VIII.

Perhaps it will be said that the national workshops failed because they were set up in France, and that Collectivism would do much better in England. That is a strange argument considering the natural aptitude for being ordered about officially possessed by our neighbours. Still I will try to meet it. We possessed till the Reform of the Poor Law a good many experiments in Socialism in the shape of Parish Edition: current; Page: [98] Farms and Houses of Industry, where the poor were, in accordance with the Statute of Elizabeth, 'set on work.' These experiments have lately been examined in a very able and moderate article by Professor James Mavor (Nineteenth Century, October, 1893). The conclusions he arrives at are that all the attempts were failures:—

The conclusions from this survey of attempts 'to set the poor on work' cannot be said to afford much substantial ground for optimism regarding the probability of success of modern attempts in the same direction. It is quite evident that the parish farm hitherto has not afforded a means of relief to the respectable artisan out of employment, but that it has been occupied solely by the vagrant and the beggar. It would seem to be a well-established fact that these two very distinct classes will not mix together in parish farms or anywhere else. The history of the parish farm shows that while it is costly and highly susceptible to the evils of bad management, it may be adapted to the needs of the beggar; but there is no evidence to show that the respectable artisan would be likely ever to enter it so long as the beggar is there.