My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyappeared peacefully on the edge of the orderly crowd of some 100,000. A.J. started achant of furious monotony like the beating of tom-toms— 'Bloody Bluebottles,Bloody Bluebottles'—and it echoed back from the vast audience like the roar of thesea. No one was any the worse, and two hours later we were sitting calmly with otherminers' leaders in the local pub with A. J. Cook discussing economics, of which hehad a remarkable grasp. We became firm friends. He died prematurely, probably as aresult of kicks on the legs by some cowardly louts who had once attacked him on arailway station. The Labour Party was haunted by such early mortality among theirmen of real resolution, for both Cook and Wheatley in their maturity might havecombined mind and will and acquired an equilibrium which would have made theirdynamism effective.A very different personality was Mr. Ernest Bevin, who later became the favourite ofConservatism and the opponent of Europe. My speaking brought me advantages, butcut both ways, for I always attribute Bevin's life-long antipathy to an occasion whenwe spoke together at a large meeting of his dockers. He had been much publicised inthe Press as the dockers' K.C., and the workers are inclined to be a little suspicious ofleaders who are much lauded by their enemies. Also, he had so long been familiar tothem that they may have become a little bored with his oratory, robust and trenchantthough it was. Possibly for this reason my speech at the meeting got a rousingreception, while his fell rather flat; Mr. Bevin did not like it. We clashed continuouslyat conferences when he opposed my constructive economic policies of the latetwenties and early thirties with the same bovine vehemence which marked hisopposition to Britain's entry into Europe when he was Foreign Secretary in the forties.Finally, he continued to register his dislike not only of my policies but of my personby refusing us passports for four years after the war, despite the disapproval of bothfront benches of an attitude which in principle violated Magna Carta. He could hate;he could do everything but think.The transport workers under Bevin and the miners under Cook at that time wereusually in opposition on the main issues before the party. The third chief of the greattriumvirate of trade unions was J. H. Thomas, with whom I was soon to be linked ingovernment. He was always to be found on the side of Bevin rather than of Cook.These three together could have settled almost any issue within the party, but at thattime they were rarely agreed. There was of course a large complex of other tradeunions with considerable votes at party conferences; I was on good terms with most ofthe leaders, and together with the miners they could secure my election even if therailwaymen's and transport workers' votes were cast against me. At that time I wasone of the few men coming from my background who had intimate contacts in thetrade union world, and felt completely at home in the friendship of a number of itsleaders.The Webbs had considerable influence within the trade unions, though Beatrice Webbwas always at pains to emphasise that she came from a totally different world. I had aconsiderable respect for the grand old couple, whose company with its extremecombination of high thinking and low living I used often to enjoy, and I was inclinedto agree with G. D. H. Cole that at least the Webbs 'had the courage of theirobsolescence'. Sidney Webb was an incongruous figure in the House of Commons,with his benign, academic demeanour and his short legs and goatee beard surmountedby large round shining spectacles. Yet on one occasion a speech of his from the front181 of 424