This page has been validated.
NON-RESIDENTIAL COLONIES
157

of the colony is not inimical to such results. We have little to go upon so far. Only a small percentage of men have been re-established in the labour market. The Minority put it at 10 per cent, (p. 1122). There is nothing to show that even this has been the result of their stay at Hollesley Bay, and we have to set against it the fact that, except for their periodical "outings," they have for sixteen weeks been secluded from opportunities of looking for work. The only other evidence we have as to the results of training colonies comes from abroad, and the only colonies that appear to have met with much success there have been the semi-penal colonies. "Recidivism" is a well-known feature of the foreign colonies, and the "Kolonie bummler" a familiar figure in Germany. It is significant that already there has been a disposition on the part of a good many men who have had their sixteen weeks or more at Hollesley Bay to try to get back there.


Non-Residential Colonies.

Of course the Minority contemplate also another type of colony, the non-residential colony, which is to be a sort of industrial school for the man out of work—but the question of the efficacy of the training is the same everywhere. The theory of this training, which is the keystone of the constructive policy of the Minority in regard to the able-bodied, is that adults can be trained both physically and morally to a new life. But the nature of grown-up men and women is not so easily changed. Those who have experienced the difficulty in a single case, it may be that of a relative or friend, will find it hard to believe that chance comers can be inspired wholesale with morale in public training establishments. Yet otherwise the whole policy falls to the ground.