WHAT IS GENERAL BOOTH'S SCHEME?
His object is to supply the destitute with food, shelter and clothing,
to provide them with work and to set them on their feet for making a
fresh start in life.
With a view to this he proposes to call into existence, a threefold
organisation, consisting of self-helping and self-sustaining
communities, governed and disciplined on the principles of the Salvation
Army. These he calls "Colonies", and divides into
(1) The City Colony,
(2) The Country Colony, and
(3) The Over-sea Colony.
All these are to be linked together and to be interwoven with and
dependent on each other. In the City Colony a series of agencies will be
established for gathering up and sifting the destitute. Thence they will
be passed on to the Country Colony and subsequently many of them will be
sent to Colonies across the sea.
Now this triple organisation can be brought into existence, on the
largest possible scale in India under circumstances peculiarly favorable
to the success of the scheme.
Our country is not of limited extent like England. It covers an immense
area and includes a conglomeration of nationalities, such as we find in
Europe, with the special advantage of being united under a single, and
that a friendly Government.
Then again there is the fact that, though the influx from the country
to the cities has commenced, yet it has not at present got beyond
manageable proportions, so that it is possible for us, if awake to the
emergency, to rise up and divert the stream into more desirable
channels.
If instead of waiting for a further irruption of village Goths and
Vandals, (which is only a matter of time, and which will soon overwhelm
our City labour market and compel the attention of our civil
authorities,) we anticipate the event and meet them half way by opening
up fresh channels for them, more in harmony with their own taste and
preference, we shall not only confer an inestimable boon upon them, but
shall turn them into a source of strength and revenue for the country,
and shall with them people tracts which are at present barren and
fruitless, but which are only waiting to be occupied and which in many
cases have only to be restored to the prosperity that they formerly
enjoyed.
Finally we have the great advantage of a people already trained to
husbandry from their youth, and accustomed to the very co-operative
system of farming which General Booth advocates, where payments are
mostly to be made in kind rather than in cash, and where the exchange of
goods will largely supersede transactions in money, a strong but
paternal government regulating all for the general good.