XXVI REOCCUPATION OF THE LAND 489 



able-bodied pauperism which would more than repay the 

 initial outlay. 



In each colony there would be grown or manufactured 

 a considerable amount of surplus produce, which would be 

 sold in order to purchase food which cannot be produced 

 at home — as tea, coffee, spices, &c., and also such raw 

 materials as iron and coal. The things produced for sale 

 would vary according to the facilities for its production 

 and local demand. In some colonies it would be wheat 

 or barley, in others butter or cheese, in others again, flax, 

 vegetables, fruit, or poultry. And as all the products of 

 our soil except milk are largely imported, there is ample 

 range for producing articles for sale which would not in 

 any way affect prices or interfere with outside labour. 



At first, of course, such colonies must be organised and 

 all the work done under general regulations, and the same 

 discipline as is maintained in any farm or factory, but with 

 no unnecessary interference with liberty out of working 

 hours. Accounts would be strictly kept and audited, and 

 all profits would go to increasing the comfort of the 

 colonists in various ways, and in paying surplus wages to 

 be spent, or saved, as the individual pleased. Under 

 reasonable restrictions as to notice, every one would be at 

 liberty to quit the colony ; but with such favourable 

 conditions of life as would prevail there it is probable 

 that only a small proportion would do so, as was the case 

 at Ralahine, and at the Dutch colony of Frederiksoord. 



But as time went on, and a generation of workers grew 

 up in the colony itself, a system of self-government might 

 be established ; and for this purpose I think Mr. Bellamy's 

 method the only one likely to be a permanent success. It 

 rests on the principle that, in an industrial community, 

 those only are fit to be rulers who have for many j^ears 

 formed integral parts of it, who have passed through its 

 various grades as workers or overseers, and who have thus 

 acquired an intimate practical acquaintance with its 

 needs, its capacities, and its possibilities of improvement. 

 Persons who had themselves enjoyed the advantages of 

 the system, who had suffered from whatever injudicious 

 restrictions or want of organisation had prevailed, and who 



