The Henson Journals

[108]

Tuesday, September 7th, 1920.

Barnes's sermon before the British Association was not wisely expressed, and it has been seized upon by the newspaper to provide 'copy' for the 'silly season'. He preached again on the same subject last Sunday in the Abbey. Partly, he is "flogging a dead horse", for nobody worth naming really holds the opinions he denounces: partly, he is attacking the only possible assumption on which "liberals" in theology can hold office in an ancient & orthodox Church viz: the legitimacy of symbolizing formularies which have ceased to be literally true. Partly, I suspect that he [has] ^may have^ abandoned an essential factor of the Christian religion. For the Fall of Man and Man's Redemption are correlatives: & it is hard to combine so vehement & absolute a repudiation of the first with a real & coherent belief in the last.

[We left Stowe House shortly before 11 a.m., and motored to York viâ Buxton, Derby, Mansfield, Worksop, Doncaster, & Selby. The weather was at first dull, but it steadily improved, & ended brilliantly. We lunched at Mansfield, & had tea at Selby. The doors of the great abbey church of Selby were locked, for we arrived a few minutes after closing time. We were limited, therefore, to a merely external survey, but even this left us with a great impression of antique majesty. We noticed, as we traversed the country, how excellent were the roads in the "Dukeries", & how execrable in Yorkshire. Also, that the harvest was still uncompleted, many fields of corn being unreaped, & many more uncarried. We wrote letters in the hotel after dinner.]

[109]

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The papers report at length on the speech, which Mr J. H. Thomas M.P. addressed as President to the Trades Union Congress. He is reckoned a moderate man, & yet he could describe with approval the recent action of the Trades Unions. His words merit particular attention. They are reported in the "Times".

"During the past few weeks we have gone through what is, perhaps, the most momentous period of the trade union & Labour movement in our long history: a period which found for the first time a united & determined working class effort to challenge the existing order of Parliamentary government. …That our course of action was bold none can deny; that it definitely challenged the Constitution there can be no doubt. In a country such as ours, where the people possess a franchise sufficiently broad to enable them to determine their own destiny, such a change of method requires an explanation."

He proceeds to refer to the "precedents" of Ulster and the Curragh", and then goes on to defend the action of "Labour" in setting up the Council of Action as indispensable for the preservation of peace.

It is, of course, possible that many of the Labour leaders do not appreciate the full gravity of the language they use, & the action they sanction: but it is not to be doubted that among them are some who know what their words imply, and are fully determined to push their action to its complete logical expression. If, as seems probable, the coming winter is going to be marked by increasing unemployment, & continuing rise of prices, what prospect is there of our escaping the terrific experiences which have overtaken our continental neighbours?

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