The Henson Journals

[340]

Friday, May 13th, 1921.

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That disreputable person, Earl Russell, sends me a book on Divorce which he wrote some years ago, & he accompanies it with a letter in which he has the impudence to tell me that he "thoroughly enjoyed the two speeches" that I made in the H. of L. Politics, like necessity, makes strange bedfellows!

My morning's work was broken into by two interviews. First, came Mr Janter, one of the rejected examinees for the Priesthood. I told him that I could not permit him to sit again, & that he must refer himself to the Abp of York, with whose permission he officiates in England. Next, Mr Lomax from Ferryhill arrived, & talked interminably about his project of a "Retreat House" for the clergy, which he desires to found. The man is an impracticable "saint", infinitely, pathetically futile. Beyond revising an old sermon for use on Sunday, dictating and writing many letters, & talking to those tiresome parsons, I have done nothing. Yet I feel quite sufficiently tired.

The strike news is worse than ever. There seems a likelihood of the Transport workers & Railwaymen joining in after all. Great efforts are being made to induce the dockers & railway men on the continent to join hands with the British Unions. The strike may become, not merely national, but international. Citizenship is "snowed under" by the passions and prejudices of "Labour".

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