The Rhodesia Herald, of Salisbury, said:--
"General Booth has well been called the Grand Old Man of The Salvation Army, for undoubtedly it is his remarkable personality and fierce energy which has made The Army what it is to-day, and has enabled it to do a work which no other religious organisation has attempted to do on anything like the same scale, and to reach a section of the people who remained untouched by the more orthodox methods of other bodies. It is not so very many years ago that branches of The Army in many towns in the United Kingdom were striving to make headway against most determined opposition--opposition employing methods of which the authors soon became heartily ashamed. Yet to-day, the different branches of The Army are doing their work, not only unmolested, but helped and encouraged by all classes of the community. And this because The Army has wrung recognition by transparent honesty of purpose, and unceasing efforts to help those most in need of help and encouragement. As the aged General put it on his arrival in Johannesburg, the Organisation of which he is the mainspring has set before itself the task of giving a helping hand to the very poor, those who are without friends, and those who have fallen in the battle of life."
The members of the Cape Town and district Evangelical Church Council in their address to General William Booth, D.C.L., said:--
"We have been deeply touched by the energy, the wisdom, and the consecration with which you carry on your work at a period of life when most men have retired from active service.
"We would join with our brethren of the Christian Churches throughout the world in assuring you of our admiration, mixed with our wonder, at the success which has attended your labours for the Salvation of the most helpless and degraded members of our race.
"Hand in hand with your efforts for the Salvation of the souls of the fallen have gone a true Christlike care for the bodies of the unfortunate, and an attempt to stem the current of social evil and degeneracy.
"We are deeply interested in your experiments in colonising those parts of our Empire which are at present sparsely populated, and thus relieving the tension of social problems in the larger cities of Great Britain, and that congestion of population which is a fruitful source of individual and of social degradation.
"We trust your visit to South Africa may result in the settlement in the rich lands now untilled of a population, which by its industry, thrift, and character will compare with those of Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.
"We rejoice that the great Captain of Salvation continues to lead the Organisation, of which you are the head and heart in one, to great victories over the forces of evil, and assure you that in this land we recognise The Salvation Army as a powerful force for the spiritual and social uplift of the people. It is always a pleasure for the Churches we represent to render any aid in our power to an Organisation for whose members and whose work we have the deepest regard.
"It is the earnest prayer of the Council that your visit may be full of blessing to your community, that it may result in a fresh infusion of hope and enthusiasm into the hearts of your fellow-workers, and that God may abundantly fill you with spiritual and physical energy in the fulfilment of the great enterprise on which you have entered.
"August 26, 1908."
The address of the Bloemfontein Town Council very carefully avoids any reference to the proposed Over-Sea Colony. Perhaps the whole secret of South Africa's indifference to it is revealed in the following extract from a paper, whose name we omit, lest any appearance of hostility to any locality or any element in that enormous country should seem to have crept into our feelings here.
After half a column of compliments as to his good work and intentions the editorial gentleman, not of Bloemfontein, goes on with his great "But" as follows:--
"But the social elevation, or the spiritual conversion of the boozy scum of a European nation may not be advanced at the cost of the well-being of our own people. We protest most earnestly against that at once. It does not matter whether he has fixed his eye upon Rhodesia or the Kalahari desert--these lands belong geographically to South Africa, and we need it for its own peoples. True, we have plenty of territory, even for others who may wish to come and settle amongst us, and wish to be of us.
"But we have no room for the 'submerged tenth' of any other nation whatever."
In vain did The General keep explaining in every land he visited that he had never thought of, or made any plan for, "dumping" crowds of wastrels on any country, but only such people as had been tested and proved fit for such an opportunity as they could not get in overcrowded countries. There was always the same loud and continued applause for "his noble work," and, then, almost everywhere--not often with the honest outspokenness of that newspaper--the same "I pray thee have me (my country) excused from receiving this Colony."
And then the old man would give the tiny handfuls who, thanks to insane constitutionalism, have been left to monopolise vast areas of the earth, warnings of the future that may be remembered by generations to come. Whilst in South Africa he was gladdened by receiving the following report as to the multitudes he was sending out to Canada:--
"Emigrated from October, 1903, to July 31, 1908, 36,308; of whom were assisted by loan, 9,400; total amounts advanced, £38,375; total amounts repaid (within first five years already!), £5,112."