steamers, but a
great deal of it quite close at hand. Nor will it be necessary to
dispossess others to occupy it. The only enemies that will have to be
faced are the wild beasts, always ready to beat a retreat when man
appears. It does not even belong to some different nationality or
Government, jealous of our encroachments, but is the property of the
same Power to whom these destitute multitudes are looking for their
daily bread.

Hence it is impossible to imagine circumstances more favorable than
those which already exist in India at the moment that General Booth's
scheme is placed before the public, towards the carrying out on an
enormous scale, hitherto never dreamt of, the portion of his projects
referred to in the present chapter.

What I would propose is that a considerable section of waste Territory
should be assigned to us and placed at our disposal in some suitable
part of India, upon which we could plant colonies of the destitute,
similar in many respects to those already described, save that we should
here carry out on a wholesale scale what elsewhere we should be doing by
retail. Into this central lake or reservoir all our scattered streams
would empty themselves, till it was so far full that we should require
to repeat the process elsewhere. Beginning with a single social
reservation in some specially selected district, we should easily be
able to repeat the experiment elsewhere on an even larger scale
profiting as we went along by our accumulated experience.

From the first, however, I should suppose that it would be preferable to
carry out the manoeuvre on as large a scale as possible, for the reason
that this is just one of those things which will be found easier to do
wholesale than retail.

We have many illustrations of this in business. The merchant who amasses
a colossal fortune will perhaps scarcely spend an hour a day in
superintending the working of an establishment that covers half an acre,
while the poor retail shopkeeper over the way toils from early morning
to late at night and is scarcely able then to earn a bare subsistence
for the support of his family.

Compare again the labour and profits of a boatman in Bombay Harbour,
with those of the owner of an ocean going steamer. The former toils day
and night at the peril of his life and earns but little, while the
latter rests comfortably at home and enjoys a handsome income.

Or again let the village hand-loom weaver be pitted against th