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Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 58, 12 March 1929, Page 11

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MISS MAUDE ROYDEN

IMPRESSIONS OF TOUR

THE CHAFING' EAST

(From "The Post's" Representative.) ' LONDON, ISth January.

Miss Maude Koyden arrived back in London last Saturday evening ai'tor her tour of America, Australia, Now Zoaland, China, Japan, India, Ceylon, and Egypt. ' A large gathering of members of the Fellowship Guild, headed by Mr. Albert Dawson, the honorary secretary, were on the station at Victoria to greet the popular "preacher of the Guild House. She looked fit and lappy, but she declared that she was yery glad to be home again.

In New Zealand Miss Koyden said iho.-'.'felt very much at home.". The people there wero moro English than ;the English.

-In, her talk to newspaper representatives she said that she had come back ■with certain definito conclusions, prinr cipal among them, being the need for emphasising. Anglo-American friendship; the wisdom of stressing, to the Australian people, the importance of international affairs,, in which they eh owed a live interest, and of convincing; them that we in the home country wero not encouraging pauperism by the dole; the really sincere effort Indians were making to solve their problems of child-marriage and other of the traditional customs attacked in "Mother India"; the extreme hopefulness of the younger Chinese, who were reacting j Btrongly from the old ancestor wor3hip, filling their Nationalist . Government with young men with ideals and aspirations, and evincing surprising interest in the affairs of the League of Nations. Touching first on America, and the opposition sha met from a certain faction there, ostensibly on account of her cigarette-smoking, Miss Eoyden said: "Tho oppositibn was undoubtedly engineered by tho Hcnrst section of tho Press, which is hostile to England, because I was speaking all tho time on Anglo-American friendship. First, I was the 'smoking evangelist'—although actually I smoke very little-7-then, after ■$. had confessed I was not a total abstainer, the 'smoking, drinking evangelist '—although I rarely-take wiue^-and the 'smoking, drinking, flirting [evangelist.' True, one body, the Methj,cdist Women's Home Mission Society, (cancelled meetings, but then they do [mot even allow their ministers to ilnioke! j OPPOSITION A HELP. i" Altogether/ I was rather pleased. ,This was my fourth visit to America, and until now.l had met witli no opposition. I came to the conclusion that Mr. Hearst, on this occasion, felt, there "was'va danger in my stressing the 'Anglo-American entente; "The upshot of it all was that I iever had such enormous crowds before. A lot of people in America would never have come near the ordinary evangelist, which to them is a of abuse synonymous with' tubJthumper.- But" many of these even rturned up to hear me, because they Jgo't the idea that I was not being fairly Jtreated. And so I got at a much wider Jpublic than I would otherwise have '.done! ... 1 In Australia Miss Royden made journeys over the North-West deserts by |aeroplano, visited settlements of aborigines, ani was the first woman, to pn-.each': iii the" Anglican .Cathedral at '^Adelaide.. , . .'' There,'' she, declared, ♦' they are .[tremendously keen on the League Of work, and I would urge- British speakers going out there to get them "ito choose that kind of subject. "My visit to the aborigines' settlements, especially at Moor River, con-' vinced me that the Government is really doing its level best for these extremely primitive and child-like peojde. ' '.'''■' ..••'f.Another thing that impressed me |was the fine- work they have done out ■there in 'connection with baby clinics /arid the reduction of infant mortality! JNeiv Zealand has to-day the lowest infant mortality rate in-the world, and /Australia the next lowest—and they tare now concentrating on the reduction fof the maternal death-iate. . , j THIS "DOLE" BUSINESS. \ "There is, unfortunately, a good deal l<of misunderstanding of our doie sys- ■ torn... Many people'there think we are 1 developing a generation of paupers, and sending them the throw-outs in emigration schemes. They were amazed when I pointed out that the so-called •dole'—l hate the, word—was merely an unemployment benefit 'to which the working class themselves contributed. This 'dole' business is giving the whole world an entirely wrong impression." ' ' ■■'■ ,4» .' .'■'■ .• ■ people, she confessed, were . chocked when, they heard, she was to preach in the Adelaide Cathedral, and could hardly believe it was true until they saw her in the pulpit, despite the fact that one of the smaller churches already has its woman pastor; but there was nothing lacking in her reception, once she had broken the ice. She had ithe biggest crowd of all'at Christchurch, New Zealand; while at other of the principal cities police had to keep the crowds back. . In China she touched Nangking and Canton, and addressed—through an interpreter—meetings of young students. "They asked me to speak on international subjects," she said, "and I was surprised at their interest in the Loague of Nations. I was also asked to speak on sex problems. They seemed to me very open-minded. Where formerly they worshipped ancestry and tradition, almost everything that is old is now tcr them wrong; they have reacted to the other extreme. Most of those in the National Government appeared to ; me to be exceptionally young men, abounding with great hope. "There was very little feeling against the West, but they became teriibly worked up about Japan. One guest at a function I attended would mot. drink his coffoe out of a Japanese cup, and it had to be changed; thoir feeling impressed me as being like our own during the war. But they are determined to get rid of the opium vice. I met one reformer who vowed they would banish opium within two years!" VISIT TO OHAKDL In India Miss Royden did not hold ineetings—her last public address was at Colombo; but she visited Ghandi, the ascetic reformer, at Wardha. "He seemed to me very fragile, with hardly any voice, and to be, politically, by no means the force ha was, although still, spiritually, in himself, probably the greatest force in the world. He is a great spiritual forced-he struck me as absolutely incorruptible, absolutely courageous. Ido not think he has ever felt afraid. Tor example, on one occasion there was a very s!ck calf, md Ghandi suggested it should be killed. I was told afterwards that no European could possibly conceive'the immense courage that Ghandi, a Hindu, showed in making that suggestion, for . it cuts across the oldest religious beliefs. He told me ho might come to England next year. He had no desire to speak publicly, but he thought there were- people in England who would like to talk to him. "The All-India Women's Conference waa being held while I was there, and I was impressed with tfee w»jr in which

they are trying to get rid of child marriages and other abuses of the kind. Their chief obstacle, they say, strangely enough, is our own Government, which is so afraid of touching any thing which concerns intimately their religion."