The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1905-09-09
IDLE HANDS FOR IDLE LANDS.

The present period of industrial de-
preston in Great Britain has been
productive of host of schemes for
the alienation of abnormal distress,
some marvellous in their complexity,
some entirely unavoidable, a great
number merely specialized forms of
sectarian charity, and others again
purely and simply political agencies.
The inadequacy of all charity insti-
tutions to cope with the unemployed
evil has never been more strikingly
illustrated than during the past win
ter. Such methods offer but tempo
rary relief they do not remove the
cause ofunemployment. The British
poor law is time -honored institution
that has been content for generations
to deal out its miserable dole to the
unfortunates it is supposed to- care
for, and no more melancholy set of
folks can be found than the inmates
of an English workhouse.
The truthfulness of all this has
been known all along, but it remained
for an American gentleman to point
the way to remedy with the direct
ness that characterizes the American
everywhere. Mr.. Joseph Fels came
to London some four years ago and
set up business similar to his Phila-
delphia concern, and during the past
year even his adherence OF personal
notoriety has not been able to pre-
vent his coming before the public eye
more than perhaps any other man
save Chamberlain.
1t arose in this way: Convinced Of
the impotency of the poor law admin
istration where unusual conditions of
distress obtained, the Board of Guar
dams of Poplar, one of the most con-
gested districts of the East End of
London, decided some ten years ago
to start some sort of farm colony or
workhouse, and applied to the local
government board for permission to
buy a number of acres of farm land
for that purpose. This was refused,
as the law would not allow any union
to acquire land save for the erection
of workhouse, or its extension.
The project was therefore dropped,
and not until March of last year was
it revived, through the meeting of
Mr.. Joseph Fels by George Lansbury,
a social reformer, and a number of
the Poplar Board. Briefly, what Fels
suggested was that tract of land
some distance from London should be
secured, and able-bodied paupers set
to work thereon. Fels agreed to pur-
chase a suitable tract and hand it
over to the guardians at a peppercorn
rent for three or four years, the guar
dians having the right at any time
during such period to acquire the
land at the purchase price, or return
it to him without further cost. The
offer was accepted, and farm of 40
acres was purchased and handed over
to the guardians of Poplar on March
30, 1904, for a Farm Labor Colony
experiment. Mr.. Fels was greatly
encouraged by the excellent reports
of the Vacant Lots Association of
Philadelphia, in which both he and
his brother are interested and it was
this success and recollection of Gov.
Pingree's potato plats in Detroit that
made him confident of the ultimate
triumph of the Farm Labor Colony
scheme in England.
No better spot could have been
chosen for so practical an object les
SON in social economics than Lain
don, where the first Poor Law Farm
Colony has been established. Twenty
two miles east of London, amid the
quiet surroundings of rural Essex,
stands the little group of iron and
concrete buildings that has become
the cynosure of every Board of Guar
dams in the country. Twenty miles
more to the east, across an undulating
plain, lies the North Sea, and the
ozone-laden breezes blow with almost
trade-wind regularity landward. In
April of last year hundred able
bodied men were sent from the Pop
lar Workhouse to the Laindon colony,
and speculation and prophesy were
rife among the Bumble-lik guardians
of the utter failure of the scheme.
The firm-rooted belief of the average
guardian is that these paupers will
not work even if given the chance.
The writer remembers an interview