THE HOMELAND FOR THE SOLDIER

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 45, 18 November 1918, Page 8

THE HOMELAND FOR THE SOLDIER

, i AN ASPECT OF REPATRIATION (By lioy Devereux.) Although tho demobilisation, of our armies is to-day but a contingency of the future, it may bu-ot , a future, the problem of how the soldier is to be reconverted into a. civilian with the least possible disturbance of industrial conditions is already occupying the Ministry of Keconstruetion and its military advisers. It is, moreover, a problem which contains an unknown factor, for it is impossible to predict in what state of mind anil soul the soklieri will return .-home. They will in most cases be men who have spent years, often the best yeaay, of their lives, in the fiercy furnace of war. In spite of an .occasional ten-day glimpse of "Blighty," the average soldier of the British' Expeditionary Force will have become accustomed to a life which is totally different in every respect from the life Ire left behind him. lie will have become accustomed to discipline faa- more rigid than anything he had known in factory, office, or ehon. But within this military organisation he is in some respects freer than he has ever He is emancipated from the four walls within which he worked moved, and had his being, and also from | the society of his family. War with its diabolic excitement, its -danger, tind its dirt, has inured him to an open-air existence under the simplest conditions. And before the final defeat of our enemies heralds the restoration of peace to a world in ashes, the average British soldiea , will have n. long period of service with the Allied armies lo look back upon. , The amazing adaptability of human nature notwithstanding, it is inconceivable that to the' majority of our fighting men the return to x civilian life will mean no more than tho -replacing of the ichaki uniform by the old working suit. It»is easier to turn a sword into u ploughshare than a rifle into a pen. What is to become, of those men who even now regard the office stool to which their souls .is well as their bodies were formerly lied'with "horror? How are they to find employment after thu war that will enabl-e them lo continue the active open-air life to which they have become ■accustomed!'

These are the men on whom we must rely for the colonisation of Great Britain. Wo shall need them far more thaiv any of our overseas dependencies if the , millions of acres which the lAfoat campaign has forced us to cultivate are to be" kept; \ip to their present level of productiveness. Wo shall them lo make England tho granary of the

Allies until poor devastated France is able to nejmii , the ruin of tho war. This fact and a strong current of national sentiment is responsible for the scheme already elaborated 'by the British Board of Agriculture to'enable any demobilised soldier who desires'it to settle iipon

and ultimately to possess a bit of his native land. The experiment sanctioned

under the Small Holdings Act of. 1916 has proved such a success that the SOOO acres increased lo 80,000 acres. Three large estates in, llngUlcd ■ and one in Wales are in process of being converted into pioneer colonies, nnd it is hoped* to bring 1,000,000 acres ultimately into .the enterprise. Development of Social Life. • The essential point in this matter of home colonisation is that the conditions established should be favourable to the development of an agreeable social life. It 'is useless to dump ex-service men upon isolated, patches of the countryside without either markets or neighbours within reaoh. The .Board of Agriculture has fortunately recognised the necessity of founding iis system upon a communal and co-operative basis. It is therfrfqro proposed that the. settlers should be grouped in a colony where they can work cither as individual small holders or as members of a community which would share' the profits derived" from working the colony as one lnrge farm.

Under the small-holding system • t'tib colony begins as onu largo farm under the management of a director. Applicants will be employed as workers upon it at tho rate of wages current the district for a period of one year's training, -liter that timit satisfactory students will be allotted at a reasonable rent such area, of land, as he is able to cultivate successfully on his own account. At Holbeacfi, where an experimental colony has been started, a man' caji get a good living off a 10-acre allotment, by means of intensive fruit and vegetable culture. But the quality of the soil is, of course, the chief factor in do-, termining the size of allotments. Even when all the small holdings have been taken up a certain portion of the estate will lie retained as a central farm under the management of the director. Thereupon intending settlers can acquire the necessary training and will/ when working on their own account, be able to hire any part of the large equipnient of horses, implements, rand machinery which they require.. A clubhouse, witn reading- and concert rooms, will also be available, and become, it is hoped, a centre for the social life of the, district.

Under the profit-sharing plan tho colony is worked, as one large farm, and the settlers are employed by the director, receiving in addition to their wages a share in the profits realised by the farming operations. Such profits they are entitled to spend as they think fit, or to invest in land adjoining tfieir cottages to be cultivated for their own use.

In both instances the whole business of the transport and marketing of produce irtll devolve upon the who will moreover advise and assist allotment holders in every way. Thus it if> practically "farming without, tears'' which the Board of Agriculture offers to the war-spent hero whose ambition is bounded by a "bit of Blighty." Agriculture is after all an art which in normal circumstances is learnt in the bitter school of experience. The untrained amateur is doomed to failure, be his holding small or great, for Nature is no respecter of persons even though they bear upon their breasts the honours of the Great War. We do not want, however, to see our returned soldiers abandon their allotments in disgust, either through their ignorance of agriculture 'or because the dullness of rural existence drives them back to the town. Anil the only way to avoid these difficulties and .disenehantments is through the formation of colonies favourably situated from the point of view of markets and so organised that the amenities of social life are within reach of the cottiers.