TOPICS OF THE DAY
HOMECROFTING
" Homeopefting is the art of making your own food with your own hands, so that you do not need to buy it. 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, with his wife and children in his garden, producing food.
" A final way of escape from hunger. Wherever you have that you have a solution of the Unemployment problem. That is what the Homecroft Plan tries to present."
" Do you mean that even if the industrial system went, you would not mourn it ? I should mourn it with many tears. The whole aim is to rehaielitate the industrial system and make it what it promised to be. The road to that end is to effect such arrangements that a man- will not be enslaved to wages all the time."—(From Professor .1. W. Scott's Unemployment : A Suggested Policy. A. and C. Black. London. Is.) IN our correspondence columns we publish a letter from Professor Scott making a plea for Homeerofting. The short quotations from Professor Scott's admirable little pamphlet, Unemployment, given above show vividly his aim, and we advise all who are interested to read it in full. Our present object, however, is not to review it again, but to give all the support and endorsement we can to Professor Scott's appeal to the readers of the Spectator. What he proposes to do is to carry out that physical experiment in Homecrofting which we called for many months ago. Believing in the principle we wanted to see it at work.
We cannot, unfortunately, at the present moment accept Professor Scott's invitation to see the land ; but, after all, that is not the essential thing. The essential thing is to make the experiment and to note how live men and women practise the art of living as Homecrofters. When the model is working will be the time for examina- tion and criticism. But though unable to accept the invitation, we will tell Professor Scott what we will do. (1) We will undertake to receive and pass on to him any subscriptions or promises of help which may be given by our readers. (2) We will publish in our columns the names and addresses of any people who promise help. That is more important than it sounds. There is nothing that makes people more willing to take action than proof that others, and especially persons of light and leading, have already put their hands to the plough. (3) We will undertake to publish from time to time reports of progress which may be sent to us by Professor Scott. (4) When his Homecrofters are at work we will offer a prize a Eight Pounds to the most successful Homecrofter, that is, to the person who has most successfully carried out the scheme by which a man and his family live upon, or largely live upon, the produce of their own labour. A second prize of Four Pounds, and three prizes of a Pound each will go to those who come nearest in the competition. The prizes will be given at the end of the first year ; but in order that the achievements of the prize-winners may be of use in the future of Homeerofting —for it has, we are certain, a great future—the entries for the prizes must each be accompanied with a short diary, stating week by week what amount of work was done, what crops were put in, &c., and also the numbers of live-stock, pigs, hens, rabbits, and, it is greatly to be hoped, goats kept on the Croft. This diary must also be accom- panied by simple accounts, which must show what has been expended in buying seeds, &c. Since the Homecroft is not meant for profit-making, but to live on, no figures need be given as to the value of the produce. We shall want to know how many bushels of potatoes were dug,- how many quarts of milk given by the goat, the amount of bacon, pigs' meat, and so forth. In judging for the prizes care will be taken not to recognize unduly the iron who spends most in stocking his Homecroft. The winning thing will be for a man to raise and increase his own stock, not to purchase at large. Finally, whoever' judges will do so on general considerations, and will not be required or expected to give his reasons.
Before we leave Professor Scott's appeal we would ask our readers to keep always before them the fact that the Homecrofter must never be confused with the small- holder. The smallholder, or peasant proprietor, is a most useful person, especially when he owns his land as well as tills it ; but it is not the creation of smallholders— men who cultivate the land for the market—which we are now considering. What we want is to emancipate men in industrial production from the tyranny of the' market and the thraldom of wages. We do not want men to forsake their ordinary work ; but we do want to make them able to say and feel, " Of course, I'd rather be at full work in the mine, or in factory, or on the railway, or what not, and have money to spend or to put by ;" but what, thank God, I have got as a Homecrofter is the knowledge that I and mine are not going to starve or have to cadge for help if for any reason I lose my job,' or have to go on half-time. Again, we are not going to starve if the prices of food rise. As long as my third' of an acre of garden ground is kept in cultivation I shall not starve merely because I pass a couple or three months without wages."
Some obvious questions require to be answered : " Would not Homecrofting put a terribly severe strain upon a man ? Will it not be much too much for him to work in' his factory and then come home and dig in his potato or corn patch ? " The answer is that in these days of shorter hours a man not only has the time but the desire to take on some extra job, especially if it is open-air work in a garden and involving food production. Besides the economic freedom obtained through his Homecroft, a man will get recreation and so health and happiness— get that enlargement of heart and mind which comes from a pastime. Not every soul is possessed by golf. Next, he will be able to put to good and happy uses the extra hours of his family, at present too often wasted in dullness or listlessness. Finally, the Homecroft will give his children one of the best possible forms of educa- tion. The boy who has learnt how to make things grow has not only learnt something new, but has got a field in which he can apply his school-learning. No one, of course, wants to make Homeerofting a substitute for ordinary schooling, but it will prove an admirable supple-.
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