Salvation Syrup; Or, Light On Darkest England Part 2

The Rahaline experiment was a co-operative one, while Booth's is to be despotic. He proposes to put the unemployed at work on a big farm, and afterwards to draft them to an Over-sea Colony, where the reformed "thieves, harlots, drunkards, and sluggards" are to lay the foundations of a new province of the British Empire. Something, of course, might be done in this way, but it is doubtful if Booth will get hold of the right material to do it with, or if his Salvation methods will be successful.

Much greater effects than "charity" could realise would be produced by a wise alteration of our Land Laws, which would lead to the application of fresh capital and labor to the cultivation of the soil. It is, indeed, one of the prime evils of Booth's scheme, no less than of almost every other charitable effort, that it helps to divert attention from political causes of social disorders. No doubt charity is an excellent thing in certain circ.u.mstances, but the first thing to agitate for is justice; and when our laws are just, and no longer create evils, it will be time enough for a huge system of charity to mitigate the still inevitable misery.

So far we have discovered nothing original in General Booth's scheme.

Its elements may be reduced to three. There is (a) the reformation of weak, vicious, and criminal characters, which is a rather hopeless task especially when the attempt is made with _adults_. Something might be done with _children_, and in this respect Dr. Barnardo's work, with all its defects, is infinitely more sensible than General Booth's. Then there is (b) providing labor for the unemployed, which, whether attempted by governments or charitable bodies is an economical fallacy.

Finally there is (c) the planting of town populations on the land, which has a certain small promise of success if the scheme were to take the form of allotments to capable cultivators; but which, on the other hand, will surely come to grief if the experiment is made with even the selected residuum of great cities.

But supposing the scheme of General Booth were in itself full of social promise, a reasonable person would still ask, What are the qualifications of a religious body like the Salvation Army for carrying out such a scheme?

First of all, let us take the General. He plainly tells us he is to be the head of everything. He is not only to be the leader, but the brain; in fact, he expounds this function of his in a long pa.s.sage of dubious physiology. Now, the General is undoubtedly a clever man.

But is he such a universal genius as to "boss" everything, from playing tambourines to making tin toys, from preaching "blood and fire" to the administration of a big farm, from walking backwards for Jesus to superintending a gigantic emigration agency? Unless he combines a vast diversity of faculties with supernatural energy, he is sure to come to grief; for absolute obedience to him is indispensable, and if _he_ fails, the whole experiment fails with him.

Even if General Booth prove himself equal to the occasion, the despotic nature of the management makes the success of the scheme precarious.

Everything hangs upon the single thread of his life, which may be snapped at any moment. Even if we admit his consummate and comprehensive genius, what guarantee is there that his successor will inherit it?

General Booth bids us remember that the Salvation Army _has_ succeeded, and its past achievements are a pledge of its future triumphs. But let us look into this, and see how much it is to the point.

That the Salvation Army is a striking success is not to be disputed. But what is the _character_ of its success? This is an all-important question: for a man, or an organisation, may be very successful in one direction, and hopelessly impotent in another.

Undoubtedly the Salvation Army caters for hysterical persons who are sick and tired of the "respectable" forms of religion. But is it true that the Army reforms the thief, the drunkard, and the profligate? Now in answering this question it is well to bear in mind that solitary cases prove absolutely nothing. There is no principle, no system, no organisation, which has not absorbed some persons who previously led lives of selfish indulgence, aroused in them an interest in impersonal objects, and surrounded them with a restraining public opinion. The real question is this -How is the Salvation Army in the main recruited?

Again and again it has been a.s.serted by outsiders, and admitted by candid members, that the Army is princ.i.p.ally recruited from other sects.

Some years ago this a.s.sertion was publicly made in the _Times_ by the Rev. Llewellyn Davies, who was prepared to prove it in his own parish of Marylebone. Mr. Davies was answered by "Commissioner" Railton, who indulged in vague generalities, which were cut short by the simple request to produce the notorious sinners converted in that parish. Of course they were not produced: for the most part these "converts" exist on paper.

The Army's pretensions are disproved by statistics. It boasts of nearly ten thousand officers and a million of adherents. Now if these, or a considerable proportion of them, had been drawn from the moral residuum of England, a very serious impression would have been made on the ranks of vice and crime. But what are the facts? While the Education Act has made a difference in the number of young criminals, there is no perceptible diminution in the number of hardened offenders. Prost.i.tutes, also, are as numerous as ever, and the national drink-bill actually increases.

Revival movements have always boasted of moral successes, but history shows that they make no real impression on the community. The method is unscientific and doomed to failure. A salvation meeting, with its noise and excitement, has as much effect on public morality as a savage's tom-tom has upon the heavens. The noisy things in nature are generally futile. Whirlwinds and earthquakes affect the imagination, but it is the regular action of air and water that produces the greatest changes, and the gentle action of rain and sunshine that ripens the harvest. These "spiritual," and nearly always hysterical, agencies for human improvement, are based upon a denial of the physical basis of life, and of the doctrine of moral causation. They attract great attention, and their leaders gain tremendous applause. But all the while the real work of progress is being done by other agencies-by the spread of knowledge, the growth of education, the discoveries of science, the silent triumphs of art, and the gradual expansion of the human mind. Agitation is not necessarily progress. What is wanted is a new ingredient, and that is furnished by the more obscure, and often lonely men, whose greatness is only known to a few, although their thoughts are the seed of future harvests of wisdom and happiness for the human race.

Suppose, however, we concede, for the sake of argument, all the claims of the Salvation Army as a religious agency of reform. This would afford a presumption of its continued success _on the old lines_. But the _new lines_ are a fresh departure. General Booth himself admits that "the new sphere on which we are entering will call for faculties other than those which have hitherto been cultivated." What guarantee has he then, beyond an unbounded and possibly exaggerated belief in himself, that those "faculties" will come when he "calls for" them? Will men of the required stamp of character and ability enrol themselves under the despotism of General Booth? And if they did, how long would he be able to hold them together? First of all, at any rate he has to get them. The ordinary Salvation Army captain is not equal to these things. This is obvious to General Booth; hence his fervid appeal to persons of greater capacity to throw themselves into his enterprise. But we do not believe he will obtain their a.s.sistance. It is far easier to extract a hundred thousand pounds, or even a million, from a gullible public, than to induce men and women of the stamp required in the successful conduct of a big social experiment to place themselves at the absolute command of a religious revivalist.

Let us now turn to a tremendously important aspect of General Booth's scheme, which up to the present has been only alluded to. Lady Florence Dixie has pointed out, with her accustomed courage, that the scheme would, if successful, increase the pressure of population in the worst way by multiplying the unfit. Booth does not believe in celibacy, and we agree with him. But we are far from approving his idea of setting up a Matrimonial Bureau and bringing marriageable persons together. The marriages he is likely to promote will, of course, be chiefly among the cla.s.ses he will try to reclaim. Such a prospect is anything but pleasant to those who understand the population question, and is quite appalling to those who understand the philosophy of Evolution.

When Archdeacon Farrar was preaching at Westminster Abbey on behalf of General Booth's scheme, he made this observation:-"The country is being more and more depleted, the great cities are becoming more and more densely overcrowded, and in great cities there is always a tendency to the deterioration of manhood-morally, physically, and spiritually. Our population is increasing at the rate of a thousand a day, and the most rapid increase is among the dest.i.tute and unfit." Precisely so; and it is among these very cla.s.ses that General Booth, if he honestly means what he says, will do his best to promote an increase of population. In this respect his scheme involves a grave social danger. On the whole, it seems pretty plain, as Professor Huxley observes, that if General Booth does sixpennyworth of good, he will do a good shillings-worth of harm.

To conclude. Except for the Farm Colony, which we do not see how Booth is to manage successfully, we are able to perceive nothing in his scheme which really touches the heart of the social problem; while as a remedy for the "unemployed" it seems to us perfectly ridiculous. The whole project, at bottom, is a new gigantic device for furthering the interests of the Salvation Army. If the other Christian bodies do not see this they must be lamentably deficient in insight. It is all very well to say that no pressure will be put upon the men and women in the Refuges and the Colonies, for they will be subjected to the omnipresent influence of the Salvation Army, which is to carry out the scheme to its minutest details.

Unless we "are greatly mistaken, this truth is very apparent to General Booth. He insists on having absolute control of the funds and the arrangements, and although he may have no mercenary motives, he is doubtless seeking to gratify his ambition and love of power as well as to promote the "salvation of souls."

On the whole, however, we shall be glad to see the "General" get the money he is soliciting. The cash he collects will probably be diverted from other religious enterprises, and in this respect a Freethinker need not be in the least afflicted. His experiment will, in our opinion, do a real service to society. It will demonstrate before the very eyes of people who know next to nothing of history or economics the absolute futility of religious efforts to reform the world. When it is discovered that the poor rates, the statistics of drink, the number of the unemployed, the condition of the very poor, and the miseries and degradations of what is compendiously called the social evil, are not perceptibly affected by General Booth's efforts, the very dullest will see the deception of such enterprises, and turn their attention to the scientific aspects of the great social problem. This will be a great gain, and will amply compensate for the waste of a hundred thousand or even a million pounds.

POSTSCRIPTS TO SECOND EDITION

General Booth signalised the inauguration of his Social Scheme by quarreling with Mr. Frank Smith, who had acted as the chief officer of the Social Wing of the Salvation Army. Mr. Smith felt obliged to resign.

From the correspondence which appeared in the newspapers, it seems that the princ.i.p.al ground of his complaint was General Booth's refusal to keep a separate account of income and expenditure for the Social Scheme.

The accounts were to form a part of the general book-keeping of the Army. This was in defiance of the spirit, if not the letter, of Booth's promises, and Mr. Smith would not connive at what he considered a deception. After his resignation, however, the General declared there had been a misunderstanding, and the accounts would be kept separate.

Whether they have been so kept, is a question which outsiders have no means of determining.

(2) General Booth has raised his 100,000. He has found, however, that his success in this direction has diverted about 10,000 from the ordinary income of the Salvation Army. He does not state-probably he does not know, and perhaps he does, not care-how much he has diverted from the ordinary income of other bodies. Many loud complaints have been raised, which, taken in conjunction with Booth's own confession, seem to vindicate our contention that there is a certain amount of money available for philanthropical purposes, and that what is gained by one solicitant leaves so much less for division among the rest. Here, as elsewhere, there is a struggle for existence, and the fittest, in the circ.u.mstances, survive.

(3) Many persons have desired to know how the profits of General Booth's book have been alloted. It has had a very large sale, and there must have been a considerable sum to be disposed of. Probably a generous remuneration has been received by Mr. Stead, who generally succeeds in reconciling profit with enthusiasm.

(4) General Booth declares that he has never derived a penny of profit from the operations of the Salvation Army. This may be literally true, but virtually it must imply a reservation. Booth began as a very poor man. He is now in a more flourishing position. It was reported in the newspapers, a year or two ago, that he had paid 4,000 for a new residence. Mr. Bramwell Booth recently lost a considerable sum of money by the failure of a stock-broker. The other members of the Booth family seem to be well provided for. The present writer has seen them travelling first-cla.s.s when he has been riding third, and they looked fully conscious of their importance as they walked along the platform.

(5) Up to the present the Social Scheme has made no appreciable impression on the poverty and misery of London. General Booth has set up a match-factory, and is now selling Salvation matches. They are said to be worth their price, but it must be remembered that the General gets all his capital for nothing. It will also be obvious that every box of matches he sells will diminish by so much the demand for matches supplied by other firms. He therefore gives employment to one man by taking it away from another.

(6) The foreign and the colonial tours of General Booth are a curious ill.u.s.tration of English modesty. It is difficult to understand why the inhabitants of Berlin and Paris should be expected to contribute towards the cost of reclaiming the poor and depraved in London. Every country has its own troubles, and should meet them in its own way. It is worthy of notice, however, that General Booth recognises far less misery in "infidel" Paris than in orthodox London.

(7) The recent "riots" at Eastbourne, where the Salvation Army insists on playing bands through the streets on Sunday, in defiance of the local bye-laws, suggest a curious reflection. General Booth takes his leisure and recreation at Clacton-on-Sea, and I am given to understand that he does not encourage the noises of his Army in that seaside retreat. If this be true, it must be allowed that he acts like a sensible man-but why does he keep the Army out of Clacton-on-Sea and inflict it upon Eastbourne, where other persons go to restore their jaded const.i.tutions?