My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleywas only to be fought in the defence of the Empire or in resistance to any vital threatto its interest. But it was quite compatible with this position to have a common foreignpolicy within Europe in relation to the rest of the world, and commercialarrangements with the rest of Europe would have followed inevitably. What I wasthen advocating was almost exactly similar to the present development of Europeanunion on the basis of a rigorous conservation of national sovereignty. For this reasonmy supporters claim that I was at least ten years ahead of any other advocate ofEuropean union.After the war, of course, I went much farther in declaring the principle of Europe aNation in 1948, but the speeches now in question were delivered in 1936. I said onFebruary 21, 1936: 'Our generation was sacrificed to bring to an end the balance ofpower which divided European civilisation into two armed and hostile camps. Theavowed purpose of the League of Nations was to consecrate that sacrifice in a newworld system. . . . Again our generation is challenged to save the ideal of which theold men cheat us once again. Shall Europe be divided or unite?' Then on June 25 inthe same year: 'What then is the alternative to the present League of Nations? Theonly alternative is the union of Europe, as opposed to the division of Europe under theold balance of power which now wears the tattered label League of Nations.The union of Europe was the determination of the war generation at the end of the war,and the hope that the League of Nations would achieve that idea alone led to itssupport. Meantime, with cant of League and peace, the financial democrats divideEurope in their vendetta, which jeopardises the peace of the world, while they neglectthe first duty of any government in the present situation, which is to arm Britain withthe utmost speed against any contingency and threat. In the confusion and collapse ofBritish foreign policy but one alternative emerges, and that is the union of Europe,which alone can rest on a bloc of the great powers, united in common interest andinspired by a new world ideal.'The League of Nations, which in my youth I had so ardently supported as a newinstrument of world peace, had failed for reasons of personal weakness instatesmanship already noted, and by this time had been turned into an instrument ofthe balance of power which from historic experience I regarded as an inevitableprelude to war. The balance of power had always brought war, and now it hadreturned with the Axis powers in one scale and the League powers in the other; aperversion of every high aspiration of the war generation. It seemed clear to me thatthe only escape from the coming fatality was the union of Europe in much the sameterms and to much the same degree as are now being sought thirty years later.It will of course be replied that any form of union in Europe was impossible with thestatesmen in power in Germany and Italy, and to that I have already made someanswer. We should have worked with them in common European politics andinterests which they declared they too desired to serve, so long as that proved possible,and I personally believe it would have been possible because our interests werecomplementary rather than conflicting. But if it proved impossible we should havebeen in a strong and safe position, our national sovereignty fully preserved and ourarmaments equal to any in the world. If things had gone well we could havedeveloped both the British Empire and a gradual European union. If things had gonebadly we should have been in a far stronger position than when the old parties took us319 of 424