The Henson Journals

[276]

Wednesday, May 5th, 1926.

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The Labour Party is not really entitled to that description, for it is more properly regarded as a Catholick Church. For it also is exclusive, keeps no faith with hereticks, persecutes, & uses the weapons of excommunication and interdict. It is apparently designing to control the press, & has already organized an Index Prohibitorum Librorum.

The Northern Echo in an attenuated form, & with an explanatory note on its front sheet is the only newspaper to arrive this morning. Two incidents have a sinister appearance – at Consett an attempt was made to hinder the running of the buses by placing a tree across the road, in Bishop Auckland the Town Council refused to assist the Emergency Food Officer with information. We are finding out now the effect of the constant preaching of the new "Class–ethick", which has marked recent years. It has completely replaced the morality of Christianity even in the minds of regular Church–goers. I don't suppose a single moment's thought was given to the question of moral rightness, when the Railway men & others who are communicants, obeyed the summons to come out in the general strike, although their doing so involved breach of contract, and grave injury to other people.

[277] [symbol]

I sent a telegram to the Vicar of Stranton saying that I should not attend the opening of the Missionary Exhibition, as I had undertaken to do. My reasons, which, of course, I did not give, were (1) the expenditure of petrol seemed to me inadequately justified; (2) I should have had to say something about the Strike, & what I could not but have said would necessarily have exasperated the strikers, &, to that extent, have done more harm than good. The less said the better now; (3) I could not, without an almost superhuman effort, have held myself back from some bitter moralizing on the paradox implied in advocating the extension to non–Christian peoples of such felicitous features of our Christian Society as the "general strike", and such moralizing would have scandalized many good people. But see to what a humiliating pass we have been brought. This is no longer a community in which freedom of speech can truthfully be said to exist. What I have to consider when I make a speech is not whether my words shall be true and relevant, but whether they will embarrass the Government, or even endanger my own safety! The last consideration might be ignored, but hardly the first.

[278] [symbol]

I walked in the Park, and there fell in with the two miners, with whom (as they reminded me) they had held converse during the last strike. Of course we talked of the Strike, which they defended energetically but not, I thought, very confidently. One of them, a very finely–built youngish man, who had served in the Army (his name was Robinson) rolled up his slieves [sic], and showed me the fantastic patterns which had been tattooed on his arms. He said that they were done by a fellow–soldier with an ordinary steel nib!

I motored to West Cornforth, and confirmed 201 persons in the mean little church, which was densely crowded. [These came from the parishes of West Cornforth, Ferry Hill, & Chilton, having a population of about 25,000. This was less than half the number which ought to be confirmed, but represented a better proportion than is common in this diocese. The clergy – Fyff, Lomax, & Wilkinson – are wayward & muddle–headed men, but certainly men.] I noticed the groups of miners. They do not look cheerful or confident. Today the Government have published an official paper – the British Gazette – to pierce the journalistic gloom in which the Strike has plunged us.

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