Letter to Alfred Lyttelton — Interview with him — Opportunities of Conservative Government — How used — Nature of H. R. H.‘s scheme — Approved by Earl Grey, Governor–General of Canada — Cold reception by Government — Alfred Lyttelton a believer in it — Referred to a Departmental Committee — The bottom knocked out of it — Letters from Earl Grey — Letter from Bramwell Booth.
On my homeward way across the Atlantic I wrote the following private letter to Mr. Lyttelton:
R.M.S. Majestic: April 23, 1905.
Dear Mr. Lyttelton, — I hope within a few days to let you have my Report, or rather Reports — for I have written a general Report and separate Remarks upon each of the Salvation Army Colonies.
I am glad to be able to tell you that on the whole, although mistakes have been made, I formed a favourable opinion of these colonies.
I am also thankful to be able to add that the results of my negotiations with the Canadian Government are, in my opinion, very satisfactory. They have given me 240,000 acres of land outright (to be selected wherever one likes) and a promise of as much more as is wanted. This is really very handsome. Up to the present, however, I have not been able to get their promise that they would join in guaranteeing a loan for Emigration purposes. Still Mr. Fielding was very well disposed towards so doing and promised me that he would consult his colleagues and communicate with me further. I owe it to Lord Grey and Mr. Sifton that things went so smoothly in Canada. I cannot be grateful enough to them, as will be seen from my Report. I was fortunate enough to be able to convince everybody I met there, from Sir Wilfrid Laurier down, that the scheme I have evolved is sound and workable — to the benefit of Canada also, so they all set to and helped me after reading my reports on the Colonies. (I had roughly drafted these Reports during my train journeys. — H. R. H.) Also I think that Sir Wilfrid was approached in a fortunate hour — just when he wished to do something for the Protestants.
At any rate when I took some opportunity to point out to him that the Salvation Army put no religious pressure on its settlers and that there were Roman Catholic families at Fort Romie, after thinking a moment, he answered formally:
“I think that no Public Body could be better fitted to carry out Land Settlements in Canada than is the Salvation Army.”
It seemed to me that this was holding out the hand of welcome.
The Report covers many documents that have to be checked and prepared for press, but I am pushing on with them as fast as possible, and if I am wanted a wire to Ditchingham will always find me.
I had a most interesting interview with President Roosevelt, of which I will bring or send the private notes.
Our journey was very long and arduous, and towards the end of it my daughter developed influenza in the train which, as I did not know what it was, frightened me. Also we had a great escape of being drowned in the Colorado River. However, I am glad to say we got through safely. Hoping that my Report and scheme may be thought satisfactory.
Believe me,
Very truly yours,
H. Rider Haggard.
Some weeks after my return I had a brief interview with Mr. Lyttelton at the House of Commons — it may have extended to half an hour, though I think it was less. He expressed himself delighted with the Report, which was in his hand. When I asked him if he was satisfied with my work, he replied, “Satisfied? I think it splendid,” adding, “I wish the Prime Minister would take it up. But Arthur won’t read it — you know Arthur won’t read it!”
I thought to myself then, and am still thinking, that this “Arthur won’t read it” was a summary of much of the action, or lack of action, of the Government of that day. Mr. Balfour, it has always seemed to me, during his ten years or so of unquestioned power, had the greatest opportunity which God has given to any Englishman of our generation. What exact use he made of it is not a matter upon which I am qualified to express a judgment. He and those who were in his counsel alone can answer that question. Yet, speaking as a mere member of the public, it does appear as though more might have been done. For instance, the House of Lords, which was, as it were, in his pocket, might have been reformed, thereby averting all the national dangers and terrible trouble which have ensued, and the final surrender to the threats of the Radical party, made more feeble, some may think, by the bold and whirling words with which it was preceded.
Again, a Redistribution of Seats Bill might have been passed — it was not impossible with such a majority — and thereby half the Irish difficulty obviated. Local taxation might have been equalised; something, as I for one urged continually, might have been done to better the conditions of the land and its inhabitants, and so forth. Even such a little matter as an urgently needed Copyright Bill was left for the Radicals to deal with as best they could in face of the opposition of the Labour party.
It does strike me that this Conservative Government never quite realised that the time had gone by when it was possible for a happy family party to philosophise at a round table, calling each other by their Christian names and sucking the sweets of office from year to year, quite satisfied to meet any emergencies that might arise in a happy-go-lucky, hand-to-mouth fashion, and to proclaim in well-educated voices that, while they ruled, all was well with the world; also that the questions which others thought urgent might be postponed — to a more convenient season. Session was added to session, and still they scoffed at the need of any constructive policy. Meanwhile the thunder-clouds banked up, and that strong and turbulent spirit, Mr. Chamberlain, growing impatient of this political lotus-eating, broke away and ran up a score off his own bat, which to this hour the Unionist party does not know whether to count in its total or to sponge from the board.
But, as was subsequently remarked about the very recent collapse of the resistance of the House of Lords before the threat of an influx of Radical peers (how long would they have remained Radical, one wonders?), all this is “ancient history,” and therefore scarce worthy of discussion. I think it was Mr. Balfour himself who made the remark, apparently with a view of stifling inquiry into what some people think an obscure and poor-spirited transaction. Surely it is better to die facing the foe and with one’s armour on than to pull it off and run away, only to be beaten to death with sticks afterwards by the enemy’s camp-followers, or taken prisoner, reclothed in your ermine and coronet, and mocked before the people. Lord Halsbury and his stalwarts for my money.
On the occasion of this small Imperial matter with which I was concerned I confess I did wish that Mr. Lyttelton could have spared me an hour or two in which to talk over its leading points with him, as, for instance, President Roosevelt found himself able to do in the midst of all the tumultuous ceremonies of his inauguration. But there, perhaps, came the difference. Roosevelt was being inaugurated: his time was before him. The Conservative party was already a mere corpse galvanised into a semblance of its lost life, and, standing on the edge of an open grave, it pretended not to see, its pale eyes fixed upon those thunder-clouds which, after ten happy years, had become so very large and definite. Little wonder that “Arthur wouldn’t read” reports on matters dealing with the transference of our superabundant city poor to colonial settlements. Matters at home, affecting him much more nearly, left no time for reading. The affair undertaken in a moment of pressure or enthusiasm was already forgotten; it became inconvenient to consider the arguments of individuals who suggested that something should be done which would involve the expenditure of thought, time, and money. Had I been told this at once a great deal of trouble might have been spared to everyone concerned. The Report might even have been suppressed altogether.
I am not for one moment arguing that the scheme I suggested was open to no objections. What was the problem? Briefly, in what way more or less broken-down persons and their families could be moved from our cities on to colonial land, to their own benefit and without the nation incurring loss. It is a problem that as yet no one has been able to solve. I did offer a scheme that had a fair prospect of success. The money advanced by the Government was to be secured upon the settlers’ lands, which lands have since that time doubled or trebled in value, as I foresaw that they would do. What I called the “Waste Forces of Benevolence” were to look after the said settlers for nothing, subject to proper control — a task which the Salvation Army was quite ready to undertake. Moreover, with all its enormous experiences of emigration, as the Canadian authorities recognised, it was absolutely competent so to do. Yet bitter prejudice against the Salvation Army, often enough fostered by persons in religion who should know better, was one of the causes that brought the business to the ground.
Without going further into its details I repeat that the Canadian Government and statesmen approved this scheme, as did the Governor–General, Lord Grey. Also when it was published it met with an enormous amount of support from the Press of this country, as may be seen by anyone who cares to glance through the extracts from Press opinions of my Report which are printed at the end of “The Poor and the Land,” wherein it is republished. Here, then, at any rate was a foundation upon which others might build.
At first the Government seemed to take this view, but then followed a pause indicative of the evaporation of enthusiasm. Questions were asked in the House as to whether the Government intended to do anything. The thing became a nuisance to them, and at length it was announced that the matter would be referred to a Departmental Committee. My first intimation of this was at a public dinner in London, when a gentleman much mixed up in politics as a Conservative agent informed me that he had just been speaking to a Minister, who had told him that my Report was to be sent to a Committee which would “knock the bottom out of it.” Then I knew that all was finished.
And yet, unless I most strangely misunderstood him, all the while Mr. Lyttelton was a believer in the plan. He was personally most kind to me, and I liked him very much. At that time also, as his private secretary informed me, he wished me to make another report upon the possibility of applying similar principles to a scheme of land settlement at home; indeed I was told that it was settled I should be asked to do so. I understand, however — though of course in this I may be mistaken — that the officials of the Board of Agriculture put a stop to this idea, as such an appointment would have interfered with the prerogative of their department. At any rate, opposition arose somewhere and it was dropped. The upshot was that the work was thrown away, if any good and earnest work ever really is thrown away.
The end of the matter may be briefly summarised. As was to be anticipated, “the bottom was knocked out” of my scheme in the most satisfactory official way.
The Report of the Committee stated that —
Though we fully recognise the zeal and ability Mr. Rider Haggard has shown in making his investigations and preparing his Report, and trust that much good may be done indirectly by the ventilation of the suggestions that he has made, we regret to be obliged to say that we consider his scheme to be open to so many objections that, even if we were prepared to advocate colonisation in principle, we could not recommend that this particular scheme should be adopted . . . .
Moreover, we feel that there are serious objections to placing any such body as the Salvation Army in the position of managers of a colony dependent on money advanced by the Imperial Government . . . .
Perhaps on the details the Committee was right. Who am I that I should question its collective wisdom — even if it had been “prepared to advocate colonisation in principle”? Yet I agree with M............