GENERAL BOOTH'S TOUR.

Otago Witness, Issue 1966, 29 October 1891, Page 13

GENERAL BOOTH'S TOUR.

AN INTERVIEW. (From Odb Own Cobrespondknt.)

Auckland, October 21. General Booth was interviewed at the residence of Sir William Fox, whose guest he is. The general is about 63, tall, and his hair tinged with grey. A prominen b nose, long grey beard, as well as the general cast of the features, would almost lead one to believe that he has sprung from Jewish ancestry. He is a Nottingham man, however, and occasionally betrays in a word or sentence a provincial accent. In the conversation which ensued he showed the leading characteristics of his addresses — a keen sense of humour, an easy and forcible way of expressing himself, embellishing his views with appropriate illustrations from everyday life and a knowledge of men and things which fully explains how he is able to effectively govern the largest religious organisation of the age. "At your meeting on board the steamer at Capetown," said tha interviewer, "Lord Carrington presided. How did he come to be on board?" "He and Lord Stafford," replied the general, " were on a trip to the Cape to look at the colony. They are very much interested in the colonies generally, and were staying with Sir Henry Loch at Capetown. Lord Carrington presided at my meeting ob the steamer, and expressed the opinion that mine was a most remarkable scheme. He complimented me on the Salvation Army generally as a ohairman usually does. It was with regard to ' Darkest Englarfd ' that I spoke, and he approved of my eoheme generally, wishing me every success. We had Mr Lawson, of the London Telegraph, and M.P. for one of the London constituencies, also on board, and he expressed the opinion that the plan I propose is an excellent one; in fact, that is the common opinion. The general feeling is that they would like to see the experiment tried. There are two ways of looking at it — first as a theory, and then as a practically, carried-out experiment." "Did you make any arrangements at the Cape?" " I was very much impressed with some offers of land which were made to me. Au M.P. on board offered me 30,000 acres at Natal free, although he said that some reservation would have to be made with regard to coal, which had been found on the land. I made no definite arrangement. I thought it best to see Australasia first, especially as I have a very large number of peoplo 'here. The Government of Cape Colony off; ' d me land, and Mr Cecil Rhodes offered rr. ;and, the former in Bechuanaland, and the h .er in Mashonaland. I am in treaty now for a magnificent estate near Port Elizabeth. To begin with a large area would not be requirtd." " Was there any opposition manifested by the working men at the Cape." "Oh dear, no ; nothing but hearty welcomes were showered on me. I suppose it is just pos- . sible, I do not know that it is so, but it is just possible that there will be some objections on the part of the Dutch, but that will simply be because they don't want any more Englishmen there. That is their objection, and I cannot get my scheme fairly looked at by statesmen because it might interfere with some of their parties. I shall get it fairly looked at when it is in practice. Its value will be seen when yon get large numbers of people sent to the colonies, many of them good agricultural settlers." "Do you think they will remain on the land when they are there, and not gradually forsake it for the towns?" " I decidedly think they will want to stop on the land. At present all classes come here with pretty much the same object— namely, to make a pile and go Home again. So far as I have seen in Australia, the general idea in entering into any sort of business, any land speculations or enterprise, is with a view of making—well, perhaps, it would not be correct in every case to say a fortune, but at any rate to make money, and not merely to get a living. My opinion is that what the colonies want is a class similar to the agricultural class in England, men who will be quite satisfied if they have plenty to eat and drink, are comfortably clad, aud can make some provision for old age. That is what is wanted here. A class of peasantry — people who, if they get a cottage and cow and a horse and plenty to eat and drink, will be conttufc." •'Yes; but we find here that many people oome out from Home who are not brought up to agriculture, and who, though at first they may settle on the land, afterwards drift towards the towns." " That is the fault of yoar system of immigration, not theirs." % ' 11 Do you think that you can prevent that?" "If I did not think so I would not try my scheme." " Would your method of keeping them on the land be by religious organisations?" " No ; but by making the land their means of living. An Irishman does not wane to leave his land, nor a Frenchman, nor any countryman that I know of. People on the laud in the old oountry don't want to go away from it. Ifc is only the agricultural labourer, who, Beeing how his father and mother have toiled all their lives to have nothing before them in their old age but the union, saya » I will go and be f a soldier,' or 'I will go to Australia or America.' Ifhe had a little farm, or if his father had one to which he would succeed, he would not want to go away. . It is quite true that many farmers sons, spoilt in boarding schools by contact with city life, become discontented with humdrum country life, bub I don't propose to bring anyone down, I propose to lift everyone up. I take a man accustomed to all sorts of hardships in the oity or in the country, and I lift him by putting him on the land, and holding ou!< to him a prospeot of getting a place of his own, and I think that with my method of settlement with a township in which could be enjoyed all sorts of recreations and amusements and religion and music and the want of a public house, these settlers would keep together*. At preaeut settlers take up 300 acres or 180 acres each, with the result that they are widely separated, and my opinion is that 20 or even 10 'acres of land, and the right to run on a common, would be .enqugh'^for a man to live. Settlers would then bein a township together, and would have what you call schools of art, tho Salvation Army stores, fields for recreation, opportunities for gossiping, and everything else that people want to come together for. If a man and his wife, who have known hard times, to begin with [ get a house and a field or even a back garden orammed, as I have already seen one here, with < flowers and vegetables ; if they have a cow, a pig or two, a few fowls, and a horse to drive them to meetings, or whrre they like, I would like to know what be wan's b asides. He gets a living, and in the centre ;s; s a store which is the pivot on which the whole thing turns. He takes his surplus produce to the store and gets for it the best, not the lowest, price, and with the proceeds — I don't suppose there is a better circulating medium than the present money currency—he gets what he wants from the bootmaker or tailor. What else does he want ? He does not want liquor, or, if he does, he won't get it if he is a Salvationist.- He may want tobacco, but even if he does it might be supplied.

I believe they are selling tobacco now on the f aims in England." " But you have no means of preventing those ■who are discontented from leaving ? " "No; God did not prevent Adam and Eve from doing wrong. They went down in the Garden of Eden, and I expect many will go down in my Eden too." II Had yon any offers of land in Australia? " 11 1 had an offer of 150,000 acres in South Australia at 2s 6d per acre, and even while in England I received any amount of offers of land in Western Australia. They all want to pack me oflf there. Sir Henry Parkes strongly advised me to go to Western Australia." " There is some opposition to you in Australia by the Trades and Labour Councils ? " " Yes ; that is the only opposition I know of. I don't understand it. They used to say that it was the capitalist who wanted to keep the poor man down, but now it eeem to be the labouring classes. I shonld have thought they would have said, 'Go on ; this is the thing for us ; take the blacklegs away and put them in the country.' " " You propose to deal with the submerged tenth of the colonies, as well as of England ? " "Yes; and we have done so. We have already three small farms in Australia— one in Adelaide, one at Sydney, and one at Bathursb." 11 Are you going, to look at New Zealand with a view to settlements ? " M Yes ; I cannot help it. We have a farm of about 15 acres near Capetown, and on it we have 19 men, 16 of them ex-criminals. Of course there are many reasons for a man to lose heart in the country. His cow dies, or he breaks his leg, or his children become sick, and he is far away from aid. I will give you an illustration. I went down _to a certain district in Cape Colony in which a number of emigrants had been settled, and which had been recommended to me by Mr Cecil Rhodes, I found only one settler left—one who had a beautiful cottage and everything he wanted in plenty. I asked him where his mates were, and he replied, • They have all gon9. They never ought to have come here. They were all barbers or tinkers or others who knew nothing about land, and they went off to the diggings.' I then ssid, • I i hear that you are also going away,' and he I answered that he was, explaining that he in- | tended to do so becanse his five or six children were growing up like barbarians, owing to the loneliness of the place. Now my schema would have a different effect. My scheme is to put the people together in settlements and to help them aloDg until they are able to do for themselves. It will be like a father giving his bojs a start in life. My idea is to make the settlement here necessary to the settlement yonder (England). We would bring people out in batches. We would take land here and break it up, putting on 50 New Zealanders who knew the nature of the soil to begin with. They would go on it and build houses and whatever is wanted^'and then we would bring a batch of 50 or so from Britain. We would not bring them out as ordinary steerage passeDgere to be corrupted by ordinary emigrants, but they would have the whole of the vessel's steerage to themselves, and when they got here there would be somebody waiting for them to take them straight to the settlements. They won't ba allowed to wander friendlessly about, They will be taken right to the places which have been made ready for them, and will be told, < There is your bed and there is a barrow : go to work.' They will work for & time to repay the cost of their passage, and then towards making and improving their own homes." " Do you intend to give them the freeholds of the land when they have repaid what is expended upon them ?" "No. The community keeps that. I want to stick to the freehold, because if I settle a man here on land at 5s per acre and the land afterwards becomes worth £50, the difference between those two sums will go to the poor of England. That is the ' unearned increment.' A gentleman offered me eight acres for £8 per acre. He had given £2 for it, but now coal had been discovered on it, and it was worth £20,000. If I had bonghfc that land for £64, the difference between its price and its present value would go to benefit the poor, wretched, miserable people on whose behalf I have gone into the business. I bought land near London at £18 per acre, which is now worth £60. Since I left they have bought 250 acres at £2 per acre, and on it is good clay. We will probably make bricks with the clay, and the price we will get for them will give a very decent pron>, and the profit will go to the poor and will be devoted to developing and sustaining the settlement schemes. Properties are being 'erected on the land, which will go to aid the 'scheme. They talk about not wanting my people. Why, land adjoining the estate I am speaking about was offered at £15 per acre last December, but could not be got now for £50. This increase in value is through our operations — the effect of j there being in the vicinity' an energetic, indus- ! trious, thriving community, a community whose members are cheered and encouraged by the knowledge that they are not alone aod uncared for, that a mighty organisation is behind them." 11 You don't give your settlers the incentive of being able to acquire the freehold ? " " No ; - 1 see that is a difficulty I have not got over in my own mind. I wonld give the settlers a right and title to every bit of improvement they put on the land." " When a settler died, for instance, could he I leave his home to his children ? " " I don't know what to say about it. I must study the Chinese system. They have a system of land nationalisation which gives them, I believe, their only tax. None of us have any idea what the land will produce. Look at the Chinamen, though they are sneered at throughout Australasia. I believe that if it were not for them large cities would ba comparatively without vegetables. They show what land can produce. I was looking at the difference between a garden and a wheat field. That settled my mind as to the practicability of my scheme when I was brooding over it in England. Anyone who wants to know if my scheme is likely to be successful need only look at the difference between a garden and a sheep run." " The difference caused by labour?" " Yes, it is work ; that is the thing. I believe it to be a fact that land properly worked will require no manure. Work is the great thing, and there are thousands of poor men who want work; while acres are calling out to them, • Come and work with us.' " "What was the practical issue of your visit to Victoria? Was any land offered to you?" ; ♦' I made no requests. Mr Munro was sick, and although I made an appointment with him I did not see him. In Queensland I have no doubt they would do anything I would ask." " How was Sir H. Parkes inclined towards you P" " He was very friendly indeed, but non^commital. I think the best men will do what I want, because they have intelligence to see that what the country needs is people on the land. I somewhat Bpoiled my case with " Darkest England." I did not write that book with regard to the colonies, but for the purpose of wakening England up, and showing to those of its people who were living in luxury a pioture of the terrible state in which thousands were plunged. There are only a few criminals amongst my people,

bnt I held them np and paraded them. In the three millions there is a large proportion of agricultural labourers and others who would make good colonists." " In the colonies we have a nervous dread of the criminal classes being introduced." "Yes, we know you have, and it is a matter for a bargain. If I take New Zealand mutton Home and sell it to the poor for 3|d per lb, they can't expect to get all legs of mutton for that money. Make a bargain with me and I will leave the criminals out." " Have you been in communication [with the New Zealand Government at all? " " I have received no communication in New Zealand beyond an intimation that the labour party in Christohuroh have kindly voted me an address of welcome." o -" Ha To, you form ed any impression of New Zealand?" •i. " ml boag^ fc 7? ry hi B hl y of »* before ever I saw it. They all think highly of this colony in England, and that is a faot you shonld turn to your advantage. What I have already seen greatly pleases me." B "How were you received by the various religious denominations in Australia?" " Generally speaking my reception was cordial, in faot more cordial I believe than that accorded to any other religious man, any other representative of a religious body who has visited the colonies. I have no reason to complain on that score." ■ The mayor (Mr J. H. Upton) called upon tha general at the residence of Sir W. Pox, and paid his respects. He had an interesting conversation with him on some of the features of his colonisation scheme. Speaking at his reception last evening in the City Hall by the Salvation Army, General Booth said : " Judging from the papers everybody apparently knew his business better tL n himself, and from the manner in which i.< affairs were spoken of it might be imagined that his portmanteau was rummaged, so that his cheque book might be seen and ascertained if he carried a box of gold there. In come of the colonies many were opposed to the Government giving him land, but were themselves ready and willing to sell him blocks.—(Laughj ter.) Various Governments were offering him : land for the purpose of settlement. He ; might say he had many sweethearts, but he had not yet made his choice and fixed his affections — (Laughter.) In New South Wales he was asked whether he had come to a decision, but he had said he would have to see his New Zealand girl first.— (Laughter.) His intention was to keep bis | heart free stilJ. He bad a partiality, but he would not mention which was the fair one.— (Laughter.) One of his objects in coming to the colony was to see his people, their condition, and what they were doing, and also to enable them to see him. Stories had been going about to the effect that he was no better than he ought to be, and he was in faot acting like a sort of pope. Well, he was there before them, aud he believtd they wonld say he was worth looking at.— (Laughter and applause.) He thought he might say he was a straightforward, honest man, saying what he meant and meaning what he said.— (Cheers.) Good men of all classes and creeds, and men of no creed at all, had come to think of his social plans with some degree of favour. He did not know how lonsf the hesannas would last nor when they might change into the cry of 11 Crucify him," but be intended to go forward and try to benefit his fellow men, no matter what cry was raised. The general's reception in Auckland, I may say, has been of a most kind and cordial character. Auckland, October 21. The Anglican Bishop of Auckland, BUhop of Auckland, Bishop Cowie, paid a visit to General Booth this morning. A deputation from the Auckland Ministers' Association also welcomed him to New Zealand, and congratulated him on the working of the Salvation Army. General Booth addressed a crowdad meeting at the City Hall to-night, explaining his scheme for the relief of the terrible misery of the masses of London. He maintained that the people whom he proposed to bring to the colonies would bo useful members of the community, and not criminals or paupers. The objoot of the scheme is to settle the people on the land in a systematic way, and he believed there was capacity in these colonies to maintain 130 million people iv as much comfort as the three million people hail who are here »o-day. Hie scheme, he contended, would rtmove the over-competition now complained of in the labour market, and there would be no danger of over-prodaction of food. He has not decided which colony shall be the scene of operations, but he id considering a good offer from South Africa. General Booth leaves for New Plymouth to-morrow. Outober 22. General Booth held a conversational meeting with a largo representative gathering of business men at Auckland on the morning of the 22nd inst. He was interrogated closely regarding his oversea scheme, especially as applicable to New Zealand. General Booth stated that he had received offers of land here, but had not yet seen it. He thought land -should be given free of cost for such a scheme as that proposed. His idea was to send out 50 men experienced in colonial farming to prepare the land, cutting bush, and planting seed, and to draft others in batches of about a hundred, as circumstances warranted, making the , colony reproductive in both agriculture and manufac- | tures at a very early date. He recognised that it would cost a good deal for passages, and for the maintenance of the first immigrants; but he reckoned that under his system the cost of management wonld be comparatively small. Replying to a question, General Booth said that the Army funds were held under trust by himself and his successors; but he had not the power to spend a shilling without the authority of the accountant and officers of the Army. In the coarse of the proceedings Mr William Aitken offered General Booth 2500 acres at ! Northern Wairoa to make a start with, and at a | subsequen (meeting Pastor Birch gave £25 towards the colonisation scheme. Two other donations of a like amount were also acknowledged by General Booth, who left for Wellington, via New Plymouth, by the Gairloch at 1 p.m. He gave a farewell address from the steamer. A committee of three was appointed to supply General Booth with information as to land available here and other information. General Booth left for the south greatly pleased with his whole visit to Auckland, and especially his reception at the two meetings of * the morning. The only thing which staggered aud disappointed him is the attitude of the labour party in these colonies, after all the talking about the brotherhood and sympathy for the downtrodden poor which he has heard from that quarter. The General has received some offers of land in Tasmania.

vazuabi.l Discovery fob thb Haib.— lf your hair is turning grey or -white, or falling oft, me " Thb Mkhoait Haib Bknbwbb," for it will positively restore in every ease Grey or White Hair to itt original colour without leaving the disagreeable smell of most " restorers." It makes the hair charmingly beautiful, as well at promoting tha growth of the hair on bald spots, where the gland* Are not decayed. Aalt your chemist for " !Thb Mbxicaw Haib Sbnxwxb." Sold by ohetnliti and oerf timer* everywhere at Si 6d per bottle. Whole* •ale depot, 81 Farringdon road, London.— (4ov«4