The Henson Journals

[221]

Thursday, December 1st, 1927.

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Lord Carson told me yesterday that, when he was practising at the Bar, he regularly rose at 4.30 p.m. [sic], and worked continuously until about 6 p.m., when he went to the House of Commons, getting to bed somewhere after midnight. Contrast this with the Bishop's life, & the effect is hardly impressive. Of course, the barrister was working for himself, & rolling up in a few years a considerable fortune. The Bishop is working for Another, whose recompense is not stated in money. Yet, even so, the contrast is disconcerting. Lord Carson also told me that he found his work as Lord of Appeal far more fatiguing than the work at the Bar: and this he attributed to the absence of movement & excitement. The unrelieved strain of mental concentration was much more severe in the Court of Appeal than in the King's Bench.

Geoffrey Dawson sate by me at Grillions, and we discussed the evil case of Durham Castle. He promised that the Times should do everything to assist the Appeal that was possible, short of making the Appeal its own. He said that direct Appeals were becoming markedly less remunerative than at first.

He spoke of Welldon's frequent letters to the Times. Those that appear in the paper are but a fraction of those which the Editor receives. It is certainly a lamentable spectacle that a man with so fine an academic record, such considerable intellectual power, such large & repeated opportunities, &, we must add, such admirable intentions, should have come to be so little regarded. But his incessant loquacity, which increases as he grows into garrulous old age, and the untimely indulgence of a clownish humour, added to the graver fault of a certain radical untrustworthiness in personal relations, have reduced him to a nonentity & almost to a buffoon.

[222] [symbol]

I spent the day in the Committee, where the morning was occupied with the testimony of two Scottish officials, who expounded to us the law & practice of Scotland, which differ in some important respects from those of England, and the afternoon with the witness of a London Police Magistrate named Craig, whose mind seemed to me more alert than connected, & whose object in giving evidence was rather to gain currency for his own opinions than to assist us in forming ours. As I walked from the House of Lords, where we had lunched, to the Committee Room in Old Palace Yard, I fell in with Lord Daryngton, who was very communicative on the subject of my speech in the House against the Winchester Bishoprick Measure. He said that the Resolution would so certainly have been lost if the vote had been taken when I sate down, that Selborne & he, who had charge of the Resolution, perforce adjourned the division, & spent the interval in a prodigious effort to whip up votes, & even so only carried the resolution by 10 votes. Lord D. said that they placed much dependence on the effect of my speech on the Prayer Book Measure. On the whole he was hopeful, though the 'backwoodsmen' were an unknown quantity, and might disappoint all expectations. I attended the debate on the Landlords & Tenants Bill, & voted with the Government together with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Manchester, and the Bishop of Southwark. The division 101 to 34 was unexpectedly good. After dining at the Club, I walked back to Park Lane.