Page:Robert Barr - Lord Stranleigh Philanthropist.djvu/242

 "Now, as to the unemployed question. Modern science and the increased use of concrete bring building operations within the range of unskilled labour. The erection of these granaries would merely mean the mixing of mortar and shovelling it into moulds. You could lodge your men, drafted in from the overcrowded cities, in tents at first, and afterwards they might build their own huts. Fresh air and good plain food, with steady labour, and the discipline of an army, would make men of them; strong and capable citizens."

Stranleigh here made a note on a sheet of paper before him, but said nothing. The Minister went on with ever-increasing enthusiasm.

"When this organisation got into full swing you, at its head, would have given yourself a task fitted for a beneficent Napoleon, and I'm not sure but commercially it would pay, although that is not the object we have in view. In one way it would be similar to those great engineering projects successfully carried out in Western America, where water is stored, held back by gigantic dams, and distributed over the deserts in irrigation, turning those deserts into flowering and fruitful gardens, a line of activity with which our greatest men might be proud to be connected."