Booth Goes to Law

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 567, 21 January 1929, Page 11

Booth Goes to Law

Gets Temporary Injunction COUNCIL RESTRAINED MEANTIME (United P.A. —By Telegraph — Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Press AssociationJ (United Service) LONDON, Friday. MU. JUSTICE EVE granted General BrainweU Booth s ex parte application for an injunction till Monday, restraining the High Council from carrying out his removal from leadership of the Salvation Army.

Mr. W. A. Greene, K.C., representing General Booth, said the first ground of the application in the Chancery Court for an injunction against the High Council was that the deed poll of 1904 was ultra vires, because the trustee of a charitable trust could not alter the trust at all, as the deed poll provided. Secondly, the High Council's procedure violated the deed poll, contrary to natural justice, seeing that It did not state the grounds on which the General was supposed to be unfit, did not permit him to attend or to be legally represented. He read a medical report and an affidavit by the General stating: “I shall, under God’s will, return to my post. I had been considering the ifeed of constitutional reforms when I was taken 111. While no doubt the council acted with the highest motives, it seems to me strange that I cannot get time to recover.” The eight members of the council who voted against the deposition of General Booth included four members of his family. They were his wife and two daughters. May and Catherine, and his youngest sister, Lucy, who is Mrs. Booth-Hellberg, The other four, according to the “Daily Express,” were Commissioners J. Allister Smith, the army’s travelling representative in missionary countries; Theodore Hitching, private secretary to the founder and at present editor-in-chief of the “War Cry”; J. B. Laurie, chancellor of the Salvation Army exchequer; and John Cunningham, who accompanied the deputation which asked the General to resign but was strongly opposed to his compulsory removal. LETTER TO “WAR CRY.” The following is the text, of a letter which was to have appeared in the “War Cry” from General Booth; "Beloved comrades. In this moment of serious anxiety and crisis in our history, I turn to you to keep the high standard of the Army. Go on with your work proclaiming the Sinners’ Friend Be Confident in Him in our cause. “Look to Him for the strength we need to carry us through the battle I am fighting, and will fight, little though the strength I possess may be. But in the strength of the King 1 shall come through. Pray and fight for me.” The High Council had the following statement substituted: “At a sitting of the High Council on January 16, after conforming with all the requirements of the deed poll, an adjudicating decision was reached by which General Booth was relieved from office. Further Information will be published in the next issue.”

OFFICER COLLAPSES

FATAL SEIZURE DURING PROCEEDINGS COMMISSIONER HAINES (Australian and A.Z. Press Association) Received 11 a.m. LONDON, Friday. The death occurred suddenly, during the Salvation Army proceedings at Sunbury Court, of Lieutenant-Commis-sioner Willaim Haines, of the International Headquarters, a vice-president of the High Council, And a member of the deputation to General Booth. Commissioner Haines, who was of stalwart proportions, had a serious seizure in an adjoining room, and sue curnbed, despite urgent attention and special heart treatment, by a doctor. The High Council received the news of the interim injunction by telephone when it was on the point of

taking nominations of a successor to succeed General Booth. It was in the midst of tlie excitement about the news of the injunction that Commissioner Haines, aged 54, had a seizure and died. He began his career as an office boy at Army Headquarters, and served as a staff officer in Norway, Germany and the United States.

He spoke fluently French, German, Norwegian and Sw dish. He had charge of the Army’s work in France and Belgium in the war time, for which work he was made a C.B.E.

The Council adjourned till Tuesday.

“ARMY’S CHEST”

GENERAL BOOTH’S “FREE HAND”

Now that the crisis in the affairs of the Salvation Army has resulted in the deposition of the “General,” it is interesting to find that one of the eminent minds of the 19th century foresaw the danger of the autocratic power. Writing nearly 40 years ago. Professor Thomas Henry Huxley said: “The fact remains that an unscrupulous ‘General’ will have a pretty free hand, notwithstanding ‘some hindrance.' ” General Booth is now the sole trustee of property in England, France and Australia, valued at about £1,800,000, and there is some possibility that he will refuse to divest himself voluntarily of this trust. Huxley, in his book “Evolution and Ethics,” reproduces letters he wrote to “The Times” in 1890 and 1891, and comments in the introduction on the finding of a committee set up to report on the manner in which moneys subscribed in response to the appeal of the book, “In Darkest England, and the Way Out,” had been expended. The committee’s conclusion was:

“That whilst the invested property, real and personal, resulting from the appeal, is so vested and controlled by the trust of the deed of January 30, 1891, that any application of it to purposes other than those declared in the deed by any ‘general’ would amount to a breach of trust, and would subject him to proceedings of a civil and criminal character, adequate legal safeguards do not at present exist to prevent the misapplication of such property.” “A better justification for what I have said about the want of adequate security for the proper administration of the funds entrusted to Mr. Booth could not be desired,” comments Huxley, “unless it be that which is found in the following passage from the report. ‘lt is possible that a general may be forgetful of his duty, and sell property and appropriate the proceeds to his own use or to meeting the general liabilities of the Salvation Army. As matters stand, he, and he alone, would have control over such a sale. Against such possibilities it appears to be reasonable that some check should be imposed.’ ” Summing up, the professor says: “Even if their report had been far more favourable to the ‘Darkest England’ scheme than it is; if it had really assured the contributors that the funds raised were fully secured against malversation; the objections on social and political grounds to Mr. Booth’s despotic organisation, with its thousands of docile satellites pledged to blind obedience, would be in no degree weakened.” Later the professor gives the opinion of “an eminent Chancery Queen’s Counsel” on Mr. Booth’s declaration of trust deed. The opinion, briefly, was that “nothing can be done to control or interfere with Booth in the disposition or application of the properties of moneys purported to be affected by the deed.” The properties invested in Booth himself were placed absolutely under his power and control as to the disposal and application thereof. The correspondence ends on this note: “Where is the presumably amended trust deed of 1888? I ask once more, will Mr. Booth submit to competent and impartial legal scrutiny the arrangements by which lie and his successors are prevented from dealing with the funds of the so-called ‘Arrny Chest’ exactly as lie or they may please? Evidently the General did not consider it necessary.