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MR.  C.  BOOTH’S  LABOUR  COLONIES  FOR  CLASS  B  133
vegetables  and  other  food  to  the  workhouse,  and  a
separate  establishment  to  which  select  pauper  labour  might
be  drafted,  and  where  removed  from  the  benumbing  influence ­
  of  the  ordinary  workhouse  it  might  be  more
productively  utilised  and  trained  towards  efficiency  and
independence,  is  no  unreasonable  development  of  an
enlightened  Poor  Law.  It  may  be  remembered  that
for  such  a  step  no  revolutionary  legislation  is  required.
The  Guardians  have  power  already  under  Statutes  of
George  III.  and  William  IV.  to  obtain  and  occupy  fifty
acres  of  land  in  each  parish  of  their  union  for  the
purpose  of  providing  work.  They  are  able  to  take  action
as  soon  as  the  Local  Government  Board  issues  rules  for
their  guidance,  and  several  Unions  have  the  projected
experiment  under  consideration.
Moreover  it  is  open  for  philanthropic  enterprise  to
undertake  this  work  where  Boards  of  Guardians  are  unwilling ­
  to  incur  the  expense  of  an  experiment  on  their
own  account.  Boards  are  already  empowered  by  the
Local  Government  Board  to  send  able-bodied  men  to
privately  organised  Farm  Colonies  where  they  will  receive
training  in  work,  and  to  pay  5/-  a  week  out  of  the  rates
for  the  maintenance  of  each  man  so  sent.  Both  the
Hadleigh  Colony  and  Mr.  Hazell  have  received  paupers
upon  these  terms  for  work  and  training  on  their  farms.
§  7.  Mr.  Charles  Booth's  Suggested  Ijxbour
Colonies  for  Class  B.
These  schemes  though  well  deserving  of  attention  upon
grounds  of  humanity  do  little  more  than  touch  the  fringe
of  the  “  unemployed  ”  question.  They  belong  rather  to
the  important  subject  of  the  humanisation  of  our  criminal