My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyonly appeared later was in no way valid. They could easily have learnt what theyneeded to know either by talking to Keynes or to the brilliant R. C. Hawtrey, who wasthen in the Treasury. They preferred to follow Montagu Norman, who was wont toexplain that in economic affairs he followed his nose. I would roughly assess my debton economic thinking about equally, fifty-fifty to Keynes and to the staff of theFederal Reserve Board in those early days. They already had the idea, but wereinhibited from effective action by politicians who knew nothing of the subject, by theprejudice, vanity and archaic opinions which led to 1929.Another interesting aspect of American life was the private enterprise corporationconducted on a non-profit making basis, which achieved extraordinary results. Forinstance, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company of New York at that time had noapparent profit motive whatever. The principal executives were paid large salaries byour standards at that time, the Chief had £30,000 a year and his main assistants had£5,000 a year each, but they had no profit incentive, beyond drawing their salaries, inthe success or failure of the concern. Its success was remarkable. Some twelve millionpolicy holders derived extraordinary benefits. They came mostly from the populationof the poorest immigrants, and were looked after from the time of their arrival inAmerica until their well-provided funerals. They were even met at the boat andpersonally accompanied to their destination; thereafter they were cared for with atruly paternal solicitude. An extensive propaganda among them supervised theirhealth and way of life in every detail. 'Swat that fly and clean that saucepan' and manyother admonitions were their daily injunctions. Any British Minister of Health wouldhave been sacked at once for wasting public money on such a scale.Yet the hard dollar results of all this expenditure and effort was remarkable. Themortality line of the immigrants had been above the mortality average, but just beforemy arrival it had crossed the national average and become less; the chief executiveshowed me the point of the transition on his graph with triumph. The result wastherefore to spare the Corporation millions of dollars, for the saving of illnesspayments and deferment of death payments much exceeded the propagandaexpenditure. Here was private enterprise achieving results in the most dramatic andbeneficent fashion without any regard to profit motive. There was much for theEuropean to learn in America.Already was apparent a sense of service; Ich dien was passing to America. Thispeople, who were supposed to care for nothing but grabbing money quickly, werealready producing an elite which desired to serve its fellow men, a tendency which isdeveloping and growing more rapidly now. Europeans may laugh or cry sometimes attheir efforts in Asia or Africa, where we had some success for generations, or deploretheir intervention, their errors and disasters which we could have avoided. The headmay still be weak in those affairs, but the spirit is willing, and it is spirit in the endwhich counts. In this sphere character is yet more important than intelligence, forintellect can be bought but character cannot.Perhaps it is now partly true to say that America has too much character and too littleintellect, but Europeans have too much intellect and too little character. Yet in thesecircumstances we will not join with Mr. Canning in bringing in the New World toredress the balance of the Old, but rather will summon once more from Europe thecharacter, will and spirit which has been the inspiration of the world and can be again.175 of 424