My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyhave to live with their parents for lack of accommodation. For years I have urged anational housing programme like an operation of war; the phrase was picked up andused long after as what is called a gimmick in contemporary politics; yet nothing wasdone about it. I meant it, and it can be done. It entails cutting right through the wholerigmarole of present local authority procedure and building houses by the samemethods as shells, airplanes and mulberry harbours were produced, in time of war.The restrictions of the present system and the timidity of politicians alone impede it;these inhibitions must be overcome.It will be apparent to the reader that many of the policies I have so long advocatedclash with present thinking and with vested interest. Particularly the directintervention of government in questions of wages and prices is resisted in themistaken belief that it threatens the position of the trade unions. When eleven yearsafter my initial suggestion one of the ablest intellects in a Labour Government beganto see 'new patterns' of economic policy in the possible intervention of government inwages and prices, a precipitate retreat followed in face of trade union opposition; thepresent hesitant application of any such policy is entirely negative; never positive in areadjustment of all rewards.2 Trade union traditions in bitter memory of the past tendto slow the pace of the fast to that of the slow; dark shadows of unemployment andthe unprotected worker still haunt the bright prospects of a scientific age. Not only myadvocacy for the past eleven years of economic leadership by government through thewage-price mechanism, but also my still longer insistence on payment by results in allspheres and ranks of industry and my new proposals for the provision of incentivethrough the fiscal system, are liable to collide at present not with reason but withindustrial atavism.Reduction of government expenditureYet I am no enemy of trade unionism, never have been and never will be. On thecontrary, I can see an even bigger part for it in the modern world; for instance insecuring a better method of administration. Reduction of wasteful expenditure isessential if our economy is not to founder in a sea of all-engulfing taxation. Presentbureaucracy in the necessary and desirable welfare state should be largely replaced bythe administration of trade unions and employers' federations, and much of theoperation of the welfare state should be made genuinely contributory. People shouldno longer be mulcted to pay for benefits they do not want, but only charged for thebenefits they desire. Such a system would immediately bring to an end the blatantscandal of present practices. Large economies in this sphere can be added to theconsiderable saving effected by cutting down unnecessary external commitmentsthrough policies already described. Further general economies can be secured eitherby the attachment to each department of a watchdog responsible to higher authority,or by the rationing of departments. Taxation must be drastically reduced by thecutting of expenditure as well as transferred from the direct to the indirect method.Nothing is more important to our present situation than the strenuous reduction ofinflated expenditure and the elimination of waste. There is no doubt that swollengovernment expenditure coupled with a lax credit policy is the prime cause ofinflation. Trade unions are blamed because wages are continually chasing a rise ofprice caused by government policy. Their members do not suffer so much as peoplewith fixed incomes, or as many highly skilled people who have no trade union to lookafter them. Yet all workers, and the whole nation, suffer in some degree from inflationand the continual rise of prices. Government expenditure must be severely reduced415 of 424