LABOUR  COLONIES—PENAL  CONDITIONS  131
(a)  The  chronic  glut  of  low-skilled  labour  in  towns  or
flowing  into  towns.
(,ß)  Temporary  unemployment  due  to  season  or  trade
fluctuations.
§  j.  Labour  Colonies—Penal  Conditions.
Under  the  first  head  we  may  properly  treat  the
proposals  for  the  establishment  of  farm  colonies  and  other
labour  colonies.  Various  colonies  of  different  types  where
the  labour  is  chiefly  employed  in  cultivation  of  the  land
exist  already  in  England  or  on  the  continent,  and  a  wider
application  of  the  various  systems  is  often  advocated.
These  colonies  may  be  divided  into  several  classes.*
Several  penal  colonies  for  convicted  beggars  and  loafers
exist  in  Belgium  and  Holland,  where  some  thousands  of
men  are  employed  in  agricultural  work  under  a  kind  of
military  discipline.  These  institutions  stand  in  organisation
somewhere  between  the  laxer  workhouse  and  the  prison,
but  differ  essentially  from  both  in  that  the  educating  and
reforming  influences  are  more  dominant.  An  attempt  is
made  to  give  a  sound  moral  and  industrial  basis  to  brokendown
  characters.  The  minority  of  the  Labour  Commission ­
  in  their  Report  urge  the  establishment  of  this  order
of  labour  colonies  in  England.
“For  the  invalids  of  labour,  those  unfortunates  who  have
already  become  unfit  for  regular  work,  we  should  welcome
the  establishment  of  experimental  labour  colonies,  under
strict  government,  to  which  any  man  might  be  committed
for  a  fixed  term,  to  undergo  the  course  of  mental  and
*  For  this  division  and  much  information  bearing  on  these  colonies
I  am  indebted  to  a  valuable  paper  by  Mr.  Herbert  Samuel,  entitled
“A  Survey  of  the  Unemployed  Problem.”