Politics

Moral pitfalls

In a speech at West Hartlepool, the Bishop of Durham, avoiding what he called '. . .the usual cant and compliment', had denounced the miner, for striking and for 'ca'canny, (working to rule) in the pits. A few days later, in Ferryhill, where he had been holding a confirmation, he came out of the church and got into his car, which was then surrounded by a crowd of miners who booed him. The Bishop stood up in his car, which was open, and addressed the striking miners. He challenged them to deny that 'ca'canny' was dishonourable and dishonest. He spoke about the 'effect of dear coal on the desperately poor folk of East London, among whom I had lived, and I begged them to remember that, by comparison with them, the miners might almost be described as a privileged minority of the working population.'*

The bishop concluded: "Now, Gentle- men, I am not unemployed as unfortunate- ly you are. I have much to do: and I must therefore bid you good night." I lifted my hat, and signalled to the chauffeur to go home. The men broke out into cheers, and so we parted in good humour.'

This Bishop of Durham was Herbert Hensley Henson, the incident took place in 1921. In the miners' strike of 1926, Henson took a similar line, and his car was stoned as he drove through Birtley on his way to hospital to have his appendix out. Henson had been exhorted to follow the example of Bishop Westcott, who as Bishop of Durham during the coal strike of 1892, had successfully interceded with the coal own- ers; but he pointed out that Westcott's intervention had been to plead for mercy for the miners after they had clearly been defeated, and not to resolve the dispute. Henson also understood how the bishop's situation had changed: 'The power and prestige of the Bishop of Durham have greatly declined, and his Lordship can no longer count on the measure of deference which, even so late as a generation ago, was readily conceded to him. In any dispute he would still be gladly accepted as an ally and apologist, and would be recom- pensed with prodigious flattery; but as a guide, or counsellor, or arbitrator, he is little likely to be desired...'

On the more general question of the public pronouncements of any bishop dur- ing the coal strike, Henson wrote in his journal in 1926:

It might also he worthwhile to direct atten- tion to the curiously limited range of episcop- al intervention. When it might fairly he thought that the bishops possess both know- lege and responsibility (as, for instance, the oppression of individuals by 'peaceful picket- ing', the breaking of contracts by strikers, the vile method of traducing the personal character of political opponents, etc), the bishops are almost totally silent; but in matters of which they must be inadequately equipped with knowledge. . . they are fre- quently vocal, dogmatic, and persistent.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the coal disputes of the 1920s, it seems fair to say that Henson's conduct during them was both honest and brave. Unlike most Bishops of Durham, before and since, he knew the area well, because he had been Dean of Durham, and he noticed that many of his clergy were frightened of the miners and therefore 'servile'. He did not presume to recommend how a settlement should be achieved or what it should consist of: he did think carefully about the moral questions involved. In particular, he reflected on the contradictions between the demands of trade union loyalty and the duties of religion:

We are finding out now the effect of the constant preaching of the new 'Class-ethic' which has marked recent years. It has completely replaced the morality of Christ- ianity even in the minds of regular church- goers. I don't suppose a single moment's thought was given to the question of moral rightness, when the railwaymen, and others who are communicants, obeyed the sum- mons to come out in the General Strike, although their doing so involved breach of contract, and a grave injury to other people.

This is no longer a community in which freedom of speech can truthfully be said to exist.. .

One would not have to share Henson's hostility to trade unionism to agree with him that in any strike, and particularly in a coal strike, the strike organisers have a moral charge to answer. They deliberately make life difficult for other people — not just their direct 'enemies', the Coal Board and the Government, but people in gener- al, often people poorer than themselves. They use methods of persuasion which come near, even at the best of times, to coercion, and in the present strike, have involved violence and a refusal to consult union members properly. They damage their own industry, and so make its future success more unlikely. All these charges have obvious force: anyone making an honest case for a strike could not brush them aside. Yet no prelate or comparable moral commentator has brought these charges at all. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was more unequivocal than most in condemning the violence of the pickets, has not addressed the first question — is it right for the miners to

*All quotations are taken from Hensley Henson's autobiography, Retrospect of an Unimportant Life

strike?

Since no one who is not partisan in the matter has asked this question,

all the unpartisan and apparently conciliatory pronouncements on the strike are empty. The fact that miners live in 'tightly knit communities' is meant to excuse and even justify the strikers' conduct. Because there is a primitive simplicity about mining and mining villages, churchmen think of them as purer and more neighbourly than the characteristic suburban arrangements of modern times. (Which, by the way, is a neat example of the Church's self- destructiveness — it derives most of its active membership from the suburbs.) One might have supposed that the events of this strike would have helped to illustrate some of the horrors of tightly knit communities, with their inveterate hatreds, their rule of fear and their intolerance of privacy and independence. One might even formulate a rule — the more tightly knit, the more violent. But one can suppose and formu- late away and the Bishops will be un- moved. They have long been schooled to believe that it is unChristian to say any- thing that is harsh, and they have taken this to mean that they should not say anything that it is true.

The resulting moral vacuum i's filled by someone who is not up to the task — Mrs Thatcher. It says something for her special genius in these matters that she has man- aged to present the most indulgent offer ever made to the miners as an example of her legendary resolve not to give an inch. By combining antagonistic talk with weak- ness in action — her Government still discourages nationalised industries from invoking the civil laws in their defence — she has diminished the authority of her office. She becomes one argumentative woman pitted against an argumentative man, so that after a bit one ceases to care whether either is right and merely longs for both to shut up.

It is a shameful thing for anyone writing in these pages to say, but one cannot avoid noticing that, as the strike has progressed, the Energy Secretary, Mr Peter Walker, has acquitted himself with more distinction than his leader. This is because his natural instinct for concession has been fully appeased. The Coal Board's offer in July was so generous that even Mr Walker knows that it cannot be bettered, so there is no danger from him; and since he enjoys conceding and handing out he is much better at boasting about the offer than Mrs Thatcher is. It is because of Mrs Thatcher that ill-informed people such as elderly imported bishops imagine that there is still more that the miners could be given --- they cannot believe that the old meanie really has got nothing left. But the truth is that, in economic terms, this Government has given in already. So it might as well give in gracefully, and for that Mr Walker is your man.

Charles Moore