SALVATION ARMY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 29, 21 January 1929, Page 8

SALVATION ARMY

GRANTING OF INJUNCTION GROUNDS FOR APPLICATION. THE FIRST POLL DEED. /United Press Association—By CableCopyright.) I Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) London, Jan. 20. Mr. Greene, K.C., representing General Booth, said that the first ground of the application to the Chancery Court for an injunction against the decision of the High Council, was that the deed poll of 1904 was ultra vires, because a trustee of a charitable trust could not alter the trust at will, as the deed poll provided. The second ground was that the High Council's procedure violated the deed poll and was contrary to natural justice, seeing that it had not stated the grounds upon which the General was supposed to be unfit and had not permitted him to be present or to be legally represented.

Mr. Greene read the medical report of the officials and an affidavit by the General, stating, “I shall, under God’s will, return to my post. I had been considering the need of constitutional reforms when taken ill. While no doubt the council acted from the highest of motives, it seems to me strange that they could not give me time to recover.” The High Council received the news of the interim injunction by telephone when it was on the point of taking nominations to succeed General Booth. It was in the midst of the excitement of the news of the injunction that Commissioner Haines, aged 54 years, a man of stalwart proportions, had a serious seizure in an adjoining room, and succumbed despite the urgent attention and special heart treatment by a doctor.

He began his career as an office boy at the Army headquarters, and served as a staff officer in Germany, Norway and the United States. He spoke fluently French, German, Norwegian and Swedish. He also had charge of the Army’s work in France and Belgium during war time, for which he was made a C.B.E. The Council adjourned till Tuesday. THE FOUNDATION DEED. BRAMWELL’S SECRET NOMINATION. An examination of the first poll deed of the Salvation Army enrollee in Chancery in 1878—known as the Foundation Deed —shows that it laid down very clearly the autocratu. powers of the head in regard to the nomination of his successor. The founder, General William Booth, deposited with the solicitors of the organisation in a sealed envelope his nomination of his son Bramwell Booth, and General Bramwell Booth, in turn, has deposited the nomination of his successor. It is stated in the deed:

‘‘The said William Booth and every General Superintendent who shall succeed him shall have the power to appoint his successor, and all the rights, powers, and authorities of the office shall vest in the person so appointed upon the decease of the said William Booth or other General Superintendent appointing him.” A further clause provides for the delivery to the solicitors in a sealed envelope of directions as to “the means which are to be taken for ttie appointment of a successor.” The founder of the Salvation Army was often twitted with the extreme autocracy of his office as defined in the Foundation Deed, and he frequently made humorous reference to it. By the Foundation Deed the general for the time being is constituted the trustee of all the organisation's funds and property. The property of the Army is conveyed to and held by him for the benefit and use of the Army exclusively, and necessary arrangements are made for securing it to the purposes for which it has been acquired when, at his death, it shall have passed into the hands of his successor.