234 AGKICULTUEAL LABOUEERS 



employment are, at the present moment, better off tlian 

 any of the classes directly interested in agriculture. If 

 small tenancies, as a consequence of the impending changes 

 in farming, were placed within their reach, their prospects 

 would be brighter than they have been for a century, their 

 narrow horizon wider, their opportunity greater of rising 

 in the social scale, their chance of independence better. 

 The reverse of the picture is black. A large displacement 

 of labour is imminent, which will further overstock the 

 market. For this excess of supply there seems no remedy 

 but emigration. The German labour colonies have suc- 

 ceeded among the unemployed, and their introduction into 

 Eussia has relieved the distress of the 180,000 peasant 

 proprietors who in bad times have thrown up their 

 holdings.' But the system aims at little more than tem- 

 porary relief; it affords no such prospects of permanent 

 independence as are offered by State-directed colonisation, 

 which plants well-assorted groups of emigrants on the 

 vacant lands of our colonial empire. The Old World 

 offers no advantages comparable to those, for instance, of 

 the village settlements of New Zealand. The Govern- 

 ment sells land in small lots at 11. the acre, or lets 20 acres 

 for the same sum, and advances loans at 5 per cent, to 

 enable buyers or tenants to build houses or clear land. 

 The colonies have the vacant land ; England, the surplus 

 population. The need of outlet is urgent, and every day 

 increases its pressure. Private enterprise cannot bring 

 together colonial land and English labour on a scale large 



' The first of these labour colonies (^Arbeiter-Kolo)ne) was esta- 

 blished in 1882 at Wilhelmsdorf in Westphalia. There are now (1887) 

 sixteen, most of which are managed by ' House Fathers,' who are 

 • Brothers of the Inner Mission ' trained at Hamburg and Berlin. As 

 temporary expedients they are interesting, because successful, experi- 

 ments. 



