CHAPTER XIX.

MISCELLANEOUS AGENCIES.

(1) THE INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT.

In connection with our Labor Bureau we shall establish an intelligence department, the duty of which will be to collect all kinds of information likely to be of use in prosecuting our Social Reform.

For instance, it would watch the state of the labor market, would ascertain where there was a lack of labor and where a glut, would inform the public of the progress of the movement, would bring to our notice any newspaper criticisms or suggestions, and would generally make itself useful in a thousand ways.

(2) THE POOR MAN’S LAWYER.

This would meet a long-felt want, and could also be worked in connection with the Labor Bureau.

The poor would be able to get sound legal advice in regard to their difficulties, and we should be able to help them in their defence where we believed them to be wronged.

(3) THE INQUIRY OFFICE FOR MISSING FRIENDS.

This has been established for some time in England with admirable success, our worldwide organization enabling us to trace people under the most unfavorable circumstances.  No doubt there would be much scope for such a department in India.  At the outset it would form part of the duties of the Labor Bureau, and would not therefore entail any extra expense.

(4) THE MATRIMONIAL BUREAU.

A thoroughly confidential matrimonial bureau which would wisely advise people desirous of getting married, would certainly be of great service in India.  Its operations would no doubt be small in the beginning, but as it got to be known and trusted it would be more and more resorted to.

Even supposing that outsiders should hold aloof from it, we should have a large inside constituency to whom its operations would be very valuable, and it would be thoroughly in accordance with native notions for the mutual negotiations to be carried on in such a way.

Missionaries are everywhere largely resorted to in regard to questions of this kind; and we have every reason to believe that it would be so with ourselves, and we should thus be able largely to guard our people against ill-assorted matches, and to furnish them with wise counsel on the subject.

(5) THE EMIGRATION BUREAU.

The subject of emigration has been already referred to elsewhere.  No doubt we shall ultimately require a separate and special office for this purpose in all the chief cities but at the outset its duties would fall upon the Labor Bureau and Intelligence Departments who would collect all the information they could preparatory to the launching of this part of the scheme.

(6) PERIODICAL MELAS.

In place of the “Whitechapel by the sea” proposed by General Booth, a suitable Indian substitute would I think consist of periodical “melas” similar to those already prevalent in various parts of the country.