The Parliamentary Committee of the Labour Party and the Trade Unions have recently stirred up a great agitation, which has been widely reported in the Press, against the Hanbury Street Workshop, because the Army does not pay the Union rate of wages. As a result the Army now declines all outside contracts, and confines its operations to the work of erecting, repairing, or furnishing its own buildings. Here it may be stated that these complaints seem to be unreasonable. The men employed have almost without exception been taken off the streets to save them from starvation or the poorhouse. Often enough they are by no means competent at their work, while some of them have for the time being been rendered practically useless through the effects of drink or other debaucheries. Yet it is argued with violence that to such people, whom no business firm would employ upon any terms, the Army ought to pay the full Trade Union rate of wages. When every allowance is made for the great and urgent problems connected with the cruel practice of 'sweating,' surely this attitude throws a strange light upon some of the methods of the Trade Unions? The inference seems to be that they would prefer that these derelicts should come on the rates or starve rather than that the Army should house and feed them, giving them, in addition, such wage as their labour may be worth. Further comment seems to be needless, especially when I repeat that, as I am assured, this Hanbury Street Institution never has earned, and does not now earn, the cost of its upkeep. It is situated in the heart of a very poor district, and is rather a ramshackle place to look at, but still quite suitable to its purposes. I have observed that one of the characteristics of the Salvation Army is that it never spends unnecessary money upon buildings. If it can buy a good house or other suitable structure cheap it does so. If it cannot, it makes use of what it can get at a price within its means, provided that the place will satisfy the requirements of the sanitary and other Authorities. All the machines at Hanbury Street are driven by electric power that is supplied by the Stepney Council at a cost of 1_d_. per unit for power and 3_d_. per unit for lighting. An elderly man whom I saw there attending to this machinery, was dismissed by one of the great railway companies when they were reducing their hands. He had been in the employ of the Salvation Army for seven years and received the use of a house rent free and a wage of 30_s_. a week, which probably he would find it quite impossible to earn anywhere else.