The Henson Journals

[157]

Wednesday, June 19th, 1929.

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The great heat continues. I spent most of the day in the Assembly. The debate on my motion provoked replies of amazing irrelevance, and the motion itself was of course lost, but I think that an impression was made which may be useful. In the afternoon I made a speech about artisan candidates for Ordination which was much applauded, though it was really a very poor ragged performance.

I dined at the Mansion House where the Lord Mayor entertained the Archbishops and Bishops, and proposed the health of the Lord Mayor. Lang made his first appearance there as Archbishop of Canterbury. He made rather a pompous speech, in which he took occasion to express himself a believer in the Establishment, a statement which seemed to me to be rather coldly received. Temple proposed the toast of the overseas Bishops, & the Bishop of Bombay responded. He is a heavy speaker, & rather preached than made an after–dinner speech. I wrote my name in the Lord Mayor's book.

[158]

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Old Sir Lewis Dibdin was almost oleaginously civil to me in the Assembly today. Perhaps he also, like others, has felt, after reading "Disestablishment", that I may be perverse, but am not either necessarily insincere or apparently inconsistent.

Pelham, the Bishop of Barrow–in–Furness, sent me a note of approval of my speech, "and even more for the way in which you said it. It was simply magnificent". Nevertheless, the speech was not satisfactory, &, when I sate down, I had the consciousness that I had failed to say what I really wanted to say, & had not succeeded in conveying the intention with which I spoke. Haigh reminded me that in 1921 I had taken another line on the subject of poor clergymen: & I could not but confess frankly that the years had compelled a change of attitude. We may like artisan–candidates or not: but we cannot escape from the fact that there are few others!

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