VOICE FOR THE COLONIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 241, 8 October 1920, Page 2

VOICE FOR THE COLONIES.

BBAMWEU BOOTH'S VIEWS. FAVOURS PERMANENT EMPIRE CONFERENCE. A "Sunday Chronicle" man had an interview with General Booth on his return from a three months' tour of the Dominions We shall lose our Colonies unless we consult them in matters which concern the welfare of the whole Empire, said the General. It is my talks with statesmen of Cabinet rank in the Colonies that have convinced mc that something like a permanent Empire round table conference is imperative if we wish to deal successfully with the con-stantly-recurring problems which are vital to the Empire as a whole. Our Colonial brothers feel that they are of the House —our House —but that they are left on the doorstep while we settle or deal with questions in which they are equally interested. CANNOT WAIT ON. Their statesmen will not wait on the doorstep indefinitely. Wo look at all our troubles here too sectionally, instead of from an Empire view-point. If we had a permanent Empire Conference, out of it would grow, sooner or later, an International-Conference. After all, the questions that are worrying us are world questions, great human questions——Dousing, health, food, and land hunger. But we shall have to free ourselves of prejudices, of cut-and-dried opinions, and of local or national points of view. REQUEST FOR 1000 HOUSES. For instance, I asked an Australian while out there if he could supply mc with a thousand li6uses. "Certainty," he said, "I can get them from Japan." That offer, however, would be of no use to mc. The cheap foreign labour question would come la. I could not have them. " Yet I have a box of Japanese matches on mc. I have also a Japanese handkerchief in my pocket. But why cannot I have the houses? Has the hour of twelve struck for all the wise statesmen in the Empire? We settle health questions in one country while another country fg ravaged and attenuated by typhus. Can nothing be done? There is not a foot of land in New Zealand which will not grow food. Yet there are men in England—yes, they are men though they take a drop of drink —- who hunger for food and hunger for land, too. Can nothing be done?