14 
LAND 6? WATER 
November 14, 1918 
The Soldier Colonists 
IT is one of the misfortunes of the present time that 
Reconstruction should offer itself to so many, who will 
be intimately concerned in it, as merely the business 
of finding the best way possible out of an evil situation. 
It is true that none save a few unimportant reaction- 
aries think that we have on!y to pick up again as well as we 
can the threads that were snapped off on the first days of 
war. We could not do this if we would. The broken 
ends are lost, continuity in so many things has been for ever 
interrupted ; and, whatever our ideals, all of us but the 
blind realise that a new beginning must be made. But for 
too many who hold this broader and more hopeful view, 
who are prepared to press with all their energy for better 
and more logical methods, the war's sole value for the social 
future of mankind seems to be that it has rendered a drastic 
scheme of Reconstruction necessary. They tend to take too 
little into account the possibility that the war may have 
introduced into our social life new and useful factors which 
did not previously exist ; and this attitude of mind is certain 
to produce constructive schemes which will waste some of 
the available assets. On the material side war has been 
conspicuously wasteful, destroying commodities wholesale 
and preventing the proper upkeep of the machinery of civil 
life ; but on the other hand the mere necessity of providing 
sufficient warlike commodities to be destroyed has produced 
thorough overhauling of our entire industrial system, and 
has left us, in some directions at least, better supplied both 
with organisation and plant than we were before. Similarly 
military service is believed, with good reason, to have been 
wasteful of some of the best qualities which our population 
possessed as civilians. But it remains to inquire whether 
these qualities have not been to a certain extent replaced 
by others— the direct results of military service — which will 
enable us to enter into forms of organisation and embark 
upon enterprises which were not possible to us before. 
This somewhat lengthy introduction will perhaps serve to 
explain an enthusiastic reception of The Soldier Colonisti, 
by Captain Warman (Chatto & Windus, 5s. net) which, in 
an important connection, shows unmistakable signs of an 
attitude towards Reconstruction more likely to induce success 
than that of most of the theorists. This little volume em- 
braces in a wide survey two problems — first, that of settling 
again in civil life the soldiers who will be at a loose end on 
demobilisation, and who will prefer to seek occupation else- 
where than in England, and, second, the perennial problem 
of diffusing the population of the British Empire through 
its suitable territories in such a way as to ensure the best 
lines of development for the whole. "Captain Warman is 
intensely desirous," says Lord Selljorne in his introduction, 
"that the soldier colonist should make good as a settler, 
and that he should do so within the British Empire, and not 
in a foreign land. It is a splendid desire, and this book is 
his first contribution towards its fulfilment. If he is spared 
to his country through the perils of war, I shall be greatly 
surprised if it is also his last." It might be observed that 
the perils of peace — -miniiterial obtuseness and departmental 
obstinacy — may conceivably be found not less inimical to 
Captain Warman's usefulness than those of war. 
His inquiry and his proposals are alike solidly founded 
on a basis of historical investigation, the results of which are 
contained in two chapters written for this book by Mr. Collin 
Brooks, who emphasises the often recurring truth that 
unsystematic colonisation is doomed to failure, and that only 
emigration in- complete self-contained communities has the 
best chance of success. Captain Warman seizes this verdict 
of history as a groundwork on which to build, with his dis- 
covery of a new social asset created by the war, an edifice 
of considerable importance. He admits that the drafting 
of the greater part of the young male population into the 
army will have had a tendency to infect it with certain fail- 
ings for which military service is peculiarly responsible. 
He sees that the ex-soidier is liable more than other men 
to the faults of insufficient foresight and want of responsi- 
bility and stability, the first caused by the fact that a soldier's 
food, clothing, firing and shelter are not dependent on his 
own efforts, the second by the fact that he is unsettled by the 
removal of the discipline which has so closely governed his 
life. These are social results which will vary from case to 
case, but which will be present in a large proportion of the 
millions set free on demobilisation, as can be testified by any 
platoon-commander who ever paused to consider the peculiar 
characteristics of his flock, and learnt to guard against the 
• The SoUitr Colonisls (Chatta& Windns, js. net.) 
ill effects of the soldier's singular helplessness. Captain 
Warman not only admits these things, but also points out 
how serious a handicap they will be on the emigrant who 
seeks to open up new country. "A cynical statement not 
infrequently heard in the Dominion," Captain Warman says, 
"is that the Government bets j-ou 160 acres of land against 
ten dollars that you will not be able to live on your area 
for three years, six months in each year, and the Govern- 
ment generally wins." In this wager, the defects of character 
induced by military service make the odds even heavier 
against the e.v-soldier than against the civilian. But Cap- 
tain Warman, who believes that even the civilian stands a 
poor chance of winning the bet unless he is organised in com- 
munities, discovers a special virtue created by military life 
which far outweighs the defects, and which is of immense 
value for this special purpose. "Military life," he says, 
"does to a quite serious extent deprive the soldier of. both 
foresight and stability, but it gives him in their place that 
esprit de corps which is the essential ingredient of military 
excellence, and which is not acquired to anything like the 
same degree in the occupations of peace." He therefore 
suggests that the soldiers desirous of emigrating should be 
divided into such groups as will best preserve their esprit 
de corps, and that each group shall emigrate as a self-contained 
community to that part of the overseas dominions which its 
members prefer. 
Means of Subsistence 
It is impossible here to follow in detail all the ramifications 
of this exceedingly fertile idea. Captain Warman has not been 
content to throw it into the world undeveloped, but has 
considered it carefully in all its aspects, and has summarised 
the information which the reader requires for testing its 
possibihties. He estimates that the number of soldiers 
requiring facilities for emigration during the first few years 
after the war will not exceed 100,000 ; and he shows that the 
offers already made by the Dominions are capable of satis- 
fying this number. He also devises an ingenious plan by 
which the difficulties of the initial years are tp be overcome. 
No organised colonisation, he argues, can hope to be success- 
ful without Government assistance ; but, on the other hand, 
this assistance should not take the form of free land, which, 
besides being insufficient, has certain definitely deleterious 
effects. He proposes therefore that each community should 
be supplied with pay and rations on the military scale during 
the early, unproductive years of the scheme. As, however, 
the sum thus received by each member of the community 
in money and kind would 'be less than that which he would 
receive were he to take employment under a master in the 
more settled part of the country, a surplus should be credited 
to him in the books of the enterprise, which surplus might 
eventually be applied^o paying off the charges on his land. 
The further details in Captain Warman's scheme, among 
which must be mentioned the lessons he has drawn from 
the history of Irish co-operation, cannot be summarised 
here, but are worthy of close attention. One further aspect 
of the question however cannot be omitted. Captain War- 
man points out with, truth that, for settlement to be stable 
and permanent, it must be carried out by families, not by 
individuals. This brings, into prominence the undeniable 
fact of the importance of considering the wives of the pros- 
pective settlers, who must be attracted and assured that 
conditions will be congenial to them. No scheme, Captain 
Warman claims, could better secure this than that of his 
self-contained communities ; and the desirability of enlist- 
ing the active co-operation of women in the development 
of the enterprise grows the more closely it is considered. 
Captain Warman's book is a very brief and unpretentious 
attemprt to solve an enormous problem ; but,^ though it is 
short, it is packed close with information and with fruitful 
and brilliant theorising. Much of the matter in it, as Lord 
Selborne observes, is also applicable to land settlement in 
the United Kingdom ; and indeed there is no problem of 
reconstruction involving the handling of bodies of ex-soldiers 
on which light will not be thrown by a consideration of its 
main thesis. But Captain Warman has given his best powers 
of thought to the particular problem of colonisation. It is 
to be hoped that he will be encouraged to pursue his inquiries 
and to elaborate the details of his scheme. It is still more 
to be hoped that not only his scheme but also his own origin- 
ality and brilliance will be made use of officially in the near 
future. 
