The Henson Journals

[359]

Friday, February 11th, 1927.

Headlam sends me a pamphlet which he has just published on "Economics and Christianity". It is, of course, very clear, able, and unfeeling. "Wise investment", he says "is the modern equivalent of selling your goods & giving them to the poor". This sets one thinking even furiously. Was the kind of man who heard & obeyed our Saviour's command the same kind of man as that which is an authority on investments? The weak point in Headlam's case (which I cannot see my way to reject) is that he assumes the possibility, even the desirability of maintaining the existing structure of society, with its sharp division of classes, its immense inequalities, and its fierce rivalries eventually uttering themselves in War. And the truth is that the general conscience is troubled and restive about the existing structure of society, and no merely economic or political arguments, however irresistible on their own ground, can avail to bring peace. I am personally the woefullest man in the world, for my mind is with the economist, and my conscience with these fatuous Socialists!

I fooled away the morning, walked round the Park in the afternoon, and had the felicity of a visit from Mr Spedding in the evening.

The Church papers overflow with protests against the Revision proposals from the usual Protestant champions. The Record is in its most solemn mood of imbecile oracularity. Bishop Knox is sadly convinced that the "dies fatalis" has arrived: & Mr Kensit uses the most menacing language to the Bishops. How much is behind all this pother? Neither the religious Evangelicals, nor the Liberal Evangelicals have declared themselves; and the Anglo–Catholicks are taking counsel!

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