spirit and policy of British Union.

The subject is too great to be confined in all detail within such limits of space. But the reader

who inquires further will discover in the publications of the British Union an amplitude of

detail on every subject of the day. Books and pamphlets by my colleagues, whose range of

abilities now cover every sphere of national life, will meet any inquiry, and further detail on

some topics can be found in my own books, "The Greater Britain" and "100 Questions

Answered."

In these pages the reader will discover, with the exception of the chapter on Foreign Affairs, a

policy suited to the character of this country and no other. British Union in whole character is a

British principle suited to Britain alone. It is true that our National Socialist and Fascist creed is

universal, in different form and method, to all great countries of the modern world. That was

true also in their own period of every great creed, political or religious, that our country has

ever known. The only difference in this respect between British Union and the old parties is

that our creed belongs to the twentieth century, and their creeds to the past that conceived them.

But a greater difference arises from the fact that National Socialism and Fascism is in essence a

national doctrine which finds in each great nation a character, policy, form and method suited

to each particular country. For this reason a far greater divergence will be found in the

expression and method of the modern Movement in different countries than prevailed in the

case of the international creeds of the past such as Liberalism and Socialism, or Conservatism,

which, under various names, can be found in every country in the world.

So the reader will find in these pages a policy born only of British inspiration, and a character

and method suited to Britain alone. He will be able to judge for himself our claim for British

Union that in constructive conception our policy already far transcends any previous emanation

of the modern Movement. We do not borrow ideas from foreign countries and we have no

"models" abroad for a plain and simple reason. We are proud enough of our own people to

believe that once Britain is awake our people will not follow, but will lead mankind. In this

deep faith we hold that no lesser destiny is worthy of the British people than that the whole

world shall find in Britain an example. The aim of British Union is no less than this.

Oswald Mosley - May 1938

Chapter 1 - System Of Government - What Is Wrong

Financial Democracy

The will of the people shall prevail. The policy for which the people have voted shall be

carried out. This is the essence of good government in an enlightened age. This is the principle

which is denied by the system misnamed democracy, which in degeneration is more

appropriately called financial democracy. The reason is that government is paralysed by the

maintenance of a parliamentary system a century out of date. When the Government elected by

the people is incapable of rapid and effective action private and vested interests assume the real

power of Government, not by vote or permission of the people, but by power of money

dubiously acquired.

In recent years the trifling measures which have struggled through parliamentary obstruction

have been insignificant in their effect on the lives of the people by comparison with the

immense exercise of money power. Decisions and movements of international finance on Wall

Street, and its sub-branch in the City of London, may send prices soaring to create a

speculator's paradise at the expense of the real wages of the people, or may send prices

crashing to throw millions into unemployment as the aftermath of some gigantic gamble. In

terms of the things that really matter to the people, such as real wages, employment, the hours

of labour, food prices, and the simple ability to pay the rent, finance, under the present system,

can affect the lives of the mass of the people more closely and more terribly in the decision of

one afternoon than can Parliament, with puny labour and the mock heroics of sham battles, in

the course of a decade. For the instrument of the money power was designed to fit present

conditions and to exploit the decadence of an obsolete system. Parliament, on the other hand,

was created long before modern conditions existed to meet an altogether different set of facts.

New Conditions

Parliamentary Government, practically in modern form, was designed primarily to prevent the

abuse of elementary liberties in a relatively simple rural community with a primitive national

economy. The facts of that age have no relation to the periods of steam and power, which were

followed swiftly by vast accumulations of finance capital that possess the unlimited

international mobility of a world force. Is it really likely that the parliamentary instrument of a

century or more ago should be equally suitable to meet the facts of an age which science has

revolutionised? Yet on the assumption that the system of government alone required no change,

during the century of most startling change that mankind has known, rests the policy and the

philosophy of every one of the old parties of the State, Conservative, Liberal and Labour alike!

This patent fallacy which all the old parties teach the people admirably suits the financial

exploiter. A parliamentary system devised to check personal outrages by medieval courts or

nobles is represented still as the effective guardian of liberty in this age of international finance.

It would be as true to say that the bow and arrow with which primitive man defended his farm

from the marauding wolf is equally effective to defend him against the tanks of a modern

invading army. But the people are persuaded that the instruments by which they preserved

some semblance of liberty in the past are still effective to preserve their liberties in modern

conditions, in order that these liberties may be taken from them without their loss even being

realised.

Parliament and Liberty

It suits our financial masters well that all parties should combine to tell the people that

Parliament is the sole effective guardian of liberty, and, naturally, the national Press, which the

money power so largely controls, is in unison to echo the same refrain. It is also not surprising

to find that anyone who dares to suggest that the liberty of the people alone can be preserved,

and their will alone can be carried out, by the entrusting of the Government, which they have

elected, with power in the name of the people to act, should be unanimously denounced by the

old parties and by the financial Press as a tyrant who desires to overthrow British liberty. As

long as the people can be gulled into the belief that they are free today so long can their slavery

be perpetuated. Therefore, every instrument of the financial tyranny from party machines to

national Press is mobilised behind a barrage of money power to resist the simple principle that

power belongs to the people alone, and that their power can only be expressed by giving their

freely chosen Government the power to act.

That such power in Government does not exist today can scarcely be denied. It is admitted that

only two big Bills can be passed through Parliament in the course of a whole year, which

means that any effective programme submitted as a pledge of immediate action to the

electorate would take more than the lifetime of a generation to carry out.

Under such conditions every election programme becomes a fraudulent prospectus, which,

contrary to die experience of business life, carries the most fraudulent not to gaol, but to

Downing Street. Every main Bill has four stages of debate on the floor of the House of

Commons alone, and in two stages can be debated line by line by a committee of over six

hundred people. In such circumstances the ability of the Opposition to obstruct is unlimited,

and no measure can in effect reach the Statute Book in face of really determined opposition.

The result is that bargain, compromise, and delay completely stultify the programme for which

the majority of the people have voted. Yet this is the procedure which we are told "honest" men

are prepared to operate, within a system which renders impossible the execution of the

promises which they have given to the people, and by means of which they have secured office

and power.

The First Duty

On the contrary, we ask whether any honest man or Movement in politics would not make his

first proposal and his first duty to create an instrument of Government by which he could carry

out the promises he had made and the policy for which the people have voted. Yet all the old

parties combine to resist this principle of elementary honesty, and to denounce as the denial of

liberty any suggestion to give to the people the first principle of liberty in the actual execution

of the policy they desire. As a result the vote becomes ever more meaningless, and fewer

people take the trouble to exercise it as they learn by bitter experience that, no matter the party

for which they vote, they never by any chance secure the policy for which they have voted.

Farcical becomes the parliamentary scene as the people realise that in a dynamic age this

system can never deliver the goods, and like all systems in decline the parliamentary mind

seems anxious only to produce its own caricature.

In the Light of history it will ever be regarded as a curious and temporary aberration of the

human mind that great nations should elect a Government to do a job and should then elect an

Opposition to stop them doing it. Fortunately, even in the wildest excesses of this transient

mania, this delusion never spread to the business world, and no business man outside an

asylum has yet been observed to engage a staff of six to carry on the work of his firm, and then

to engage an additional staff of four to stop them doing their job. Curious to posterity will

appear the principle of creating at the same time a Government to do the nation's work and an

Opposition to frustrate it. But stranger still will seem the final reduction to absurdity of the

parliamentary system whereby a Prime Minister is paid £10,000 a year to do the nation's job,

and the Leader of the Opposition is paid, and accepts, £2,000 a year of the nation's money to

stop him doing it. Yet this extraordinary harlequinade, in which nothing serious, in terms of the

modern mind, is ever done, and little serious is even discussed, is today represented as the only

means of preserving the liberties of the people.

The instruments by which this great racket has been achieved are plain to see. The first is the

maintenance of an obsolete parliamentary system still invested from a past of difficult

conditions with the myth of liberty, by means of which Government is paralysed in order that

the real power of Government may be exercised elsewhere, not by the chosen of the people but

by the chosen of finance. The second instrument is the monopoly of propaganda by the money

power in the shape of a Press also invested with the myth of liberty from a past of different

conditions. The Free Press built by genuine journalists who were vendors of honest "news"

long ago gave place in most of the national Press to the financial combine which acquires

control of great blocks of newspaper shares. So the money power again in the name of a Free

Press can serve to the people not only the opinions but also the "news" which serves the

interests of the money power. Not only are our "free" British denied any meaning to the vote in

the shape of ever getting what they want, but they are also denied even the small privilege of

learning the truth. For power and propaganda alike are in the hands of a force whose interests

conflict with the interests of the people and is careful that they should not even learn the truth.

Thus the myth of freedom in Parliament and Press combine to promote the slavery of the

people.

Finance Power

Most of the Press is owned outright by the money power, or is controlled by the advertisements

which money power controls, and Parliament is paralysed by talk that power may reside

elsewhere. But the argument may be taken further, for the economic system which is

maintained by finance power for the benefit of its own interests, and to the detriment of every

interest of the people, also ensures that any Government may at any time be broken by the

money power. The international economic system is supported by every party of the State,

Conservative, Liberal and Labour alike. It will be shown in detail in chapter three of this book

that this system enables any Government to be broken at any time by the financial power, as

the weak Socialist Government was broken in Britain in 1931, and the weak Socialist

Government of Blum was broken in France in 1937.

It was not enough for finance to dope the system of Government with the talkative

parliamentary system of a century ago. Finance in the economic system also retains the power

at any time to knock a Government on the head. By way of further precaution the finance of

the money power controls the party machines, which in their turn control Parliament and

Government.

So this is finality in the land of "liberty and free speech": (1) Government is paralysed by the

system of talk that power may reside elsewhere; (2) Government can at any time be destroyed

by the power of money alone; (3) the Press which controls opinion is itself largely controlled

by the money power; (4) the party machines which control even the right of the individual to

make a speech to an appreciable audience in public are also controlled by the money power.

So what is left to you "free Britons" to voice your opinion and make your will effective? You

can go into a public-house and grumble in the assurance that no one will take the slightest

notice of what you say. But even then you must be sure to be out in the streets by closing time,

because the Old Woman of Westminster prefers, even in your private life, to treat you as a

child rather than as a man.

There stands the Briton in the street, gulled into the acceptance of slavery by words about

liberty, and boasting of freedom, while in truth denied the freedom to call his own even the

soul of which alone his masters have not robbed him, for the simple reason that it has no cash

value.

Is that really the Briton - tricked, fooled, hag ridden, exploited, enslaved? Or does a generation

arise again, breaking from the hands of manhood resurgent the fetters of decadence and seeing

with the ardent eyes of an awakened giant the land that they shall make their own.

Chapter 2 - British Union Movement

The will of the people shall prevail. The policy for which the people have voted shall be

carried out. This is the essence of British Union Government. In the previous chapter the

present complete frustration of the people's will has been examined and the formidable

instruments of that frustration have been surveyed. In cold fact the money power commands

Government, Parliament, Party Machinery and Press. Not only does it possess the power to

render Government impotent and, if necessary, to break Government; money power also

possesses the means of preventing any new opinion or even any true news from reaching the

people at all. Faced with this formidable power and almost limitless corruption of a decadent

system, those who founded the British Union were moved by the deep belief that from the

people themselves alone could be created the instrument by which freedom could be won for

the people, and by which our country could be redeemed to greatness. Such an instrument

clearly, in its whole character and structure, must differ from the old parties of the State.

It would be idle with infinite labour to create a new movement to combat current corruption of

such a loose and flaccid character that, like the revolutionary movements of the immediate past,

it would fall an easy victim to the very corruption that it was designed to destroy. If this basic

principle is understood, much in the history and character of our Movement that has been

misunderstood will be easily comprehended. We had to create an "instrument of steel" because

we know from our experience of democracy that any character less hard and tested would

easily succumb to the system that it was designed to combat. Consequently our Movement has

rested from the outset upon the principles of struggle, sacrifice, and voluntary discipline. In the

fire of that struggle and by the force of the sacrifice for which I have never called in vain, the

"instrument of steel" has been forged that shall cut through corruption to a larger freedom than

this land has ever known.

It has been forged from the heart and soul of the people alone in the sacrifice of thousands of

unknown but utterly devoted men and women who have been ready to give all that Britain

might live. This Movement has been created by simple people in face of money power, party

power, and press power without any aid from the great names of the present system, and in

face of every weapon of boycott and misrepresentation that the money power could mobilise.

Thus ever have been born the great deterministic forces of history in face of all material things

by the force of the spirit alone.

So has been accomplished the first stage in the mission of regeneration which is the creation

from the people themselves and from the people alone of a Movement capable of leading the

mass of the people to freedom. Those who sacrifice all for an undying cause are inevitably a

minority even in the movement they create. Soon thousands came and now come who are

gladly welcomed to give support or any kind of service, but many of whom for innumerable

reasons, domestic and business, are inhibited from the supreme sacrifice that builds this

Movement. Still later a whole nation will give support with enthusiasm to a cause that has been

built through the sacrifice by pioneers of most that makes life dear to men.

But they who lead the people to a higher civilisation are ever those who are capable of supreme

self dedication. The authority of leadership carries with it the responsibility of such a life. Thus

our new leaders of the people in every area of the land have been discovered, tried, and tested

in the actual ordeal of struggle. Their sacrifice during a struggle harder and fiercer in its whole

nature than any movement has known before in this country is the guarantee to the people that

they will not again be betrayed. Men and women do not sacrifice all in order to betray the thing

to which they have given their lives. A Fascist who, in power after such a struggle, betrayed his

cause, would betray his own life blood. Thus the struggle of a National Socialist Movement is

a necessary preliminary to the exercise of power, because the bitter character of that struggle

gives to the people an absolute guarantee that those who have passed through that test

unbroken will not betray their people or their country. Thus alone is forged the "instrument of

steel" to save and then to serve the people.

The Leadership Principle

The rebirth of a nation comes from the people in a clear and ordered sequence. The People,

their Movement, their Government, their Power. To create their Government and to overthrow

the Government of the money power which oppresses them the people have first to create their

Movement. This act enables them for the first time to give meaning to the vote by electing their

Government to power. The final stage is to arm this Government with power in their name to

act.

To represent this process as the constitution of a dictatorship against the will of the people is a

travesty of the facts as dishonest as it is childish. The only dictatorship that we propose for this

country is the dictatorship of the people themselves, which shall replace the present

dictatorship of the vested interests. Our Movement offers to the people not dictatorship but

leadership through an instrument by which their will can be carried out. British Union and

leadership seek not to be dictator to the people but servant of the people.

The only stipulation that we make is the simple condition that if the people want us to do the

job they shall give us the power to do it. Is that unreasonable? Is it not a waste of the people's

time and money to create a Government which has not the power to act? Is it not simple

dishonesty for any man or movement to accept office without the power to act and without the

ability to perform what he has undertaken to do?

Our principle is the leadership principle which has nothing whatever to do with dictatorship. It

is true that this principle is the opposite to the collective irresponsibility of the " democratic "

committee system but that does not make it dictatorship. British Union believes in the

following simple principles: (1) give a man a job to do; (2) give him the power to do it; (3)

hold him responsible for doing it; (4) sack him if he does not do it. Our principles, therefore,

are neither dictatorship nor the fugitive irresponsibility of a committee. We have seen the

committee system in action within financial democracy and have observed its consequence. If

several men are in name responsible no one is, in fact, responsible, and no one can be held to

account for failure.

Everyone shelters behind his colleagues and disclaims personal responsibility; all wanted to do

the right thing, but none could persuade their colleagues to do it. Not only does the committee

system of financial democracy dissipate action in endless talk; it breeds cowardice and evasion

in leadership in place of courage and responsibility. Therefore, in the building of our

Movement and in the building of a Government we believe in the leadership principle, which

means personal and individual responsibility.

Whether a man occupies a position of minor responsibility or a position of the gravest

responsibility in the State that task is his responsibility and that of no other, and for the

execution of that task he shall be held responsible to the people. Authority can never be divided

because divided authority means divided responsibility, and that leads to the futility and

cowardice of the committee system. Failure to comprehend this principle is failure alike to

understand the principles of National Socialism or the essence of any creed of dynamic action

and achievement since the world began. But to represent as dictatorship authority freely

conferred by the people in return for the manly acceptance of personal responsibility is a

misunderstanding, or rather misrepresentation, equally gross.

In the building of our Movement and the creation of our Government the principle is leadership,

and not dictatorship, for plain and obvious reasons. No one can be compelled to join our

Movement and any member can walk out of it any day he likes if he does not accept its

principles or leadership. He is perfectly free to try to do better himself in the creation and

conduct of another movement. In this country, as in others, many tried their hand until the

confusion of little societies with imitative policies and inflated egotisms faded away in the

advance of British Union to be a National Movement, by the simple test of alone possessing

the capacity to attract a national following. It is idle, therefore, to argue that prior to the

winning of power our Movement rests on the dictatorship principle for none need belong to it

who do not wish. After the winning of power equally it rests not on dictatorship but on the

leadership principle, for power is conferred by the free vote of the people and can be removed

by the free vote of the people.

The Structure of Government

British Union seeks power by the vote of the people alone at a general election. But we tell the

people quite frankly in advance that we will not accept responsibility without power, because

we believe it to be dishonest to take office without the ability to carry out the policy for which

the people have voted. The first measure of British Union Government will, therefore, be a

General Powers Bill conferring on Government the means to act by order, subject to the right

of Parliament elected by the vote of the people at any time to dismiss the Government by vote

of censure if it abuses power. Subject to this right of dismissal by Parliament the Government

will be free to act without delay or obstruction from the interminable rigmarole of present

parliamentary procedure. Parliament will be called together at regular intervals to review the

work of the Government and to criticise and suggest. MPs will be armed with facts for

criticism and suggestion which they do not at present possess, because they will not spend

most of their time in the corrupting atmosphere of Westminster but in the stimulating

atmosphere of their own constituencies among the people whom they represent. In particular

British Union will give most of the MPs an executive task in place of a purely talkative role in

a complete reform of the local authority system. Local authority areas will be enlarged and all

purely local matters will be delegated to their jurisdiction. Again, the leadership principle will

be employed and the executive leader of the local authority will be an M.P. of the majority

party in Parliament elected from the area over whose local authority he presides. He will be

advised and assisted by a local Council elected on the principle of occupational franchise, the

method of which both local and national will be described later in this chapter. Each member

of the Council will be an executive officer in charge of a Local Government department and

responsible to the local leader, who will be responsible to the Government of the nation. Thus

committee irresponsibility in local, as in national affairs, will yield place to the leadership

principle of personal responsibility and effective action.

Local leaders both in the first Parliament of British Union and in the permanent system will be

selected from the Movement for which the majority of the people have voted. To many this

may seem a revolutionary principle but, in fact, is it not plain common sense? Local leaders

will be selected as ministers are today from the party for which the majority of the country

have voted and will be given power to act. Can Government ever be effective or action ever be

taken if differing policies are pursued by National Government and local authority ? What

would happen to a business whose head office pursued one policy and whose branch offices

pursued another? Can any real democrat object to the principle that the programme for which

the majority of the people have voted shall be carried out both nationally and locally? We hear

so much these days of the rights of the minority that many are inclined to forget the rights of

the majority. Is it democracy or any form of free government for the majority of the people to

vote for a programme which is completely frustrated not only by obstruction at Westminster

but by minority obstruction also in hundreds of different and conflicting local Councils? In

practice financial democracy means that in the name of minority rights the right of the majority

is invariably denied. British Union policy rests on the simple principle that nationally and

locally the will of the majority of the people shall prevail. The incidental advantage of the

execution of this principle is that the majority of MPs are saved from the demoralising chatter

of the House of Commons lobbies and given an executive task with personal responsibility that

will evoke from the people's representatives the capacities requisite to a man of action. No

process is more necessary to the creation of effective government than to transmute the

people's representatives from mere talkers into men of action.

Many a good revolutionary has arrived at Westminster roaring like a lion, only a few months

later to be cooing as the tame dove of his opponents. The bar, the smoking room, the lobby, the

dinner tables of his constituents' enemies, and the "atmosphere of the best club in the country,"

very quickly rob a people's champion of his vitality and fighting power. Revolutionary

movements lose their revolutionary ardour as a result long before they ever reach power, and

the warrior of the platform becomes the lapdog of the lobbies. In the light of this experience

British Union MPs from the outset will go to Westminster under solemn pledge not to mix

socially, or even to speak, to their opponents. They will go to Parliament to fight for the people

who sent them there, and not to fraternise with men who have betrayed the people.

Thus only with sustained fighting spirit and revolutionary ardour can the nation's cause be

served. In Westminster, as out' side, British Union must be the " instrument of steel" in the

service of the people. Until we win power we shall fight every inch of the way, and directly

upon the winning of power we shall establish an instrument of Government capable of

executing the people's will. This instrument, nationally and locally, will be created by the vote

of the majority of the people and this instrument, nationally and locally, will execute their will.

Power conferred by the people in their name will be exercised, and that power shall be

removed by the vote of the people alone, to whom alone, under the Crown, we will account

and be responsible.

Occupational Franchise

We have observed that in the first Parliament of British Union complete power of action by

Government is combined with the right of Parliament elected by the people to dismiss the

Government if it abuses power. Government's power of action nationally and locally is

complete, but so also the control of the people over Government is complete.

We come now to the consideration of the permanent system which is created with the second

Parliament of British Union. The first Parliament, by necessity, is elected on the existing

franchise which is geographical. That franchise is a relic of the past, in which the interests of

men and women were more centred in their locality of residence than in their occupation

within the national economy. Such conditions have long passed away as the main categories of

occupation assumed a national in place of a purely local character. Today the fact that a man is

an engineer or doctor, a farmer or cotton operative, is a greater factor in his existence than the

particular locality in which he happens to reside. In modern and scientific organisation

occupation definitely supersedes in importance the chance of residence. In geographical

constituencies thousands of diverse human beings and interests are fortuitously brought

together by the franchise without much knowledge of each other and with few interests in

common. Again this system of voting in its obsolescence produces the abuses of decay.

Early electorates of a less complex age could discriminate in giving a vote on simple national

issues for one or other local leader whose character and views were well known to them. An

election with the vast modern electorate is a very different matter as the great network of

national questions is far too complex for any but whole time specialists thoroughly to

understand, and the personalities and real views of the candidates can only be known at all to a

fraction of the voters. The confusion of a present election under the old system lends itself to

the charlatan candidate employing the catchword of the moment without any relation either to

the reality of national issues or to the policies which he subsequently supports in Parliament. In

such circumstances the slick talker generally defeats the serious -worker, and the divorce

between promise and subsequent performance leads increasingly to the Wholesale disillusion

of the electorate.

It is, therefore, necessary to restore not only reality but understanding to the vote. The idea that

all men on all subjects are equally competent to give a verdict becomes, in modern conditions,

an ever more manifest absurdity. Therefore,we propose an occupational franchise that men

and women may vote on problems they well understand for personnel with whom they have a

long familiarity.

Men and women will vote not as residents in a particular locality but as persons engaged in a

particular occupation. Doctors will vote as doctors, engineers as engineers, miners as miners,

farmers as farmers, farm workers as farm workers, married women as housewives and mothers

with a franchise of their own.

Women's Part

It is noteworthy today that the mothers of the nation possess few representatives in Parliament

with any special competence to represent them.

Women's questions are usually handled by ageing spinsters, for the simple reason that most

women with any practical experience of maternity find the conflict between home and public

life so intolerable that they retire again to a sphere where their true interests lie. The problem

can only be resolved by occupational franchise, which gives them special representation in a

Parliament that will not remove them altogether from the interests they represent.

The care of the mother and the child is one of the main neglects of the present system and will

be among the main concerns of British Union. It is only right, therefore, that this great interest

should secure proper representation with the other great interests of the nation. This does not

mean that we seek to relegate women purely to the home, which is a charge denied in practice

by the act that we present today a larger proportion of women candidates to the electorate than

any other party. In our permanent system women in industry or the professions will have their

vote and their representatives within their occupation.

An economic system which provides work for all has no need to drive women from industry.

But a political system which guards the health and strength of the race will certainly prevent

the grave scandal of women being driven from the home against their will because the

miserable wages of the men cannot keep the home together. Women, whether in home or

industry, will hold a high and honoured place in accord with British tradition and will receive

full measure of representation and weight in the counsels of the State.

End of the Party Game

Occupational franchise, therefore, will secure a technical Parliament suited to the problems of a

technical age. A vote given with full information and, consequently, with a sense of

responsibility will secure a serious and dignified assembly. Such a Parliament will consider

national questions freely on their merits and not beneath the lash of the party whip in the

ignoble scramble for place which has become the hall mark of present politics. It is clear that

such a system brings to an end the party game and apart from other advantages it is deliberately

designed to that end. British Union means to bring to an end the party game. There is no time

in the modern world, with menacing problems of a dynamic age for mere opposition for the

sake of opposing, in the hope of getting the other man's job by the simple process of blacking

his face by any means, fair or foul.

Under our system a man or woman will be elected because he, or she, is a good engineer or a

good doctor, not a party doctor or party engineer. The M.P. will emerge to prominence and

office not by dexterity in mere debate, or by bibulous capacity to sit up all night to obstruct the

business of the nation, but by serious criticism and constructive suggestion which will make

real contribution to the deliberations of the nation. In a new age the party type will pass,

together with the corruption of the party machine.

People's Control Over Government

Few will deny that the constructive seriousness of such a Parliament will be an improvement

on the frivolity and chicanery of an obsolete system. But the question is often raised how, in

the absence of organised opposition, the people can change the Government if they wish. The

answer is that in the permanent system of British Union the life of the Government will depend

on the direct vote of the people, held at regular and frequent intervals. If the people wish to

change the Government the simple remedy is to vote against it. In the event of an adverse vote

the Crown, to which British Union is entirely loyal, will intervene, and H.M. the King, in the

restoration of his full historic prerogative, will send for new ministers Who in his opinion have

a good chance of receiving the support of the country at a fresh vote. Thus in the permanent

system of British Union nothing intervenes between Government and people. No log rolling in

Parliament or intrigue in the lobby can shake the power of Government. The will of the people

and that alone can make and break the Government.

Opposition Parties

But the "democrat" at this point usually expostulates that the people cannot decide to vote

against a Government if no opposition parties exist organised for party warfare. Surely of all

the insults which financial democracy offers to the intelligence of die electorate this is the

gravest. Are we really to believe that a great people cannot make up their mind that they do not

like a Government, and give a vote to that effect, without a lot of little politicians bawling in

their ears that they do not like it, and asking them to vote for a dozen confused and

contradictory policies. The suggestion that a great nation cannot live without professional

politicians is an insult alike to their intelligence and their temper. Yet the "democratic

politicians" who pretend that the people are capable, without such advice, of giving a decision

on the broad issue of whether they want a Government or not, are at pains to defend the present

system, which rests on the grotesque assumption that every elector understands every national

question ranging from currency reform and naval strategy to the price of beer.

The facts are surely at complete variance with the pretensions of financial democracy. The

people are perfectly competent to give a verdict on the general conduct of Government without

any assistance from a bawling match of politicians. The elector also is perfectly competent to

elect a Parliament to deal with the technical problems of the modern age, provided he votes

within his own occupation on problems and for personnel that he thoroughly understands. But

in plain terms of common sense the engineer or the doctor finds it a bad joke for his particular

problems to be settled by a vast majority of the electorate who have not the slightest

acquaintance with those problems.

We are faced with the necessity of combining the right of the people to control and dismiss

Government with serious discussion of highly complicated and diverse problems. The solution

of British Union is to give the people direct control over Government by direct vote of the

whole nation at regular intervals, when they will give their verdict on the general issue whether

Government is good or bad, and, at the same time, to give them a separate occupational

franchise for the election of a serious and modern Parliament on which Government will rely

for the detailed consideration of modern problems.

With this solution we challenge the present system of financial democracy which in theory

rests on the absurd assumption that everyone understands everything. In practice it results in

such complete confusion that the great interests can govern under cover of the all-pervading

smoke screen, and the great rogues of finance can get away with their booty, while the antics of

the little kept politicians distract the attention of the people from reality.

A Government resting on the direct vote of the people and a Parliament elected by the

informed vote of the people reconciles freedom with action and lays the foundation of the

modern State.

The House of Lords

The present House of Lords can find no place in a modern system and will be abolished by

British Union. It will be replaced by a new Second Chamber which reconciles British tradition

with modern Government. That Chamber will represent the proved ability and experience of

the nation. It will comprise industrial representatives from the National 'Council of

Corporations, representatives of all the main religious denominations, representatives of

education, representatives of the Services and men and women automatically appointed by

their long occupation of positions of conspicuous service to the State. From such an assembly

of personal experience and ability Government can draw great reserves of capacity for advice

and constructive suggestion in all the multifarious variety of modern problems. This

conception also carries out in modern form the original aim of the British Constitution. The

House of Lords was constructed to represent the industrial, cultural, and spiritual aspects of the

national life. In those days agriculture was the only industry and the peers owned most of the

land. today agriculture is not the only industry and most peers have little to do with the land,

while even the most ardent defender of the House of Lords will not claim that the peers are

today the sole repositories of national culture.

The present House of Lords, therefore, no longer executes the original idea of the Constitution

and is an anachronism. British Union will implement that original British tradition by giving to

the Second Chamber a character really representative of the industrial, cultural and spiritual

life of the nation. In the latter sphere it is only right that in an enlightened age the religious

beliefs of all the main sections of our fellow citizens should be represented. In practice as well

as in theory British Union believes in religious toleration, and that belief will be implemented

by the representation of all denominations.

Freedom of the Individual

The Press

It remains to consider the effect on the individual of this structure of Government in terms of

human freedom and the full individual life. If we accept the premise that economic freedom is

the only true basis of individual freedom in modern conditions it must be agreed that effective

power of action in Government is the prerequisite of individual freedom. For such power of

action is necessary to bring to an end the economic chaos which today robs the individual of

economic liberty in an age from which science can win this boon for all. But some still shrink

from the only means of securing the larger economic liberty for the people through fear that the

process will deprive them of a " political liberty " which in fact does not today exist. This type

can find no answer in practical detail to the simple query, when have they ever got anything for

which they have voted? They are baffled completely by the further question, what is the use of

a "political liberty" which has never yet brought them any practical result? So they usually fall

back on vague generalities concerning the inestimable boons of freedom of speech and

freedom of the Press.

It is, therefore, necessary to examine in a little detail in what freedom of Press and speech

today consists, and what would be the position of these "principles" under British Union

Government. It may at once be stated categorically, to the surprise of many, that the freedom of

the individual in these respects will be far greater than it is today. What freedom of the Press

does the individual possess today? He certainly does not possess the freedom to secure the

printing in the Press of either news or views which do not suit the interests of the Press. In the

national Press, at any rate, he may not even humbly creep into back page correspondence

columns if his opinions be regarded as in any way dangerous.

What prospect has the individual of founding a national newspaper of his own in conditions

where monopoly has reached the point that no newcomer can hope to make good unless he can

command millions of capital? A man of relatively moderate capital resources may possibly

acquire control of a local paper of purely local influence or even, by a lifetime of hard work,

may build such a modest influence in the State by genuine journalism without much capital

resources. But no other save the great finance powers can now arrive in the national Press in

modern monopoly conditions. So, in fact, when our opponents speak of the freedom of the

Press they mean the power of the great financiers to purvey their opinions and their news to the

people, with scant reference to the merits of the journalism, but with much reference to the

weight of money power, which enables them to purchase circulations by canvass and free gifts,

for which the advertisements of the great interests alone can recompense them.

The national Press, in fact, long since has become a matter not of journalism but of finance. In

such circumstances what transparent mockery it is to tell the individual that he possesses

freedom of opinion and of Press, for he, too, can start a newspaper. It is equivalent to the

alleged statement of the classic Tory that Britain was a free country because rich or poor alike

were free to sleep on the Embankment.

Free Speech

As for freedom of speech, in what today does it consist? It is true that anyone can carry a soap

box to a street corner and from that eminence may make any moderate noise that he sees fit to

emit, unless the whim of the local police chief transports him on charge of obstruction before a

bench of magistrates selected for other political qualifications than street corner oratory. But

may we not assume as the premise of the argument that none but a purely "' mental" type

desires to talk under these conditions purely for the sake of talking without any effective action

following from his words? Judged by that criterion of reality, freedom of speech does not exist.

For the persuasion of our countrymen is meaning' less unless we can persuade them to do

something. That power does not exist without a party machine to mobilise their votes, and

party machines are not the possessions of individuals but of the great interests.

Freedom of speech for the individual is confined to the "mental" type who enjoys indefinitely a

fruitless exercise of his lungs at a street corner without the slightest prospect of his words ever

being translated into action. In fact, "freedom of speech " under financial democracy is merely

another solemn make believe which obscures the reality of tyranny. No individual has any

hope of producing any practical effect by words unless he serves one of the great party

machines and, as we shall observe in the next chapter, the party machines in their turn serve the

great interests and by the very nature of the system which they support are inevitably the

servants of finance. So in actual practice under this system freedom of speech is the freedom to

be the servant of the financier.

To this the retort may be made that any individual is free to win the support of his fellow

countrymen, and in so doing from their enthusiasm to create his own machine in face of the

money power. To that argument in turn we make the proud reply that this phenomenon has

been achieved but once in post war Britain in the creation of British Union. And, the writer

may add a note from that unique experience at the end of some years of such a struggle; if

anyone believes that it is an easy and everyday task to create a new Movement from nothing by

the force of the spirit alone in face of Money Power, Press power and Party power, he is

welcome to the unparalleled exertion of that experience, but he will win success only at the

cost of something in his own life and being that is not an everyday occasion.

Real Freedom of Press and Speech

In face of the present negation of freedom in the realm of Press and speech, British Union

approaches a constructive solution in the determination to win real freedom of Press and

speech for the people. That freedom will rest on two main principles: (l) that freedom of Press

means the freedom of the people to read the truth in the national Press and not the freedom of

finance power to tell lies to the people in support of vested interests; (2) that freedom of speech

for the individual means an effective method of translating his opinion into action if by words

he can persuade sufficient of his fellows to agree with him. In the sphere of the Press, therefore,

we lay down the truly revolutionary principle that the Press shall tell the truth. To this end the

proprietors of great newspapers will be liable to prosecution if it can be proved w Court that

they have published news which is not true, and the penalty will be particularly severe if it can

be shown that such Publication was deliberately and maliciously conceived in support of a

private interest to the detriment of the national interest. It is a curious anomaly of present

confusion that an individual who is libelled can obtain redress from the law but the nation

when libelled can obtain no redress. Therefore, it will be open to a Government, elected by the

people, on behalf of the nation to sue a newspaper proprietor if his paper publishes facts which

are false to the detriment of the nation's interest, particularly if the object is to promote a

private interest at the nation's expense. This will curtail the freedom of the Press to publish

news which is untrue, but it will confer upon the people the freedom to read news which is true.

British Union takes the simple view that the freedom of the people to learn the truth should

supersede the freedom of the vested interest to deceive the people. For this reason our new "

freedom of the Press" rests on the simple but revolutionary principle that die Press shall tell the

truth. Consequently neither national nor local paper which tells the truth will in any way be

affected, and no proprietor can have any complaint unless he makes the unexpected admission

that he is in the habit of not telling the truth in his papers at present.

Some organs of the national Press no doubt will pass unscathed through this test and certainly

the great majority of our local papers. For local papers, on die whole, are straightforward

purveyors of news, serving their localities as honest journalists who give a fair representation

to all opinions, with a responsible regard to national interests.

If the whole national Press was conducted in the same method and in the same spirit as the

majority of the local Press they would have nothing to fear from British Union Government.

Free Speech and Corporate Life

The machinery for putting into practice the principle of freedom of speech is equally definite.

We start from the premise that if freedom of speech is to be a reality the individual must

possess effective means of translating words into actions. To this end any individual with

industry, interest, or profession, will be invited to enter into the appropriate Corporation, the

detailed structure of which is suggested in Mr. Raven Thomson's able book on this subject and

will not here be repeated beyond a survey of economic function in Chapter 4. Within the

Corporation every one is not only permitted but by every means encouraged to express

opinions both constructive and critical, and is provided with a means of making opinion

effective. For if the individual can move the relevant Corporation by argument that

Corporation's opinion, representing a very substantial factor in the State, is transmitted to

Government, and for Government to ignore Corporate opinion would be to court dismissal at

the next vote on universal franchise by the sum of individual voters who comprise the

Corporations.

The mechanism of the Corporation, ready to the hand of the individual, is a more powerful

instrument for the expression of free speech in effective terms of reality than the lonely and

meaningless pedestal of the street corner orator. Through Corporate life the individual wins

meaning and reality for freedom of speech. Such real and effective freedom of speech is a basic

necessity for British Union Government which in the achievement of a revolution in national

life must ever carry the people with it, and maintain a far closer contact with the people's

opinion than Government possesses today. It is good enough for the Governments of financial

democracy to consult the people in a mock election once in five years in the hope that they will

go to sleep in the interval so that Government can go to sleep as well. That is a procedure

possible for Governments which in reality only exist to preserve the existing system and to

guard its vested interests. But such a conception is not good enough for a revolutionary

Movement determined to wrest from chaos a nobler civilisation. For such an achievement it is

not enough to obtain the tacit consent of the people, it is necessary to carry the people with us

all the way and all the time on the march to higher things. That is why we must know all the

time what they are feeling and thinking and have precise means to that end. That is why we

must devise machinery not only to give the people freedom of speech but to make that freedom

effective. Contact between Government and people must ever be so close that the flame of our

own revolutionary passion may pass continually from the souls of pioneers to fire and maintain

the spirit of the people at a white heat of ardour unknown to the doped and tepid supporters of

financial democracy.

For this shall be a great comradeship between the people and the Government they have

elected to lead them. They must ever know what we are doing and we must ever know what

they are thinking. That is why we believe in the people's real freedom of speech and will win it

for them. Thus only can be secured that close and sacred union between the people and their

Government by which alone a great nation shall march again to greatness.