CO-OPERATIVE SETTLEMENT 



with idle and homeless veterans. A certain Dutch general 

 suggested the employment of this labor in reclaiming 

 agricultural lands and creating farms and homes, believ- 

 ing that it would be better to help the workless to inde- 

 pendence than to extend charity. From this suggestion 

 came the Beggar Colonies, and subsequently the Free 

 Colonies, which have ever since absorbed the surplus 

 labor of Holland. They have graduated thousands from 

 beggary to tenantry, from tenantry to proprietorship. 



The enterprise is purely governmental, and tinder the 

 rigid control of able and responsible men. The man who 

 asks for alms is taken to the Beggar Colonies and put at 

 work. If he will not work he is flogged until he does, or 

 until he escapes across the boundary of the industrious 

 little nation which has no patience with the wilfully idle. 

 In this beneficent colony the people are systematically 

 taught the art of agriculture. After five years, if they 

 have proven earnest and intelligent, they are transferred 

 to the Free Colonies, where they are supplied with a very 

 small farm and the necessary implements and live-stock, 

 and with a house and lot in the village. They are given 

 ample time in which to pay for the property, and charged 

 very low interest on the use of the capital. The plan 

 has been a financial, economic, and social success. The 

 result is unquestionably due to the fact that men of 

 superior intelligence and experience made the plan and 

 administered it to the last detail np to the moment when 

 the settler became a full-fledged proprietor. 



The experience of the German government in dividing 

 and settling with small farmers great landed estates in 

 Prussian Poland furnishes an equally striking illustra- 

 tion. This work was undertaken for the triple purpose 



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