In the coöperative commonwealth there will be no prisons, no penitentiaries, no almshouses, no tramps, no unemployed. There will be farm colonies of various grades, from those that have no discipline beyond that necessary to secure the observance of rules necessary to all institutional life, through those that have just enough discipline to keep lazy men at work, to those that have sufficient discipline to keep even criminals at work. For although it is obvious that under a coöperative commonwealth in which there is no necessity for exhausting any individual, no necessity for alcoholism or stimulation, no anxiety regarding the means of existence; where there is throughout a high standard of living, ease for the mind and abundance for the body, the production of the natural criminal ought to be immensely diminished, yet the occasional criminal will have to be provided for.
For further study of the farm colony system as it has been developed in Switzerland, and as it might be applied in the United States under existing conditions, the reader is referred to "The Elimination of the Tramp."[175] It is hoped, however, that enough has been said regarding these colonies to enable us to consider the immense rôle which an intelligent classification of farm colonies would play, not only under existing conditions, but in the future coöperative commonwealth.
A single farm colony for dealing with tramps as proposed in the bill now before the Assembly of New York State would render an indispensable service by taking off the streets and highways the vagrants who, because they are now confounded with the unemployed, tend to confuse the mind of the public on this all-important subject. But although such a colony, organized under the same conditions as the forced labor colony in Switzerland, would render this service without cost to the state beyond that of first installation, its usefulness in the problem of production at large would be extremely small. It would attain its purpose if it were self-supporting. But if this tramp colony proves a success, the same system could be applied not only to take care of all our dependent and criminal classes, but to play an important rôle in the production of the necessaries of life.
There ought to be three distinct classes of colonies:
The criminal farm colony surrounded by walls where the strictest discipline would be enforced, and within which the inmates would be confined to intensive cultivation, handicrafts, and some form of machine industry.
The forced labor colony for misdemeanants and able-bodied vagrants and paupers where larger liberty would be enjoyed; and
The free labor colony where there would be no regulation except that indispensable in all institutions.
Perhaps to these should be added probationary colonies as described in the "Elimination of the Tramp," p. 59, for those as to whose willingness to work there is doubt. These would furnish the "test" so much sought by English Poor Law Guardians. From these probationary colonies the inmates would be graduated down to the forced labor colony, or up to the free. So also criminals would be prepared for social life by passing through the forced labor colony, and inmates of the forced labor colony prepared for social life by passing through the free labor colony.
In a coöperative commonwealth free labor would have no objection to industrial work conducted within these colonies, because the less work there is to be done in any given industry, the less hours would the workers in that industry have to give to it. So that every industry carried on in the colony would by so much diminish the amount of goods produced outside by that industry, and to that extent relieve the free labor engaged therein. This great objection to penal labor being removed, the state will have an advantage in distributing the industries throughout its colonies according to geographical conditions.
The criminal colonies will naturally be more industrial in their character than the agricultural, because they will have to be operated within prison walls. They will nevertheless include truck gardening and horticulture.[176] Penal colonies, therefore, will group themselves around great water power, which will be retained by the state and not dissipated by the gift of franchises to private corporations.[177]