The Henson Journals

[66]

Tuesday, September 6th, 1927.

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Our party dispersed. We and the Inges motored to Cloan in order to visit Lord Haldane & his sister. The weather was doubtful at first, then fine, ultimately wet. We left the Castle at 10.30 a.m., and arrived at 7.45 p.m., having travelled 194 miles.

Lord Haldane told me that he had had a long interview with King Boris of Bulgaria, who has been visiting in these parts. The King expressed anxiety as to the invasion of his country by Russian Bolshevists, who were preaching a communistic Revolution to the peasantry. "Leave them alone," was his Lordship's advice, "they will do no harm. The Bulgarian peasant is naturally conservative. He will pay no heed to Communists. If the Russian missionaries become a nuisance, the peasants will murder them." Was this a true diagnosis of the situation in Bulgaria? Was it good advice to the Bulgarian King? Is the peasant more naturally conservative in Bulgaria, than he was in France in 1789, or in Russia in 1917? That he will be disillusioned by experience may be taken for granted: but that he will first indulge the illusion appears to me equally well–assured.