The Committee made a suggestion for the improvement of this very unsatisfactory state of things; but the exact value set upon it by the suggestors should be carefully considered (p.37).
"The Committee are fully aware that if the views thus expressed are carried out, the safeguards and checks created will not be sufficient for all purposes absolutely to prevent possible dealing with the property and moneys inconsistent with the purposes to which they are intended to be devoted."
In fact, they are content to express the very modest hope that "if the suggestion made be acted upon, some hindrance will thereby be placed in the way of any one acting dishonestly in respect of the disposal of the property and moneys referred to."
I do not know, and, under the circumstances, I cannot say I much care, whether the suggestions of the Committee have, or have not, been acted upon. Whether or not, the fact remains that an unscrupulous "General" will have a pretty free hand, notwithstanding "some" hindrance.
Thus, the judgment of the highly authoritative, and certainly not hostile, Committee of 1892, upon the issues with which they concerned themselves is hardly such as to inspire enthusiastic confidence. And it is further to be borne in mind that they carefully excluded from their duties "any examination of the principles, government, teaching, or methods of the Salvation Army as a religious organization, or of its affairs" except so far as they related to the administration of the moneys collected by the "Darkest England" appeal.
Consequently, the most important questions discussed in my letters were not in any way touched by the Committee. 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 organization, with its thousands of docile satellites pledged to blind obedience, set forth in the letters, would be in no degree weakened. The "sixpennyworth of good" would still be out-weighed by the "shillingsworth of harm"; if indeed the relative worth, or unworth, of the latter should not be rated in pounds rather than in shillings.
What would one not give for the opinion of the financial members of the Committee about the famous Bank; and that of the legal experts about the proposed "tribunes of the people"?
HODESLEA, EASTBOURNE,
July, 1894.