Almost at the commencement of my labours I sought an interview with General Booth, thinking, as I told him and his Officers (the Salvation Army is not mealy-mouthed about such matters) that at his age it would be well to set down his views in black and white.  On the whole, I found him well and vigorous.  He complained, however, of the difficulty he was experiencing, owing to the complete loss of sight in one eye, occasioned by an accident during a motor journey, and the possible deprivation of the sight of the other through cataract.

Of the attacks that have been and are continually made upon the Salvation Army, some of them extremely bitter, General Booth would say little.  He pointed out that he had not been in the habit of defending himself and his Organization in public, and was quite content that the work should speak for itself.  Their affairs and finances had been investigated by eminent men, who ’could not find a sixpence out of place’; and for the rest, a balance-sheet was published annually.  This balance-sheet for the year ending September 30, 1909, I reprint in an appendix.[1]

With regard to the Social Work of the Army, which in its beginning was a purely religious body, General Booth said that they had been driven into it because of their sympathy with suffering.  They found it impossible to look upon people undergoing starvation or weighed down by sorrows and miseries that came upon them through poverty, without stretching out a hand to help them on to their feet again.  In the same way they could not study wrongdoers and criminals and learn their secret histories, which show how closely a great proportion of human sin is connected with wretched surroundings, without trying to help and reform them to the best of their abilities.  Thus it was that their Social operations began, increased, and multiplied.  They contemplated not only the regeneration of the individual, but also of his circumstances, and were continually finding out new methods by which this might be done.

The Army looked forward to the development of its Social Work on the lines of self-help, self-management and self-support.  Whenever a new development came under consideration, the question arose—­How is it to be financed?  The work they had in hand at present took all their funds.  One of their great underlying principles was that of the necessity of self-support, without which no business or undertaking could stand for long.  The individual must co-operate in his own moral and physical redemption.  At the same time this system of theirs was, in practice, one of the difficulties with which they had to contend, since it caused the benevolent to believe that the Army did not need financial assistance.  His own view was that they ought to receive support in their work from the Government, as they actually did in some other countries.  Especially did he desire to receive State aid in dealing with ascertained criminals, such as was extended to them in certain parts of the world.