THE SOCIAL TERRITORY, OR, POOR MAN'S PARADISE.
Probably the biggest wholesale emigration scheme ever undertaken was
that of Israel out of Egypt into Canaan, under the leadership of Moses.
The circumstances were so very similar to those with which we are
dealing, that I may be excused for referring to them, as they have a
direct bearing on the present problem, and may help largely towards its
solution. It is said that "History repeats itself" and certainly this is
true in regard to the evils that then existed, and we do not see why the
remedy should not in some respect correspond.
Looking back then, we find that there was in Egypt in the year 1,500
B.C. a submerged tenth, consisting of 600,000 able-bodied men with their
wives and families and numbering therefore at least two and a half
million souls. They constituted a distinct caste, or nation, which had
been grafted into the original Egyptian stock 430 years previously.
Owing to hereditary customs, race distinctions and religious differences
they had preserved their identity and had never become assimulated with
the Egyptians. It was a famine that had driven them to take refuge in
Egypt at a time when their numbers were so few that their presence
caused no particular inconvenience to the original inhabitants, while
the services of the King's Vazir, to whose caste they belonged secured
them a suitable reception.
At the time however when we take up their history a change had taken
place. Their numbers had immensely increased. The labor market was
deluged with them. The rulers, capitalists and landowners began to
tremble for their very existence. Enormous public works were planned and
the enslaved caste were compelled to carry out their allotted labour
under rigorous taskmasters, who made their lives a burden to them. Still
their numbers continued to increase. Alarmed at the prospect of an
impending revolution, the King gave orders that every male child of the
Hebrews should be drowned, thinking thus to stamp out the nation. It is
easy to imagine therefore that affairs must have come to a desperate
pass, when from the palace of Pharaoh and yet from among their own caste
a deliverer was raised up to organise and carry out the wholesale
emigration of the entire nation.
Looked at in this light it was certainly the boldest venture and
greatest scheme of the kind that had ever been conceived, and without
the aid of remarkable miraculous displays of Divine power Moses could
never have carried out so magnificent a project.
Everything appeared to be against him. The people whom he had come to
deliver were an undisciplined mob of cowardly slaves, whose spirit had
been crushed by years of cruel tyranny. They were unarmed and
unaccustomed to war. They were the subjects of the most powerful
military monarchy of those times. For them to dream of emigrating must
have seemed the wildest folly. On the one hand the Egyptians would not
hear of it, and their way would be barred by legions of the best
soldiers the world could produce. On the other hand the country to which
they were to emigrate was already occupied by numerous and warlike
tribes, who would contest every inch of territory. Added to this there
was a "great and howling wilderness" which separated the one country
from the other.
Hence it will be seen that this vast national emigration scheme was
carried out by Moses under circumstances of peculiar difficulty which do
not exist in the problem at present under consideration.
There are the same destitute hunger-bitten multitudes, it is true, and
the same difficulty arises before us as to what to do with these
steadily increasing hordes. The same Egyptian remedy, the construction
of vast public works, has been resorted to over and over again, with the
effect of giving temporary, but not permanent relief. In some respects
the position of the Hebrews in Egypt was preferable to that of the
destitute masses in India. They seem at least to have had no lack of
food and shelter, and if they had to work hard, and were cruelly treated
by their taskmasters, we have become familiar in the Indian villages
with many instances of cruelty in the treatment of the low caste by the
high such as could not well have been surpassed in Egypt itself, to say
nothing of the extortions of the money-lender and the ravages of famine
and pestilence referred to elsewhere.
But in many respects the situation is far more hopeful. Our Pharaoh is a
Christian Queen, under whom we have, not one, but many Josephs, who are
really anxious for the highest welfare of the submerged masses, and who
are likely to hail with gladness (as has been already the case in
England) any project which bids fair to alleviate permanently the
existing misery. The wealth and power of the British Government and
Nation, instead of being used to hinder such a scheme, is likely to be
thrown bodily into the scale in favour of all reasonable reform that
will help congested labour to redistribute itself and recover its normal
balances.
Again the progress of science and civilization has removed immense
barriers that previously existed, and railways, steamers, post and
telegraph have rendered possible for us, if not comparatively easy, what
was before only within the reach of miraculous manifestations of Divine
Power.
Furthermore, _the land is there, plenty of it, for centuries to come_,
some of it across the seas, within easy reach of our steamers, but a
great deal of it quite close at hand. Nor will it be necessary to
dispossess others to occupy it. The only enemies that will have to be
faced are the wild beasts, always ready to beat a retreat when man
appears. It does not even belong to some different nationality or
Government, jealous of our encroachments, but is the property of the
same Power to whom these destitute multitudes are looking for their
daily bread.
Hence it is impossible to imagine circumstances more favorable than
those which already exist in India at the moment that General Booth's
scheme is placed before the public, towards the carrying out on an
enormous scale, hitherto never dreamt of, the portion of his projects
referred to in the present chapter.
What I would propose is that a considerable section of waste Territory
should be assigned to us and placed at our disposal in some suitable
part of India, upon which we could plant colonies of the destitute,
similar in many respects to those already described, save that we should
here carry out on a wholesale scale what elsewhere we should be doing by
retail. Into this central lake or reservoir all our scattered streams
would empty themselves, till it was so far full that we should require
to repeat the process elsewhere. Beginning with a single social
reservation in some specially selected district, we should easily be
able to repeat the experiment elsewhere on an even larger scale
profiting as we went along by our accumulated experience.
From the first, however, I should suppose that it would be preferable to
carry out the manoeuvre on as large a scale as possible, for the reason
that this is just one of those things which will be found easier to do
wholesale than retail.
We have many illustrations of this in business. The merchant who amasses
a colossal fortune will perhaps scarcely spend an hour a day in
superintending the working of an establishment that covers half an acre,
while the poor retail shopkeeper over the way toils from early morning
to late at night and is scarcely able then to earn a bare subsistence
for the support of his family.
Compare again the labour and profits of a boatman in Bombay Harbour,
with those of the owner of an ocean going steamer. The former toils day
and night at the peril of his life and earns but little, while the
latter rests comfortably at home and enjoys a handsome income.
Or again let the village hand-loom weaver be pitted against the Bombay
Mill-owner, and we see at a glance that under certain circumstances it
_pays_ infinitely better to do things on a large than on a small scale,
and that in so doing the amount of labour and risk are also economised.
Now this applies to the proposal contained in this chapter. Given a
people who are well acquainted with Indian agriculture and who are
willing to be moved;--given a leader and an organisation in which they
have confidence;--given those religious and moral influences which will
so help them in overcoming the initial difficulties of the enterprise;
and given a suitable tract of country which (without displacing existing
population) they can occupy, and I would say with confidence that it
will be found easier to accomplish the transfer on a large than on a
small scale, by wholesale rather than by retail.
In the present case all the above conditions are satisfied. The entire
congested labor of the rural districts is thoroughly versed from
childhood in the arts of Indian agriculture. They are willing in many
parts of the country to emigrate by thousands even across the "kala
pani," to which they have such an intense and religious aversion, or to
enlist by thousands in our merchant marine and military forces. Much
more then will they be willing to emigrate in far larger numbers to
districts close at hand. A leader to inspire, an organisation to enfold,
and a plan of campaign to guide, have in the most marvellous manner
almost dropped from the skies since the publication of General Booth's
book. The religious and moral restraints and incentives, so important
for guarding against the abuses of selfishness and for inspiring with a
spirit of cheerful self-sacrifice, are provided, and that in a purely
_Native garb_, and yet with all the advantages of European leadership
and enthusiasm. And finally there is land in abundance which Government
desires to see colonised, and which is being slowly retailed out bit by
bit in a manner altogether unworthy of the urgent necessities of the
occasion.
What then is there to hinder a big bold experiment? General Booth will
have in England largely to _make_ his agriculturists before he can put
them upon the land. Here in India we have _millions_ of skilled
destitutes ready to hand, and it will be possible within a very short
period with a few bold strokes to relieve the congested labor market
from one end of India to the other in a manner that can hardly now be
conceived.
Is not this plan infinitely superior to the spasmodic Egyptian
expedient of occasional public works, which cost the State enormous sums
and only increase the local difficulty as soon as they are completed?
Should we not here be erecting a satisfactory and permanent bulwark
against the future inroads of famine? Shall we not rather be increasing
the public revenue for future years by millions of pounds and that
without adding a single new tax, or relying upon sources so uncertain
and detrimental to the public welfare as those founded upon the
consumption of drugs and liquors that destroy the health of the people?
Shall we not again be increasing the stability and glory of the Empire
in caring for its destitute masses and in turning what is now a danger
to the State into a peaceful, prosperous and contented community? And
finally will not our Poor Man's Paradise be infinitely superior from
every point of view to the miserable regulation _workhouse_, that is in
other countries offered by the State, or again to the system of
charitable doles and wholesale beggary that at present exists? To me it
seems that there is indeed no comparison between the two, and General
Booth's book has opened out a vista of happiness to the poor, such as we
should hardly have conceived possible save in connection with a
Christian millennium or a Hindoo "_Kal Yug._"
But it may be objected by some that in providing those outlets for the
destitute, we should in the end only aggravate the difficulty by
enormously increasing the population. This reminds one of the gigantic
folly of the miser with his hoards of gold. An amusing eastern anecdote
is told of one who having gone two or three miles to say his prayers to
a mosque suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to put out an oil
lamp before leaving home. He at once retraced his steps and on reaching
his house called out to the servant girl to be sure and put out the
light. She replied that she had already done so, and that it was a pity
he had wasted his shoe leather in walking back so far to remind her. To
this he answered that he had already thought of this and had therefore
taken off his shoes and carried them under his arm so as not to wear
them out!
And here you have a wretched class of miserly so-called "_economists_"
who are afraid to light their lamp, lest they should burn the oil, and
who would rather sleep in the darkness, doing nothing, or break their
necks fumbling about in their vain efforts to do little, when for a
farthing dip they may put in hours of profitable toil! And when a shoe
is provided for the swollen foot of a nation they are so afraid of
wasting their shoe leather, that they would rather hobble about belamed
with thorns, stones, heat, or cold, than lay out the little that is
necessary to bring them so ample a return!
Each labourer represents to the state what the piece of gold is to the
miser. He is the human capital of the nation and is capable of producing
annual interest at the rate of at least a hundred per cent, if placed in
sufficiently favourable circumstances. What folly is it then, nay what
culpable negligence, nay what nothing short of criminality to sink this
human gold in the bogs of beggary and destitution! Man is the most
wonderful piece of machinery that exists in the world! The cleverest
inventions of human science sink into insignificance in comparison with
him! The whole universe is so planned that his services _cannot_ be
dispensed with and indeed he is at the same time the most beautiful
ornament and the essential keystone of the entire fabric! The utmost
that science itself can do is to increase his productive powers.
But the idea of dispensing with the service of a single human being, or
of consigning him hopelessly to the perdition of beggary, destitution,
famine and pestilence is the most stupendous act of folly conceivable.
What should we think of a railway company that would shunt half its
engines on to a siding and leave them to the destructive influence of
rain and dust? And how shall we characterise the stupidity that shall
shunt millions of serviceable human beings into circumstances of misery
so appalling as well as of uselessness so entire, as those which we have
endeavoured to picture? Why, here we have not even the decency of a
siding! These wonderfully made semi-Divine human engines are suffered to
obstruct the very main lines on which our expresses run, not only
wrecked themselves, but the fruitful cause of wreckage to millions more!
But I have said enough I trust to show that the problem is not a
hopeless one, and that the portion of General Booth's scheme to which
this chapter refers is particularly applicable to India and capable of
being successfully put into operation on a scale commensurate with the
necessities of the hour.
Having obtained our territory we should proceed to mark it out, and to
direct into the most advantageous channels, the inflowing tide of
immigration. There would be a threefold division into agricultural
districts which would furnish food for the incoming population, a
pastoral district for the cattle, and a central market, which would
furnish the pivot on which all the rest would work. Our agricultural and
dairy farm proposal I have already fully discussed and will now proceed
to describe the social City of Refuge which will act as a sort of solar
system round which all the minor constellations would revolve.