WAR WIDOWS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1578, 18 July 1916, Page 4

WAR WIDOWS.

GENERAL BOOTH’S TRANSFER

SCHEME,

General Booth is launching a scheme to transfer a number of British widows from the Old Country to the Dominions, for which purpose fie proposes to use the widespread organisation of the Salvation Army. He invites the aid of the Governments and people of the Dominions in the transferring of 5,000 families (that is, about 5,000 widows and 10,000 children), and he estimates that the cost would bo £'200,000, the Army’s past experience having shown that the cost of transference averages about £4O per family of three souls. He expects, however, that “in addition to offering special reduced fares, which would enable a larger number of families being brought within the fund, the Overseas Governments would subscribe liberally towards (he scheme.” Here are some points of the proposition: —

The Census shows that in the United Kingdom females outnumbered males by nearly half a million. This will be intensified by the war.

“'The Motherland may desire to retain all her men. The Overseas Dominions, perhaps, may not at once be prepared to encourage men to settle on their territory, having in view the reabsorption of their own sons returned from the wars. But, I submit, there can be only one voice in regard to the importance of a wise and generous treatment of the women of our people. It is vital to the well-being of the whole Empire that this question should be dealt with promptly and sagaciously. No bettor monument could be raised to the heroism of the men who have laid down their lives for the Empire than the development of some practical and effective plan for maintaining their widows and orphans in permanent comfort. This would be but an act of justice, and not of charity. These proposals were primarily conceived in this spirit, and for reasons to be stated it is believed they would accomplish the object suggested.

Tlio phiu is to “raise a fund of £200,01)0 and place the same iti Hie hands of the Public Trustee for the purpose of paying I lie costs incidental to the transference of widows and their families from the British Isles to the King's Dominions overseas, with the object of keeping pensions! intact, and to do so without the suggestion of charily; or, in order that cases where commutation of pensions has been arranged, the.money, or portion of it, may be used for the purposes of settlement. Widows would only be sent to (owns or districts where arrangements had been made for their welcome by some responsible person authorised by the Salvation Army, who would see them comfortably initiated in their new homes, and guide and assist them until they were established. The Army w'ould ‘stand by’ every case for which it assumed responsibility, for four years. Non-success is contemplated as a very remote and exceptional contingency, but the Army would bring back to the place from which she emigrated any widow who proved a failure. In the event of the death of a widow, the care of the children would become at once the business of the Army’s local representatives.”

The work is nnseelarian, and lias no profit basis.