The Henson Journals

[153]

Tuesday, September 2nd, 1919.

I wrote to W. Murray about the Enabling Bill. Also to Fawkes on the same subject. Fisher's statement that there was difficulty under the present rules of procedure of "feeding" the House of Commons with sufficient business throws a flood of new light on the situation. So far from the Government being embarrassed by the congestion of its business, it maybe actually grateful for something which can occupy the House!

That unfortunate youth, James Royce, came again to see me. He looks so miserable that I made Bateman bring him food, and the rapidity & completeness with which he devoured it proved that he had not been over–fed of late. He has no work, and small prospect of getting any. What can be done with him? He is only 24 years old, & lame.

Jones, the gardener, asks for an increase of his wages. I pay him 47/6 per week, and he says that he cannot live on it. He does not appear to contemplate the possibility of my being literally unable to pay any more than I am paying now! Wages, prices, railway fares, hotel charges, stamps, telegrams – all have risen, and are rising, while the fixed income which must sustain them all is reduced by rates, taxes, & other charges by more than one third, more nearly one half. And, if anything is certain in politics, a further increase in income tax may be so described.

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