My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyposture in becoming attitudes before the television cameras. One night such apersonality can say what he has to say to the whole nation in a quiet face-to-face talkin the studio. The next night he can advertise to the world his toleration; his warmhumane character can be paraded before the whole people by forbidding his stewardsto eject a few interrupters at one of his rare public meetings. It does not matter to himif his audience cannot hear a word he has to say; he can address the world the nightbefore or the night after in the calm of the studio, and the purpose of the publicmeeting is better secured by advertising his kindly forbearance than his oratoricalinadequacy. It was different in my days of public meetings: I had to be heard orpolitically cease to exist, and at no time since 1934 have I had the facilities of theBBC. If today the State denies a man the means to secure free speech for himself, ithas the duty itself in one form or another to maintain his right of free speech.The patriotism, courage, idealism and dedication of the blackshirt movement aloneprotected our cause in the thirties from organised violence. Those who control the oldworld combined in an effort to destroy the spirit of these young men, and at leastsucceeded in producing a supreme profusion of the opposite type. Do they now feel itis keeping really fine for them?— or are some of them beginning to wonder whetherthey would like a change? For my part, I am proud of having organised and led amovement which stopped Red violence and restored free speech to Britain, and if Iwere ever faced again with anarchy or a communist conspiracy which sought to ruinmy country, I would be prepared under the law with other methods in othercircumstances to do it again.The speech which moved the blackshirts and an audience of eight thousand people inthe Albert Hall on a March evening in 1935 would echo as strangely to somecontemporary ears as words from another planet, but I believe that in the widercontext and greater possibility of Europe—in a society free from the violence whichthen assailed us—a revival and extension of this same first instinct of patriotism willfind a higher expression and further mission.'We count it a privilege to live in an age when England demands that great thingsshall be done, a privilege to be of the generation which learns to say what can we giveinstead of what can we take. For thus our generation learns there are greater thingsthan slothful ease; greater things than safety; more terrible things than death.'This shall be the epic generation which scales again the heights of time and history tosee once more the immortal lights—the lights of sacrifice and high endeavoursummoning through ordeal the soul of humanity to the sublime and the eternal. Thealternatives of our age are heroism or oblivion. There are no lesser paths in the historyof great nations. Can we, therefore, doubt which path to choose? 'Let us tonight at thisgreat meeting give the answer. Hold high the head of England; lift strong the voice ofEmpire. Let us to Europe and to the world proclaim that the heart of this great peopleis undaunted and invincible. This flag still challenges the winds of destiny. This flamestill burns. This glory shall not die. The soul of Empire is alive, and England againdares to be great.'264 of 424