My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyterms and he listened to my account with kindness and patience. He then said quiteclearly and definitely that agents of the British Crown did not behave as I had beeninformed. This was not the way of the British people and I could dismiss the wholeincredible tale from my mind. He was the embodiment of the mandarin: 'See no evil,hear no evil, speak no evil'. Yet I was convinced that the alleged events were at leastin part true, and urgently required investigation. I had no other recourse except toraise the matter in the House of Commons.Then came the storm; they simply, crudely meant to put me down. I resisted, and useda method which soon won me a hearing again in the House of Commons. It was direct,often brutal personal attack with every available sarcasm, satire and invective. Ibecame what Disraeli called a 'master of flouts and jibes and jeers'. They shut upbecause they were otherwise covered with personal ridicule. I picked out the noisiestand went for them direct until silence reigned. Sir Colin Coote has observed of me inthis period that I could 'flay the skin off anybody inefficient in debate', but added ineffect that I was then so intolerably insolent and arrogant in speech and in my wholedemeanour that he apparently developed a life-long dislike of me. It was probably truethat I appeared insupportable, but I was fighting for my parliamentary life and had touse the roughest weapons to survive. The modest mien of polite English society andthe humble approach of the best parliamentary tradition would have beeninappropriate.Throughout this period I was sustained by the moral support of the upright, able, andexperienced parliamentarians with whom I was then closely associated, and oftenassisted and sometimes led by their intervention in these debates. Henry Bentinck didnot cross the floor of the House, but spoke with courage on the Irish issue from theConservative benches. He obtained a hearing, albeit a rough one, because he had beenthere a long time and his vagaries in espousing moral causes had made him somethingof an established institution. His position was particularly delicate, as his beautifuland charming wife maintained throughout the stoutest Ulster convictions, which in noway impaired her relations either with her husband or his friends. The two Cecilswent so far for a brief period as to speak from the front Opposition bench. They toohad been licensed by time in their deviations from the Conservative norm, althoughthey encountered much opposition in debate from their own party on this Irish issue.Hugh Cecil had been one of the ablest and most militant propagandists of the freetrade cause when his party, under the auspices of Joseph Chamberlain,wholeheartedly embraced protection, and Robert Cecil's thought and policies at thattime had only slight contact with true Conservative doctrine.Our group soon found some affinity with Liberals who were moved by the moralissues of the Irish question. Foremost among them in the Irish fight was Wedgwood-Benn, who later joined the Labour Party. He had a fine fighting record in the FirstWorld War, and in parliamentary debate combined courage with ability. He was atremendous worker, to an almost obsessive extent, and even devised and daily charteda life graph on which he judged himself by the line of work accomplished to his ownexacting standards. In addition to this novel preoccupation he had a clear mind, atongue quick and ready in debate and a vast fund of moral passion which inspired hisunflinching stand. He was a small man with an explosive personality who used to gofor Winston Churchill like a fox-terrier at a badger, to be met on one hilariousoccasion with the retort: 'the Honourable Member must really not develop more128 of 424