(a) We should have more elbow room for them on the Farm, than in the Labor Yards, where land would be so expensive that we should be obliged to crowd everything into the smallest possible compass, both in regard to work sheds and sleeping accommodation.
(b) In removing them from the contaminating influences of city life, we should be able to exercise a more personal and powerful influence upon these members of the Submerged Tenth and should stand a far better chance of effectively carrying out that spiritual and moral regeneration, without which we reckon that any mere temporal reformation would be ineffective and evanescent.
(c) We should prevent our labor yards from getting gorged, and would keep them within manageable dimensions. At the same time that we should cope more effectively with all existing distress.
(d) The Suburban Farm being closely connected with other portions of our Country Colony, we should be able to use the latter to relieve it in case of its becoming in turn overcrowded by the influx from the City.
(e) It would thus form a natural stepping-stone to the Industrial Village, which we have next to describe.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE INDUSTRIAL VILLAGE.
For the Industrial Village we have already before our very eyes an admirable object lesson in the existing organisation and subdivision of an ordinary Indian village. Indeed it is singular how precisely India has anticipated just what General Booth now proposes to introduce in civilized Europe.
The village community so familiar to all who have resided in India consists of an independent or rather interdependent, co-operative association which constitutes a miniature world of its own, producing its own food and manufacturing its own clothes, shoes, earthenware, pots, &c, with its own petty government to decide all matters affecting the general welfare of the little commonwealth. Very wisely the British rulers of India have left this interesting relic of ancient times untouched, so that the institution can be seen in complete working order at the present day all over India. The onward march of civilisation has somewhat shaken the fabric and has threatened the existence of several of the village industries. But at present there has not been any radical alteration. The village may still be seen divided up into its various quarters.
Take for instance a village in Gujarat. Those substantial houses in the centre belong to the well-to-do landowners. The cultivators or tenants have their quarters close alongside. The group of huts belonging to the weavers is easily distinguishable by the rude looms and apparatus for the manufacture of the common country cloth. The tanners' quarter is equally well marked, and yonder the groups at work with mud and wheel and surrounded with earthenware vessels of various shapes and sizes, remind you that you are among the Potters.