The Henson Journals

[353]

Wednesday, June 16th, 1926.

Steady rain all night, & a dull morning. But in spite of the dripping trees and the leaden sky, the birds sang valourously as if striving to conjure back the sun.

The Prime Minister's much expected statement was made in the House last night, and was received with disappointment by his supporters, & by violent denunciation by the Labour party. He will go back to the 8 hour day, and seek to facilitate arrangements between mine–owners & miners on that basis. It is difficult to see what else he can do, but this does not carry us anywhere nearer a settlement. Meanwhile, the number of unemployed grows rapidly, markets are being everywhere lost, and the finances of the country are hopelessly deranged. What incredible madness possesses the miners' leaders? Or, is there not a method in the madness, i.e. are they not acting in full concert with their Russian paymasters in the interest of the revolution which these paymasters are confessedly aiming at? I notice in the references to the General Strike a strengthening tendency to describe it as a remarkable demonstration of the powers & solidarity of the Trade Unions, a significantly successful rehearsal of a similar effort in the near future. The nation congratulated itself on its victory prematurely.

[354] [symbol]

I wrote to the Bishop of Hereford telling him, in much the same terms as I had employed in my letter to the Archbishop, that I held Reservation to be the point at which the issue of principle was most clearly raised; that personally I could support no departure from the position taken in the present Prayer Book i.e.no Reservation at all; that I would acquiesce in reservation for the Communion of the Sick & for no other purpose, because such reservation did not necessarily raise any doctrinal question but might be justified, like the indicative absolution in the Visitation of the Sick, or the plea of charity to the physically distressed; that I did not believe it could be possible to limit the use of the reserved Sacrament to the use of the Sick only; that I would resist any other Reservation to the utmost of my power both in the Church Assembly & in the House of Lords. I hardly see how anything effective can be achieved by the Revision of the Prayer Book. The time has passed for restraining the Romeward drift by the exercise of authority: and the balance of opinion within the Church has shifted. Reunion and Christian Socialism are popular, and both have worked out adversely to Anglicanism. Romanizing practice has secured so wide an extension in the parishes, often with episcopal encouragement, that it is chimerical to hope for any considerable alteration of parochial procedure in deference to the revised Prayer Book. The Protestant party, which is in the mood to resist all change, is neither socially nor intellectually considerable enough to count for anything. Its alliance with the Nonconformists brings more odium than strength to its cause.

[355] [symbol]

After lunch, a local hair–dresser came, & cut my hair in my study. He told me that his father used to perform the same service to Bishop Moule, and that Mrs Moule treasured carefully the cuttings of hair, out of which she fashioned cushions! After his death a considerable of "dead hair" thus accumulated, was destroyed by the butler. Here you have an Evangelical version of the relic hunting of the Middle–Ages. I have no reason to think that there is any disposition in any quarter to seek relics from the latest of S. Cuthbert's Successors!!

I wrote to my Godson, Gilbert, and to Mary Radford. Also I wrote to Ernest.

I have amused myself by reading "Gulliver's Travels." It is, indeed, an incomparable work. The delicacy of the satire and the finished simplicity of the style are unequalled and inimitable. The two most elaborated descriptions are, perhaps, those of the "Projectors" in Laputa, and of the Sruldbruggs in Luggnagg, both of which are plainly coloured by Swift's contempt for speculative vapouring, and by his morbid self–conscious–ness. Cant [sic] in his religion and theorising in practical affairs offended his virility and good sense. He was inevitably a Tory & a High Churchman. His savage scorn of mankind had its spring in his knowledge that he was himself mentally unstable, and morally at cross–purposes with his own conscience.

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