The Henson Journals

[240]

Saturday, November 13th, 1926.

A boisterous night precluded a wet and stormy morning. After going through the correspondence I gave myself up to the composition of a sermon for tomorrow morning when I have undertaken to preach in Consett in connexion with the 60th anniversary of the consecration of the parish church by my predecessor, Bishop Baring. Consett has the reputation of being a centre of Bolshevism. It is there that there is a district known as "Little Russia".

In the afternoon I went into the Park, and spent half an hour in the rain watching a football match, S. Anne's v. Brandon Methodists. There is a general practice of linking Bible Classes to Football Clubs, the last being the sugar–plum which rewards attendance at the first! It is a system which plainly lends itself to damaging criticism.

Miss Headlam arrived on a short visit. She too grows old. The evening paper reports that the miners have voted by a substantial, but not a large, majority to accept the Government's terms. The owners, though chagrined & reluctant, will hardly protract their opposition. It seems reasonable, therefore, to suppose that the most imbecile industrial conflict on record has at last reached its end. The injury to British trade must be enormous: it may well be irreparable. The Manchester Guardian has a most disconcerting account of the condition of the textile industry in Lancashire. It is hard to resist the conclusion that the days of that great industry are numbered. The conditions have always been perilously artificial. Now that sentimental Socialism has been added to natural disadvantages, it hardly seems possible for the Industry to continue on anything like its present scale. But what can be done with the work–people?

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