HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?
In order to put the whole of the foregoing machinery into motion on an
extensive scale, there can be no doubt that economise as we may, a
considerable outlay will be unavoidable. True we are able to supply
skilled leadership under devoted and self-sacrificing men and women for
a merely nominal cost. True we have Europeans willing to live on the
cheap native diet, and to assimilate themselves in dress, houses and
other manners to the people amongst whom they live. True that we have
raised up around us an equally devoted band of Natives, in whose
integrity we have the fullest confidence and whose ability and knowledge
of the country will prove of valuable service to us in the carrying out
of our scheme. True that around our 450 European and Native officers, we
have enlisted and drilled a force of several thousands of earnest
soldiers of the Cross, who are pledged abstainers from all intoxicating
liquors and drugs, who have renounced all forms of impurity and
sin,--who have promised to devote their lives to the social, moral and
spiritual regeneration of their fellow countrymen,--who are accustomed
to pray and preach in their leisure hours, without being paid a cowrie
for doing so, and who not only support themselves and their families by
their labor, but contribute for the support of their officers.
Nevertheless, while it is a fact that this cheap and efficient agency
exists for the carrying out of the reforms that have been sketched in
the foregoing pages,--it cannot be denied that a considerable sum of
money will be needed for the successful launching of the scheme.
Once fairly started, we have every reason to believe that the plans
here laid down will not only prove strictly self-supporting, but will
yield such a margin of profit as will ultimately enable us to set on
foot wholesale extensions of the scheme. No doubt there will be local
disappointments and individual failures. We are dealing with human
nature, and must anticipate that this will be the case. But the
proportion of success will far outweigh the fraction of failure, and
when the profits and losses of the scheme came to be balanced year by
year we have no doubt that socially, physically, morally and financially
we shall be able to show so enormous a gain that the most unreasonable
of our critics will be silenced.
And yet when we come face to face with the details of the scheme, we
find that the scale of our operations must necessarily depend on the
amount of capital with which we are able to start. The City Colony, with
its Labor Bureau, Labor Yards, Food Depôts, Prison and Rescue Homes, and
Salvage Brigade, will involve a considerable initial expense. Although
we are able to supply an efficient supervising staff for a mere fraction
of the ordinary cost,--rents of land and buildings will have to paid.
And although work will be exacted from those who resort to our Yards and
Homes, yet the supply of food to the large numbers who are likely to
need our help will at the outset probably cost us more than we are able
to recover from the sale of the goods produced.
The Country Colony, with its Industrial Villages, Suburban Farms, and
Waste Settlements, will involve a still heavier outlay of capital. There
is every reason to believe that we may look for an ample return. Indeed
the financial prospects of this branch of the scheme are more hopeful
than these of the City Colony. But to commence on a large scale will
involve no doubt a proportionate expenditure. We may hope indeed that
Government, Native States and private landowners will generously assist
us to overcome these difficulties by grants of land, and advances of
money and other concessions. Still we must anticipate that a
considerable portion of the financial burden and responsibility in
commencing such an enterprise must of necessity fall upon us.
The Over-Sea Colony may for the present be postponed, and hence we have
not now to consider what would be the probable expenses. But omitting
this, and having regard only to the City and Country Colonies, I believe
that to make a commencement on a fairly extensive scale we shall require
a sum of one lakh of rupees. We do not pretend that with this sum at our
command we can do more than make a beginning. It would be idle to
suppose that the miseries of twenty-five millions of people could be
annihilated at a stroke for such a sum.
We do believe however that by sinking such a sum we should be able to
manufacture a road over which a continuous and increasing mass of the
Submerged would be able to liberate themselves from their present
miserable surroundings and rise to a position of comparative comfort.
We are confident moreover that the profits, or shall we call them the
tolls paid by those who passed over this highway, would enable us
speedily to construct a second, which would be broader and better than
the first. The first two would multiply themselves to four, the four to
eight, the eight to sixteen, till the number and breadth of these social
highways would be such as to place deliverance within easy reach of all
who desired it.
The sum we ask for is less than a tithe of what has been so speedily
raised in England for the rescue of a far smaller number of the
submerged. And yet there may be those who will think that we are asking
for too much. But when I see far larger sums expended on the erection,
or support of a single Hospital, or Dharamsala, and when I remember that
Indian philanthropy has covered the country with such, I am tempted to
exclaim "What is this among so many?"
Surely it would be a libel upon Indian philanthropy and generosity to
ask for less, in launching a scheme, which has received the hearty
support of multitudes of persons so well able to form a judgment as to
its feasibility and soundness, and this too after having been submitted
to the most searching criticisms that human ingenuity could suggest! At
any rate this we can promise, that whatever may be given will be laid
out carefully to the best possible advantage. A special annual balance
sheet will show how the money entrusted to our care has been expended,
and if the success of the work be not sufficient to justify its
existence, it will always be easy for the public to withhold those
supplies on which we must continue to depend for the prosecution of our
enterprise.
Looking at the future however in the light of the past history of the
Salvation Army, both in India, and especially in those other parts of
the world, where its organization has had more time to develop and fewer
obstacles to contend with, we are confident that the results will be
such as to repay a hundred fold every effort made and every rupee laid
out in promoting the welfare of India. And even supposing that
comparative failure should result, we should have the satisfaction of
knowing that
"'Tis better to have tried and failed,
Than never to have tried at all!"
The anathemas of posterity will alight upon the heads, not of those who
have made a brave effort to better the evils that surround them, but of
those who by their supineness helped to ensure such failure, or by their
active opposition paralysed the efforts and discouraged the hearts of
those who, but for them, might either have wholely succeeded in
accomplishing what all admit to be so desirable, or might at least have
been far nearer reaching their goal than was possible owing to the
dog-in-the-manger obstructions of those who had neither the heart to
help, nor the brains to devise, nor the courage to execute, what others
might have dared and done!