Booth's Home Colony

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 34, 6 September 1892, Page 4

Booth's Home Colony

♦ In the Fortnightly Mr Arnold "White gives the conclusions of an inquiry that he was commissioned to make •* by six gentlemen of standing and position " into the ■' present position of the social scheme of the Salvation Army dealing with the farm colony." From his own summary we take the verdict as to the honesty of the General : — 1. That General Booth and his family are honest to the core. 2. TLat they barely take enough food to keep body and soul together, 3. That one and all, for the goo-1 of others, are working themselves almost to death. 4. That so far from making a good thing out of the Army, they either work for nothing or for a bare pittance. 5. That General Booth himself is of independent means and has given thousands of pounds to the Army, that two ot his sons-in-law have abandoned good positions to work in the Army, and that his son is working for one-twentieth of his cash value. Those who have reflected 'iOn General Booth's integrity, or on the clearness or order in which the accounts are kept and audited, are," says Mr Arnold White, " hopelessly, wilfully, and deaionstrably in the wrong." "As a matter of theory General Booth has absolute control over the finance of the army ; as a matter of fact ana practice he has noihing whatever to do with it." * The administration of the Salvation Army funds, subject to such errors as are incident to humanity, is as g*ood as the admmisiration of the London Joint-Stock Bank." 6. That the funds laid out by General Booth of the Hadleigh Colony have, on the whole, been well and wisely spent, with the exception of four houses, costing in all £1400, which should be let or sold if the Army is to maintain its high standard of ascetic self denial. 7. That the capital laid out on the colony is intact, if it has not increased in value. 8. lhat money is urgently needed in order to fulfil the original programme, and that, if supplied by the public, it will be well spent. The objectionable houses were erected ior the use of the married officers and Mr White considers them " «oiri:'what in excess of the requirements of the case" "bare shelter and the plainest foojd " being the normal conditions of colonial life, for which the Hadleigh Farm is suppo.-ed to propare. To check his own judgment on the colony, Mr White sent an independent critic. " a gentleman who is thoroughly competem, from knowledge of the London poor and from a cordial distaste to the Salvation Army"; and this emissary, far from cursing the Army, blessed it altogether. "The extraordinarily happy looks I saw in all," he writes, " prove that the influence of the Army on them is wonderful. In a word the Salvation Army has worked a miracle." To which Mr White adds " I can personaliy substantiate this evidence."