My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyover Snowden, who was better versed in Robert Owen and the English socialisttradition. Mond could speak with reason and with wit whose effect was enhanced byhis peculiar voice and appearance. He would set elaborate traps for his opponents, andprepared one on this occasion. As gifted in intellect as he was deficient in looks, theorator affirmed that socialism was impracticable because of the diversity of humanattainments: 'Some are beautiful, others are not'. When the cheers of the irreverent hadsubsided, he turned to them with an ingratiating leer which anticipated Groucho Marxby several years, and added: 'Some are clever, others are not'. Few men in this periodhave so combined intellectual, business and political acumen in such high degree; orthe capacities of both branches of the Marx talent.Such was the happy but inconsequent comedy of what MacDonald described in one ofhis letters which I still retain as 'this dear old place'. The real forces in the LabourParty were outside Parliament, as they are today. It was the great trade union leaderswho really ruled; they held the purse strings, and the trade unions' massedmembership was the basis of the Labour Party. Their votes settled all issues at partyconferences, and secured the election not only of the trade union members of theNational Executive but also of the constituency representatives as well. This methodof electing Executive members has since been altered and the constituency partiesalone elect their members to the National Executive. But I depended in my day on thevotes of the trade unions to secure my election to the National Executive, as theyoutnumbered by an immense majority the vote of the constituency parties on which Icould always count after my speaking campaigns throughout the country. Myspeaking also contributed much to the rank and file support for me within the tradeunions, which must have overcome the prejudice of some of the leaders against me inorder to secure my election to the National Executive.My closest companion in the trade union world was A. J. Cook, the miners' leader, anEnglish figure, a true product of England if ever there was one. It was not generallyknown that he was born the son of an English private soldier in a barracks in York,because he rose to fame through the Miners' Federation in Wales, by the simpleprocess, as he so often told me, of turning up at miners' meetings and denouncing theexisting and highly popular leader 'old Mabon' as a crook; his proudest exhibits werethe scars on his head caused by the windows through which over a considerableperiod the miners used to throw him. Will, endurance and at least the partial justice ofhis complaints triumphed in the end; he was a living symbol of the peculiar processby which alone a reality achieves the final acceptance of the British people.Arthur Cook was regarded as the most dangerous revolutionary in the country. Inreality, he had one of the coolest and best heads among the Labour leaders. Hismethods, however, suggested the contrary. I got to know him well when we wereelected to speak together by the miners at their immense meetings like the DurhamGala, he from the trade union side and I from the political side. On such occasions heappeared as the acme of demagogy. After the long march past of the miners withbands blaring and banners flaunting — which may have first suggested to an errantyoung man that colourful methods were not so inappropriate to British politics assome supposed—we repaired to a large field below the castle where AJ. put up hisclassic performances. Sometimes stripped to the waist on a hot August afternoon, hedealt in rhythmic slogans rather than in normal speech. Once, after a little recenttrouble between unemployed miners and the police, a few of the familiar helmets180 of 424