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Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 565, 3 February 1891, Page 2

A LATE cablegram states that General Booth has replied to the Victorian Government, stating that they ape under a misconception in supposition that the settlement scheme would mean the foisting of criminals and paupers on the Australian colonies. It is among the evils of the times, that if any new movement does not spring from certain quarters, it is at once taken as a signal for denunciation. In this case the Victorian Premier actually admitted that when the protest was made he was not possessed of any authentic information concerning the scheme, though that might have been obtained by mail if his impulsiveness had not prevented his

waiting a couple of days. It is senseless opposition of this kind that should make people disgusted, and serve to strengthen the hands of the General. Mr Stead says that hostility to the scheme “ will be the attitude of almost every person outside the circle of the Salvation Army who picks up General Booth’s book. I do not think I say too much when I say that it will not be the attitude of ten per cent, after they have read from cover to cover the most remarkable volume that has been issued from the press this year.” Those words have been partially proved to be correct. It does not follow either that Australia will be the chosen ground for experimenting upon. The principle underlying the whole scheme is that no emigrant can leave England until he has proved himself honest and industrious. In the hands of any other person but the organiser of the Salvation Army the scheme is one that might be considered to have failure stamped upon it, from its very hugeness, but under his control it promises to be a grand movement in the amelioration of the condition of the masses. The last number of the N.Z. War Cry devotes a short article to the objections made, stating : —“ These objections, as everybody knows, were based principally on the fact—a very common oneinconnection with criticisms on the Salvation Army—that they hadn’t read the book. Instead of going into the scheme as the General pourtrayed it, and criticising it as it stood, they set up a man of straw, and proceeded to knock him down with surprising celerity. A lot of smaller fry, identifying the man of straw with General Booth, applauded the knocking down process, with much surprising similarity of speech and gesture. But the man of straw is done for. A perusal of the book reveals the fact that he and the General have nothing in common, and that the muscle expended in knocking him down has gone for nothing.”