The San Francisco call., 1906-08-13
II a Il - AUGUsT1a19@
Unemployed in Britain Seize
Land tor Farm Colonies.
FROM A STAFF CORRESPONDENT.

campers. but the number has been
increased to a score Gray was ap-
pointed minister of agriculture" and
is directing all the real work; VIII
Eams is allowed to give full swing
to his oratory, write kilograms and
proclamations, and is therefore happy,
and Smith as commander IN chief
looks after the very important depart
ment of taking round the hat. Crowds
of curious Manchester people daily
visit the camp and the collections TO
date have been pretty good The
men are orderly and strict discipline
is maintained. They have.only made
one mistake and that was to boil
and eat sackful of prime potatoes
sent them for seed by a sympath1Zer-
The deeds of the Lancashire Grab
landers" in a weeks time were emit
lated by the unemployed of West
Ham, a borough on the outskirts OF
London, where for several winters
there has been more distress among
the poor than IN any other part OF
England. The West Hammers, under
the leadership of Ben Cunningham,
seized a three-acre plot of waste
ground belonging to the corporation
and encamped on it twenty strong.
Cunningham is one of the Socialist
members of the City Council
Two ministers of the gospel donated
canvas and tarpaulins for tentS, while
local tradesmen are contributing daily
small quantities of foodstuffs. The
campers now number nearly forty
and under the direction of 3oo-pound
minister of agriculture" named Will
son, they have succeeded in planting
half of the plot with cabbages. The
camp is near three suburban railway
stations and crowds of excursionists
have visited it. Consequently, the
passing-round-the-hat part of the Ia
Dor has been highly profitable. The
men give concert" nightly and this
also yields revenue.
These Camps of Rest" are either
situated on church or corporation
land and all other seizures are to be
the same. The particular land in
Manchester was donated by Coun-
tess generation ago to the Church
of England "for the benefit of the
church and the poor" It's title goes
back 400 years and ejectment proceed
ings on the present squatters would
be ordinarily a lengthy and costly af-
fair. In none of the cases are the
authorities interfering. The police
are on duty merely to regulate the
crowds.
The movement appears TO be a
cross between Coxey's army and
Pingree's potato patch propositions.
1t will be remembered that when the
late Governor Hazen S. Pingree was
Mayor of Detroit years ago he solved,
more or less successfully, the unem-
ployed problem by making the men
cultivate potatoes IN the vacant lots
of the city. 1t was this that gave him
the nickname of Potato Pingree"
The scheme was afterward followed
by the late rGolden Rule" Jones when
Mayor of Toledo, and by Tom L
Johnson, Mayor of Cleveland
The leaders of the self-styled out
laws" claim the support of the Labor
party, the Socialist-Labor party, the
Social-Democrats and the Independ-
ent Labor party, but the members of
these parties are busy lodging ques-
tions and keeping other engagements.
When some of them have been cor
nered, however, they have either
laughed at or denounced the Grab
landers."
The outlaws movement, it is
freely prophesied, will die natural
death as soon as the harvest of COLI 1
lections begins to wither. And if that
does not act quickly enough, ridicule,
England's greatest weapon in such
movements, will do the work. The
outlaws" are merely looked upon as
buffoons and their doings as fairly
amusing comedy And yet it is real
lied that their intentions are good,
that many thinking men of moment
are with them and that they are
very earnest in their plans. But the
phlegmatic common-sense, on which
the Britisher prides himself, shows
him that the movement belongs to
the great scrap pile" of visionary i'm
possibilities. And sooner or later it
will find it's place there.