Regeneration: Being an Account of the Social Work of The Salvation Army in Great BritainHaggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Religion
Regeneration: Being an Account of the Social Work of The Salvation Army in Great Britain
Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Great Britain -- Social conditions; Salvation Army
This party said, for example, that the Army ought to pay the Trade
Union rate of wage to any poor fellow whom they had picked up and set
to such labour as paper-sorting or carpentry. Thus in Western
Australia they had an estate of 20,000 acres lying idle. When he was
there a while ago, he asked the Officer in charge why he did not
cultivate this land and make it productive. The man replied he had no
labour; whereon the General said that he could send him plenty from
England.
'Yes,' commented the Officer, 'but the moment they begin to work here,
however inefficient or broken down they may be, we shall have to pay
them 7s. a day!'
This regulation, of course, makes it impossible to cultivate that
estate except at a heavy loss.
He himself had been denounced as the 'prince of sweaters,' because he
took in derelict carpenters at their Institution in Hanbury Street
(which I shall describe later), to whom he did not pay the Trade Union
wage, although that Institution had from the first been worked at a
loss. In this case he had made peace with the Parliamentary Committee
by promising not to make anything there which was used outside the
Army establishments. But still the attacks went on.
Passing from this subject, I asked General Booth if he had formed any
forecast of the future of the Salvation Army after his own death. He
replied that there were certain factors in the present position of the
Army which seemed to him to indicate its future growth and continuity.
Speaking impersonally, he said that the present General had become an
important man not by his own choice or through the workings of
ambition, but by the will of Providence. He had acquired a certain
standing, a great hold over his community, and an influence which
helped to concentrate and keep together forces that had grown to be
worldwide in their character. It was natural, therefore, that people
should wonder what would happen when he ceased to be.
His answer to these queries was that legal arrangements had been made
to provide for this obvious contingency. Under the provisions of the
constitution of the Army he had selected his successor, although he
had never told anybody the name of that successor, which he felt sure,
when announced, was one that would command the fullest confidence and
respect. The first duty of the General of the Army on taking up his
office was to choose a man to succeed him, reserving to himself the
power to change that man for another, should he see good reason for
such a course. In short, his choice is secret, and being unhampered by
any law of heredity or other considerations except those that appeal
to his own reason and judgment, not final. He nominates whom he will.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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