The Henson Journals

[17]

Wednesday, August 22nd, 1928.

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This is an age of commemoration. Every famous man and every famous woman must be commemorated on a birthday, or a death day, or for some specific & dated achievement. There are other motives than reverence for individual greatness and goodness which tend to multiply commemorations. Localities disclose a corporate lust for distinctiveness, & tradesmen everywhere scent profit in all gatherings of the people, be the motive what it may. Advertisement, prompted by vanity or by greed, finds here a notable method. The mixed multitude of enthusiasts and incompetents who are labelled grotesquely "Educationists" bustle to the front, & "improve the occasion' to advocate a theory, or parade an author, or serve a cause. Every variety of institution which is dependent on 'voluntary contributions' seizes eagerly on an opportunity for issuing a 'special appeal' to the public. 'Jubilees' and 'centenaries' are proved methods of 'raising the wind' the modern craze for 'pageants' falls in easily with the fashion of Commemorations. Every locality possesses an antiquary or a 'historian' who, emerging like a butterfly from its chrysalis, leaps into sudden importance when the project of a 'historical pageant' to celebrate a person or an event is broached. And there is always the local press.

[18]

I received from Canon Wilson a letter in reply to my congratulation on his appointment to Chelmsford. One paragraph is suggestive, though not surprising:

'If I may say so, with all respect, I do not entirely agree with your Lordship as to the present issue. I do not think we must equate a majority vote in the Assembly with the will of the Church. The House of Commons, it seemed to me, was principally influenced (next to the "No Popery" cry) by the very fact that they were not satisfied that the Deposited Book was the expression of the Will of the Church. To put it in an extreme way, had they passed the Book, Bp. Knox & Co would have had equal justification for demanding Disestablishment because the Book was contrary to the will of the majority. I know what I should do at this juncture, but then I belong to a "cock–sure" race, so I will spare you.'

It would be difficult to find a better example of complete muddle–headedness. If only unanimous decisions of the Church Assembly are to be accepted by Parliament as declarations of the Church's mind, we shall not be burdened with much legislation!

[19]

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In the afternoon we motored nearly 30 miles to have tea with Mr. Harry Guthrie Smith in the house which he has recently purchased on his return from New Zealand. It is not far from Duns, pleasantly situated on a steep bank above a trout stream, with a southern aspect, & well sheltered by trees eastwards & westwards. It includes an excellent kitchen garden, & about 20 acres of shrubbery & wood. It is rather remote & isolated, a circumstance of small importance to the owner of a motor–car, but making it more than commonly [dull – crossed out] difficult to get domestics, who find life in a country house intolerably dull. In this case, colonial experience mitigates the situation. In New Zealand ladies do not generally repudiate the arts & crafts of the kitchen so completely as their English sisters. Accordingly, Mrs. Guthrie Smith does not think it an unsufferable hardship to take over the work of the cook. Yet this problem of inducing girls to 'take service' is extremely grave, for it is a symptom of the revolt against their class – subordination which is developing in the minds of the humbler descriptions of English folk, & which will have sterner consequences than the discomfort of individuals. It is visibly threatening the permanence of that pleasant English Society, urbane & high–minded, of which the domestic servant was the condition & the symbol.

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