The Henson Journals

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Friday, November 15th, 1929.

I carried my bags to the Athenaeum, & then walked to Dean's Yard for the Debate on this everlasting business of Church Schools. The Bishop of Liverpool introduced the subject by moving that the Majority Report of the Commission on Religious Education be 'received'. He spoke well and persuasively. He was followed by the Bishop of Gloucester, who was loudly cheered. Evidently his violent letters in the Times exactly expresses the mind of a considerable section of the clergy. He moved the reception of the Minority Report, and spoke for 35 minutes. He is at no time a ready speaker, & he was clearly not in his best form: he made a statement about the Commission which was immediately & directly contradicted by the Bishop of Liverpool. But his opinions were so generally acceptable as to be applauded.

[451]

I followed in a speech of about the same length. My advocacy of Disestablishment has undoubtedly for the time being destroyed whatever position in the Assembly I had. However I was moderately cheered when I went on to the platform. I subjected the Minority Report to some rather severe criticism, and said some true & odious things about Church Schools & Undenomininationalism. I ended on a rather high note, & when I left the platform there was considerable applause. The audience could not see how to disprove what nevertheless they loathed, & they thought the speech too good not to be applauded! The Bishops and Laity liked it much better than the Clergy. I left the Assembly after making my speech, for my teeth gave me so much discomfort that I found sitting still difficult. I walked to the Athenaeum, & lunched there with the Bishop of Barrow–in–Furness.

[452]

Fog began to thicken over London, and I feared that my journey to King's Cross might become difficult, so I left the Club and drove to the station with the result that I had a long & cheerless wait before the train. My only fellow traveller in the compartment was a stout man, who introduced himself to me as the Solicitor General (Sir J. B. Melville K.C.) who sits for Gateshead, and is a Papist. We talked amicably enough, but I had to practice considerable restraint in speaking of his colleagues, of whom one of the most offensive, Lansbury, was on the train!

He admitted to being opposed to female suffrage, & the policy of admitting women to all civic functions. ''I see them on juries'', he said, ''and I am sure that they don't follow the arguments, or really understand the cases set out to them.''

I have heard the same opinion expressed by other eminent lawyers, and it must have real foundation. Women do not in my experience of them have any real concern for justice.

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