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British Politician and Philosopher 1896 - 1980
Oswald Mosley was born on November 16th 1896 and was educated at
Winchester College. Afterwards, he entered the Royal Military College at
Sandhurst and in 1914, was gazetted to the 26th. Lancers. Impatient with
inactivity at base, he joined the Royal Flying Corps and within weeks the
18 year old Mosley was flying over German lines as Observer with RFC Ace
Lance Hawker VC. He survived a crash with a damaged leg but was soon back
with his regiment at Loos. Mosley was later discharged due to injuries and
ended the War in the Foreign Office. He entered Parliament as Harrow's
Conservative MP in the Election of 1918 and at 22 was the youngest member
of the House of Commons.
Four years later Oswald Mosley left the Conservatives after his strong
disagreement with the Government's Irish Policy and their use of the
"Black and Tans" (comprised of the unemployed and ex-prisoners
who committed the most appalling acts of murder and torture against
innocent Irish men, women, and children) and Mosley was returned as an
Independent M.P. for Harrow in the 1922 General Election.
In 1924 Mosley joined the Labour Party and following its election victory
in 1929 was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster with a special
responsibility for finding a solution to unemployment. He was the youngest
person to hold Ministerial rank for 50 years. His proposals for job
creation, known as the Mosley Memorandum, were highly regarded at the time
but were not adopted by the Labour Government because of resistance from
financial interests in the City, and after several attempts to persuade
them to take action Mosley resigned from office in 1931. He has been the
only Minister in the twentieth century ever to resign from Government on
the all-important question of unemployment. Shortly afterwards, with the
support of an all-party group of M.Ps, he formed the New Party which
contested the General Election of 1931 advocating Mosley's measures to
combat unemployment. Every one of its candidates was defeated.
By now Mosley was looking with interest at the economic policies that
Mussolini had used to solve unemployment in Italy. During 1932 Mosley
wrote and published his first book, The Greater Britain, in which he set
out his grand plan for the economic, social and political reconstruction
of Britain. On Saturday October 1st. 1932 he founded the British Union of
Fascists to implement his policies.
The programme of what subsequently came to be known as British Union
remained fairly consistent throughout its existence but with different
emphasis depending on current political events. Policy was set out in
great detail in The Greater Britain (1932) and Mosley's other major
inter-war book Tomorrow We Live (1938); The Coming Corporate State by
Alexander Raven Thomson; a large number of leaflets and booklets by
various authors; the Movement's two regular weekly newspapers The
Blackshirt and Action ; and the intellectually focused magazine British
Union Quarterly.
Mosley's central economic theme was that British Industry was being
undermined by cut-price imports from cheap -labour countries abroad. The
country could never hope to compete against these except by reducing the
wages of the British people to the subsistance level of Far East workers.
To prevent this, the British Union of Fascists advocated a policy of
autarky or complete economic self-sufficiency, for Great Britain and the
Empire. This would effectively insulate industry from cheap-labour
competition from what would now be called Third World countries. The
Empire Territories would concentrate on producing food and raw materials
while Great Britain would remain the industrial workshop of the Empire in
a reciprocal arrangement that would be beneficial to all. The exploitation
or 'sweating' of native labour would be prohibited and in its publications
British Union campaigned against such practices most notably on West
Indian sugar plantations in the late 1930s. Little trade would be
permitted with countries outside Great Britain and the Empire as this area
would contain all the raw materials, food, energy resources and
manufacturing capacity to ensure self sufficiency
BRITAIN
FIRST
Sir Oswald Mosley
Fellow Britons, tonight the British people are here, (Cheers) and tonight
from this great audience will be heard the voice of British people telling
Parliament, telling Parties, telling Government something it is time that
they should hear. (Cheers.) This is a demonstration of "Britain
First" and, therefore, is a demonstration of world peace. (Cheers.)
This, the greatest gathering of the English under one roof assembled,
tells Government and tells the Parties: "At last we have had
enough." (Cheers.) We are here to tell them there is something for
them to do here in Britain, and when they fail to do it, as again and
again they have betrayed our people, we, the British people in British
Union, will do it for them. (Cheers.) Enough we have had of alien
quarrels, enough threats of foreign war, enough diversion from what
matters to the British people, our own land, our own Empire and our own
problems. (Cheers.) We say to the Parties who betray, we say to them here
tonight: “When you speak of war we tell you this, if any country in the
world attacks Britain or threatens to attack Britain, then every single
member of this great audience and of British Union would fight for
Britain.” But just as straight this too we tell them. We say to the
Parties who clamour for war, we fight for Britain, yes, but a million
Britons shall never die in your Jews’ quarrel. (Loud Cheers.) And before
you drag a million Englishmen to doom, we of British Union, we, the
British people in sacred revolution, will sweep you by the declared will
of the British people from the seats of power that you disgrace. (Cheers.)
We will deal with them, every argument they advance, every trick with
them, and deal faithfully in this great audience. But before we come to
that, fellow Britons, I have something to remind you that you may have
forgotten. All of you here tonight, this vast audience here assembled, all
we Members of British Union, all we people who hold the principles of this
British revolution, according to the Press, my friends, you don’t exist
at all. (Laughter.) So every one of you tonight in this great hall is just
dreaming that you are here, and when you wake up in the morning you will
learn the truth in your precious National Press. You will learn you were
not here tonight. You will learn that there was not such a meeting, or if
there was, of course nobody at all bothered to go.
My friends, what does it mean? I want those who are not with us in British
Union, I want those who come to our creed and our cause for the first
time, to understand something of what we are up against; to realise, to
begin with, that this great meeting here tonight is the first large indoor
meeting for over three years that British Union has been permitted in
London (cries of "Shame"), because the halls of this great city
are owned by rich Conservatives and the parks of this great city are owned
by the Labour majority on the L.C.C., and both of them use their power
corruptly to forbid speech to their opponents. Well, I take it as a
tribute. I have never tried to forbid them speaking in Britain, or to
prevent it in any way. The more they address us, the more they address
their fellow countrymen and the more they are seen by audiences of
Englishmen, the more support we get for British Union. (Laughter.) There
is every kind of corruption that their money power can afford, and they
will go to any length to forbid us halls in which to speak. (Cheers.) And
then, when they forbid us halls in which to speak, their papers are able
to turn round and say: "Of course, they don’t exist. You don’t
see them speaking in big halls, you don’t read about them in the
newspapers, and, therefore, it’s all imagination that this revolution of
the British people is taking place at all."
In fact, my friends, we are faced by a coalition of the money power in
Press and in Parliament and in the ownership of the great halls of
Britain, who are so mortally afraid of the British people being permitted
to hear the truth that to any length they will proceed to forbid even me
speaking to them.
Well, fellow Britons, if a Movement which has been born and has run for
less than seven years, a Movement started with thirty-two men, without
newspapers, without Press, without money, and without resources, with
nothing in the world
except the English spirit alive and flaming in their souls, if in less
than seven years we have driven the Parties together in this corrupt
conspiracy to prevent us speaking to the British people, how much longer
before we win and
they perish? (Cheers.)
Now let me ask anyone here who thinks that we have been unfair when we
have attacked the ownership and conduct of the Press of this country, on
what grounds do they behave AS they have behaved? Do they tell us any
longer that
there is no news value in British Union, that the people of Britain have
no interest in British Union? If they say that, let them glance round this
great hall tonight and say whether or not you British people are
interested in British Union. And yet any little Labour politician who
cannot fill a schoolroom, any little B.B.C. crooner who bores you on a
Sunday evening, (Laughter) any of these little creatures who have been
made by the Press of this country, when they fill their little schoolroom,
they get a headline in the newspapers the next morning.
We were told there was no news value in British Union. That excuse cannot
hold water any longer. What other excuse then has the Press got for its
treatment of British Union? There is one excuse, and one alone, a reason
of which I am proud. The Press believes that in our principles and in our
persons we are so reprehensible that we are unworthy to be reported. I am
glad that they think that of us.
But let us examine their position. When they say that a Briton, when they
say that people of whom they do not approve, shall not be reported, what
then becomes of the talk of the free Press in Britain? It vanishes. There
is no such thing. When they say that censorship exists in foreign
countries but does not exist in Britain, we give them that lie direct. We
say by their own admission, by their treatment of British Union, they
admit the censorship of money. (Cheers.) The only difference between the
censorship in Britain and the censorship in the foreign countries they
denounce is this: In foreign countries, the people concerned have decided
by an enormous majority that their Government shall be vested with power
to prevent the publication of lies which destroy the life of their nation.
But, in Britain, we have censorship given not to any Government, but
censorship in the hands of money and money alone, (Cheers) and censorship
used by money, not to suppress anything damaging to the life of the
nation, but to promote everything that IS damaging to the life of the
nation - to sell to the people false news, to sell to the people lies, to
push the vested interests, to raise the interest of the faction and the
section above those of the people and of the nation.
So, if we have to choose in the modern world between the right of
Government elected by the people to rise above even the power of the Press
Lords, if we have to choose between that and the right of money to tell
Britons what they should know, what they should learn and how they should
live, I say: Government of the people, by the people, for the people every
time. (Cheers.)
But when they tried these tactics upon us what did it avail them? My
friends, it availed them nothing, because the great affairs of this great
country are not settled in that square mile that stretches from Fleet
Street to Mayfair. We did not go to them to make our appeal; we went to
the back streets of Britain, we went to the homes of the people before
they denied us great halls such as this in the West End of London. We went
to the homes and the streets of the people whence we have drawn our
strength and whence ever we draw our inspiration. In their masses and in
their thousands the people came to us, and the force and the weight and
the fury of the people behind us now rocks the Press Lords on their golden
throne. That is why I am proud to have the enmity and the hatred of the
Press. It is right that I should be hated by the enemies of the people,
because throughout my political life, in a pilgrimage of strife and
struggle such as few have known, I have ever stood for the people’s
cause, and in their cause I challenge the money power. (Cheers.) The Lords
of the Press are right to hate us, but we reply to them: "We are glad
we are not among those little politicians whom the Press has made. We, of
British Union, have not been made by the Press; we have made
ourselves." (Cheers.) Because we had within us the truth, and because
we had within us a love of England, our land and her people, our fellow
countrymen, our English men and women have come to us in such thousands
today that we can say that this Movement is established, this revolution
lives, and no power of Press Lords or of money, no material force this
world has ever seen, shall hold us down or stay our triumph. (Cheers.) And
what have they got? — what have they got except money? What else? We
have got the men and women; we have got the thousands of men and women who
give their lives to this struggle of British Union. What have they got on
their side except the money bags and the Press Lords? Why, if you changed
these things over to-morrow and we got their money and their Press, the
battle would be over — it would not exist. (Laughter.)
They talk of the coming Election — a fight between several Parties of
the British people. Nothing of the kind — a fight between two or three
big money combines, that and nothing else — nothing else. Without the
weight of money behind the Party machine, in an electoral battle today
determined purely by principles and by the number of active workers at our
disposal, British Union could fight and beat today the old Parties over
the whole electoral field. (Cheers.)
But you know and I know the battle is nothing of the kind — the battle
is between big money combines who spend a thousand pounds or more on every
constituency they fight. So when they speak of Democracy they do not mean
government by the people or of the people; they mean financial Democracy
in which money counts, and nothing but money.
Then you may say, my friends, how can the British people fight, and how
can they overwhelm the money power against them? I will give you the
answer. We shall get the resources with which to defeat them, not because
those with money love us, but because before long, they shall fear us.
Then we shall break through in our national revolution, break through all
their money power; yet until we reach that point which now we approach,
when the mass and when the might of the people is so great and so terrific
that even the money power cannot withstand it, until then we know, from
previous examples of revolution in the modern world, that right up until
that last moment their newspapers and their money power will go on telling
lies about us, will go on even telling you that audiences like this do not
exist, will cover the leadership and cover the
membership with every violence of, filthy abuse that their lying hands can
pen. Until that last moment their citadel of corruption will stand, and
then suddenly the gathering force and strength of the people’s
revolution will burst
the bonds and will sweep them from their feet. (Cheers.)
Let us make no mistake; let us have no concealment at all. This Movement
is a revolutionary Movement, a Movement which seeks no compromise, a
Movement that will stand for no unity with the Parties of betrayal. We
stand for union of the British people — yes, we do — the union of the
British people in a new system of their own creation, but a system purged
and cleansed of this corruption. Our Movement, therefore, is a Movement of
revolution, a Movement which will be given its power by the declared will
of the British people, not merely with their consent, but with a passion
of enthusiasm behind it that the old Parties of Democracy have never
known. We are a Movement of revolution in fundamental challenge to
everything for which the old Parties stand. (Cheers.)
I have been told lately, reading their pretty speeches about each other in
the Press, that the old Parties have a great respect for each other. Well,
my friends, let us make it clear, in order to have no humbug at all, we
have no respect for them whatever (Cheers), and I will go further and say
I very much hope they will never develop any respect for us, (Cheers) -
why, on the day they
develop any respect for me, DO have me examined by a doctor quickly, if
you please. (Laughter.)
No, they are all together the old Parties. They have even got over the
pretence of fighting each other. They are all in one camp, huddled
together for purposes I shall analyse in a moment.
British Union, and British Union alone, is the challenger of all the old
Parties, who today all mean the same thing. They are the Parties of the
money power, the kept Parties of the money power engaged and employed by
that international force to put up a sham battle in public, in order that
the British people may be deceived into acquiescence. Some people may say:
"What proof has he got of these allegations? These are crazy
doctrines without proof at all. Good men and true are the statesmen of
Britain, honestly fighting each other for the benefit of the British
people." My friends, before I sit down tonight — in case there are
any of you who think that I should give chapter and verse for what I say
— I will prove to you that the policy on which the old Parties
unanimously agree is a policy of Bedlam, a policy of madness, a policy of
disgrace. (Cheers.) A policy which could not be pursued by the statesmen
of Britain unless they were mad, or unless they were the servants of
Jewish finance. (Cheers.) But before I prove this from the actual facts of
their policy, which we can explain, in no other way, I want those of you
who are not members of the British Union here tonight to understand how
profound is the difference between us and the old Parties, how grave are
the charges we bring against them, how insuperable is the gulf which
divides us, how necessary in fact it is that this fight between us shall
be a fight to a finish, in which we or they shall perish forever.
Of what, in brief, do we accuse them? We accuse them of making a sham
battle. We accuse them of dividing the nation about issues in which they
do not believe, and which, between them, do not seriously exist. We accuse
them in their battle of Party and their battle of class of dividing the
British people, because unless they can be divided the British people
cannot be conquered, and we say that in this division of Party and of
class the Parties have divided the British people, and the British people,
for the first time in their history, have been conquered — not by the
foe without, but by the foe within. (Cheers.)
The Parties are the servants of the money power and that money power is
largely in alien hands. (Cheers.) We show you in detail in our literature
how, under this system — I have shown it in fact in innumerable speeches
— any Party or any Government can be broken at once by the money power,
because, under this international system that every one of them supports,
the infinite mobility of the money power, its capacity to move rapidly
from one country to another, to break Exchanges, to create financial panic
and chaos, can bring down any Government which dares for one moment to
oppose it. We have shown again and again how in Britain once, and twice in
France, the so-called Socialist Governments of the international Socialist
persuasion have been broken by finance the moment they dared to lift a
finger to gainsay the power of the financiers. I have shown you in
innumerable speeches how the power of money has reached out all over the
world; how it has taken British credit, British resources and British
wealth built up by generations of effort on the part of hard-working
simple British folk; how it has lent or given our resources all over the
world; how it has equipped our competitors against us; how the cotton
mills of India, the cotton mills of Japan and the cotton mills of China
have been created by British money for the destruction of Lancashire and
Yorkshire. (Cheers.) We have shown again and again in infinite detail how
the money and credit of the British people, created by the exertions of
the British people and by no other force on earth, has been used for their
own destruction in the equipment of the Orient, with its sweated labour,
to undercut and to destroy the West, in order that usury, international
usury, may draw its dividends and its interest by destroying its country
of origin, through the equipment of our world-wide competitors against us.
We have shown again and again how the British Empire, as well as the
British people, the British industrialist and the British worker, has been
relentlessly sacrificed to this international power; how the whole of our
international trading system, how our conflicting Party system, and our
foreign policy, above all, is maintained for one reason and one reason
alone; that the money power of the world may rule the British people, and
through them may rule mankind. (Cheers.)
What right, some may say, has this man to bring these charges? I say to
them: Study our case and tell us the answer if you can. No man or woman in
England has any excuse at all for not knowing the case of British Union,
not merely from the speeches of our speakers at meetings more numerous, on
the streets at least, than those of any other Party, but in literature, a
wealth of literature and argument, which has now been published for years.
Any men or women who say they do not know our case merely betray their
ignorance of political and public life. I ask you, if you have not studied
that case, to study it and ask yourself what is the answer to it. If you
cannot yourselves answer it, if you cannot persuade the political leaders
in other Parties to provide the answer, - you are driven to this
conclusion, that we are denied the opportunity to begin the task of
building up the British Empire to be the greatest civilisation mankind has
ever seen by one interest, by one force, and one power alone, the power of
money which rules the political Parties for the reasons that tonight I
have given. If we can, without reply, prove our case that such a system in
the British Empire today is possible, am I not entitled to say, if the
Parties can make no reply to us, that their motives are such as those
which I have described tonight? Why do the Parties make no reply? They
have debated with me quite often in the old days in Parliament when I was
with them. I have been attacked in public, by six Cabinet Ministers in the
course of one week-end in recent years, and have challenged any one of
them to enter the public platform with me before an audience of my fellow
countrymen. (Cheers.) Tory and Labour leaders alike I have challenged,
amateur wind-bags and professional wind-bags, (Laughter) both of them, to
debate the issue before our fellow countrymen. They remain strangely coy;
so tonight I make this offer, that if any outstanding figure in the old
political Parties, a man capable of drawing even a quarter of the audience
here tonight assembled, if he will come to this hall and debate with me we
will take this hall and meet him face to face. (Cheers.) While these men
fear to meet our argument in fair debate before the great tribunal of our
fellow countrymen, while they condemn our nation, masses and millions of
our people to live in unnecessary poverty, while they seek foreign war and
quarrel and expend money on things which are no concern of Britain, while
they sacrifice every interest of the British people to the service of
their financial masters, while they do that and dare not meet us, then I
shall continue to denounce them as I do tonight (Cheers), for as long as
these men forsake and abandon the interest of the British people, pursue
foreign quarrels and controversy which suit their financial masters, and
no other force upon earth, while they do that I am entitled to denounce
them, and here tonight I do, - as the flunkeys of finance and the jackals
of Judah! (Cheers.)
Now I state straight away the issues between us in order that none of you
may labour under any misapprehension as to where we stand in relation to
the Parties on their unity racket. But in case any of you think I have
been unfair in the charges I made against them, I propose tonight to do
two things: very briefly to describe to you in home and foreign affairs
what we of British Union want, and then also briefly to analyse what all
the old Parties do, and the reason why they do these strange things.
Very briefly, these are the principles of British Union at home and
abroad, the principles which at home we are certain will bring peace,
prosperity and happiness to our people, principles which abroad will bring
not only peace but lasting, abiding peace, and happiness to all mankind.
(Cheers.) Our principles are summarised in the words,
"Britain First", because we believe that we can solve every
single problem of the British people in Britain or in the Empire. We
remind the British people of something that nowadays we are asked to
forget: that we possess an Empire which contains one-quarter of the globe,
one-fifth of
its inhabitants, which contains within it every single raw material, every
material resource that mankind can possibly desire; that the output of our
machinery can be enormously increased, and even multiplied. None can deny
that we have got workers of skill, that we have got technicians second to
none in the world, and we could have machinery second to none. No one can
deny that we have got the raw materials. Not a single technician in
industry either can deny that granted a market for which to produce,
within Britain and the Empire alone, without any reliance on outside
supplies, within the Empire alone, we can enormously increase our present,
production and wealth. Provided we have got a market for which to produce,
there is no technician who can deny the possible increase of productive
capacity. But everybody knows that the market does not exist, and if you
ask any industrialist to increase production he simply tells you that the
market is not there, and it is no good producing goods for people who
cannot buy them. So at once we of British Union pose the question to which
the old Parties have no answer: Why is it that the British people in this
country and in the Empire lack the power to buy the goods which the
British people themselves are capable of producing? (Cheers.) The Parties
have no answer, but we of British Union have. We say that we are chained
down to an international system 100 years out of date, and that, under
that system, on the home market and on the foreign market alike, British
labour has got to compete with cheap sweated slave labour such as that of
Japan, labour with only one-fifth of the production cost of British labour;
and that this cheap sweated competition has been created by the financial
power of Britain itself, which has equipped the slave-producing countries
in order to undercut the labour of the West, and thus to supply the
financier with a higher rate of usury. (Cheers.) Under that international
system, not only do we have to meet cheap sweated labour on the foreign
markets, but on the home markets as well we are subject to such
competition from the import of £350,000,000 a year of cheap sweated goods
from foreign countries, undercutting and dragging down and down our
standard of life. What on earth is the use of asking British employers
under the present system to raise wages when to raise wages is to be
undercut and put out of business by the sweated competition abroad, or
even at home? Therefore, we say that this international system, 100 years
out of date, is
directly responsible for the low purchasing power of the British people,
in that it holds down British wages and British purchasing power far below
the level which is justified by Britain’s present power to produce.
The answer of British Union is a self-contained Empire. We exclude from
Britain and the Empire the flood of cheap sweated goods which drag down
our standard of life. Behind that insulation, by Law of the corporate
system, we shall raise wages over the whole field of industry and give to
the British people at last the power to consume the goods which the
British people produce. The Finance and Credit system of the country will
no longer be used for the creation of foreign competition and other
purposes inimical to the British people. The Finance and Credit of Britain
at last will be used for the purposes of the British people as laid down
by British Government.
Within Britain we shall thus produce the maximum amount of goods which Our
industries are capable of producing for consumption in an assured home
market; and what cannot be produced in Britain we shall purchase by direct
bargain from our own Dominions and Colonies overseas. That bargain, which
they have often offered, will be that for every pound’s worth of food
stuff or raw material we purchase from them they shall accept a pound’s
worth of our manufactured goods in exchange.
To study the scientific details of this constructive policy one will have
to study our literature. In this speech tonight, which must deal chiefly
with other things, I can give no more than the barest outline. Now I can
only ask
you, who have studied it, what argument is presented against our detailed
policy for the development of the self-contained Empire. Every technician
in industry knows well that it is today possible immensely to increase
British
production provided that a market is available. That market will be found,
that market will be created in the purchasing power of the British people.
What interest loses by such a system? Not the industrialist who increases
his turnover; not the worker who greatly increases his wages. One interest
and one interest alone stands to lose - the Usury system of the City of
London.
They have lent British money all over the world in order to draw a high
rate of usury by the equipment of our competitors. They draw the interest
on their foreign loans in the import of sweated goods. If we keep out the
cheap
competitive goods that destroy British industry we keep out the usury of
the City of London.
British Union challenges that corrupt interest of Jewish Finance and
declares that within Britain and the Empire we will build a system, with a
productive power far beyond anything yet conceived by man, with a level of
prosperity, of material well-being and moral happiness for our people,
beyond the previous dreams of humanity.
What is the argument against that system ? I have not yet heard it and I
shall not hear it.
Obviously, to plan that system requires a revolution in our national life.
To carry through such a complete transformation of our whole system of
politics and industry it is necessary to have peace. We cannot be diverted
from such a task by being dragged into foreign quarrels.
How can we begin to carry through the greatest revolution in material
circumstances that man has ever known while our whole system of politics
and of industry is dragged into foreign adventure, while British statesmen
never give even a passing thought to British problems, but are ever
chasing round the world finding what dago they can guarantee next?
(Cheers.)
When we say: "Mind Britain’s business," we mean it. We want
peace. We want to concentrate upon the British Empire because we believe
that within the British Empire we can solve every single material problem
of our people, and, therefore, we advance the policy of peace, again as
straight and as direct as our economic policy itself.
I have advanced four points Of a peace policy, to which again I challenge
an effective reply.
Point 1: Disinterest in the East of Europe. (Cheers.) I care not what
happens in the East of Europe. It seems to me as natural that Germany
should have a Monroe Doctrine in the East of Europe as that America should
have it on the
American Continent. We have had enough Balkan wars. If someone will keep
them in order, well good luck to that someone, but I do not envy them
their job. (Cheers.)
Point 2: Disarmament in the West of Europe in return — and I mean this
— we shall be in a position to say to Germany:
"We have no interest whatever in the East of Europe; that is, your
nightmare of encirclement has gone for ever; you will never have to fight
against Britain and France on one front and against Russia and any one
they can collect on the other front. Encirclement is gone. Your fear is
banished. I ask something of you in return. Meet us round the table and
let us all be relieved of the burden of armaments, British and Germans
alike." (Cheers.)
They want to build houses in Berlin; we want to build houses in Britain.
What folly to use the resources that can be spent in building houses for
our people in arming against each other when we have nothing in the world
to fight about. (Cheers.) And I am as certain as I stand here tonnight
that if we said to Germany: "We won’t interfere on your Eastern
borders and you leave us alone in the British Empire and in the West of
Europe," I could immediately get a disarmament conference relieving
the stricken people of Europe, not only from the threat of war, but
lifting from their backs for our time and beyond it the crushing burden
and fear of arms for war. (Cheers.)
Point 3: Return of the mandated territories we do not want, because we
have a quarter of the world already. "Oh," says the Labour
Party, "You can’t do that. Why, we big boys who stand up for
British Empire, we would not let you do that." We reply to the Labour
Party: "We can well believe that you think this territory is part of
the British Empire because you have only discovered the British Empire in
the last six months because you want a war with Germany." (Cheers.)
Anyway, who is the Labour Party to tell us we should not hand back to
Germany territory which always belonged to them and never belonged to us
when the Labour Party in its published and declared policy is willing to
give the open door and to throw open the whole of the British Empire to
anyone in the world who wants to come and take it? (Cheers.) But Labour is
not our only enemy. Labour, of course, while it is willing to give away
the British Empire to anyone who wants it, wishes to hang on to German
territory just to have a war, if they can possibly get it.
There is poor Old Tory too. Tories say: "Oh, you can’t let them
back into Africa. Why, if you let a Pickelhaube appear in Africa again we
would have to clear out in double quick time." "All right,
Tory," we reply, "you may have to run for your life every time
you see a German, but not us, not us." "But," the Tories
bleat, "if you let them back into Africa in their old colonies they
will start building bases and they will use those bases in order to take
the whole of Africa from us." Well, when the British Navy has been in
the charge of the Conservative Party for some years there may be some
force in that view, but there will be no force in that view whatever when
the British Navy is in the charge of British Union. (Cheers.) Let the Tory
Party remember something they have forgotten, something they may well
forget and hide their heads in shame because for so long they neglected
it. Let them remember the British Navy. Then let them look at the map of
the world. They will find the blue sea dividing Africa from Europe, and as
long as that blue sea is commanded by the British Navy then the Continent
of Africa is in British hands. There is not one single continental power
that could carry supplies across the Mediterranean to fighting armies in
Africa provided that the Mediterranean Sea was held by the British Navy,
and as long as British Union rules, Britons shall rule the seas. (Cheers.)
Because we do not fear, because we shall be strong, because being men, we
can understand men, we will make peace with Germany and all great nations.
(Loud Cheers.)
I will give you one last point of peace to which I have referred already
in briefly describing our policy. At long last we say: "Mind
Britain’s business. Concentrate on the British Empire. Say to the world,
as I do tonight, if any nation in the world sets foot across the frontier
of British Empire, as one man, we English will fight for Britain. But
Britons shall die in no other quarrel." I say to you, my friends,
from the very depth of my inner knowledge and consciousness tonight, that
this policy declared by Britain to Germany, and the world, will bring
peace and the friendship of men for our time and beyond our children’s
time as well.
Why not do it? What is the argument against it? I am told that Germany
just wants to swallow up one or two little countries in Eastern Europe and
then turn round and overthrow the British Empire. I am told that Hitler
wants the whole world. In other words, I am told that Hitler is mad. What
evidence have they got so far that this man, who has taken his country
from the dust to the height in some twenty years of struggle (Cheers),
what evidence have they got to show that he has suddenly gone mad? Because
any man who wants to run the whole of the modern world with all its
polyglot population and divers peoples and interests, such a man is
undoubtedly mad, and I challenge my opponents to produce one shred of such
evidence about that singularly shrewd and lucid intellect whom they
venture so glibly to criticise. "Oh, they say, any man who gets to
such a supreme position must go mad."
Well, of course, any democratic leader would (laughter), but then we knew
before they told us that they had got weak heads. (Laughter.) They say:
"The Kaiser went mad; he tried it on. Nero went mad. Anyone who gets
to a position of great power goes mad." Well, my friends, that may be
true of their Kaisers, that may be true of their hereditary princelings,
that may be true of some of their little Dukelings in the English House of
Lords. (Laughter.) Any man who is hoisted, not by his own exertions, but
by the efforts of his forefathers, to a great height which he is not
fitted to occupy is very likely to get dizzy and
to topple over. That is an argument against the hereditary system which we
condemn but they support. But, my friends, never yet in history has it
been true of a man who has climbed to a great height with his own hands
and with his own feet, who has clung to the mountain face against the
tempest and has fought every inch and foot of the way until he rises from
the depths to the height where he can see the sun of a nation’s glory.
Men who have made themselves do not lose their heads; it is only those
whom others have made. (Cheers.) So, when they base their war incitement
on evidence as flimsy as that, I ask them to read their history and study
their human nature.
Now I go on and ask them this: Supposing that we withdrew from Eastern
Europe, supposing that we did not have King Carol or Colonel Beck as an
ally, supposing then everything our opponents said came true, which I deny
and utterly deny, — but supposing it came true — supposing Germany
turned round upon us and said: "All right, we challenge you for the
British Empire; we want your quarter of the globe; we now fight you to the
death," - supposing the Germans said that, which I am convinced they
would never do, but supposing that what is said by our opponents came
true, why are we to be told that the British Empire is unable to stand and
face Germany or any other nation upon earth? Why do the democrats thus
suggest that Germany is so superior that we cannot hold the British Empire
without the help of King Carol of Rumania? (Laughter.) Why is it? Is it
population that makes Germany so superior according to the democrats? —
not according to me but according to the democrats. Is it population? We
have got 70 million white British people in the British Empire. Before the
Anschluss Germany had precisely 70 million people in Germany. Since then
they have picked up a few million Austrians and a few million Czechs. —
All right, let the original 70 million white people in the British Empire
face the original 70 million of Germans. Then the other 430 million of
coloured population in the British Empire can look after the few million
Czechs and Austrians that they picked up the other day. Is that a fair
deal? (Laughter.) In man power we are certainly equal to them. We are
immeasurably stronger in material resources. In counting our material
resources we must remember we have got a quarter of the globe, and Germany
is lacking in many vital raw materials owing to the Peace Treaties of
injustice. In material resources the British Empire alone is immeasurably
stronger than Germany. If in man power we are equal and if in material
resources we are superior, who dares to deny that the British people in
war, if war came, could face either Germany or any other nation upon
earth?
(Cheers.)
But what is the democrat admitting when he is so afraid of Germany that he
runs round the world looking for Turkey, Greece, Rumania, Poland, or
Soviet Russia to save him? What is the financial democrat admitting except
this, the truth of what we have told Britons and the world for seven years
past; that our system of government is out-worn, that our system of
Parties is corrupt. (Cheers.) Give to the British by British methods,
character and policy, born of our own national inspiration, give to them a
system of the modern age, and light again the heart of the British people
with their own great spirit; then, it will not be a question of other
nations leading us, but we, the British, again will lead the world.
(Cheers.) Therefore, when the financial democrat says we cannot pursue the
national policy of Mind Britain’s business, when he tells us we cannot
live in the world unless we pick up any little ally that is going in
Eastern Europe, I say he is doing one thing and One thing alone: he is
admitting the decadence and corruption of the system which he supports; he
is providing British Union with the most powerful argument that we could
have. (Cheers.)
Now, fellow Britons, I have proceeded on the assumption that our
opponents’ argument is true when I myself know it to be untrue. I say to
them even if your wildest fears were true, there is no reason for Britain
to be afraid, or for Britain to make war certain by the absurd policy of
encirclement and intervention in places which are nothing to do with us.
But I go beyond that and say to them: "When you accuse Germany and
its Leader, Hitler, when you accuse them of the intention to attack and
overthrow the British Empire, what shred of evidence do you possess? Name
it." I will not refer to the fact that the German Leader has again
and again disclaimed any such intention, because you have only to mention
the name of a foreign statesman for a large section of British Press and
Politics to join in one great shriek of "Liar," although they
whine and complain, of course, if the courtesy is ever returned.
(Laughter.)
But I challenge a reply to this question. If it is the aim and intention
of Hitler to attack and overthrow the British Empire, why in heaven’s
name did he not take his chance last September? Last September Britain was
helpless. My evidence for that is Mr. Winston Churchill. It was Mr.
Churchill who told us that last September Britain was helpless, and I will
give you a very brief quotation from Hansard's Parliamentary Debates of
October 5th last. Mr. Churchill said this:
"After all, there are no secrets now about what happened in the air
and in the mobilisation of our anti-aircraft defences. These matters have
been seen by thousands of people. Who pretends now that our anti-aircraft
defences were adequately manned or armed?"
I could read you other damning admissions from Government spokesmen on the
state of our defences, last September. Owing to the criminal neglect of
our defences by the system of financial democracy and by all the Parties
in
Parliament, we were a helpless nation, Therefore, I challenge these
parties to answer this question: "If it be the intention of Hitler to
attack and overthrow Britain, why did he miss his great opportunity last
September?" (Cheers.)
A great many hard things have been said about Hitler by his opponents, but
I think his worst enemy has never yet said that he was a man who in life
had missed very many chances. So when Mr. Churchill tells us:
(1) that it is Hitler’s intention to attack and defeat Britain;
(2) that we were helpless last September;
we have got to believe one of two things: either
Hitler is a man who misses big chances, or Mr. Churchill is a big liar.
(Cheers and Laughter.) The British people, perhaps know the answer to that
one. (Cheers.)
Now, to summarise my argument, in a sentence, it comes to this; if the
wildest fears of our opponents were true, and Germany did attack Britain,
provided that Britain had a Government and system of the modern age,
Britain has nothing in the world to fear even if she fought alone; and,
secondly, and beyond that, no evidence in the world exists of any such
intention on the part of Germany although, on the other hand, I shall
produce evidence in the policy being pursued in Britain of the intention
on the part of some of the vilest forces this world has ever known, forces
of paramount power here in Britain today to bring world war if they can; I
denounce the forces of Jewish finance. (Cheers.)
Now when I turn in my final argument to analyse the policy of the Parties
I shall ask this great audience to examine this policy of Bedlam, as it
seems to me, this policy of madness and this policy of disgrace, and to
ask themselves what other explanation could be given except that which
British Union gives: that the Parties and political system of Britain is
subordinate to an international force which seeks to pursue its world
vendetta, if necessary, in British life and British blood.
Let us look, having examined our own policy, at the policy of these other
Parties. First of all, of course, to the purposes of war, every interest
of the British people is cast aside and every hope of reform, every hope
of lifting higher the lot of those who suffer in Britain is abandoned,
possibly for our generation, in pursuit of a policy of war. We are hardly
allowed today to mention the lot or the condition of the British people.
I, my friends, have been fighting their battle since I entered political
life at twenty-one years old, and as long as life is within me that battle
I shall continue, to fight. (Cheers.) Therefore, I make no apology here
tonight, even when this country is faced with the war conspiracy, in
referring to the conditions of our people of Britain and reminding you of
their betrayal in the not distant past. To-day I read of £500,000,000
lent in the course of one year to arm Britain for a Jews’ war. I
remember but very few years ago when, as a Minister of the Crown, I asked
for only £l00,000,000 for the war of the British people on want and
poverty, and I was mocked and derided by the Labour Government of the day.
When I went to them and asked them for £l00,000,000 for public work, for
re-housing, for destroying and re-building the slums, for carrying out
great works of public reform, economic works, too, which would yield a
return of wealth to the people of the nation, when I asked for £100,000,000
to bridge the gulf between the poverty of the present and the
reconstruction of our national system, I remember the Chancellor of the
Exchequer and the Labour Prime Minister—and I remember the serried ranks
of the Labour M.P.s behind him, saying: "You are mad. Fancy asking
for £100,000,000! The City would never stand for it." (Laughter.)
The City would never stand for it; "that’s wild-cat finance."
(Laughter.) But £500,000,000 is raised for a foreign war and gilt-edged
securities do not fall a couple or three points. £100,000,000 I wanted to
be spent for the British people, they said it would break our financial
system. Now they find £500,000,000 for the financier's foreign war and we
are told the burden is like water on a duck’s back.
So in pursuit of this policy of war every hope of re-building Britain,
every hope of raising the lot of our people is abandoned, not only by the
Conservative Party, but by the professed champions of the people, the
Labour Party themselves. And all Parties are united — sinking all
quarrels about social problems and social, differences — for a policy of
foreign war, for a policy of encirclement and intervention in Eastern
Europe, supported by the loans of British finance.
Let us look first at the Labour Party, because always in the Labour Party
you see the broad caricature of the financial democratic system. Labour
leaders are a bit slower-witted than the Tory leaders, and so it is easier
to catch them; that is all. Let us look at the Labour Party’s
pretensions and what they do today. What has Labour told us? They were a
party of revolution; they were a Party of peace; they were a Party that
stood for the people. Let us look at their points. Revolution! You would
find as much revolutionary spirit in a home for tame cats. (Laughter and
Cheers.) Labour leaders, supposed to be fighting the capitalist system to
the end, dropping in for tea, knitting parties and gossip at Downing
Street twice a week, (Laughter) not even pretending to fight. Every time
the bell rings some Labour Leader hops round to Downing Street longing to
be patted on the head and told what a good boy he is. A little harder work
and they may even be asked to dinner by the dear Duchess at last. Labour
— a travesty, a Party of caricature in a revolutionary fight, forgetting
even to mumble the old lines and strike the old posture; Labour, in
practical coalition with the Conservatives even before the eyes of the
people.
Now, Labour as a "Party of peace." How many wars have the Labour
Party wanted us to fight in the last two or three years? Let us try to
count. First of all, they were all for a war in China when there was any
hope of saving the great
capitalist cotton interests. When it is only a question of Englishmen
getting stripped and kicked in Tientsin we have not heard so much about
it. Labour clamoured for a war in China. War No. 1. You and I were to put
on khaki and go
and save the Chinese. War No. 2, Abyssinia, a war for oil; a war for the
maintenance of slavery; a war for some of the vilest capitalist interests
which have ever disgraced this continent and its adjoining territory. War
No. 3 — in Spain. Oh, we had to fight in Spain, the British flag was
being insulted, bombs were being dropped near British ships. Stop a
moment. We said: "British ships?" We looked up the register at
Lloyds and we found thirty of them registered that month, Greeks, Jews, -
dagoes. Not bad, a war for the cotton Lords, a war for the slave-owners, a
war for the ship-owners. Then Austria, War No. 4, and then Czecho-Slovakia,
War No. 5; Czecho-Slovakia! We were informed by Lord Winterton, of the
present Government, that the land of Czecho-Slovakia is not owned by the
peasants who inhabit it, but by Jewish money-lenders; a war to maintain
their land for the Jewish money-lenders. War for the slave-owners; war for
the ship-owners; war for Jewish money-lenders. Sow war in Poland for the
great investments of the City of London; war for the Polish miners to be
sweated for a wage of 10 shillings a week to hew the cheap coal that puts
the British miner out of a job but that fills the coffers of the City of
London. And now, last but not least, is it the sixth or seventh war that
Labour again wants us to fight? A holy crusade, something that will thrill
the heart of every Englishman, if not the heart of every night-club
proprietor (Laughter), a war to keep King Carol on his throne (laughter),
to say nothing about getting a good hand into those oil wells in Rumania,
of course. Six or seven wars; count them up if you can; no wonder that
Lord Ponsonby said the only trouble with his Party, the Labour Party, was
that wherever there was a war going on they wanted to be in it.
And what is this Party? Are they Colonel Blimps, old-fashioned Englishmen
of a belligerent model? Are they boys of the bulldog breed who want to get
into every scrap that is going on anywhere in the world? Not a bit of it.
Among the Labour ranks are to be found men who, in the last War, were
conscientious objectors when Britain was fighting for her life, and now
these men, among whom, too, were some who were stabbing us in the back
trying to organise strikes in munition works while we were fighting and
sweating and bleeding in the trenches, these men on their platforms today
denounce us because we do not want to put on
khaki and go to war with Germany in a Jews’ quarrel. These, men in the
Labour ranks are denouncing us ex-Servicemen as lacking in patriotism
because we do not want war with Germany about nothing.
Who else is there who denounce us? There are those young intellectuals who
were at Oxford five, or was it seven, years back, these mincing sissies
who would not fight for King or country. They would not fight for King
George, but they are longing to fight for King Carol — a boy after their
own heart. (Laughter.) My friends, it would be funny if it was not so
disgraceful to see such creatures, not only engaged in this conspiracy to
send a million Englishmen to their doom — make certain they themselves
will be missing on the day — not only thus conspiring, but also from
their platforms denouncing, as unpatriotic, men who, in days gone by, gave
all in their generation and risked all in their persons that England might
live and might endure in greatness on the earth. (Cheers.) The Labour
Parts’ we can dismiss, not merely with the contempt the British people
feel for them to-day, but with the judgment which the British people, in
their own good time, will bring to the Labour Leaders in the days to come.
(Cheers.)
Now what of the Tory Party? Let us be fair. We have advanced our policy,
we have looked at Labour — let us now look at what is called the Party
of loyalty; the Party of patriotism; the Tory Party. What is the Tory
Party supposed to stand for in the world? (Cries of "Jewry !"
from the audience.) We have got an answer here tonight which I am inclined
to agree with. (Cheers.)
But first let us examine what they pretend to stand for. I do not think a
Conservative in this hall, if there be one left, will disagree with me
when I say that if the Conservative Party pretended to stand for anything
on earth it was the Security of Britain and the Empire, the Prestige of
Britain and the Empire, and the Maintenance and development of the British
Empire. I do not think that any Conservatives would say that is an unfair
description of the aims of Conservatism which were published in the past
and to which thousands of sincere men and women still adhere, wrongly
believing that they are still the principles of the Conservative Party,
just as thousands of sincere men and women still adhere to the principles
of the Labour Party, wrongly believing that the battle of the people is
still being fought, while in fact it is the Party which best serves the
enemies of the people, international finance.
Let us examine just briefly those principles of the Conservative Party in
the light of what they have actually done. Take first the security of
Britain and the Empire. The Conservative Party had been in power for seven
years last Autumn. With two brief intervals they had been in power for
twenty years before last Autumn, and yet that leading Conservative, Mr.
Winston Churchill, and not only he but prominent Members of this
Government, have had to admit that the defences of Britain last September
were so inadequate that we were defenceless and helpless in an armed
world. And when Conservatism was asked to give its reason for that policy,
the reason was provided by their trusted leader of so many years, Lord
Baldwin, who frankly informed us that he was well aware of the
inefficiency of our defences, well aware of the danger of our position,
but if he had asked the country to re-arm, he might have lost an election
— so he did not. And that is a man publicised for years by the financial
democratic Press as pre-eminently honest. Now I ask any Conservative,
apart altogether from their present performances, how can you, believing
in the principles which they proclaim, remain in that Party with such a
record? What reason have you got for remaining in that Party, except that
it may be unpleasant to leave that Party? Some of your friends may not
like it, and for the first time in your life you may have to do something
rough and hard, fight for other people and fight for England. (Cheers.)
Why, any young man who remains in the Conservative Party after a record
like that and a confession like that admits to all the world that he would
rather lose the British Empire than lose a dinner party. (Laughter.)
Security! That is the security they gave us in the past! What security are
they giving us now? They are committing us to fight in the North Sea; they
are committing us to fight in the Mediterranean; they are committing us to
fight in the seas of the Far East, all at the same time. They have
antagonised Germany. They have antagonised Spain at one end of the
Mediterranean, the Arabs at the other, Italy in the middle of our main
route to our Eastern Empire. While in the Far East they are taking on
Japan at the same time, or not taking her on but doing what they always
do, bluffing and blustering into trouble and then backing out of it to the
shame of Britain. Security is not there — fighting in three seas at
once, against Germany, Spain, Italy, the Arabs and Japan all at the same
time. And in whose quarrel have we antagonised any one of these people?
— not once in a British quarrel; every time in a Jews’ quarrel. And
now, having landed us in that mess, what security do they give us? The
Tory Party goes cap in hand on their knees; "Great Comrade Stalin,
come in and save your poor Tory friends." (Laughter.) Security! We
are told that security lies in the British Empire having a Russian
alliance. We were told it was a matter of life and death to have the
Russian alliance; that if we did not get it over the week-end, Germany
would overrun half of Europe. Four and a half months since have been taken
in negotiations, It is lucky it is not a matter of life and death, is it
not? It is lucky it is just humbug and make-believe otherwise Europe would
have been overrun four months ago. (Laughter.) And what is Russia doing? -
playing the old Oriental Communist game of the last twenty years and more
with all the Oriental cunning and skill luring the poor old Tory
Government deeper and deeper into the bog of
commitment until at last they have them where they will; dangling the
carrot in front of the old donkey’s nose, who is plunging and blundering
further and further and then, when she has guaranteed not only Turkey,
Greece and Rumania, but all the Baltic States, when they have got Britain
into any quarrel that is going on anywhere in the world, then they will
provoke world war, let it loose upon us and at last achieve the objective
of the Jewish Communist Leaders to overthrow Britain and Western
civilisation in suicidal war. (Applause.) That is their Tory security. Now
what about their prestige; what prestige have they brought us? If there is
one thing lowering to prestige, if there is one thing the opposite of the
Englishman's character, it is for ever to be blustering and
for ever climbing down, for ever taking off your coat for the fight and
for ever backing out. (Cheers.) And that has been the policy of the
Conservative Government for years past. They are certainly adepts at
ignoring an insult. That is the only talent of Conservatism today.
It is reputed to have been said by an eminent French statesman, not long
ago: "If we French are walking along the street and somebody comes
and gives us a hard kick behind, we cannot help noticing it enough to turn
round and see who has done it, but you British you have got such calm,
such dignity, that if you are walking down the Street and someone comes up
and gives you a hard kick behind you can pretend not even to notice
it." (Laughter.) That is the particular genius of Lord Halifax;
(Laughter.) the new ‘strong boy' of the Tory Party, by whom we might be
impressed for a moment if we did not remember that Halifax was only an
alias for Irwin; (Laughter.) Lord Halifax whose remedy for the break-up of
the British Empire in the East was to ask Mr. Gandhi round to tea.
(Laughter.) Now when they speak of prestige, let them bring against them
in foreign policy the severest indictment I have to bring here tonight.
Not since that Dutch Admiral sailed up the Thames centuries ago carrying
at his mast a broom and boasting he had swept Britain from the seas — an
insult that was avenged by our forefathers — not since that date has the
British Flag been dragged in the mud and suffered such disgrace as in the
betrayal of the English in
Tientsin. (Cheers.) When you think, my friends, maybe as we sit
here tonight, that Englishmen are being stripped naked and kicked — and
some cases of English women are reported as well — and subjected to the
mockery and derision of Chinese crowds by triumphant Japanese, and the
only answer of the Parties in Parliament is to agree to "be
patient," can we deny that this is a disgrace to the British Flag and
are we wrong to feel with passion? (Cheers.) Two years ago we warned them
if you divide Europe in a financiers’ vendetta you would be impotent,
derided and helpless in the East, and Europe divided has made Britain
helpless in the East.
It is perfectly true that we should not be in Shanghai or Tientsin at all.
British Union has said so for years. We are only in Southern China serving
the corrupt interests which have exploited the cheapest Chinese coolie
labour in order to undercut and destroy the industries of Lancashire. We
are only there because millions of British capital, if it can be called
British, is there invested; but if you send Englishmen to a place, you
cannot permit them to be kicked, stripped naked and their women insulted,
without
lifting a finger to help them. (Cheers.) And while that happens in the
East, while that happens in China, do not believe for one moment that the
bazaars of India are not humming with the news. Do not believe for one
moment that wherever the Flag of Britain waves over British territory that
flag is not quivering in the storm of derision which is mounting against
British power. My friends, it may take superhuman efforts, it may take
terrible sacrifice, it may brand our time with anguish to win back the
good name of Britain in places where once the name of Britain was held
high in honour; that is the "prestige" of your Conservative
Party. (Cheers.)
Now our Empire. When they talk of being the custodians of Empire, let me
say this: Australia and New Zealand scarcely dare to ask for money or
help, but courted and flattered and fawned upon are the oily Levantines
who come as Balkan allies. (Cheers.) £60,000,000 was agreed this week for
foreign loans to buy useless allies in worthless and unnecessary wars.
While New Zealand wants money for her simple farming population, while the
Newfoundlanders are starving and freezing in conditions which disgrace the
very name of the British Empire, while some of our African tropical
possessions are sweltering in conditions which are inhuman, starving for
the lack of capital assistance, money is poured out in millions to buy
allies for their Jews’ war in Europe.
But we are told, of course, it is a moral duty to intervene in every
single Balkan quarrel, but no moral duty to lift a finger to save a Briton
from insults in Tientsin. Why is it a moral duty to go to war if a German
kicks a Jew across the Polish frontier, but no moral duty to lift a little
finger if a Briton is kicked in Tientsin? Is it only because English men
and English women are being insulted that the Parties are indifferent? Is
it only because the New Zealand farmer or the starving Newfoundlander who
fought in the War is asking for a little money to get his industry going
again that they are not interested, while the people who fought against
them in the War, the Turks, are to be bought with the money that is denied
to the New Zealanders? It is a strange policy of preserving and of
developing a great Empire. And yet we are told that this is the policy of
the Conservative Party which stood for
security, for prestige and for Empire. The Empire is sold and war is
bought in British money today, in British lives tomorrow. (Cheers.) Then
Lord Halifax announced a new departure in their policy in his last great
speech. He said that, in the end, Britain might make some contribution to
world peace by the policy of the open door. We have heard about the policy
of the open door before. That is Labour’s policy again. You take the
British Empire, won by the heroism of thousands of named and nameless
Englishmen, and you say to every other country in the world:
"Here you are. Wade into it. Get stuck into it. Take what you want.
It does not matter to us." The open door! We have had a bit of it
already: East Africa under the Congo Basin Treaty, an instrument supported
by Tory and Labour alike, made the dumping ground of cheap Japanese goods,
with the result that Lancashire and Yorkshire has lost practically the
whole of those markets. Carry it further, make it the open door for the
whole world, says Halifax, but, of course, do not dream of giving back to
Germany what belongs to her, the mandated territories. My friends, can we
conceive a policy of greater insanity, heading more straight for suicide,
than this, to be prepared to fight a world war over a few acres which do
not belong to us, but to make a present to the whole of mankind of the
land which was won by the sweat, blood and heroism of our forefathers?
(Cheers.)
But it is not only the open door in the giving away of the British Empire.
Let us turn at long last in conclusion to have a look here at home at the
open door. Not only are their goods coming in, but they are coming in
themselves, thousands of them; thousands of them coming in, not only
undermining our standard of life, not only debauching our commercial
practices, not only swelling the practices of criminal lawyers, not only
changing the commercial outlook and morality of the British to the
detriment of our simple and honest people; not only that, my friends; this
policy of the open door, this universal entry of alien standards and alien
life if permitted to continue, is going to change the whole character of
English life and English people, and is to complete the work which a
century of capitalist production began, uprooting the English from the
soil of their own native land and changing for ever the life of our
people. (Cheers.)
Some may say, those who do not yet feel as we do, that the entry of
50,000, 100,000 or 200,000 more does not matter, that we can swallow them,
we can assimilate them. I deny it, but it is not only that — the money
power that the big Jews command is changing every value, every morality,
sapping every fibre, tearing up every root that still grips and digs deep
in the English soil. Why, read their newspapers today, if you are fathers
and mothers of young children, do you want them to grow up reading some of
those newspapers? Do you want them to grow up going to their cinemas with
their slick Yiddish American slang corrupting every standard of our life?
(Cheers.) It is the open door, my friends, the open door, with Britain
gone, the Britain we knew and loved. it is not your doing, because you are
with us, but they are doing what the Empires of the past have done that
have fallen in dust and ashes in which their civilisation and their glory
have departed. They reached moments of greatness and heights of Empire.
Then their moral fibre was destroyed and their manhood was sapped by the
entry of alien peoples of the Orient, and evil forces marched triumphant
to destroy the things that were noble and the things that were beautiful.
(Cheers.)
I ask this audience tonight whether or not we are going to give everything
we have within us, not only material resources, but our moral and
spiritual being, our very life and our very soul, in holy dedication to
England that she shall not perish, but shall live in greatness. (Cheers.)
We are going, if the power lies within us — and it lies within us
because within us is the spirit of the English to say that our generation
and our children shall not lie like rats in Polish holes. (Cheers.) They
shall not die but they shall live to breathe the good English air, to love
the fair English countryside, to see above them the English sky, to feel
beneath their feet the English soil.
This heritage of England, by our struggle and Our sacrifice, again we
shall give to our children. And, with that sacred gift, we tell them that
they come from that stock of men who went Out from this small island in
frail craft across storm-tossed seas to take in their brave hands the
greatest Empire that man has ever seen; in which tomorrow our people shall
create the highest civilisation that man has ever known. Remember, we say
to our children, those who have gone before you. Remember those who
through the centuries have died that Britain might live in greatness, in
beauty and in splendour. Remember too that, in the spiritual values that
our creed brings back to earth, these mighty spirits march beside you, and
you must be worthy of their company.
So we take by the hand these our children, to whom our struggle shall give
back our England: with them we dedicate ourselves again to the memory of
those who have gone before, and to that radiant wonder of finer and nobler
life that our victory shall bring to our country. To the dead heroes of
Britain, in sacred union, we say:
"Like you, we give ourselves to England - across the ages that divide
us - across the glories of Britain that unite us - we gaze into your eyes,
and we give to you this holy vow: We will be true - Today, tomorrow, and
forever -- England Lives."
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