The 1983 Yearbook pg 97 talks about a time in Australia where the brothers were acting inappropriately and needed to be cleaned up. This is from the Yearbook
"The commercial activities of the previous five years now began to take their toll. During the years of war and ban, they had provided a means of supporting many former full-time servants who could not carry on their pioneer service because of the ban. However, the organization had actually gone too far by establishing commercial enterprises, and this had had a disturbing effect on many brothers.
RESTORATION OF JEHOVAH’S BLESSING ON THE BRANCH
As soon as he was in a position to do so, Brother Rees took steps to liquidate these enterprises. But it was a very hard process, involving the lives of many who had accepted this kind of service in support of the organization. The adjustments were made, however, and by the time Brother Rees was called to the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead in 1946, the enterprises had been completely cleared out."
I was wondering where they had gone astray and why the Society felt the need to report this. There is a National Archive which makes available a lot of documents about the JWs in the early 1940s. They were being investigated by the Government and declared an illegal organization due to their stand against the war and their view of the Government. The Government was in a position where they could confiscate all their Assets.
These documents can be found by following the links here
http://guides.naa.gov.au/records-about-south-australia/chapter3/broadcasting.aspx
I've come across some Australian government archived documents in relation to individuals and the WTBTS.
http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/scripts/Imagine.asp
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This is a statutory declaration made during wartime by a brother who was personally selected by Rutherford to run HQ in Australia. He is basically confessing that the WTBTS gave him the money to buy a radio company and to put it in his name. He held 2002 shares in 1931 that cost 2,002 pounds and valued at 3229 pounds the next year.
Other documents show that individuals made declarations that all their monies, shares and properties held in their name were owned by the WTBTS. It appears that they did this when the WTBTS put assets in the individuals name for which they (the WTBTS) had paid for.
We already know that the WTBTS ran several radio stations for witnessing but why would they make individuals put shares in their own names and sign declarations to say that everything they owned belonged to the WTBTS? The reason is because these Radio Stations were run as a business on a commercial basis, they were probably earning money by renting air time and advertising. Other documents showed that they made profits, paid wages and even taxes.
Also in these archives is a list of Assets that the Security Department believed the WTBTS owned in Australia in 1943. At that time there were only about 3.500 JWs in Australia.
