General Booth’s Scheme

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 569, 12 February 1891, Page 3

General Booth’s Scheme

The large amount of interest which has been created in General Booth’s scheme ought to ensure a big attendance at the City Rink this evening, when Adjutant Bishop deals with the subject. The General says that he is a practical man, and although sympathizing intensely with the aspirations which lie behind Socialist dreams, he cannot make the immediate inauguration of the millennium his practical objective. Speaking of Henry George, Edward Bellamy, and the Collectivists, he says:— What these good people want to do, I also want to do, and if they can do it better their way than I can do it in my way, I shall be glad enough, for I am a practical man dealing with the actualities of to day. I have no preconceived theories, and I flatter myself lam singularly free from prejudices. lam ready to sit at the feet of any who will show me any good. I keep my mind open on all these subjects, and am quite prepared to hail with open arms any Utopia that is offered me, But it must be within reach of my finger-tips. It is of no use to me if it is in the clouds. Cheques on the Bank of Futurity I accept gladly enough as a free gift, but I can hardly expect to take them as if they were current coin, or to try to cash them at the Bank of England. The religious cant, which rids itself of all the importunity of suffering humanity by drawing unnegotiable bills payable on the other side of the grave, is not more impracticable than the Socialistic claptrap which postpones all redress of human suffering until after the general overturn. Both take refuge in the Future to escape a solution of the problems of the Present, and it matters little to the sufferers whether the future is on thia side of the grave or the other. Both are, for them, equally out of reach. When the sky falls, we shall catch larks. No doubt. But in the meantime? It is in the meantime that the people must be fad, that their life’s work must be donp ar left undone for ever. Nothing that I h aV fl to propose in thia book or that I propose to [do by my scheme will in the least prevent tbe coming q! any of the Utopias. I leave the limitless infinite of the future to the Utopians, They may build there as they please. As for me, it is indispensable that whatever I do is founded on existing fact, and provides a present help for the actual need.