The Henson Journals

[184]

Thursday, May 8th, 1919.

After breakfast Ella accompanied me to Mr Colyer, who extracted 8 more teeth, and sent me away with something of the aspect which Giant Pope wears in the cruder illustrations of the "Pilgrim's Progress". There will have to a notable improvement in my health to justify this painful & tiresome process of "reconstruction".

The papers are filled with descriptions of the scene at Versailles yesterday when the terms of Peace were presented to the German representatives. They are certainly terms of extreme & unprecedented severity, but not exceeding the enormity of the offences they are designed to punish. The head of the Germans, Count Rantzau, is said to have spoken for more than half an hour, using the German tongue, & remaining seated. His attitude was indicative of anything rather than a chastened disposition, and if it be at all representative of the mind of his government & nation would seem to augur ill for the signing of the Treaty. A triple alliance of Great Britain, France, and America is announced as an additional assurance to France against German attacks in the future: but General Foch is reported to have condemned the Treaty as inadequate in its securing the country. He would annex everything up to the Rhine, and hold permanently all the bridge–heads.

[185]

The Coal Commission has summoned before it the great coal–owners, and subjected them to cross–examination as to their titles & utility. Smillie, the miners' leader, has had the delightful experience of insulting and browbeating the magnates, whom he has heretofore denounced in public. Lord Durham proved himself an excellent witness, and gave his questioner effective retorts. The Duke of Northumberland and the Marquess of Londonderry stood their ground, but with less good humour. The public is amused by the spectacle, but few realize its sinister significance. For the very foundations of the whole social fabric are being openly and as it were authoritatively challenged. The tables are plainly turned, and it requires very little to transform the Commission into a revolutionary tribunal, and Smillie into an English Lenin. How long can any institution, or social system, continue when the ideas & assumptions on which it rests are openly ridiculed, and have no hold on the mind of the people? I asked that question in Convocation with respect to the Establishment: it is raised by the Coal Commission in connexion with private property. Sir Leo Chiozza Money, Sydney Webb, and Cole may be taken as playing the part in England of the Russian 'intelligentsia', vapouring fools who purchase brief exaltation by preparing an immense catastrophe, in which they themselves must also be destroyed.

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