My Life

My Life - Oswald MosleyFor me it is difficult to write fairly on the subject of Mr. Baldwin, because I have aparticular antipathy to the type of Englishman who successfully stakes a claim forexceptional honesty by a continual parade of simple virtues which in truth are atstriking variance to the slowly revealed facts. In my experience honesty in Britishpolitics is often in inverse ratio to the pretensions of its claimants. For instance, over along period Winston Churchill and F. E. Smith were held by their contemporaries tobe unprincipled adventurers, while Baldwin was always accepted at his face value.Yet whatever can be thought or said of the characters and policies of Churchill andSmith, they always openly declared their principles and stood for them courageously,while Baldwin not only concealed his aims but retreated from them in a shufflingopportunism of personal and party expediency. Britain pays dearly for the transientsuccess of these types in our politics. The fine old dockers' M.P., James Sexton, laiddown an instructive and occasionally valid rule for the political neophyte: 'Wheneversomeone calls me comrade, I always put my hand on my watch'.Meantime, we carried on the fight for rearmament from every platform in face of allthe 'mobbing'; at any rate it did not take us long to stop that nonsense of the militantpacifists. Much of the 'mobbing' came from supporters of the Labour Party, whichwas voting in the House of Commons against the defence estimates while some of itsrank and file were conducting the pacifist agitation in the country which so frightenedMr. Baldwin. Their pacifist principles however in no way deterred many of them fromconducting a furious agitation against Germany, of which the only logical outcomewas war.Was it unfair on our platform battle of that time to say: 'All wars are good to theSocialist Party on three conditions: the first, that the war should be in the interest ofthe Soviets and not in the interest of Britain; the second, that our troops have no armswith which to fight; and the third, that socialist leaders are not included among thetroops'. (June 26, 1936.) My punches were not pulled in attacking the policy of warwithout arms: 'Labour is the party of war without preparation. Labour is the partywhich makes trouble and leaves others to do the fighting.' 'To seek war is a crime: toseek war without the means of war is more than crime, it is madness.'Our first demand was therefore that Britain should be rearmed and strong enough tomeet any attack, no matter whence it came. We eschewed entry into foreign quarrels,but were determined to guard our own country and Empire. Our popular slogans ofthe period were 'Mind Britain's Business' and 'Britons fight for Britain only'. However,this basic policy of developing the British Empire and allowing nothing to distract usfrom this primary purpose did not isolate us from world affairs or inhibit thedevelopment of great policies. We had our contribution to make, and it was at leastclearly stated. It is possible to put your own country first and yet to play a large part inworld politics; modern experience certainly proves this to be possible, butunfortunately the experience is not British.The union of Europe was the subject of my passionate advocacy in foreign policy.This was in no way incompatible with our imperial policy. Let us be absolutely clearas to our basic principles of policy at that time. National sovereignty was completelypreserved, separate national armament was to be maintained with British strengthequal to any in the world; the Empire was to be developed as a political and economicentity with strong measures against the introduction of sweated competition, and war318 of 424