The Henson Journals

[109]

Friday, September 15th, 1922.

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The rain has ceased, and the sun shone intermittently from a clouded sky. The Richmonds left after breakfast, & were quickly followed by Mrs Belloc Lowndes & her daughter. I finished the sermon for Ripon Cathedral. After an early lunch I accompanied Sir Henry Craik to Darlington in the motor. He took the train to London, and I returned to the Castle.

James, who had been visiting his coal–mine, brought the mine–manager Mr Hare to tea. He looked at the bowling green, & seemed to think that the fears as to subsidence were not chimerical. He assured me, with perhaps suspicious insistence, that the responsibilities of his company ceased at the Gaunless, and added that it was generally believed that most part of Bishop Auckland is built over ancient workings, the precise direction of which was unknown. This is more interesting to hear than pleasant to reflect upon! He said that he was having considerable difficulty in getting the men to resume work in the mine in spite of the wide–spread unemployment. The dole supplemented from the rates by the foolish lavishness of the Guardians really made it worth the while of the lower ratings of miner to continue in idleness. Is it possible to imagine a more fatuous system, or one better adapted to transform English labourers into the similitude of Neapolitan lazzaroni? In order to avoid "Revolution" we had recourse to doles: now the doles have 'come to stay', and their pressure on our shoulders is likely to exhaust us altogether!

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