CHARLES BOOTH.*
Tins brief memoir, a small book on a man who accomplished a great work, is a signal proof of the self-restraint of the anonymous author. The materials available were immense, but, as they mostly consisted of correspondence too intimate or too personal for immediate publication, sparing use has been made of Charles Booth's letters. Yet within the limits thus rigorously imposed, an. admirable account has been given of the man and his life-work, in which affection has never been allowed to degenerate into indiscriminate eulogy.
Charles Booth, born in 1840, came of a country family established in business in Liverpool. His grandfather was a man of some mark; two of his uncles achieved distinction— one as an official on the Board of Trade, the other as an engineer and inventor ; his father, inheriting a fairly successful business, was more noticeable for character than ability. Charles, his youngest son, was not considered in youth " one of the clever ones" being outshone by his brothers ; not specially distinguished at school save in arithmetic, but industrious and inheriting artistic tastes from his mother. He never went to the University, but was educated at the Royal Institution School, enjoyed a singularly happy home life, growing up on terms of dose intimacy with his many cousins, and entered business early in the office of the Lamport and Halt Steamship Company. He soon joined his brother Alfred, father of Sir Alfred Booth, in a business in America which developed into the Booth ,Steamship Company, and 'married in 1671. As the result of overwork, he spent two years abroad in 1878 to 1875 in search of health, returned still an invalid to England, but was set up by a sea voyage to Brasil in 1876. Coming under tire irrfluenee of Ruskin, Octavia Hill, and the pioneers of the • Charles Booth: a Memoir. London : Macmillan. 15s. need reaction against indiseriminate benevolence, he was moved, by the conflict of the rival views on private and State charity, to ascertain "who were the people of England, hew they lived, what they wanted, and, if goad, how it was to be given . hem." Thus we find him early associated with the Barnette in Whitechapel, and the movement which led to the founding of Toynbee Hall and other University Settlements. But from the first his attitude was one of detachment. In social reform, as in religion and politics, he was lniithee addict:4s furore S eerier magiefri. He came of a Unitarian family, had beer closely attached to the Comtist group, yet never made formai adhesion to their creed, and in later life attended the services of the Church of England. The desire to ascertain the facts of the situation, which culminated in his great work on Lifi and Labour, prompted him to a single-handed analysis of Damn figures. Then, beginning again on a limited scale in the East of London, he enlisted helpers, formed a staff, acting on Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's suggestion to utilize the School Board visitors, and tabulated the results in a volume published in 1889, immediately starting afresh on a longer inquiry kite the conditions of home and industrial life and the influences of the outer world in the whole area of London. Hie staff ol helpers was reorganized on a wider basis, including employers, doctors, clergy ; materials were amassed in endless note.books andoonvereations; while he personally spent much time living an a lodger in the houses of working people. He was fortunate is his colleagues, whose services are generously acknowledged, notably the late Mr. Ernest Ayes, subsequently Chairman ol Trade Boardeg his secretary, Mr. Argyle; Mrs. Sidney Webb, Sir H. Llewelyn Smith, Mies Collet, and Messrs. George Duck- worth and Arthur Baxter.
Throughout this period Booth's activities were extraordinary, when it is considered that, owing to the failing health ol partners, he was the responsible head of a great heroines., which involved yearly visits to America, to say nothing of private and domestic claims on his time which he never refused or disregarded. In 1891 he began his Old Age Pensions Crusade with a paper at the Statistical Society, which met with much hostile criticism, following it up with a special investigation with a special staff, his chief aim being to convert the Friendly Societies. He triumphed in the long run, and though the measure of 1908 was in his view incomplete, it was largely due to his patient and continuous effort. The secret of his success is well summed up by his biographer in the saying that, " though he seldom entirely agreed with any- of those with whom he acted, his ever-ready sympathy and appreciation made it easy for him to go on working with those from whom he differed." Labels and creeds meant little to him. An enthusiastic Radical in early youth, he was never a " good Party man," though in later life he substan- tially agreed with the Unionists over Ulster, the Boer War, National Service, and Tariff Reform. His achievement was indeed remarkable when we consider how seriously he was hampered by delicate health. In his inquiry into Life and Labour, which occupied eighteen years of unremitting exertion, though he expressly disclaimed the title of philanthropist or the qualities of a great regenerative teacher, he was " inspired by an undying hope in the possibilities of improvement," and he has given ue a description of London in the last decades of the nineteenth century which can never be superseded, and must always remain of incalculable value to reformers and economists. In the summary quoted from the last of the sixteen volume on p. 183 Charles Booth, while admitting the limitation of his work, emphasizes the point that in treating a disease it is first necessary to establish the facts as to its character, extent, and symptoms. This aim at least was carried out with unpre- cedented thoroughness. This was the chief undertaking of his life, but them remain his championship of Old Age Pensions, his interest in art as a humanizing influence, the building up and successful conduct of a great business, and the combination of all these activities with the faithful and loving discharge of his home duties. Though not a University man, Charles Booth received recognition from both Oxford end Cambridge. When the Hon. D.Sc. was conferred on him at Cambridge in 1898 Dr. Butler happily quoted Burke's splendid- tribute to Howard, and the D.C.L. at Order& in 1904, coin ded with the bestowal of a Privy Councillorship.
Charles Booth's later years were largely occupied with new problems—Home Rule, Colonial Expansion, and Teed. Union Policy. In regard to the last-named we may briefly note his strenuous opposition to the Socialistic State, his insistence on the value of leadership and the wise guidance of Labour, and the just claim for the remuneration of enterprise and manage- ment. Management he added as a distinct and most im- portant form of industrial effort, with profit as Its characteristic remuneration, to the familiar triad of land, capital, and labour of the old analysis of the main instruments of production. The outbreak of the war called him back to business; overwork led to a breakdown and failure of powers, and he passed away in November, 1918, shielded and surrounded by the love which he inspired in his nearest and dearest, happy beyond most of his contemporaries in having achieved a great and fruitful task "without ever making an enemy in the course of any joint work, public or private."
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