SALVATION ARMY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20644, 16 February 1929, Page 2

SALVATION ARMY.

CRISIS REGARDING LEADERSHIP. HIGH COUNCIL CALLED. (Fkom Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, December 21. It is reported that the High Council of the Salvation Army will meet op January 8 to decide whether General Booth is, owing to illness, unfit for office. If the resolution that he is unfit is carried by a three-fourths majority the council’s next stop will be to appoint a new general head of the Army. ’ The question will then be discussed whether the new general should delegate some of the powers hitherto vested in the head of the Army to other officers. It is felt that the position of a general is too exacting to be filled by one man—that “ one-man ” control is impossible. The nomination of a successor by the present general, made in accordance with the constitution of the Army and lodged with the Army’s solicitors, became void when the High Council was summoned. The High Council will meet at Sun-bury-on-Thames, and will confine itself to the constitutional issue. It will be composed of officers representative of Salvation Army “ territories ” in all parts of the world. They are:

Twenty-nine commissioners. Eighteen lieutenant-commissioners. Eight colonels. Six lieutenant-colonels. Three brigadiers.

The_ council was called together on a requisition signed by seven, commissioners and presented to the chief of staff.

These commissioners were

Samuel Hurren, British commissioner; Kobert Hoggard, travelling commissioner; Charles H. Jeffries, international training garrison principal; David C. Lamb, international social secretary; Henry W. Mapp, senior international secretary; Wilfred L. Simpson, travelling commissioner; Richard Wilson, chairman of Salvationist Publishing and Supplies, Ltd.

AFTER PROLONGED CONSIDERATION.

These officers, it is stated, requisitioned the council to meet, only after prolonged consideration, and solely out of regard for the maintenance of the unity and usefulness of the Army. Personal feeling did not enter into the matter. They felt that the circumstances requiring the step had .been increasing in seriousness for the last year or two, reaching a climax last March. These circumstances, it is maintained, could be attributed only to the increasing unfitness of the general, which has resulted in the Army being without an active head and its immense trusts being without the only person legally able to administer them.

It is also pointed out that, since the Trustee Act of 1925 came into force, it is impossible for a power of attorney to be given to any substitute during the illness of the trustee. The only course open to a trustee in these circumstances is to resign or to apply to the courts for relief.

General Booth, however, being too ill to be approached on these matters, the commissioners decided on the only alternative. They called a meeting of the High Council—the first to be summoned in the history of the Army.