[Footnote 74: Report of the Departmental Committee on Vagrancy, Vol. I., pp. 51 and 53-54.]
The Committee adopted my view that Voluntary Labour Colonies of the German type are useless for persons of the loafing class.
"It is clear that a labour colony of the German type is of little use for dealing with persons of the tramp class. Mr. Dawson says that 'it is not disciplinary in the coercive sense: it is purely voluntary; the inmates can stay or not as they please.' Many of this type of colonists come again and again, and are termed 'colony loafers.' They correspond to the 'ins-and-outs' of our English workhouses. The object of the colonies is to effect some moral reformation, but it appears that three-fourths of the colonists have been previously imprisoned, and there is no evidence that any substantial improvement results from the time spent in the colonies. Mr. Dawson expresses his opinion thus:--
'Speaking generally, I do not think that you can regard them as being reformatory institutions. The inmates do not stay long enough and the discipline is not severe enough.'"[75]
They also include the existing English Labour Colonies in the same criticism. "None of these Colonies," they say, "is intended primarily for persons actually belonging to the vagrant class; there is no power of detention, and the conditions are generally superior to what would be desirable in a Colony to which habitual vagrants would be committed."[76]
The Committee further agree that a purely agricultural Colony is altogether inferior to one in which trades and industries are carried on in conjunction with farm work, and that only on this twofold basis can a Labour Colony be conducted economically and efficiently.
"Apart from the fact that agriculture alone would not pay, the experience of labour colonies is that agriculture could not be relied upon as the sole employment for the colonists: on wet days throughout the year, in frosty weather, and, indeed, during a great part of the winter, but little farm work could be carried on; again, some of the colonists would be quite unfitted for work of this character; and, lastly, there would be difficulty in disposing of the surplus agricultural produce without affecting outside industries. Everywhere the managers of colonies have found it necessary to establish workshops and various kinds of indoor industries in addition to work on the land, and it seems clear that the organisation of indoor industries must take the foremost place in a colony if employment has to be found for a large body of colonists all the year round."[77]