Perhaps he is fortunate and escapes.Yet Tommy goes uncomplainingly through all these hardships and privations,does not think himself a martyr,takes no fine airs about what he has done and suffered,and shrinks uncomplainingly into our Shelters and our Factories,only asking as a benediction from heaven that someone will give him an honest job of work to do.That is the fate of Tommy Atkins.If in our churches and chapels as much as one single individual were to bear and dare,for the benefit of his kind and the salvation of men,what a hundred thousand Tommy Atkins'bear uncomplainingly,taking it all as if it were in the day's work,for their rations and their shilling a day (with stoppages),think you we should not transform the whole face of the world?Yea,verily.We find but very little of such devotion;no,not in Israel.
I look forward to making great use of these Army Reserve men.
There are engineers amongst them;there are artillery men and infantry;there are cavalry men,who know what a horse needs to keep him in good health,and men of the transport department,for whom I shall find work enough to do in the transference of the multitudinous waste of London from our town Depots to the outlying Farm.This,however,is a digression,by the way.
After having got the Farm into some kind of ship-shape,we should select from the City Colonies all those who were likely to be successful as our first settlers.These would consist of men who had been working so many weeks or days in the Labour Factory,or had been under observation for a reasonable time at the Shelters or in the Slums,and who had given evidence of their willingness to work,their amenity to discipline,and their ambition to improve themselves.
On arrival at the Farm they would be installed in a barracks,and at once told off to work.In winter time there would be draining,and road-making,and fencing,and many other forms of industry which could go on when the days are short and the nights are long.
In Spring,Summertime and Autumn,some would be employed on the land,chiefly in spade husbandry,upon what is called the system of "intensive"agriculture,such as prevails in the suburbs of Paris,where the market gardeners literally create the soil,and which yields much greater results than when you merely scratch the surface with a plough.
Our Farm,I hope,would be as productive as a great market garden.
There would be a Superintendent on the Colony,who would be a practical gardener,familiar with the best methods of small agriculture,and everything that science and experience shows to be needful for the profitable treatment of the land.Then there would be various other forms of industry continually in progress,so that employment could be furnished,adapted to the capacity and skill of every Colonist.
Where farm buildings are wanted,the Colonists must erect them themselves.If they want glass houses,they must put them up.
Everything on the Estate must be the production of the Colonists.
Take,for instance,the building of cottages.After the first detachment has settled down into its quarters and brought the fields somewhat into cultivation,there will arise a demand for houses.
These houses must be built,and the bricks made;by the Colonists themselves.All the carpentering and the joinery will be done on the premises,and by this means a sustained demand for work will be created.Then there would be furniture,clothing,and a great many other wants,the supply of the whole of which would create labour which the Colonists must perform.
For a long time to come the Salvation Army will be able to consume all the vegetables and crops which the Colonies will produce.That is one advantage of being connected with so great and growing a concern;the right hand will help the left,and we shall be able to do many things which those who devote themselves exclusively to colonisation would find it impossible to accomplish.We have seen the large quantities of provisions which are required to supply the Food Depots in their present dimensions,and with the coming extensions the consumption will be enormously augmented.On this Farm I propose to carry on every deion of "little agriculture."I have not yet referred to the female side of our operations,but have reserved them for another chapter.It is necessary,however,to bring them in here in order to explain that employment will be created for women as well as men.Fruit farming affords a great opening for female labour,and it will indeed be a change as from Tophet to the Garden of Eden when the poor lost girls on the streets of London exchange the pavements of Piccadilly for the strawberry Beds of Essex or Kent.
Not only will vegetables and fruit of every deion be raised,but I think that a great deal might be done in the smaller adjuncts of the Farm.
It is quite certain that amongst the mass of people with whom we have to deal there will be a residual remnant of persons to some extent mentally infirm or physically incapacitated from engaging in the harder toils.For these people it is necessary to find work,and I think there would be a good field for their benumbed energies in looking after rabbits,feeding poultry,minding bees,and,in short doing all those little odd jobs about a place which must be attended to,but which will not repay the labour of able-bodied men.
