A RELIEF FOR UNEMPLOYMENT : THE HOMECROFT POLICY.

WE desire to draw the special attention of our readers o a. letter by Professor Scott of the University College, Cardiff, which appears in the Welsh Housing and Development Association Year Book, 1924. It sets forth very clearly the distinctive features of the Homecroft policy and the reason why experiments on these lines should be made :— " DEAR. SIR,

I write to solicit your interest in the Maxwell Plan for the relief of unemployment.

In these days when thoughtful men are becoming almost hopeless about the expense and waste connected with unemployment, peculiar interest attaches to the suggestion of an economic way out. The plan takes its stand on the fact of trade cycles,' and what must be done to meet them. Trade cycles—those ups and downs of industrial prosperity—have so far resisted all efforts to control them. The aim of the Maxwell Plan is to prevent unemployment, even if we cannot prevent the trade cycle. Its central idea is that a man need not be always employed making money. He can employ part of every working day making food.

The money is uncertain. It must always be so, so long as trade fluctuations continue. It is necessary to invent a steady supply of food, even if the supply of money is unsteady and interrupted.

Now, a steady supply of food can be got from one-third of an acre of ground.

The suggestion therefore is, Homecroft Settlements around every industrial centre for industrial workers to live in.

A Homecroft Settlement is a group of workmen's cottages where the city worker lives on one-third of an acre of ground, on the city outskirts. .

The suggestion is, take advantage of the short industrial hours. Aim at two shifts a day, for the man ; one shift at his industrial work earning wages : and another, shorter shift, a home-shift, in his garden producing food. What can be done ? How much of the food a man and his family eat can he produce with his own hands ?

Firstly, we are not nearly at the limit, yet, of what Science can teach us in that matter. But if any working man wants to see what can be done already, towards making a third of an acre of ground return enough to supply 148 own family, and for all the year round, with fruits, vegetables, eggs, and pigeon, chicken and rabbit meat—and even with milk—for the table, he will find it all set forth in detail in a delightful book published by Macmillan, called City Homes on Country Lanes, by W. E. Smythe. .There, how health, fresh air, recreation, and all the blessings of good food are within the reach of any head of a family for part time work, is set forth with intimacy and power.

If, then, the problem is the securing of employment such as will enable a man never to be in want, the sober truth is that the problem can be solved. The root of all the evil is Hunger. And here is at least an abundant remedy against Hunger ; a home in a garden ; a princely alternative to living in mean streets and famishing.

The reason why so many of our working population famish is that they must have money before they can have food. The remedy is to place them where food will rise to them, in return for something else than money ; something which they have always got to give, namely, simple love and labour. And it is an economic proposition.

It is an economic proposition because the man can save enough on food to buy his Homecroft and own it.

Even if the cottage and third of an acre cost £800 to £1,000 (and, why need it be anything like that figure?), it could be repaid for around £1 a week ; that is to say, a few shillings over what the workman very likely pays in rent already. A final way of escape from Hunger, is what Mr. Maxwell has tried to present. And the encouraging thing about the suggestion is that people everywhere have been putting faltering feet upon the road already. To exploit the soil for food to eat is a resource that in different ways and in many counties people have been stumbling upon in the pinch of famine and distress in the present uncertain state of the world. The need is for systematisation of this ; for official enquiry to explore the possibilities ; for the rasolute mobilization of -science to the attack upon just one definite work and problem ; that of making home-food-production an available resource to the worker ; that of making a self-supporting food garden within the limits of size that a working man can buy and own ; so that there may be one place in the world where he is safe from the impact of the economic tides ; safe in large measure even from the crash of war ; safe, because whatever happens, he and his family are entrenched beside .their food supply.

The formation of a voluntary association to further these objects is in contemplation, and any interested in forwarding such a move-

ment may write to the undersigned. . J. W. Scow."

It is with very great pleasure that we give publicity to Professor Scott's admirable letter. " We believe he puts the matter in the best possible way when he speaks of a working man and his family being entrenched behind their. food supply. People may dispute a great deal whether the - smallholdina is or is not sound economically ; but there can be no question that it is a sound thing to employ yourself in providing for the best of all home markets, your own home. Econo- mically a man who lives on his own produce is, as it were, employing himself at the wages now payable for agricultural work. The hygienic side of the movement is almost as important as the economic. The social side is also of great value. There is no better citizen than the man who owns his own house, tills his own field, and does it in his own spare time and very largely as a pleasure. Cultivating one's own little garden is one of the best substitutes for or alternatives to golf. From the psychological point of view, and also from the fatigue point of view, which is so closely connected with the psychological, the Homecroft movement . is admirable. Short factory hours might be bad from many points of view if they led to mere idleness and sauntering, for not all men are readers of the British Classics, ancient and modern. But who could find a better use for his leisure time than raising his own potatoes ? And what noble precedents there are for the Homecroft movement ! One sees the ghosts of Augustus and Virgil hovering over one's pen while one writes in- praise of it.