The Henson Journals

[276]

Thursday, October 26th, 1916.

815th day

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My dear Cruickshank,

I am not myself a member of the Churchmen's Union, and can hardly pretend to any title to offer advice as to its policy. The present time can hardly be thought favourable to any serious effort of the nature projected, for, not only are the men mostly concerned either absent or absorbed, but also, there is an overwhelming prejudice against all things which have German origins or concessions. As a matter of tactics, I should counsel total abstinence from any step that can give the enemy a chance of raising the anti–German feeling. I suspect that the prevailing opinion of the Churchmen's Union should advocate what is called "autonomy", & which means Disestablishment, and what is called "Female Suffrage" & which means the attempt to ignore sex in the ordering & intercourse of society. The first, in my view, would do more to destroy lay influence, & the religious tolerance which it secures in a church, than anything else: & the last (as the Lord Salisbury always maintained) would strengthen clericalism greatly. The "emancipated" women do not represent the sex, but they are apt to seem to do so in the discussions of the associations which they frequent. You see that while on large issues I sympathize with the programme of the Churchmen's Union; on practical questions of grave immediate concern I think that the Union is on wrong lines altogether. But, as I said, I have no right whatever to offer advice in this matter.

Yours ever affectly

H. Hensley Henson

[274]

I wrote a sermon for the Freemasons of Sunderland who are to parade next Sunday afternoon. After attending Evensong, I walked into the town, and bought some fruit for Walter Jackson. Liddell came to tea. He proposed to me that I should join the club, and I weakly acquiesced. If he would propose, I suggested that Col: Darwin might second my name.

The news from Roumania yesterday and today has been very bad. Mackensen with an army of Turks & Bulgarians and a vast munitions equipment forges forward irresistibly. It is a repetition of the horrible experiences in Russia last year. The Dobrudcha has now been wholly lost, and the great bridge over the Danube destroyed. Thus co–operation between the Allies working southwards from Roumania and northwards from Salonica is no longer possible, and the communication from Berlin to Constantinople which is vital to Germany is secured against attack. Winter, which puts a veto on the Allied operations in the Balkans, plays into the hands of our enemies by releasing large numbers of men from the Russian line, where operations are no longer possible. After four months of strenuous fighting on the Somme, we are as far as ever from "securing a decision" by breaking through the line, and the losses are certainly very great.If, as now appears no improbable event, Falkenhayn succeeds in driving through to Bukharest [sic], and compelling the surrender of Roumania, the shortage of supplies in Germany will be relieved by the vast stocks of oil and wheat, which are known to be accumulated in Roumania. Peace recedes indefinitely.

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Issues and controversies: female suffrage