The Henson Journals

[351]

Friday, May 20th, 1921.

Mr Little arrived with his daughter, and were speedily followed by the Newcastle folk with the motor lawn–mower. After witnessing its performance, I bought it for £75. After lunch I motored into Durham, & presided at a meeting of the Finance Board, when we decided to recommend to the Conference the appointment of a Diocesan Secretary at a stipend of £400 per annum, together with his expenses. After the meeting, I had tea with Francis Priestman, & had some talk over the coal crisis. He evidently fears that the L. G. will make another 'surrender'. I asked him to explain the remarkable circumstance that, in spite of so many reasons for anticipating the gravest disasters to the British trade, & therein to the very life–conditions of the nation, there was such general optimism. He replied that he could give no explanation beyond the fact that men had passed through similar crises before, and had always emerged without the ruin that seemed inevitable, & that they assumed their present troubles would be no more fatal than before. He admitted that there were novel circumstances in the present crisis which made the argument precarious. Rogerson, who is both intelligent and well–informed, said that there was a general expectation that, in the steel trade, our foreign competitors would not be able to maintain their output at the present low rates, which had expressed rather a bold effort to capture our markets, than any superior method of industry of their own.

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