A BAFFLED PHILANTHROPIST.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 213, 8 September 1923, Page 6

A BAFFLED PHILANTHROPIST.

Many men found out before J.,ord Leverhulmc that the way of the philanthropist is not easy, that there aro people who refuse to be helped, but prefer to muddle along in their old inefficient and sometimes insanitary ways. Tho struggle between Lord Leverhulmc and his adopted people of the Western Isles has, however, soma special points of interest. His Lordship is a masterful personality. A Lancashire man, with all tho North of England energy and business shrewdness, he has amassed a huge fortune and built up a vast business. With business ambition and abilit}' he has combined philanthrophy. The model industrial town of Port .Sunlight, with its garden houses and art galleries, is his creation. •Stafford House, the finest private mansion in London, was his gift to the nation. But the crofters of the furthest Hebrides have proved to be intractable stuff. I'crhaps they have listened to Wordsworth's cuckoo breaking the silence of their seas, so intently and spiritually that they have become deaf to the allurements of Southern progress and efficiency. At any rate this conquering industrial captain from the South has not been able to convert them, (ioing to these cuter islands with the best of intentions, Lord Leverhulme tried to modernise the life there. It naturally pained him that the crofters ehould potter along in the slow, wasteful old way, so he built or planned a new Ashing harbour, a fish canning factory, roads, and spinning- mills. The inhabitants, however, did not wish to be jolted out of their ruts. They preferred to fish and spin as their forefathers had done, and to farm and build where they liked. Those who have read George A. Birminpham'e humorous romance of a Western Irish isle, "Spanish Gold," will remember the conservatism that opposed the Government's well-meant attempt to- divide the land into neat plots, and will form from this some idea of the difficulties Lord l.evcrhulmo has had to encounter. Xow he has withdrawn, and has offered the islanders of Lewis all hvs interests, on which ho has spent a million. It will be interesting to ace whether they accept the oiTal factory anil the eteam laundry, and what they make of them. We sympathise with both sides. Inefficiency is nnnoj'ing to any wellordered mind trained in the camps of industrialism. No doubt the islanders have Decn stupid in not moving with the times. The Highland character, however, is. stubborn and independent, and; does not like to be directed by a stranger who is by origin and temperament quite outside the Highland tradition. So Lord Leverhulmc has to confess at least to partial failure, and has learnt that there are some spheres in which money is not all-powerful. A. tragic and ironic feature of the business is that apparently emigration from the islands proceeds steadily, and tho Dominions and America aro receiving men and women who might have been kept at home if Lord Lcverhulme had been successful.