THE URBAN LABOURER 89 



At Antwerp the greater number of the dock 

 labourers have a garden plot ; and when work at 

 the docks is slack, the men work on their land 

 and produce enough fresh vegetables to last their 

 families all the year round. When work is plentiful 

 and the men engaged at the docks, the garden work 

 is carried on by the wives and children. The 

 Belgians have a system of notifying the dock 

 labourers early in the morning as to whether work 

 will be slack or plentiful. 



The moral advantage of using land in this way is 

 equally obvious, for nothing is so harmful to the 

 character of the average man as a period of enforced 

 idleness. 



Near Leicester a group of shoemakers have 

 formed a httle co-operative land society. They 

 work the land in their spare time, and the results 

 are excellent. But although we have in this country 

 a considerable number of allotments, more or less 

 well cultivated, there is room for great develop- 

 ment in this direction so that our land may be 

 made to fulfil its economic and social functions 

 and our working population be made to realise 

 that the land is indeed our greatest national asset 

 in which they themselves have a direct interest. 



Before bringing this lecture to a close, I would 

 like to make a few criticisms on the Report of the 

 Departmental Committee on the settlement of 

 ex-Service men on the land, which has just been 

 published. 



The Committee were faced with a difficult task. 

 In the first place, if in view of the attitude of our 

 Government towards land a very much larger and 



