General Booth's Scheme

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 53, 31 October 1891, Page 3

General Booth's Scheme

crowded meeting in Wellington, Cl^-aStTuesday, Judge Richmond presiding; referring to his proposals as ;narrated ; ';in* *y Darkest England," said i :— rHejwished to remedy, destitution, ' Tice, | :,and "dcrime-r-they ■ existed in all hands, and- seemed to "be a general'accompaniment to civilization, and he con- ■ tended that in his scheme he had grasped the principles, by acting on which those evjls and miseries might be not only ameliorated- ■but removed. . At Home ttierewere^S^ his scheme was designed to aid— -the destitute and the vicious and the criminal— and his scheme ; waSi)atehd.ed:> to^d.elif er them from the -'■'.■. state of Hfe in- .which they were in . He expected a large; niimber would find em- " pipymeht and settle '"Sown iu the Old • Cbunify, -ut'there'was a large residue • for whb|n it wputd he desirable that they -"■"• -bbuldigoto '-Bo'me other couniry beyond v^ ;i4_eiisea^ y His Iplnn divided itself into ;>thfee parish There was a colony in the "^^t£ it lumber of Operators at work, from '..-•.'^ whicK^rescued jieppje .who had shown * eyery^etermmafibri to help thoi_selv._ ; to the farm in the country. i-Sl^rSSthey^ Swould -•; _e;i*_rther tested j ti-auied in such vahsweisJo the iirov w]i|c_t^e^j;inight ,be ; drafted'. '^JfLe^4|be(Em^6.^mpyMf;by7tJ_e poyerty >;^ ; mWe u]i^

of the oaso b<iforb ; tho public. Ho dwell speciallj lipon^tho. worst; ppv.tiori of the submoiged olasscs; ■•whiclf accounted for the fact that the vicious and criminal clause* weie giivpnTOord^predominahco to 1 than the others.'and, although they were but a small portion of the number to be rohovofl, they; came very prominently besfoi c tho readers of bis boot, and especi--1 all)' before colonials. This class . only , numbiied about 100,000, and even if thej pat them on one side there still remainod 2,900,000 for whom some scheme was necessary. Then; again, there was tbe abandoned women, about 100,000, and drunkards, about ,soo,ooo nearly all of whom could be' saved if people would ■ only use. the* proper means of doing so. But even taking those 'away there remained about 2,300,000 whose misery was the result of circumstances, from whom he proposed to select his emigrants. , Tako tho oidinary agricultural labourer and tho dockers, of whom -there were a great number, 1 . learning . about 12s 6d per week,- surely they were people whom Now Zealand might wisely welcome, providing ''they were properly assorted out nnd properly disciplined. But as tathe people he had named, surely it was right they should hare another i chance The Army got hold of them, took them into the city, set them to work, and sorted them out, taking measures by which llicy could discover whether thej were at leust moral in their lives, sober in theirhabitJin the midst of temptations ' (as they were on the farm at home;, and 1 certainly after that they should bo as acceptable as colonists as the usual class of emigrants. For whatever Colony they were going to they would receive special training, besides which he proposed to put his people on the land in the shape of industrial independent tovras, containing those competent to carry en all the trades and callings neeossarT fov such a seltle* ' men', besides which they would be under special .discipliae.' Tite'' "question was asked whether 'tho^reformed classes sent over to a colony- would be' likely to relapse? Certainly; some of them .would relapse, the same , as in any iucrcaseof population there was a risk in llrs re : tpect, but bo-was.-quite sure there would be loss risk from the. classes he should send than from any other. But oven supposing some did relapse, the Army would compensate by saving in the colony from poverty and vce a much larger number than felipsed from those introduced by. bis scheme Again, the working man objected to the introduction of fresh labour, but that was a question that had io be considered along with the whole question of emigration. A complete answer to lliafc, as far as his scheme was concerned, was the fact that his people would be taken straight away to tbe land. He reckoned also that his people would become producers and con» sumere. and lie. bolieverl that the remedy for the present glut of labour was to put people on tlie land. That he proposed to do.' (Applausej.