The Henson Journals

[77]

Saturday, January 16th, 1926. Lambeth Palace.

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The bitter cold continues. It may possibly stimulate the trade in coal, but it certainly depresses mankind. The Commission has closed its public sessions by receiving the rival schemes of the mine–owners' Association and the miners' Federation. These schemes are wholly incapable of reconciliation because they are inspired by different principles and directed towards different objectives. The one is individualistic, and aims at perpetuating the present system. The other is communistic, and aims at destroying the present system, & replacing it by another. We must add that while the one keeps close to the facts of the existing situation: the other ignores them, & indulges in theoretical reconstruction which leaves the immediate problem unsolved. Nothing could be more uncompromising than the temper of both sides. Meanwhile, the country has to subsidize the industry at vast cost, so vast that the financial recovery which was making a start, has been arrested & will probably be reversed. This unyielding, and impractical temper is the worst of all the omens of disaster which are now apparent in the national outlook. It is hard to resist the impression that the real directors of the miners' policy are consciously aiming at violent revolution.

[78] [symbol]

We continued our work on the Baptismal Offices without discord, and then dispersed for the week–end [sic]. We had not the advantage of the Archbishop of Canterbury's chairmanship for his Grace had to betake himself to the dentist. The junior Primate is somewhat too verbose for effective presidency. Three of us – Lang, Williams, & myself – went to Oxford by the 4.45 p.m. express, which was 20 minutes late in starting by reason of the snow.

At All Souls there was a strange innovation on the decent usage of that society in the form of a "Lady's Gaudy". The Fellows entertained their wives in Hall & Common Room. This confounding of the sexes is a very horrid thing, but the world is mad. I was much interested in the Junior Fellow, Rouse [Rowse], the son of a Cornish miner, a keen–looking youngster of 22, credited with extreme opinions. "I am a kind of traitor to my class", he said. He will probably learn much, & forget much in the atmosphere of All Souls. To be a Socialist at 22 is a pledge of sound Toryism at 50. But the young fellow has the look and carriage of a revolutionary. I inquired what his plan of life was, and he replied that he meant to stay up in Oxford, and teach history. I think he will be heard of in a wider field.

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