GENERAL BOOTH’S SCHEME.

Gisborne Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1578, 7 October 1905, Page 3

GENERAL BOOTH’S SCHEME.

(Napier Telegraph.)

The oabled abstract wo publish of Mr Jesse Oolling’s objoct'on to the British Government assisting the immigration of " strong, healthy, and industrious workers” shows that his views are based upon common sense. This, wo suppose, will be generally admitted. It will also be admitted or affirmed, that to the extent to whioh it would be a misfortuno for Britain to lose able'bodied industrious workers, Australia would gain by obtaining them. But these are mere surface considerations. If it would be a misfortune for Britain to lose the people referred to, and if, as is asserted, she is likely to lose them beoause | they oannot obtain in Britain employment sufficient to enable them to support themselves, obviously it is not easy to resist the conalasiou that Britain ought to provide employment for them. This shows the difficulty of aooepting muoh that passes for argument in works devoted to political eoonomy. The reasoning in these books would be perfect but for one defect. It is that it fails to reoognise that what may apply to atoms or to mathematical abstractions does not apply to men and women. There is nothing easier than to prove, for example, that there are all kind

Of compensating influences at work in

society. If trade is bad now, and people have to run away from Britain to get food, the law of averages is good evidenoe that there will be a reaction shortly, hastened by the exodus due to the misery now experienced, and " good times ” will come baok. When a ohaoge in fashion or the introduction of new machinery throws out of employment hundreds of thousands of workers, politioal economists oan as a rule prove to their own satisfaction that all is for the best, and that the labor displace by whim or by invention will in the end find an outlet elsewhere. If the argument oonoerned water, which finds its level when unoonfined, nothing conld be more assuring. Unfortunately humanity ia in* volved, and humanity ean and does suffer. Hence theories of free imports, or of labor saving machinery, or of fluxes cf labor from one channel into another, while fairly aoourate as a rule if regarded as mere logio-ohopping, may be converted into moral mud by compelling recognition of the flesh and blood aspeol of tho ease. Henoe it seems that unless the able-bodied and industrious workers whose prospective loss to Britain arouses Mr Oollings’ indignation are to be provided with re* munerative employment in their own country, they ought to be encouraged, possibly even assisted, to find bettor opportunities in another laDd. It i 3 said that most of those whom

" General ” Booth seeks to send ont of Britain to Australia have some knowledge of agricultural work. If so the free importers of Britain have an object lesson to stady. It is the custom to speak of the United Kingdom as if it had no possibilities in the direction of increased production of cereals. The inferenea thus suggested ia preposterously absurd. If the faotoryowning and oompaDy-mongering interests which support the policy of free imports could bo but even partially muzzled, an immense area of British laud could be profitably devoted to raising wheat. Then the unemployed persons with agricultural knowledge whose loss politicians of the Goliings stamp are bewailing in advanee might live in moderate comfort in the oountry of tboir birth, A stiff land tax would also assist in the process, by " encouraging ” those who even under existing conditions might make more profitable use of their properties from a national point of view than is the case at present. That would not only swell the production of food within the boundaries of the kingdom, but tend to bring into existence again that yeomanry class which two generations of factory-owners’ legislation has done so muoh to destroy. Unfortunately the outlook in that direction is not so bright as we could wish. As was significantly stated in a cable message a short time ago, the leaders of trade unionism in Britain are mostly place-hunters tied to the Liberal electioneering machine. Henoe the very organisations which have no right to exist at all unless protection be a justifiable theory, have at present little better in the shape of a politioal creed than the dismally oomioal conclusion that Mr Chamberlain and those working with him are the enemies of labor in the first place and of the Empire in’the second.

Under the circumstances we need not wonder that Mr Booth and others are seeking to organise a vast humanityshifting scheme. The wonder is that the oharitably-disposed have not greater de* mands made upon them in this direction. Another remarkable thing is that these oolonies do not reoognise as clearly as the Oollings class of politicians do the value of healthy laborers to a country. Australia and New Zealand would he acting wisely in holding out substantial inducements to people of this oiass anxious to leave a oountry where, if they and their ohiidren are not literally denied bread, they are at least fenced out from any reasonable prospect of oomfort.