The Dock Companies are urged to organise their casual labour into
permanently employed brigades: and it is suggested, as in the "Minority
Report," that "the most really 'remunerative' form of 'relief' works for
the unemployed would often be a course of instruction in some new trade
or handicraft" Technical education is strongly recommended; Labour
Bureaux are advocated; State cultivation of tobacco is suggested as a
means of employing labour on the land (private cultivation of tobacco
was until recently prohibited by law), as well as municipal drink
supply, State railways, and "universal military (home) service" as a
means of promoting "the growth of social consciousness,"
The Report is unequal. An eloquent but irrelevant passage on the social
effects of bringing the railway contractor's navvies to a rural village
was possibly contributed by Hubert Bland, whilst the conclusion, a
magniloquent eulogy of the moral value of Government service, written,
according to Webb's recollection, by Frank Podmore, is evidently the
work of a civil servant who has not got over the untamed enthusiasms of
youth!
The Report shows immature judgment, but also in parts remarkable
foresight, and a complete realisation of the right scientific method.
With State tobacco farms and the public organisation of a corps of
peripatetic State navvies, the childhood stage of the Fabian Society
may be said to conclude.
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