CHAPTER III

.

DETENTION COLONIES AND LABOUR HOUSES.

In whatever direction we look, misguided indulgence is seen to be shown to classes amongst the least deserving in the community. But our systematic playing with this question cannot relieve us from the duty of facing it in all its seriousness, and of adopting whatever measures a due consideration of public policy may suggest.

I come, then, to the question of remedies. What can, what should, be done? Shall we, in despair, settle down to the conviction that the loafer is not to be extinguished, but must be regarded as filling an inevitable, though not, of course, a desirable, place in society? Or shall we try to exterminate him by the expedient of compelling him to perform the social functions which alone establish for him or for anyone a right to any place in the commonwealth? I take the latter view, and I base my contentions upon the maxim of Stuart Mill--no unreasoning advocate of interference with personal freedom:--

"Whenever there is a definite damage, or a definite risk of damage, either to an individual or to the public, the case is taken out of the province of liberty and placed in that of morality or law."[42]

[Footnote 42: "Liberty,"