The Henson Journals
Fri 8 October 1926
Volume 41, Page 196
[196]
Friday, October 8th, 1926.
I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 8.15 a.m. All were present except Canon Crudace, who wisely stayed in bed until breakfast. We had an interesting Conference from 10 a.m. to 12.15 p.m. Then lunch, & the party dispersed. I think everybody enjoyed the gathering. There was a good spirit in it, and the discussions had more reality than is always the case.
Ernest brought to tea an elderly parson named [space] with his wife and son, a Cambridge undergraduate. The said parson said that he had met me in 1887 in Italy, when I was there just before my Ordination with Arthur Headlam.
Somebody sends me a booklet entitled "The Living Wage by H. N. Brailsford, John A. Hobson, A. Creech Jones & E. P. Wise, a Report submitted to the National Administrative Council of the Independent Labour Party". It makes interesting reading. If the policy which it sketches were seriously adopted, the country would be brought to complete economic dislocation in two years. I notice that it takes for granted a Net National Income of £3,500,000,000 as now existing, which I should think is probably just twice the amount more authoritative economists would allow. The assumption that an all–round increase of nominal wages would result in such an increase of production as would make the increased wages real, is surely extravagant.
I returned his license to the woeful man, John, yielding thus to the insistent pressure of his vicar & Wynne–Willson, neither of whom seems to me to appreciate adequately the extreme gravity of the case. He has been without a license for two years, & this period may, perhaps, be thought a sufficient probation. Heaven grant that it may be found so in his case!
Wynne–Willson wanted to invite a sectary to read the prayers in Bishopwearmouth Church, but I would not consent. The rapid increase in requests to sanction Nonconformist Ministrations within the parish churches rather alarms me. I note that Nonconformist self–assertion is increasing. The Chairman & Urban District Council of Bishop Auckland have announced their intention of going to a Dissenting Chapel on Armistice Sunday instead, as heretofore, to the noble parish church.