The Henson Journals

[202]

Monday, May 19th, 1919.

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Dear Mr Mayor,

I shall be detained in London this week on important business, and shall not therefore be able to attend the meeting which you have convened in order to consider the method of celebrating the return of Peace.

I hope you will permit me to express the hope that as far as possible our celebration in Hereford, shall be marked by a restraint and solemnity such as the circumstances appear to suggest as fitting. We cannot forget that the fearful conflict from which, by God's mercy, we have emerged victoriously has inflicted deep wounds on our body politic. Three quarters of a million men have died in battle, or in hospital. Hundreds of thousands have been mutilated, or had their health irreparably shattered. The admirable fortitude with which these heavy calamities have been, and are being, sustained by those upon whom they have directly fallen, ought not to be forgotten by the nation as a whole, and, if they are remembered, must make anything of the nature of unchecked jubilation repugnant. We cannot shut our eyes to the heavy burden of perplexities, social & economic, into which the War has brought the country, nor can we banish from mind the disconcerting [203] [symbol] insecurity of the whole international outlook. With War actually progressing both in Asia and Europe, and with some of the most difficult of the problems implicit in a genuine re–settlement of the world as yet unsolved, we must surely feel that our Peace–celebrations can hardly be unchastened by grave anxieties.

For these reasons, Mr Mayor, I take leave to express my personal desire that we should avoid anything which could fairly be objected against as incongruous with the actual situation in which we stand. It is, of course, arguable that when the time appointed for the Peace celebrations shall have arrived, our present anxieties will have been removed: but that is an optimistic speculation which can hardly direct our immediate action.

Believe me,

dear Mr Mayor.

Very sincerely yours

H. H. Hereford

I wrote the above to the Mayor of Hereford. It can hardly do harm even though it have no effect: and it is always possible that it may restrain the more extravagant notions which are being aired.

[204]

My letter appears in the "Times". It will, perhaps, set some folks thinking, and it will certainly make many angry. We left Birchington immediately after luncheon, and arrived at Victoria about 4.45 p.m. We drove to St Paul's Deanery, and had a hasty tea with Kitty. Having there recovered the residue of our luggage, we went to 16 Elvaston Place, where Miss Mundella expected us. We dined quietly with our hostess.

Lord Durham wrote to explain that there was so strong an opposition to Cruickshank's being made a D. Litt. at his inauguration that he had felt bound to omit his name. This is rather surprising. It is another instance of my inability to understand why some men are so unpopular. Cruickshank is a Radical, & tactlessly impulsive in asserting his opinions, but he is also kindly & sincere. His wife is generally liked, & might have covered some faults in him. Lord Durham is evidently well pleased with his encounter with Smillie. The miners are said to be rather proud of his performance, in quoting Scripture so aptly. It is fairly evident that the peers came out of their cross–examination with something like flying colours. The animus of the Commissioners was somewhat too plainly disclosed, and provoked a measure of repugnance.

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