SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— M. 425 



droughts, floods, forest fires and those things which skill in agriculture seem unable 

 to ward off, can only be met by human and divine sympathy. 



In the Army's ' back to the land ' movement its efforts fall into two main 

 categories: (1) Anglo-Saxon, and (2) Indian. The Anglo-Saxon effort has resulted 

 in the transplantation of 200,000 men, women and children to the King's overseas 

 Dominions ; less than 1 per cent, have failed. The Army has also some experience 

 in Group Settlements. Its Indian efforts have been twofold in close co-operation 

 with the Indian Governments : (a) settlement and reformation of Indian criminal 

 tribes in several provinces, and (6) settlement of Indian Salvationists at Shantanaggar 

 in the Punjab. The Indians were drawn from overcrowded districts and settled on 

 irrigated land. The Army assumed certain financial responsibilities over a period 

 of thirty years and undertook the guidance and control of settlers. 



The uplifting influences of the contact with nature are easily discerned, whether 

 the ' patient ' be a social wreck or an economic victim — for example, the influence of 

 pedigree stock at Hadleigh Colony on the morale of the colonists. When it was 

 decided to have pedigree stock on the Colony and that stock arrived, the moral effect 

 upon the men was at once perceptible. Good horses meant good harness and decent 

 «arts, good grooming, cleaning and tidying the stables. 



One of the Army's contributions to a solution of post-war conditions in Britain 

 has been the training in farm-work and transplantation overseas of boys. More than 

 5,000 boys have undergone training since 1923, and 90 per cent, of them are known 

 to be still on farms two years after landing overseas. 



In its experience the Army has demonstrated the healing influence of the contact 

 with nature by the success of all its schemes of farm-training and settlement. The 

 result has been the regeneration of tens of thousands of human beings and, in the 

 broad sense; an economic gain. Politicians and others are agreed that adventure 

 overseas offers many advantages both to the individual migrant and to the country 

 that receives him. 



The time has probably arrived, not only to encourage migration and settlement 

 on the land, but also to reconsider the whole question of migration from the point 

 of view of the principles of rationalisation and the ' humanities ' and agriculture. 

 An Empire Development Board of business men furnished with adequate financial 

 appropriations to encourage development is needed. But when all this is done, if 

 we forget our ' humanities ' rationalisation, economic dogmas and agriculture are 

 bound to suffer. 



Dr. H. W. Miles. — Recent Research in the Potato Root Eelworm and its 

 relation to Potato Sickness. 



