t about 4 per cent, and, needless to say,
it is well secured.

Lieut.-Colonel Laurie informed me on the occasion of my last visit to
Hadleigh, in July, 1910, that taken as a whole even now the farm does
not pay its way.[6] This result is entirely owing to the character of
the labour employed. At first sight, as the men are paid but a
trifling sum in cash, it would appear that this labour must be
extremely cheap. Investigation, however, gives the story another
colour.

It costs the Army 10_s_. a week to keep a man at Hadleigh in food and
lodgings, and in addition he receives a cash grant of from 6_d_ to
5_s_. a week.

Careful observation shows that the labour of three of these men, of
whom 92 per cent, be it remembered, come to the Colony through their
drinking habits, is about equal to that of one good agricultural hand
who, in Norfolk, reckoning in his harvest and sundries, would
earn--let us say, 18s. a week. Therefore, in practice where I, as a
farmer, pay about 18s., or in the case of carters and milkmen nearly
L1, the Army pays L2, circumstances under which it is indeed difficult
to farm remuneratively in England.

The object of the Hadleigh Colony is to supply a place where broken
men of bad habits, who chance in most cases to have had some connexion
with or liking for the land, can be reformed, and ultimately sent out
to situations, or as emigrants to Canada. About 400 of such men pass
through the Colony each year. Of these men, Lieut.-Colonel Laurie
estimates that 7-1/2 per cent prove absolute failures, although, he
added that, 'it is very, very difficult to determine as to when a man
should be labelled an absolute failure. He may leave us an apparent
failure, and still come all right in the end.'

The rest, namely 91 per cent or so, regain their place as decent and
useful members of society, a wonderful result which is brought about
by the pressure of discipline, tempered with kindness, and the
influence of steady and healthful work.

Persons of every class drift to this Colony. Thus, among the 230
Colonists who were training there when I visited it in July, 1910,
were two chemists and a journalist, while a Church of England
clergyman had just left it for Canada.

As a specimen of the ruck, however, I will mention the first
individual to whom I happened to speak--a strong young man, who was
weeding a bed of onions. He told me that he had been a farm labourer
in early life, and, subsequently, for six y