Some years ago I used to analyse the Proceedings of foreign Grand Lodges for a now defunct Masonic paper, The New Zealand Craftsman.
This involved checking membership statistics, and every month my amazement grew that so many Grand Lodges showed a net loss for their most recently completed financial year.
It seemed that the Craft would never pull up.
All my Masonic life I had heard Masons console themselves with the statement that the quality of Masons mattered more than their numbers, but I remained conscious that a very great deal of the work of the Craft requires money in some quantity, and that operations like erecting worthy buildings for our meetings and the conduct of the extensive charitable work of the Craft must dwindle if this tendency continued.
Title
1972 - FREEMASONRY - AN ANACHRONISM IN THE MODERN WORLD? - Bro. Stuart Perry.
