The Henson Journals

[66]

Whit–Sunday, June 8th, 1924.

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I celebrated the Holy Communion in the private chapel. Lord Hugh Cecil was among the communicants. After breakfast Ella and I motored into Belfast, where I preached to a great congregation in St Anne's Cathedral. The Dean said the place was seated for 1600 people. The singing was better than I expected since there is no endowment. The choir consisted of 20 boys, 16 women and 12 men. After service we lunched with the Bishop of Down in his new "palace", a sufficient house which he has substituted for that which his recent predecessors have occupied. He spoke of the state of affairs in Ulster. The Roman Catholics are edging the Protestants out of the rural districts, buying up every farm that comes into the market, with the result that the Protestant population is becoming increasingly urban. Even in Belfast the two creeds are coming to be more sharply segregated. We returned to Mountstewart [sic] after lunch, and I 'rested according to the commandment'. Later, we motored again into Belfast, and I preached at evensong in the Cathedral to a very large congregation, of which, it was gratifying to observe, a large proportion was men. After the service we returned to Mountstewart, where the kindness of our noble hostess had provided a late dinner. I had an interesting talk with Lord Carson.

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I asked him whether he agreed with the Bishop of Down, and he answered that mainly he did. Perhaps enough had not been allowed for the immigration of Protestant refugees from the south, which had proceeded so far in Fermanagh that the Roman Catholic majority was practically extinguished. But he thought it probable that to the distinctions of race and religion would soon be added that of economic condition, the Celtic Papists being agricultural, and the "Anglo–Saxon" Protestants being industrial. The former would be intensely conservative: the latter being Socialistic. I inquired whether the economic issue was not steadily thrusting out every other, and he replied that he thought it not improbable. It would appear, therefore, that "time and tide" are on the side of the South, and that, if they would but curb their impatience, they could count on an United Ireland at no distant date. But the Republican movement in the South is so strong, that, at any moment, Cosgrave's government might be over–thrown, & the Treaty denounced. This would create a situation of great embarrassment and danger for Great Britain, but it would relieve Ulster of many anxieties. The frontier would automatically become British, and have to be held by British troops. It is obvious that the position is one of very unstable equilibrium.

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