I deem it unessential to verify Mr. Booth's statistics. The exact strength of the population of the realm of misery, be it one, two, or three millions, has nothing to do with the efficacy of any means proposed for the highly desirable end of reducing it to a minimum. The sole question for consideration at present is whether the scheme, keeping specially in view the spirit in which it is to be worked, is likely to do more good than harm.
Mr. Booth tells us, with commendable frankness, that "it is primarily and mainly for the sake of saving the soul that I seek the salvation of the body", which language, being interpreted, means that the propagation of the special Salvationist creed comes first, and the promotion of the physical, intellectual, and purely moral welfare of mankind second in his estimation. Men are to be made sober and industrious, mainly, that, as washed, shorn, and docile sheep, they may be driven into the narrow theological fold which Mr.
Booth patronizes. If they refuse to enter, for all their moral cleanliness, they will have to take their place among the goats as sinners, only less dirty than the rest.
I have been in the habit of thinking (and I believe the opinion is largely shared by reasonable men) that self-respect and thrift are the rungs of the ladder by which men may most surely climb out of the slough of despond of want; and I have regarded them as perhaps the most eminent of the practical virtues. That is not Mr. Booth's opinion. For him they are mere varnished sins--nothing better than "Pride re-baptised". Shutting his eyes to the necessary consequences of the struggle for life, the existence of which he accepts as fully as any Darwinian,Mr. Booth tells men, whose evil case is one of those consequences, that envy is a corner-stone of our competitive system. With thrift and self-respect denounced as sin, with the suffering of starving men referred to the sins of the capitalist, the gospel according to Mr. Booth may save souls, but it will hardly save society.
In estimating the social and political influence which the Salvation Army is likely to exert, it is important to reflect that the officers (pledged to blind obedience to their "General") are not to confine themselves to the functions of mere deacons and catechists (though, under a "General" like Cyril, Alexandria knew to her cost what even they could effect); they are to be "tribunes of the people," who are to act as their gratuitous legal advisers; and, when law is not sufficiently effective, the whole force of the army is to obtain what the said tribunes may conceive to be justice, by the practice of ruthless intimidation. Society, says Mr. Booth, needs "mothering"; and he sets forth, with much complacency, a variety of "cases," by which we may estimate the sort of "mothering" to be expected at his parental hands. Those who study the materials thus set before them will, I think, be driven to the conclusion that the "mother" has already proved herself a most unscrupulous meddler, even if she has not fallen within reach of the arm of the law.
Consider this "case." A, asserting herself to have been seduced twice, "applied to our people. We hunted up the man, followed him to the country, threatened him with public exposure, and forced from him the payment to his victim of [Pounds] 60 down, an allowance of [Pounds] 1 a week, and an insurance policy on his life for [Pounds]
450 in her favour" .
Jedburgh justice this. We "constitute ourselves prosecutor, judge, jury, sheriff's officer, all in one;" we "practice intimidation as deftly as if we were a branch of another League; and, under threat of exposure," we "extort a tolerably heavy hush-money in payment of our silence. "
Well, really, my poor moral sense is unable to distinguish these remarkable proceedings of the new popular tribunate from what, in French, is called chantage and, in plain English, blackmailing. And when we consider that anybody, for any reason of jealousy, or personal spite, or party hatred, might be thus "hunted," "followed,"
"threatened," and financially squeezed or ruined, without a particle of legal investigation, at the will of a man whom the familiar charged with the inquisitorial business dare not hesitate to obey, surely it is not unreasonable to ask how far does the Salvation Army, in its "tribune of the people" aspect, differ from a Sicilian Mafia? I am no apologist of men guilty of the acts charged against the person who yet, I think, might be as fairly called a "victim," in this case, as his partner in wrong-doing. It is possible that, in so peculiar a case, Solomon himself might have been puzzled to apportion the relative moral delinquency of the parties. However that may be, the man was morally and legally bound to support his child, and any one would have been justified in helping the woman to her legal rights, and the man to the legal consequences (in which exposure is included) of his fault.
The action of the "General" of the Salvation Army in extorting the heavy fine he chose to impose as the price of his silence, however excellent his motives, appears to me to be as immoral as, I hope, it is illegal.
So much for the Salvation Army as a teacher of questionable ethics and of eccentric economics, as the legal adviser who recommends and practices the extraction of money by intimidation, as the fairy godmother who proposes to "mother" society, in a fashion which is not to my taste, however much it may commend itself to some of Mr. Booth's supporters.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant, T. H. Huxley.
