My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyfrom the truth. It is a tribute to the integrity of the department that its officials workwith equal loyalty to a Minister whether they agree with him or not, provided theMinister knows his own mind. That proviso is vital, for if an incompetent Minister inan inept administration wanders into the Treasury or any other department asking—'What do we do next?'—the answer is likely to be a negative, a reply indicating theirestimate of the government's capacity. If the Minister defines clearly what he wants todo after listening carefully to everything they have to say, and gives clear instructions,he may count on their entire loyalty in executing government policy even when theycompletely disagree with it. More often than not most of them disagreed with me, butthey always helped me, and I shall always be grateful to them. The same willingassistance came from other departments. I had a task rare to the point of being uniquein government administration, having direct access to all the main departments ofState and the right personally to consult their Civil Servants on any subject. From thisexperience I derived a lasting benefit.My method was to wrestle out practical policy in continual conference with variousdepartments. For this purpose I had little personal assistance, in fact only the TreasurySecretary, Donald Wardley. John Strachey was my Parliamentary Private Secretaryand Allan Young remained with me as a private secretary, but as they could not attendthe departmental conferences where everything was done, they could not be of muchassistance in this work. Donald Wardley, who always accompanied me, was a towerof strength. A splendid character, much decorated for bravery in the First World War,he was always calm, clear-headed and helpful. His personality was charming and hisinterests were diverse; he was afterwards responsible for Treasury work with thenational art treasures.We were charged with the task of assisting a man who was entirely incapable ofunderstanding the subject, J. H. Thomas. It was impossible to dislike Jimmy, as herequired all the world to call him, for he had many endearing qualities. A man wasindeed disarming who at a meeting of the railwaymen he had led for so many yearscould reply to angry shouts of, 'You have sold us, Jimmy,' with the jovial rejoinder:'Well, I've been trying bloody 'ard, but I'm darned if I can find a buyer'. He was alsoby no means a fool and proved himself a shrewd negotiator for the railwaymenwhom— with the usual reservation of a chance to make money—he served well formost of his working life. Oliver Stanley once remarked to me from his vantage-pointin the city that Jimmy was finding it more difficult to move in and out of the market inthe 1929-30 period than previously, when he was selling a bear on railway stockbefore a strike he called or threatened himself; he would no doubt have claimedamong his cronies that this was a little perquisite of office which his abilities andservices justified.However, in the 1929 Government the truth was soon obvious; Thomas found himselfin a sea of new problems completely out of his depth. It was one thing to manoeuvreskilfully with all his natural cunning in railway negotiations on a set of facts andfigures which a lifetime of slowly acquired experience had enabled him to master. Itwas another to deal rapidly with novel problems and multitudinous difficultiescovering the whole area of State and industry in a pressing and menacing situation.An able K.C. would probably have grasped in a weekend the basic facts and figureswhich were Thomas's armoury in railway negotiations, and he was certainly familiarwith them after that progress through life which he once celebrated in the striking193 of 424