REFUSAL TO RETIRE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 16 January 1929, Page 9

REFUSAL TO RETIRE

GENERAL BOOTH’S STATEMENT HIS POSITION DISCLOSED. LEADERSHIP A SACRED TRUST. ' United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph Copyright.) (Australian Press Association —United Service.) Received 2.45 p.m.. to-day. LONDON, Jan. 15. The High Council of the Salvation Army adjourned .without a decision after an all (lay discussion of General Booth’s Teply to their request for his retirement. “I have carefully and prayerfully considered the entire question. As much as in some respects I should welcome complete rest and relief from responsibility, I feel that I should be less, than a man, let alone the leader of a great religious organisation, if I agreed to retire when there is an agitation to change the foundation on which its rests. Therefore, I am compelled to refuse to do so.” . Thus General Booth sets forth his position in a personal statement, in which he cites his incessant toil in the Army’s interest for 24 years, and declares that he has yet to hear where Lieutenant Colonel Higgins, who. has had full power to act for him during his absence, has. failed.” Legally the High Council has absolutely no power even to. propose, let alone to make any changes in the constitution, but I wrote to the council suggesting t.he appointing of a special commission to consider what changes are desirable. I am informed that my letter was scarcely considered. “I was asked to retire from office uncler what amounts to a threat of expulsion. The only ground for this request is -chat I am ill. There is not even the excuse that I am a burden on the Army’s funds, as my personal needs are provided for from a trust fund supplied by a personal friend. Why should I retire from my leadership? At the moment it may not be what it was, hut what guarantee have I that I should be replaced by one who would seek, first and foremost, to mam-? tain the principles of the Salvation Army. I am responsible before God for tlie well being of this great organisation to which I have devoted my life.

A HOAX PERPETRATED. MESSAGE TO FIELD OFFICERS. DISCOVERED BY POST OFFICE. Received 2 p.m. to-day. LONDON, Jan. i 5. A remarkable hoax was revealed in connection with the despatch of cablegrams to field officers of the Salvation Army as cabled yesterday r Cablegrams were despatched from a London telgraph office on Monday to eighty-three foreign headquarters, (including Australia and New Zealand signed with th. e - name of Lieut. Col. Higgins, .chief of staff and second in command of the movement suggesting that Col. Higgins desired an unsolicited reply appealing for the retention of General Booth. A 'printed letter in similar terms was sent to three hundred British branches. The small staff at the Sunbury post office was overwhelmed with replies. Some oversea headquarters, whose suspicions were aroused, repeated back the text of the cable, asking for confirmation. The High Council was not aware of the sensation until the post office requested a considerable sum from Colonel Higgins as a surcharge on the messages. It is learned fliat the High Council accepted Colonel Higgins’s explanation. Later, as the result of a conference,, the post office officials discovered the perpetrator of the plot.