第71章

The "Times," December 24th, 1890-,Sir,--If I have any strong points, finance is certainly not one of them. But the financial, or rather fiscal, operations of the General of the Salvation Army, as they are set forth and exemplified in "The New Papacy," possess that grand simplicity which is the mark of genius; and even I can comprehend them--or, to be more modest, I can portray them in such a manner that every lineament, however harsh, and every shade, however dark, can be verified by published evidence.

Suppose there is a thriving, expanding colonial town, and that, scattered among its artisans and labourers, there is a sprinkling of Methodists, or other such ultra-evangelical good people, doing their best, in a quiet way, to "save souls." Clearly, this is an outpost which it is desirable to capture. "We," therefore, take measures to get up a Salvation "boom" of the ordinary pattern. Enthusiasm is roused. A score or two of soldiers are enlisted into the ranks of the Salvation Army. "We" select the man who promises to serve our purposes best, make a "captain" of him, and put him in command of the "corps."

He is very pleased and grateful; and indeed he ought to be. All he has done is that he has given up his trade; that he has promised to work at least nine hours a day in our service (none of your eight-hour nonsense for us) as collector, bookseller, general agent, and anything else we may order him to be. "We," on the other hand, guarantee him nothing whatever; to do so might weaken his faith and substitute worldly for spiritual ties between us. Knowing that, if he exerts himself in a right spirit, his labours will surely be blessed, we content ourselves with telling him that if, after all expenses are paid and our demands are satisfied each week, 25s. remains, he may take it. And, if nothing remains, he may take that, and stay his stomach with what the faithful may give him. With a certain grim playfulness, we add that the value of these contributions will be reckoned as so much salary. So long as our "captain" is successful, therefore, a beneficent spring of cash trickles unseen into our treasury; when it begins to dry up we say, "God bless you, dear boy," turn him adrift (with or without 2s. 4d. in his pocket), and put some other willing horse in the shafts.

The "General," I believe, proposes, among other things, to do away with "sweating." May he not as well set a good example by beginning at home? My little sketch, however, looks so like a monstrous caricature that, after all, I must produce the original from the pages of my Canadian authority. He says that a "captain" "has to pay 10 per cent. of all collections and donations to the divisional fund for the support of his divisional officer, who has also the privilege of arranging for such special meetings as he shall think fit, the proceeds of which he takes away for the general needs of the division.

Headquarters, too, has the right to hold such special meetings at the corps and send around such special attractions as its wisdom sees fit, and to take away the proceeds for the purposes it decides upon.

He has to pay the rent of his building, either to headquarters or a private individual; he has to send the whole collection of the afternoon meeting of the first Sunday in the month to the 'Extension Fund' at headquarters; he has to pay for the heating, lighting, and cleaning of his hall, together with such necessary repairs as may be needed; he has to provide the food, lodging, and clothing of his cadet, if he has one; headquarters taxes him with so many copies of the army papers each week, for which he has to pay, sold or unsold; and when he has done this, he may take $6 (or $5, being a woman), or such proportion of it as may be left, with which to clothe and feed himself and to pay the rent and provide for the heating and lighting of his quarters. If he has a lieutenant he has to pay him $6 per week, or such proportion of it as he himself gets, and share the house expenses with him. Now, it will be easily understood that at least 60 per cent. of the stations in Canada the officer gets no money at all, and he has to beg specially amongst his people for his house-rent and food. There are few places in the Dominion in which the soldiers do not find their officers in all the food they need; but it must be remembered that the value of the food so received has to be accounted for at headquarters and entered upon the books of the corps as cash received, the amount being deducted from any moneys that the officer is able to take from the week's collections. So that, no matter how much may be specially given, the officer cannot receive more than the value of $6 per week. The officer cannot collect any arrears of salary, as each week has to pay its own expenses; and if there is any surplus cash after all demands are met it must be sent to the 'war chest' at headquarters."--"The New Papacy".

Evidently, Sir, "headquarters" has taken to heart the injunction about casting your bread upon the waters. It casts the crumb of a day or two's work of an emissary, and gets back any quantity of loaves of cash, so long as "captains" present themselves to be used up and replaced by new victims. What can be said of these devoted poor fellows except, O sancta simplicitas!