The Henson Journals

[340]

Monday, September 23rd, 1929.

George Trevelyan, in acknowledging a copy of my Charge, sends me a friendly letter. He says that he had read it "with great interest and admiration"

I wrote strongly to Caröe about the state of the Chapel, exposed with its clerestory windows emptied of their glass to the full violence of the equinoctial gales.

I motored to Newcastle, & attended a meeting in "Bible House", Pilgrim Street. It was held in a small room which was densely crowded, & was presided over by the deputy Lord Mayor. I made a short & foolish speech in seconding the adoption of the Report of the Hospital Sunday and Hospital Saturday Fund. Then I went to Dellow's and had my hair washed, after which I returned to Auckland. There was unusually little traffic on the road, so that we traversed the whole distance – 25 miles – in 50 minutes, which is a very decent pace.

[341]

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"Unlike the Spaniards, they (the French in St Domingue) shrank with horror from the slightest tinge of African blood". (Note: 'At the present day the French attitude to colour is a complete contrast). In Jamaica "the general mass of its European population consisted of those 'exotic whites' who had come out, not to settle, but to make money, & go home. There were a great many Jews, & Scotsmen abounded. Relations with coloured women were all but universal: even the married planter had often a mixed family of whites & browns."

(v Mathieson "British Slavery & its Abolition 1823 – 1838 p 53, 59)

What is the explanation of the change in the attitude of French & English towards the negro? Why do the French no longer object to intercourse with the black people? Why have the English come to regard such intercourse as abhorrent? Our sentimental concern for Africans has gone along with a growing repugnance. Why?

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