The Henson Journals

[72]

Thursday, July 21st, 1921.

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Malcolm Dillon, Lord Londonderry's mining manager writes to me a rather pathetically interesting letter. He thinks some good might come from a private conference on the questions, What should our attitude towards the working classes?\Has our attitude in the past been the right one? He points out that here is a great amount of unreality in our manner of addressing working men: that we pretend to think them what we know or suspect that they are not: that their education is a notorious & ridiculous failure: that the school teachers are manifestly inadequate: that the whole working class is deplorably untruthful etc. I judge Dillon to be a sincere man, genuinely desirous of harmonizing his religious belief & his ordinary practice, perplexed, as we all are, with the apparent difficulty of reconciling Industrialism and Christianity, but quite unable to see any alternative to Industrialism as a working system. The Conservative Churchmanship in which he has been bred, & of which his official position constitutes him an embodiment and protagonist among the miners does not satisfy either his intelligence (which is considerable) or his conscience (which is sensitive). [The death of Lady Londonderry has withdrawn a dominating personality under whose influence he was hardly able to think independently, but now his mind is moving, and he finds himself genuinely perplexed.] I wrote him as follows:–

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My dear Mr Dillon,

I am greatly obliged to you for what you have written. You are right in what you say: but, before the statement is complete, it must be supplemented, and, perhaps, set in a rather different perspective. "Untruthfulness" is, of course, one of the distinctive vices of the "under–dog", and it springs from fear and weakness. The working people still picture themselves as down–trodden and powerless: though as a class they are quickly moving as a class to political supremacy. Probably as a class untruthfulness will slowly diminish as the facts dispel the lingering illusions. We have no sufficient material for comparing the standard of truthfulness accepted today with that accepted at any former time.

The failure of education is manifest, but, though, perhaps, most disastrously evident in the masses, whose education is provided by the elementary schools, it is not confined to the more popular system. I have heard Oxford and Cambridge accused hardly less strongly, and assuredly not without large justification.

The failure of teaching material is apparent: & the remedy is so far hidden. Not even the relatively exorbitant salaries paid to the teachers, nor the costly system of scholarships by which the State seeks to recruit the teaching profession can fill the ranks. It is the same in all the higher professions. There is a shortage of the right stuff. I suspect the reasons lie in a region where it is difficult to correct them. The best stocks are becoming sterile: & the nation is having to draw on the poor [74] stocks which alone remain prolific. This is a very depressing reflection.

Then we must make our count with the fact that the working people are, more or less consciously, in revolt against the existing order of society. Weighty voices assure them that "Industrialism is not only oppressive in working, but also wrong in principle: that it is collapsing: that it ought to be ended: & that its disappearance would open the door to a better organisation of life, free from the notorious evils of their present lot. Last Saturday afternoon in Hyde Park, a great number of leading Bishops and Nonconformists were speaking to this effect. The resolution, printed & circulated on handbills with an imposing list of names, ran thus:

"In face of the complete collapse of our existing economic, industrial, & social order, & the bankruptcy of statesmanship &c., &c… this meeting records its conviction that the existing system, being based largely on unrestricted competition for private & sectional advantage, must be ended, since it fosters the sins of avarice and injustice, lays a yoke of thraldom & poverty upon masses of men & women, & makes war practically inevitable."

It is this deep & deepening disgust with their situation which creates our principal difficulty when talking with working people, & which is by no means unsanctioned by the reason & conscience of many, who belong to other classes of society.

If we could clear up men's minds, & lift the burden [75] from their hearts, we might find some common ground, & speak effectively because intelligibly. But as matters stand we are mainly at cross–purposes. We want the present régime to be rendered efficient by being cleansed of removeable defects, & more wisely directed. They wish the present régime to be brought to a deadlock because they assume that it is intrinsically bad, & blocks the way to something better. I think they are mistaken: but I don't see how to make them think so: and until they do, the present misunderstanding will go on. It is enormously difficult. We must be very honest with ourselves, & play the game. "Now we see in a mirror darkly". The way of escape may open were & when we least expect.

Yours sincerely

Herbert Dunelm:

Clayton and Brigstocke set out for Horden in the motor under pledge to return in time to carry me to Durham for the Convocation at 3 p.m. But about lunchtime a telegram arrived stating that the car had broken down and was being repaired, but would come on to join me at Durham "when repaired"! The damage proved to be serious. William got the car home, but it was in no case for travelling. We telegraphed to Birmingham for a "hab slieve". I interviewed the man Griffin from Coxhoe, & then Lillingston motored me to Cornforth where I dedicated a War memorial in the mean little parish church. The parson Fryffe did not please me, though a plausible garrulous rogue enough!

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