Missionary of Labour.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIII, Issue 15, 13 October 1909, Page 7

Missionary of Labour.

MR. WILL CROOKS, WHO WILL TOUR NEW ZEALAND. (From Our Special Correspondent-! LONDON, August 27. Mr. Will Crooks, M.P., accompanied by his wife, leaves England on September 10. He is going, as I mentioned some time ago, to spend his Parliamentary vacation in making a tour round the Empire. New Zealanders will thus have an opportunity of seeing and hear ing this year one of the popular members of the House of Commons. The Labour member for Woolwich is a Cockney through and through, with all the drollery of expression so cha’acteristic of the London type of humour. Born in a workhouse, apprenticed in early life to a cooper, and living all his life in the East End of Lon don, Mr. Will Crooks knows the working classes through and through—their joys and sorrows, their strength and their weaknesses. He excels all other Labour orators in his power to move an audience to laughter or to tears. Even a House of Commons audience, usually so blase in regard to oratory, has listened with moist eyes to the simple pathos of some of Mr. Will Crooks’ stories of East End poverty.

On the platform Mr. Crooks is delightedly natural. He ti'ks to his audience, instead of making speeches at them. His rich vein of racy humour is accentuated by his Cockney- accent, and seldom does he have to speak for more than a few minutes before he has his audience laughing with him. So popular is the member for Woolwich that as soon as it was known that he was contemplating his colonial tour, he was inundated with invitations from unknown friends, asking him and Mrs. Crooks to be their guests, and inviting him to perform at public functions. They- received also offers of assistance from friends at Westminster. Mr. Crooks has introductions to all the Labour leaders in the colonies, although he needs no written introduction. His record is his best passport to all friends of Labour. He has also letters from Lord Crewe, Lord Strathcona, and the Agent-General for the Colonies in England.

Mr. Crooks is going, he says, as a missionary of Labour to learn something of the problems and conditions of life in the great self-governing sinter States. He is not going as the representative of any Society or of the Labour, party. He and his wife decided to spend their savings in going round tho Empire, and taking at the same time their first holiday. Mr. Crooks sets an example in self-sacrifice and patriotism to many other members of the House, who talk a great deal about Empire without doing anything for it or without evincing any desire to know it. He has accepted an invitation fi-orn “The Daily Chronicle” to contribute a series of articles giving his impressions of what he sees and his views on the problems and Labour conditions in the colonies.

After visiting Canada, he will sail from Vancouver for Sydney, visit all the leading Australian cities, and then proceed to New Zealand, returning to Sydney to spend Christmas with "relatives. He will come back to England via Suez, reaching London in February.