1) But there is no such danger, seeing that the number of extra hands thrown on the British Labour Market must be necessarily inconsiderable.

(2) The increased production of food in our Farm and Colonial operations must indirectly benefit the working man.

(3) The taking out of the labour market of a large number of individuals who at present have only partial work, while benefiting them, must of necessity afford increased labour to those left behind.

(4) While every poor workless individual made into a wage earner will of necessity have increased requirements in proportion.

For instance, the drunkard who has had to manage with a few bricks, a soap box, and a bundle of rags, will want a chair, a table, a bed, and at least the other necessary adjuncts to a furnished home, however sparely fitted up it may be.

There is no question but that when our Colonisation Scheme is fairly afloat it will drain off, not only many of those who are in the mora.s.s, but a large number who are on the verge of it. Nay, even artisans, earning what are considered good wages, will be drawn by the desire to improve their circ.u.mstances, or to raise their children under more favourable surroundings, or from still n.o.bler motives, to leave the old country. Then it is expected that the agricultural labourer and the village artisan, who are ever migrating to the great towns and cities, will give the preference to the Colony Over-Sea, and so prevent that acc.u.mulation of cheap labour which is considered to interfere so materially with the maintenance of a high wages standard.

SECTION 5. RECAPITULATION.

I have now pa.s.sed in review the leading features of the Scheme, which I put forward as one that is calculated to considerably contribute to the amelioration of the condition of the lowest stratum of our Society.

It in no way professes to be complete in all its details.

Anyone may at any point lay his finger on this, that, or the other feature of the Scheme, and show some void that must be filled in if it is to work with effect. There is one thing, however, that can be safely said in excuse for the short comings of the Scheme, and that is that if you wait until you get an ideally perfect plan you will have to wait until the Millennium, and then you will not need it.

My suggestions, crude though they may be, have, nevertheless, one element that will in time supply all deficiencies. There is life in them, with life there is the promise and power of adaptation to all the innumerable and varying circ.u.mstances of the cla.s.s with which we have to deal. Where there is life there is infinite power of adjustment.

This is no cast-iron Scheme, forged in a single brain and then set up as a standard to which all must conform. It is a st.u.r.dy plant, which has its roots deep down in the nature and circ.u.mstances of men.

Nay, I believe in the very heart of G.o.d Himself. It has already grown much, and will, if duly nurtured and tended, grow still further, until from it, as from the grain of mustard-seed in the parable, there shall spring up a great tree whose branches shall overshadow all the earth.

Once more let me say, I claim no patent rights in any part of this Scheme. Indeed, I do not know what in it is original and what is not.

Since formulating some of the plans, which I had thought were new under the sun, I have discovered that they have been already tried in different parts of the world, and that with great promise. It may be so with others, and in this I rejoice. I plead for no exclusiveness.

The question is much too serious for such fooling as that. Here are millions of our fellow-creatures perishing amidst the breakers of the sea of life, dashed to pieces on sharp rocks, sucked under by eddying whirlpools, suffocated even when they think they have reached land by treacherous quicksands; to save them from this imminent destruction I suggest that these things should be done. If you have any better plan than mine for effecting this purpose, in G.o.d's name bring it to the light and get it carried out quickly. If you have not, then lend me a hand with mine, as I would be only too glad to lend you a hand with yours if it had in it greater promise of successful action than mine.