For men we need at the back a graded system of colonies, such as is described in Mr. Percy Alden's recent pamphlet on "Labour Colonies" (price 1d., 1, Woburn Square, London, W.C.).
But the author is convinced that while such national reservoirs are essential as a background, the real problems of poverty must be worked out in connection with the municipality. Charity cannot cope with accumulated national evil, neither can the State redress it. The State can "way-bill" the migrating workman, can sift the mass of vagrancy and apply "compulsion to work," can link labour bureaux, can reform the Poor Law. But we possess, at present hardly tapped, a vast fund of local patriotism. It is to reconstructed civic life we must look for the solution of civic problems, the abolition of the slum, the education of the child, the provision of "unemployed" capital to place "unemployed" labour on "unemployed" land, and thereby convert "a trinity of waste into a unity of production." A great step has been taken by the Unemployed Act, however imperfect. The whole subject of unemployment the author has dealt with in a book entitled "How to Deal with the Unemployed" (Brown, Langham & Co.), and she regards the chapter on "The Labour Market" as the key to the solution of the problem.
We shall have to recognise the maintenance of the home by the recognition of the droit au travail—"the right to work"—in some form or another. The streams of labour, which, if let loose in misery and idleness, are destructive, can, if rightly husbanded, fertilise the soil.
Grave as are the problems to be solved, menacing as is the danger if reforms are neglected or delayed, I believe the Spirit of God which created in the mind of our forefathers the ideal of the "Commonwealth" will guide our national policy into right channels,
"True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home."
[APPENDIX I.]
TRANSFER OF CASUALS TO POLICE SUPERVISION.
The placing of Casual Wards under police authority is a bold step, but one of which the author thoroughly approves. The Report of the Committee on Vagrancy was issued subsequently to the writing of this book. It is in substantial agreement with the author's facts and opinions. The prime necessity for a consistent and uniform national policy will be much better met in the way proposed than by any mere reform of the Tramp Ward.