The Henson Journals

[154]

Saturday, September 10th, 1921.

I hardened my heart and gave Taylor a month's notice. Then I did the correspondence with Clayton, and corrected proofs. After lunch I motored to Witton Park, & read prayers at the [154] bedside of the Vicar (Rev. J.V. Kemp) who is dying of cancer. The poor man was hardly conscious: but my presence seemed to please him. Fearne arrived at tea–time, and Miss Mundella rather later.

After tea I corrected more proofs. These Lectures, if they escape the fate of falling flat from the Press out to arouse some interest, mostly indeed hostile.

Ernest arrived from Canada after dinner. He is full of his experiences in that country. He has the art of getting quickly into conversation with all kinds of people, and he has an unslaking appetite for every kind of information. When an idea holds his mind, it dominates him completely until its despotism is replaced by that of another! Just now he is keen on economics, and curious about the working of Prohibition. He reports on ill state of things in America, where unemployment seems hardly less considerable than in his country. Prohibition appears to be working even more badly than its opponents foretold. So great are the profits of illicit trading, and so impossible is it to enforce a law which the conscience of the community condemns, that men are abandoning their trades in order to start whisky–running. Ernest was impressed by the demoralizing effect on the churches which their triumph in passing Prohibition has had. They are now tied to politics, and dragged down to the very low level which marks all politics in America.

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