My Life

My Life - Oswald MosleyEarly in the Parliament of 1918 we formed an organisation called the New Members'Group, which was quickly nicknamed the Centre Party by the Press. It was composedmostly of members who had fought in the war, and numbered about one hundred andfifty. The Chairman was Oscar Guest, the brother of Lloyd George's Chief Whip, andthe joint secretaries were Colin Coote, afterwards editor of the Daily Telegraph, andmyself. None of my associates at that time have any responsibility for my further aimsor subsequent life course, which were not yet apparent and indeed were not yet cleareven to me. We met and we discussed, but not much more happened. The limitationwas the power of the Party machine, which in the absence of grave crisis is alwaysoverwhelming in British politics.These M.P.s of the war generation were very sincere and idealistic. What were theirmotives? Primarily to secure the fulfilment of the programme on which they wereelected, an advanced policy of social reform declared in passionate and moving termsby Lloyd George. After the sacrifice of the war generation, the world was never to bethe same again, and that Parliament in its social programme was to erect a monumentto the fallen; at least, so I understood from the speeches of our leaders, and I think agood many others did too.There quickly grew a sense that these aims were to be frustrated. It has never been forme quite true that this House of Commons was divided sharply between the wargeneration and the 'hard-faced men', as Keynes described them. The experience ofthat war was even more liable to harden the features than the process of making profitin business. The soldiers back from the war were not all idealists and the businessmenwere not all war profiteers. Yet there was a certain psychological division which canperhaps best be expressed in the simple fact that the war generation was moredisposed to take the 1918 programmes seriously.I would not for a moment claim that many of them shared my ideas to the full. Thecombination of socialism and imperialism would have seemed quaint to most of them.My cross-party position was already finding some form in the political theory that youcould neither have order and stability without progress, nor progress without orderand stability. A synthesis of left and right was a practical requirement of political life.It is unlikely that they were thinking in these terms, and we did not hold discussionson these lines, but the Centre Party was a band of serious people believing that ourprogramme of 1918 should be implemented. We felt in general and in particular thatthe organisation built in the war should not be sold for scrap. This soon tended in onedetail to a certain friction, as some of our parliamentary colleagues were acquiringwar stores at scrap prices. Our group was filled with good intentions and with someincipient indignation. We were looking among the more experienced for leaders withthe same feeling. It did not occur to me as baby of the House, aged twenty-two, or toany of the others that we could at that stage play leading parts. We were fresh fromthe discipline of the army hierarchy, and in any case felt that we were tyros at thepolitical business, with everything to learn. We must look to the experienced generalsof politics on their chosen battle-grounds; we invited them to dinner.These dinners took place at the Criterion, and the first memorable occasion was whenMr. Churchill was our guest. I already had experience of his oratorical processes.After my maiden speech and in the early days of the Centre Party he seemedinterested in me and developed a kindly flattery, seeking my opinion as typical of the86 of 424