For the Industrial Village we have already before our very eyes an admirable object lesson in the existing organisation and subdivision of an ordinary Indian village. Indeed it is singular how precisely India has anticipated just what General Booth now proposes to introduce in civilized Europe.

The village community so familiar to all who have resided in India consists of an independent or rather interdependent, co-operative association which constitutes a miniature world of its own, producing its own food and manufacturing its own clothes, shoes, earthenware, pots, &c, with its own petty government to decide all matters affecting the general welfare of the little commonwealth. Very wisely the British rulers of India have left this interesting relic of ancient times untouched, so that the institution can be seen in complete working order at the present day all over India. The onward march of civilisation has somewhat shaken the fabric and has threatened the existence of several of the village industries. But at present there has not been any radical alteration. The village may still be seen divided up into its various quarters.

Take for instance a village in Gujarat. Those substantial houses in the centre belong to the well-to-do landowners. The cultivators or tenants have their quarters close alongside. The group of huts belonging to the weavers is easily distinguishable by the rude looms and apparatus for the manufacture of the common country cloth. The tanners' quarter is equally well marked, and yonder the groups at work with mud and wheel and surrounded with earthenware vessels of various shapes and sizes, remind you that you are among the Potters.

On inquiring into the interior economy of the village a system of payment in kind and exchange of goods for labour and grain is found to prevail exactly similar to that suggested by General Booth. Only here we have the immense advantage that instead of having to explain and institute a radical reform in the existing system, we have to deal with millions of people who are thoroughly imbued with these principles from their infancy.

For instance one of the staple articles of food in the village consists of buttermilk, which is distributed by the high caste among the low caste from year's end to year's end in return for petty services. One of the usual ways in which the high caste will punish the low, for any course of conduct to which they object is by the terrible threat of stopping their supply of "chas," which means usually nothing short of starvation.

Here then is our model in good working order and in exact accordance with the ideal sketched out by General Booth. We cannot do better than adhere to it as closely as possible.

Probably the first industrial settlement which we shall establish, in addition to the labor yards and suburban farms already referred to, will consist of a colony of Weavers in Gujarat.

For this we shall have special facilities, as we have now 150 Officers at work in that part of the country, as well as more than 2,000 enrolled adults, a large proportion of whom have been in our ranks for several years. From amongst these we shall be able to select thoroughly reliable superintendents (both European and Native), and shall be able to take full advantage of their local experience.

But how far we shall consider it wise to confine our first settlement to one particular caste or to include within it from the outset some other useful village industries such as have been above referred to, I am not as yet prepared to say. Much will necessarily depend on the course that events may hereafter take. For the present I can only say that we will adhere as closely as possible to our Indian model.

The one weak point about the Indian system, as it at present exists, is, that there is no means of regulating the proportion of labour in each section of the community. The rules of caste prevent any transfer from one trade to another, while there is no system of intercommunication between the villages to enable them to readily transfer their surplus population to the places where they would be most needed. In a case where some village industry is threatened with annihilation, as for instance the weavers, there is absolutely no provision for the transfer of the unfortunate victims of civilisation either to some more favored locality or to some other sphere of labour.

Now this is just where our combined plan of campaign with its union of City, Country, and Over-sea Colonies would step in and supply the missing link. We should be able to direct the glut of labor into just those channels where it would be the most useful.

And why should this be thought impracticable? Everybody is acquainted with the power of wind, water and steam, where properly directed, to move the most gigantic machinery and yet for centuries those powers were suffered to go to waste. It is only of late that we have learnt for instance to put chains upon the genii of the tea-kettle, to put them as it were into harness, to bridle them and to compel them to drag our huge leviathans across thousands of miles of ocean. May not the enormous mass of waste labor that has accumulated in our cities and rural districts be fitly compared to the former waste of steam. The best that we have been able to do for it so far has been to provide for it the safety valves of beggary, destitution, famine, pestilence, crime, imprisonment and the gallows.

Is it too much to suppose that this enormous waste of human steam, the most valuable sort of steam that the world contains, can be properly controlled and guided so that it will make for itself railways and steamers that shall carry its human cargoes by millions across lands that are at present mere wastes, and to populate countries which are as yet wildernesses? In doing so, we shall but fulfil the words of prophecy uttered 26,000 years ago. "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing.* * For in the wilderness shall waters break out and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool and the thirsty land springs of water.* * * And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for those. The way-faring men, though fools shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon; it shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Sion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."