The Henson Journals

[145]

Wednesday, September 1st, 1926.

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An industrial conflict is a thought–provoking spectacle. The enormous waste of wealth which it occasions is so evident that the obstinacy with which it is waged appears almost unintelligible. Before the losses of one conflict have been made good another is entered upon. The miners have not yet paid for the debts contracted in the great strike of 1921 when they embark on the "stoppage" of 1926! It might well be thought that even the simplest workman would perceive the economic absurdity of the strike. But the moral loss is even more appalling than the economic. What is true of War between nations is also true of war between employers and workmen. Domestic liberty is curtailed and may be altogether destroyed: personal morality is endangered: social relations are embittered. The moralist is as horrified by the effect on character and on society as the economist is appalled by the enormous waste of wealth. It is inevitable that both should turn questioning eyes on Religion, which both regulates the conduct and orders the life of those who profess it. What bearing has Christianity on industrial disputes? What is the rôle of the Church in the economic sphere? The industrial phase of civilization has created situations in which the traditional ethic of Christendom appears to be inadequate, and even wholly inapplicable. If the Church continue to insist on its inherited ethic, the consequence must needs be to multiply hypocrites in its membership, and to alienate honest folk: yet to adapt that ethic to the new requirements implies, or seems to imply, a surrender of the essential character of morality as something superior to the contingencies of time & space. The position is infinitely embarrassing.

[146]

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The Carlyles with their baby went away after breakfast and I then betook myself to the task of writing the Edinburgh Article. But I made little progress. This method of forcing production is mistaken. I never possessed the facility with which my friends credit me, and now the pace is slackened by advancing years & distraction of mind. After lunch I walked in the Park with Herbert Smith. He is not an interesting companion, and, I incline to think, is not mentally superior to the rôle of Anglo–Catholic priest which his friends have chosen for him. In the Park I fell in with a young miner, named J. H. Francis, who impressed me by the intelligence of his conversation. I asked him to come to the Castle next Friday, & to bring his pay–tickets with him that I might see what he actually earned. He undertook to do this, but whether he will have the courage to present himself remains to be seen.

It is comparatively easy to show that Christianity cannot affect directly the economic process. But it is not easy to show that it can do so indirectly. For not only is the proportion of genuine Christians far too small to allow of their action having any decisive effect on the general life, but also the effect of personal volition in the sum of economic forces is too slight and intermittent to count for much. The secularising of Christianity has gone so far that we all tacitly assume that the worth of Christ's Religion must be demonstrated on the secular plane, whereas, in truth, He taught exactly the opposite. "The children of this world are for their own generation wiser than the children of light." "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation."

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