A SCHOOL OF ORATORY. AN ANTI-SOCIALIST CRUSADE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 135, 4 December 1909, Page 13

A SCHOOL OF ORATORY. AN ANTI-SOCIALIST CRUSADE.

"We have received over 1500 applications for admission to our School of Speakers, which reassembles on 25th September,"^ stated Mr. Grisewood, the secretary of the Anti-Socialist Union of Great Britain on Bth September. A fortnight previously the union had appealed in The Daily Mail for 500 speakers capable of combating Socialism up and down the country. Free training in the school was offered. Speakers engaged make from three to seven guineas a week, with gravelling expenses and maintenance allowance up to 15s a day in addition. "The majority of the applicants seem admirably adapted to the work," said Mr. Grisewood. "They belong to every rank of life, and include university men, schoolmasters, clergymen, barristers, solicitors, clerks, men of letters, lecturers, seafaring men, organisers, tradesmen of all kinds,' and working men. Many offer their services without fee." Many of the wou,ld-be students live in distant towns, and the union is trying to surmount the difficulty by the institution of travelling* schools. "These travelling schools will have a staff consisting of two lecturers and an organiser," explained * the secretary. "They will stay six or eight weeks in each centre. Supporters can give practical assistance to the Anti-Socialist cause by defraying the cost — about £150 — of such a school."