he community one way or another
considerably more than they contribute. I do not refer solely to the
fact that they cost the State more than they pay directly or indirectly
in taxes. I mean that altogether, ill-paid and half-starved as they are,
they consume, or waste, or have expended on them, more wealth than they
produce."

Mr. Booth would remove the "very poor," and plant them in industrial
communities under proper government supervision.

"Put practically, my idea is that these people should be allowed to live
as families in industrial groups, planted wherever land and building
materials were cheap; being well-housed and well-warmed, and taught,
trained, and employed from morning to night on work, indoors or out, for
themselves, or on Government account."

The Government should provide material and tools, and having the people
entirely on its hands, get out of them what it can. Wages should be paid
at a "fair proportionate rate," so as to admit comparison of earnings of
the different communities, and of individuals. The commercial deficit
involved in the scheme should be borne by the State. This expansion of
our poor law policy, for it is nothing more, aims less at the
reformation and improvement of the class taken under its charge, than at
the relief which would be afforded to the classes who suffered from
their competition in the industrial struggle. What it amounts to is the
removal of the mass of unemployed. The difficulties involved in such a
scheme are, as Mr. Booth admits, very grave.

The following points especially deserve attention--

1. Since it is not conceivable that compulsion should be brought to bear
in the selection and removal out of the ordinary industrial community of
those weaker members whose continued struggle is considered undesirable,
it is evident that the industrial colonies must be recruited out of
volunteers. It will thus become a large expansion of the present
workhouse system. The eternal dilemma of the poor law will be present
there. On the one hand, if, as seems likely, the degradation and
disgrace attaching to the workhouse is extended to the industrial
colony, it will fail to attract the more honest and deserving among the
"very poor," and to this extent will fail to relieve the struggling
workers of their competition. On the other hand, if the condition of the
"industrial colonist" is recognized as preferable to that of the
struggling free competitor, it must in some measure