The Henson Journals

[270]

Monday, April 11th, 1921.

The Headlams went off after breakfast. I frittered away the morning being over–fatigued from yesterday's exertions. After lunch Clayton and I motored into Durham, where I attended a meeting of the Bede College Committee: and had tea with the Bishop of Jarrow. Then we returned to the Castle.

Captain Apperley writes that a pit pony, too old for going down the shaft, but vigorous enough to draw a lawn–mower, will be sent from the Londonderry Collieries. No charge will be made for the beast, and (presumably) we shall have the felicity of giving him a brief episode of peace before his final exit.

The "Church Socialist League", over which the egregious "Father" Bull, of Mirfield, presides as Chairman, sends me a long & windy resolution passed by the "National Executive Committee" on the Coal Strike. It "calls on the Government to end in the coal industry a type of organisation which is fundamentally un–Christian, degrades the miner, & which robs the consumer, and to substitute for it a system which shall transfer mines and minerals to communal ownership & shall vest the control of the industry in the hands of public bodies representing both mine–workers & consumers". The latter arrangement would presumably be fundamentally Christian. In a note "The League recognizes that no political, economic, & social emancipation can be permanent without a change of heart & mind & will."!!!

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