My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleythe confusion in their minds between Christianity and Socialism; we enquired whypeople who often paraded their religious views in politics had not yet obeyed theinjunction: 'go sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor'.Our proposition was not to make everyone poor, but by a proper organisation ofsociety to make everyone reasonably well-off. To stop the dog-fight of the capitalistworld the first step was not to put ourselves under the dog-fight. Then and since Ifirmly decided to retain sufficient of my money to give me independence, and tomaintain health and energy without which I should be of no use to anyone.The Tories thought that the 'rich Socialists' attack was a real winner in a situation verydifferent to the present affluent society, where such issues scarcely exist. When theneighbouring constituency to Ladywood in the Birmingham area became vacant and Iwas invited to stand, they made it virtually the whole issue of the Smethwick byelectionin 1926. The theme was that I left my Rolls-Royce outside Birmingham andchanged into a Ford, while Cimmie also removed her diamond-covered dress infavour of a more appropriate costume; this puzzled her until she remembered she hadonce appeared in Birmingham with a shawl covered with bits of glass bought in anIndian bazaar. In fact, of course, we turned up in our ordinary clothes and in our usualcar, which I think was a Vauxhall. This business went so far that when OliverBaldwin—the socialist son of the Prime Minister—came to speak for me and found usall eating fish and chips in the local pub, his jovial enquiry—'Where's thechampagne?'—captured the headlines next morning: Baldwin asks Mosley forchampagne. However, the only practical result was the embarrassing pursuit of thejournalists in question with hat-pins by the local Amazons, strong arms which hadnever worn a black shirt.The by-election caused much excitement and attracted considerable publicity. Theresult was to multiply the previous Labour majority nearly five times. The Tories gotit all wrong, as they often do in their different background, for it is not the workingclassbut sometimes the middle-class which is envious. This was vividly illustratedthe following May Day, when I was invited as usual to head the customary processionthrough Birmingham by the local Labour parties and trade unions. Members of theorganising committee approached me with a request that my much-advertised Rolls-Royce should appear in the proceedings, as the boys wanted to show that their manhad a better car than Chamberlain. I had sadly to confess that I had never owned sucha masterpiece.Health knows no envy. The Tories got it wrong because jealousy is a disease, not asymptom of well-being. Abounding vitality may feel compassion, but not envy of thecondition of others. Happily, this deep health is still the quality of the British workers;they retain their original nature. They fear no man, and they envy no man; thischaracter endures and is one of the chief hopes of the future. The Australians say:'Dead fish rot from the head down'. In Britain the rot has not yet reached andpermeated the body of the nation; action in time can forestall that disaster. Mostpeople will get as much as they can for as little effort as possible, if a society built onillusion provides opportunity, or temptation. Yet the workers of our country still feelit is unnatural to get something for nothing, and they have a basic contempt for thosewho seek such an existence. That is why in a decadent society renaissance is mostlikely to come from the mass of the people.160 of 424