" GROUP " HOMECROFTING [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—It may interest your readers to know that the " group " Homecrofting adumbrated in some of my recent letters to The Spectator has been begun in earnest at Cheltenham, in the last fortnight, by a company of college students who went there for the purpose. The circumstances, I think, deserve to be recorded. To many of the students it is matter of con- viction that they are on the track, at last, of something really worth while—no less than a means of getting beneath the skin of Unemployment in a curative fashion. The grounds are that the unemployed have only two courses open to them : to get back into the game by earning wages again ; or if that is impossible, to start a pool among themselves and take pay- ment in the form of cheques on their own pool. The students were 3fi in all, recruited from Cardiff University College, and from Fircroft and Woodbrooke in Birmingham. Their object was to devote their Easter recess to starting this pool.
And I think .without exaggeration they have done it. In a ten days' stay they built a hut, erected a fence, painted a Sign, taught an unemployed man a trade, and !cit a potato . field harrowed, drilled, mortared and completely planted as a basis for the contemplated pool. That the talent to do all this should have been found in an academic group says much for the .democratic character of some of our Seats of learning: But most of all it is a tribute to their public spirit. Knowing how poor the Welsh student is, I was only constrained to make this appeal in the dire absence of other financial aid for the experiment. The response was instant and unforgettable. The students found means to pay their own fares and all their living expenses besides giving their talent and labour and foregoing their vacation for this cause, with the above result. The spectacle elicited such impulses of generosity and en-
thusiasm in all who saw them, that one almost ceased to believe in the embarrassments which overhang our work and are still threatening to cut it short. And in offering this word
of public thanks to them, in the name of the Association, I may be allowed to .hope that the goodwill they have earned
for the experiment will finally prevent its going forfeit ; that one means or another will be found to see it through to the end.—I am, Sir, &c., .
J. W. Scow, Hon. Secretary, National Homecroft Association Ltd. 38 Charles Street, Cardiff.
Previous page
