Thus in Western
Australia they had an estate of 20,000 acres lying idle. When he was
there a while ago, he asked the Officer in charge why he did not
cultivate this land and make it productive. The man replied he had no
labour; whereon the General said that he could send him plenty from
England.
'Yes,' commented the Officer, 'but the moment they begin to work here,
however inefficient or broken down they may be, we shall have to pay
them 7s. a day!'
This regulation, of course, makes it impossible to cultivate that
estate except at a heavy loss.
He himself had been denounced as the 'prince of sweaters,' because he
took in derelict carpenters at their Institution in Hanbury Street
(which I shall describe later), to whom he did not pay the Trade Union
wage, although that Institution had from the first been worked at a
loss. In this case he had made peace with the Parliamentary Committee
by promising not to make anything there which was used outside the
Army establishments. But still the attacks went on.
Passing from this subject, I asked General Booth if he had formed any
forecast of the future of the Salvation Army after his own death.
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