(10) The Emigration Bureau.
To these no doubt will in course of time be added many other branches. In the meantime this is in itself a sufficiently extensive programme for some years to come. How we propose to elaborate each of the above, will be found in the following pages.
CHAPTER IV.
THE LABOR BUREAU.
One of the most painful sights with which modern civilisation presents us is the enormous and increasing wastage of valuable human labor. The first step towards remedying this gigantic and alarming evil will be to ascertain its extent. This we propose to do by means of our Labor Bureau. Here all classes of out-of-works will be welcomed, from the respectable well educated intelligent youths, who are being poured out of our colleges by thousands, to the most squalid specimen of a Lazarus that lies at our gates desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fall from our tables. All will be sorted out, sifted and regimented, or organised, into distinct corps, which will in time no doubt develope into legions.
The Bureau will not, however, stop short with simply ascertaining the extent of the evil which exists. It will at the same time turn its attention to the examination and regimentation of the channels which already exist for the absorption of that labor. For while it is true that there are vast quantities of unutilised labor, and that the present supply of labor greatly exceeds the demand, it is also true that for want of suitable arrangements for bringing together capital and labor, the capitalist also frequently loses time and money, either in searching for labor which he cannot get, or in resorting to labor of an inferior quality, where labor of a superior quality would bring in much larger returns.
Into the pre-existing channels it would be the first aim of our Labor Bureau to pour the labor supply of the country. And experience would probably enable us to widen, deepen and lengthen these channels in such a manner as would prove profitable to both employers and employed, as well as to the nation at large.
When, however, this had been done, it is alas! only too certain that we should still have left upon our hands a vast amount of surplus labor, for which we should next proceed to dig out new and profitable channels. The problem no doubt bristles with difficulties, but that is no reason why we should sit down before it and fold our hands in despair.
Once upon a time, aye for hundreds of years, the waters of the Cauvery were poured in one useless torrent into the sea, sweeping past great tracts of thirsty land, which craved its waters, but could not reach them. At the present moment scarcely a drop of that river reaches the ocean. Its course has been diverted into a thousand channels, and so fertilising are its waters that the rich alluvial deposits which they bear render the use of manure unnecessary. And yet for centuries these possibilities were unrecognised and suffered to go to waste.
Is not this a fitting picture of the huge river of labor that winds its course through arid plains of want and poverty and starvation, which it is capable of fertilising and converting into a modern Paradise? True that on its banks and in its immediate neighbourhood are strips of luxuriant vegetation. But those only show up in painful relief the utter barrenness of the "region beyond." Why should the dwellers upon the banks be allowed to monopolise and appropriate that which they cannot even utilise, and that which is often a source of positive danger, annoyance and loss to them? Why should not channels be devised for these human waters, by means of which they should be distributed, so as to be put to the utmost possible use?