My Life

My Life - Oswald MosleyMinister of Education he was in a key position. Charles Trevelyan had a long,saturnine face and a fine head. He was very sincere and more forceful than theBuxtons, rather excitable, passionate, and devoted to his causes and his friends.Arthur Ponsonby had been a page to Queen Victoria and his brother Fritz Ponsonbywas a lynchpin of the Edwardian court. More than any other in this circle, ArthurPonsonby had broken from the Establishment, outraging prevailing sentiment after theFirst World War with a short book which really changed opinion. He took threestories of German atrocities in that war, the nuns who had their breasts cut off, thechildren who had their hands hacked off, and the corpses which were boiled down tomake soap. With long research he proved that all three stories were completely untrue.The pendulum then swung very far the other way and nobody in the Labour Partyever believed again any German was anything but an angel, until the socialist leadersin that country, whom they resembled so closely, were swept from the political scenein the early thirties. Prominent among the Germano-philes was the honest and gifted E.D. Morel, who came from a middle-class family and spent his life exposing theinjustices of the Versailles Treaty and prophesying the inevitability of an explosion.He was proved right, but by then the fears and prejudices of the Labour Party hadstood his argument on its head, and reversed every principle for which the party hadever stood, in their drive toward a second world war for the destruction of theirpolitical enemies.These aristocrats or landed proprietors of the Ponsonby-Trevelyan-Buxton type werea big disappointment to MacDonald, for they took the principles of the Labour Partyseriously. He welcomed them all warmly as recruits to the Right who he hoped wouldgive stability as well as respectability to the party; but to his consternation they all atonce joined the Left and became the main motive power of progressive ideas andforward policies. They had not left their background, their interests and theirfriendships for the simple purpose of placing Messrs MacDonald, Snowden andThomas comfortably and securely in the seats of office. They were determined to dosomething for the mass of the people whose conditions had moved them to a certainsacrifice, as well as for world peace, to which they were entirely dedicated. It wasnewcomers more typical of the middle class who proved reliable in support of theLabour Party hierarchy. Foremost among these was Dr. Dalton. The 'Dr.' was muchemphasised in the party, for Labour loved a don like the Tories loved a lord.There are few things more valuable than a first-rate don, e.g. Keynes; there are fewthings more disastrous than a third-rate don, e.g. Dalton. Both coming fromCambridge, they shared the friendship of Rupert Brooke, who is on record as findingDalton rather fatiguing. Later in life, Dalton's courting was transferred to the tradeunion M.P.s, on whose support alone he could rely for his party eminence. Never aman of the first rank in debate, where he was loud of voice but flat of foot, he was animble and assiduous worker in the lobbies. He patrolled them continuously, his largewall eyes rolling in search of the trade union quarry round whose shoulders theavuncular arm would be placed with the query, 'How is the family?' It was almost assafe and effective as Disraeli's classic question as leader of the country squires—'How is the old complaint?'—except in the very rare case of a trade union bachelor.He had to lobby hard and I had to speak hard to secure our trade union support, but hewas also elected to the National Executive. Like all third-rate dons, he was183 of 424