Cabinet Minister’s Memories.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 13, 28 September 1910, Page 66

Cabinet Minister’s Memories.

MON. GEORGE FOWWS TELLS OE HIS CHILDHOOD. FATHER A CENTENARIANS LONDON, A ague t 12. Memories of his childhood in Scotland arc contributed by the Hon. Georg© low Id*, Minister oi Education in New Zealand, to the biography oi hrs father,. Matthew bow Ids, which has just been published in Kilmarnock. Matthew bow ids liwd from 1806 tn 1907, and spent his 101 years at -m kn .we, Fenwick, near Kilmarnock, following till almost the end of iiis long life his trade of a weaver. He was a father who believed, like Solomon, that to span* the rod was to < ioil the chi hl, and we get a graphic pieb ire of the youthful George, about to be chastised for smashing his “hurly cart,” bolting up the road with his father in pursuit. “ I was overhauled at the road end above the house,” says Mr. Fowlds; “and 1 have no doubt that the proffered lesson was administered with added earnestness on account of the preliminary preparation.” On another occasion young George suffered, as he always thought, unjustly. Me was going to Kilmarnock market with nis father and brother, and had been promised a pair of new boots at Kilmarnock. His father, who was walking on ahead, shouted back some direction and then turned off towards a farm. He meant George to go straight to Kilmarnock, lint the youngster misunderstood, and 'thought he had been ordered to wait at the cross-roads until bis father returned from the farm. “ Through (hat endless day,” says Mr. Fowlds, “ forlorn, hungry, and almost overwhelmed with disappointment, yet fulfilling, as I thought, a sacred duty, I waited on from ten o’clock in the morning until about six o’clock at night. Then at last my father arrived on Darwhilling gig from Kilmarnock, and feeling no doubt that I must bi* cold, he ‘warmed’ me .-severely, and sent me home on th© gig without my m w boots.” Undoubtedly the future Minister of Education was “spanked” unjustly by his angry dad on that occasion. Mr. Fowlds describes the “awful shock” with which he first heard his father spoken of with disrespect. Two of his boy companions were forbidden by their mother to carry out some project which Mr. Ala tt hew Fowlds had criticised adversely. “ Imagine my horror,” says Mr. George Fowlds, “ when 1 heard one of the boys, referring to my father, eay, • 'rhe old d , what has he got to do with it?’ The enjoyment of my holiday was gone. I longed to get away from that atmosphere of treason, back to the abode of loyalty.” Mr. Matthew Fowlds was fifty-four when his son George was horn. “ Consequently,” says the latter, “all my ideas of fatherhood have been associated with old age and white hairs, and. when I beeamp a father at twenty-five, for n long time I felt that there was something incongruous in my being in apposition of such res ponsi bi 1 i ty.” The centenarian weaver used to get very tired of being asked if he remembertMl the Battle of Waterloo. It was apparently the stock question of visitors who came to see him in his old age, and it made him somewhat impatient. His reply invariably was. “Oh. yes, I remember the Battle of Waterloo: and I remember a good many things since then.” But if a visitor carried him back in memory to his fights on the Parochial Board, nearly eighty years ago, then bis eyes ¥\’ould -parkle with the light of long Polito > were taken very seriously at Creystoneknow t*. and Mr. Geo. Fowlds says he can recall the excitement arising from cleet ions in his childhood. “Though 1 was very young at the time;' ho sa \ s. “ | p.m remember rending the tpeches made by 1 oid Tloseberv when lie first entered the Housp of I <•!<!'. and 1 can remember hoping even in those far off davs, that I. to<». might «ome <l:yv h a member of Parliament What im i <ning< will ent r flm head <*f a poor weaver’s boy’” Old Matthew Fowld- n< ver departed from fin* sfrid t hrolo i.-al doctrine-* in whi.h he w i- brou’jht i p. but he showed n wi<b and 2oneroiis tolerance towards those who,,, belief- did not follow the same rigid liii"<. \mong the latter was his c-m. ( ()X IT -'- lON OF FAITH. ‘ Wh< n he was qui-e an old man.” •ay* Mr. Geo. Fowlds, “ 1 remember that,

on one of my visits, the conversation led me into a position where I had either; to dissemble or to admit the iong distance I had travelled from the Confession of Faith. I disliked hurting my father’s feelings, and had therefore hoped that I would be able to avoid a statement of my theological position; but when the necessity arose 1 made the statement fully and frankly. Father listened to me with perfect composure. He then told me that he could not see standing ground for himself in my position, but that he quite realised that possibly other people might, and, out of the great wealth of his charity he added that so long as a man’s honest belief ministered to his spiritual life, he had no inclination to find faultconduct being greater than belief.” Supplies of this memorial volume have just been dispatched to New Zealand by the Tongariro. Although it is of special and peculiar interest to Kilmarnock folk, it will also appeal to many in New Zealand who have close links with North Ayrshire. The title of the book is “Matthew Fowlds, Centenarian Weaver, and other Fenwick Worthies,” and the editor is the Rev. .1. K. Fairlie. The volume has bad a very cordial reception in the Scottish Press.