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!