The Henson Journals

[75]

Friday, December 9th, 1921.

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I spent the morning in preparing a speech on Unemployment for delivery at Hartlepool tonight. At 2.45 p.m. I left the Castle, & motored to the Grand Hotel in Hartlepool, where the mayor entertained me at tea. After tea I had a kind of informal discussion with about a score of employers, among whom Mr Prest spoke for the coal industry, & Colonel Thomlinson for the iron. I dined with the mayor, Mr Wilson, who is a timber–merchant. He had asked several of the employers to meet me at Dinner. At 7.45 p.m. the meeting was held in the Town Hall. There were, perhaps, 800 or 900 men present. My speech occupied 45 minutes in delivery, & was rather too heavy for the audience, which listened with patience and applauded with politeness. I motored back to the castle as soon as the meeting was over, and arrived about 10.30 p.m. As the night was fine, I sate beside William, and had much pleasant talk with him.

Macmillan sent me a cutting from "The Challenge" containing a fairly written and by no means ineffective criticism of "Anglicanism". The writer, who I suspect was Dr Raven, is very polite to me, while repudiating energetically my main thesis!

Marion's case appears to be more serious than was stated at first. Miss Graham writes that it implies what is technically described as a "major operation", and that on the most favourable hypothesis she will be hors de combat for some weeks. In these circumstances, Ella insisted that she ought to go to London in order to be on the spot during the crisis, and I assented to this course, grudging indeed the expenditure, but being unable to resist the argument. One cannot afford not to take thought for the worst contingencies, and for the aspect of one's own behaviour when seen in their light. How suddenly do the clouds gather on the horizon of human life! How persistent is the delusion of security in human minds! The possibility of Marion's health giving way had never been seriously contemplated by any of us, and now the possibility cannot be excluded that her life may run out before that of the aged step–mother to whom she has devoted herself. Well, well. We are in the hands of God at all times, as well when the course of experience runs smoothly, as when all things are perverse, & we are cast down by a mass of troubles.

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