30 MARCH 1907, Page 2

The House of Commons adjourned on Wednesday for Easter. The

last debate was raised by Mr. Keir Hardie, who declared that the Unemployed Workmen Act had not been worked with sufficient vigour. Mr. Burns in reply asserted that the Act had been worked in a fair spirit, and denied that be had interfered with or hampered the experiment which was being made at Hollesley Bay. In regard to Mr. Keir Hardie's assertion that the unemployed should be migrated not to Canada but to Essex, Mr. Burns made some very sound observations. To attempt to migrate the type of man which they had in West Ham to Essex was, he deolared, to try to do the impossible. When they sent those men to Holladay Bay or other farm colonies, the attraction of home was so great that when they had been there two, three, or four months they returned to West Ham. But if the same men were sent to. a place like Canada, where a return was made difilealt and almost impossible, they, out- tbssaselves mprally, physically, and industrially away from their eavironment, and put themselves on a new plane of life. Critics of hie Department wanted him to adopt a large national scheme of relief works which would cost a million a year. Re positively refused to adopt any such suggestion. Rather than do so he would resign his portfolio.