The Henson Journals

[22]

Saturday, November 8th, 1919.

[symbol]

Today I completed a period of 56 years spent on this earth. It includes, on a favourable estimate of longevity, at least 3/4 of my life, and maybe far more. I have no hopes, and few illusions. This world can only become greyer, colder, & emptier up to the end. The post has brought me various congratulations, mainly from loving women – Carissima, Marion, Linetta, Angel, Olive, Kathleen, Fearne – and old choirboys – Alfred Spelling, Tommie Hall, and Allan Davies. Lisle, formerly Harold's colleague in the Chancellor's Office, and Ernest also write. As one grows old, the oblations of affection are the more coveted & cherished. Angel writes from Berlin: and Linetta from Rome. Both give rather disconcerting accounts of the situation in those cities. The papers report the 2nd reading of the Enabling Bill in the House of Common by a large majority. It is obvious enough that the Bill is going through as part of the 'deal' with the Unionist wing of Lloyd George's following. There is not the smallest flicker of public interest in the Bill, so that its supporters have an unobstructed course. Establishment is dying of inanition and neglect!

[23] [symbol]

Mr Harford, the Secretary of C.E.T.S., came to be "put up" for the week–end. He has come to "depatize" for "the parent society". From a communication sent to me by the Chairman of that society, the Bishop of London, I gather that it has come into deep waters, and, not to put too fine a point upon it, is insolvent! The question is – and the Bishop does not scruple to state it – whether or not the bankrupt society had not best be wound up. For my part I have no doubt. We are "society ridden", & the disappearance of the C.E.T.S. could do no harm to anybody save its paid functionaries. I find it difficult to believe that the English world is likely to be influenced by societies of this kind. Fifty years ago, when the C.E.T.S. was started, a great proportion of the people could neither read nor write, the tradition of drunkenness was strong in all classes, & a beginning in social reforms had hardly been made. Now all this has been changed. There is no constituency to which the Temperance advocate can usefully address himself, and in point of fact nobody attends Temperance meetings except slender companies of the "unco guid", who belong to the shrinking class of those whose main excitement is bearing & repeating the vices of others!

---