BOOTH DYNASTY’S END?

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 547, 27 December 1928, Page 9

BOOTH DYNASTY’S END?

ARMY COUNCIL TO MEET SELECTION OF A LEADER LONDON. December 17. The Salvation Army “High Council” of 64 members will meet at Sunbury-on-Thames, according to the “Daily News.” on January 8, to decide whether General Bramwell Booth shall continue in sole control of the organisation. Px*ior to the meeting a sub-commit-tee will consider medical reports concerning the general’s condition. The council will appoint a successor if there is a three-fouirth’s majority on a ballot for General Booth’s removal. The decision may involve the end of the Booth era and the whole future ofr the Salvation. Army. The deed poll under which tlie council acts is a legal masterpiece, in which lawyers cannot find a loophole. It provides for the general’s removal if a tribunal of commissioners adjudicate him mentally unfit, find him guilty of notorious misconduct, or adjudicate him unfit, through ill-health, to continue in office.

The forthcoming proceedings are based on the third clause.

The council has not the power to reconstitute the Army, but can indirectly compel the new gener-al to take certain steps. It can, for instance, appoint a general for a limited number of years, thus controlling him. LIKE POPE’S ELECTION The general, by a deed executed by consent of two-thirds of the commissioners, may alter or revoke the deed poll, enabling him to reconstitute the Army organisation. Since the Trustee Act was passed in 192 G General Booth cannot delegate to others the overwhelming task of signing legal documents, but must sign them himself, unless he leaves the country for a month. The machinery for the election of the general resembles that for the election of a Pope, on which it was modelled, the names of candidates—not necessarily members of the council—being submitted until one eecures a two-thirds majority.