I remember talking to one of these men early in January. I met him in a small public house off Fleet Street where both he and I had taken shelter from a heavy downpour soon after opening time. He had just been to see his old firm—he was a paper-maker—and his former manager, who had been, I gathered, kindly though firm, had tried to explain the position to him. The bar was empty except for us two at first, and he had perforce to unburden himself to me.
At first his mood was one of blank bewilderment. Here was he, a man of twenty-eight, with a wartime wife and a mother to support, with his bounty nearly spent, and with the foundation of his existence, his “safe” job, suddenly removed from beneath him. What on earth were they going to do now? His mother had run a small lodging-house for respectable working-class folk before the war, but that had petered out after six months, “what with evacuation and all”. Then he had married Renee on leave, and Renee had secured a job in a munitions factory on which she had been able to support herself and his mother. Renee’s job had come to an end just before he was “demobbed”, and they hadn’t minded then, because his civilian job was good enough for them both, and he didn’t hold with the wife going out to work. Now they were left without anything.
“There’s no kid, anyway,” he said slowly. “We were meaning to have one when the war ended … but now, well, we’ll just have to change our minds.”
After a couple of drinks his mood had changed to one of self-pity and an outraged sense of justice. It was no longer what Renee and Mother were going to say that mattered—it was what his boss had said to him—Joe Richards—when he left to join up.
“He shook me by the hand, and he said:’ Richards, there’ll be a place for you here when the show’s over.’ That’s what he said. ‘The firm will look after you,’ he said. That was a promise, wasn’t it?”
The story of this parting interview was repeated several times, with mounting indignation. He wouldn’t have put up with that perishing cold and that stinking mud and that asterisked sergeant if he hadn’t thought that a promise was a promise. Not only the economic but the moral foundations of life had been shattered for Joe Richards by this second interview with his manager. If the boss wasn’t going to keep his word, who in this world was?
By this time the bar had filled up, and Joe Richards’s audience had swollen. I had murmured my ineffectual sympathy, and it was now being reduplicated profanely and forcibly by a couple of printers, an elderly taxi-driver and a battered old office-cleaner. And as his audience swelled and bought him drinks, so the wrath of Joe Richards mounted, and his eloquence rose to greater heights. I perceived that I was no longer necessary, and unobtrusively retired as yet another round of drinks was bought, this time out of the remnants of the depleted bounty. As I left I had an uneasy premonition that the end of Joe Richards’s evening would be a blasphemous encounter with a policeman and a night in the cells.
Joe Richards and his fellows were represented statistically by a catastrophic leap in the already swollen unemployment figure. The harassed Government hurriedly evolved a makeshift programme of public works, intended to absorb some of the labour surplus, but, not unaccountably, men who had once given up skilled jobs to, face the necessary drudgery of military life declined in peacetime to do navvy’s work at navvy’s rates of pay in road building and land reclamation schemes. They preferred the only alternative—the dole, feeling in their angry misery that they were owed something by their country.
Here at last was a promising culture for infection by the Nazi propagandists, and the virus they chose to start with was inevitable—anti-Semitism. The refugee population of the country had swollen enormously during the years leading up to the war, and, although some misgivings had been felt, the popular sympathy for the victims of the worst type of Nazi brutality had overridden them. Besides, it was then felt that this increase was only a temporary one until Germany was made safe again for non-Aryans. But, by the time the armies were demobilized, many thousands of these hunted people had begun to look on Britain not merely as a refuge in the time of trouble but as a home where they might be safe and free to establish themselves. Had not Britain been waging a war against their persecutors?
Some of the Jews were deeply grateful to their protectors, and did their best to show it. Others, uneducated and inarticulate, merely felt that here at last was the good time coming—the opportunity which mankind owed them in return for their sufferings, a little peace and time to start the business which was their second nature. They had not reached the stage of feeling allegiance to their new country: many of them could not yet speak her language, and in any case were they not themselves children of Israel, a race apart, who through all the centuries of their wanderings had never allowed themselves to be fully absorbed by any other nationality? They were timid and peace-loving; they were incredibly industrious; and they were prolific. It was not for them to realize the problems which their advent would provoke for their new hosts. They were content to obey the laws and asked only the right to work and make a living. Moreover, after their privations, they were ready to begin work for very little. This characteristic appealed, of course, to the employer who was struggling with rising costs; and, although the restrictions on aliens which prevented many of them from being taken into the fighting services applied to some extent to the conditions of employment, a “way round” could often be found, when both employer and would-be employee were willing. Once in employment, their inherent business acumen and their industry stood them in good stead. They were inventive and ambitious, and whenever possible they found vacancies for their brethren.
Thus the Jews became an easy target for all the confused resentment and ill-feeling which was latent in the demobilized unemployed. Anti-Jewish riots broke out more than once in the East End, even before the Treaty of St. James’s had been signed. The severity with which they were repressed added fuel to the flames, and the fact that the new Home Secretary, Mr. Bernard Goldsmith, was popularly supposed to be of Jewish descent did not help to keep the peace.
It was about this time that the Greyshirts began to make their appearance under the leadership of the meteoric Patrick Rosse. Long before the war began, when the Government was coping with the ineffectual Fascism of the early ‘thirties, there had been legislation against political uniforms, and the “shirt” of various hues had been banned. But the philanthropic War Office, ably seconded by a North Country manufacturer of shoddy, issued each man on demobilization with a complete suit of “mufti”, including a grey flannel shirt. When Patrick Rosse began his series of meetings up and down the country it was men in grey shirts who flocked to hear him, and when the League of Britons was formed by the same Patrick Rosse its members wore grey shirts. Who was to forbid them? Who was to deprive the ex-Service man of the gift which his own country had made him?
It is not easy to present a convincing portrait of their leader now. There are so many damning facts, so many equally damning suspicions attached to his history, that it is almost impossible for those who never came into contact with him to imagine the personality of a man who, in spite of his Irish origin and doubtful antecedents, could induce many thousands of Englishmen to follow him over the precipice of their own ruin. There is no doubt that he had been a member of the I.R.A.; his enemies said that he had been one of its leading organizers, but, if that was so, he had abstained from taking any active part in its campaign for some months before the war began. By hook or by crook he then entered the ranks of the British army—according to his enemies as a paid agitator. This at least is doubtful; it may well have been the Irish instinct to join in the biggest fight going. There is no record of his having indulged in any treasonable activity in France; on the contrary he was decorated for gallantry and his promotion was obstructed only by minor incidents of indiscipline which were natural in so obstreperous and reckless a character.
His motives in founding and organizing the League of Britons are equally obscure. Those who regarded Rosse as endowed with a Satanic hatred of Engla
nd and an equally Satanic ingenuity in accomplishing her ruin believe that the League of Britons was founded with the deliberate intention of building a bridge to the German domination of England, and that it was an I.R.A. conception no less murderous and devastating than a bomb. The complexities of the Celtic mind have always been beyond me, and it is, I suppose, not impossible that a man might give himself up heart and soul to the ruination of a foreign country, if he thought that he could thus free his own. But I find it difficult to believe that anyone with so Machiavellian a turn of mind could inspire his public utterances with the atmosphere of passionate and abandoned sincerity that surrounded the speeches of Patrick Rosse. There is unfortunately no doubt that the League received subsidies from Germany, under the transparent cloak of “gifts from German ex-Service men”, and that Rosse was fully aware of this. But I personally do not believe that Rosse fully realized the purpose behind the “gifts”. I think he was a man naturally “agin the Government” who became intoxicated with his own popularity and success, and who in his fervour and fury would seize any weapon to attack his adversary.
That is my personal opinion. But I met Rosse and I heard him speak, and I am prepared to admit that anyone who ever fell under the spell of that flaming personality is not a reliable witness. He was the most potent orator I ever heard. It was only a few weeks after the Treaty of St. James’s that I went north to attend a big Yorkshire rally of the League of Britons, held in Leeds Town Hall. Unemployment had of course hit the industrial areas hardest, and it was here that the League found its staunchest and most stubborn adherents. Delegations from all over Yorkshire and Lancashire marched into the great hall, each headed with a home-made banner bearing the name of the local branch, and took their places in the rows of red-plush seats under the huge and intolerably bright electric chandeliers. There was nothing theatrical about the gathering—no brass bands and no music from the vast and ornate organ that rose behind the platform and had accompanied so many lusty performances of the Messiah. The hall was insufficiently warmed, and I shivered in the Press seats, which were caught by a draught from one of the side-doors. The men about me talked in low tones. There was no smoking: tobacco for this class had become a luxury that was enjoyed only in moments of leisure, and this was not one. Here and there in the crowded hall I could see a woman when I stood up, but it was primarily a male gathering—row on row of serious-faced men, with shabby jackets or overcoats over the inevitable grey shirt.
Then the committee filed on to the platform, and there was a brief stir and a perfunctory clapping from the audience. Still there was nothing to recall earlier outbreaks of Fascism—no roll of drums, no floodlights, and no saluting. Patrick Rosse was easily distinguished from the small group on the platform by his bright red hair and tall stooping figure. He wore a dark suit on which I could see the ribbons of the Military Medal and the Nuremberg decoration. Both he and his companions seemed to the eye of a journalist to be unusually slim and young to be occupying the platform of a public meeting. One was so used to the elderly and well-fleshed committee man.
Lawson, a local journalist, named some of them for me in a whisper. “The scruffy little fellow on the right, who looks like an atheist cobbler, is Morley, the secretary. The chap next to him is a German delegate—think his name’s Meyer—he’s over on some sort of goodwill mission.” (We could not know then that the pale face of Meyer with its fixed smile and staring blue eyes was later to preside over the horrors of the Godalming concentration camp.) “Fellow in the middle is the local chairman—Lewthwaite’s his name—and then there’s Rosse. Don’t know any of the others.”
After a few laborious words by the chairman, which included an introduction of “our good friend and late foeman, Herr Meyer” and an acknowledgement of the “handsome donation from our brothers in arms in Germany” which he had brought with him, Rosse rose to speak. I took no notes: I was not there to give a verbatim report, only my impressions, and when I later came to write them up I found them incoherent. It was difficult to realize—much less to describe—the way in which that sober, rather stolid meeting was roused to a ferocious and hoarse-voiced mob which went out and did its best to sack the Jewish quarter of Leeds.
It was, to begin with, the strong confident voice, reaching the ears without strain or violence, which disarmed the critical faculties. There was none of the practised lilt of the politician in it; it was not over-educated, and yet the latent brogue was too restrained to become “picturesque” or comic. It was in fact a pleasure just to listen. Then I found myself noticing, with keen appreciation, the extraordinary richness of the man’s vocabulary and vivid phrasing. But before long, in spite of all my training, I found myself gripped by his matter. He made the injustices done to ex-Servicemen sound like some huge and legendary crime which must make the world weep. He created bloated giants of oppression, which the feeblest Jack of all longed to rise up and slay. He surrounded us with a labyrinthine web of corruption and inefficiency, and then led us sword in hand to slash our way out. Above all, he depicted the Jew—not the oriental, child-murdering bogy of Nazi doctrine, but the well-to-do smiling alien in our midst—with such venom that even my sanity was clouded with resentment, while half the audience was on its feet baying with fury. Throughout the whole speech he played subtly on the sense of shame which secretly beset so many consciences—a war unwon, a job half-finished, a nation disgraced in the eyes of the world, betrayed by its own half-heartedness and the leaders it had produced. I still remember his peroration, delivered with the voice of a trumpet:
“On your feet. March through the town. Show the Jews and show the world that there is still blood in Britain.”
His hearers had leapt up like one man, and, as he ended, streamed shouting and cheering into the city streets.
I sat where I was until my dizzied wits had come to earth. Then I remembered that there was to be an interview with the Press in one of the committee rooms. At this Rosse showed that he was not merely a demagogue. Most of the journalists who were there to question him felt, as I felt, indignant at having been swept off their feet by an oration. They were out to justify themselves as hardened newspaper men, to trip him up and reveal him as a callow politician. They did not succeed. He met their questions with wit and ability, and occasionally abashed them with a quiet sincerity which blunted their would-be cynicism. When he learnt that I was from one of the Dominions his face lit up and he drew me aside to beg that I would convey his message to my own countrymen. Would I ask them, he said, to have patience with the Old Country—to remember that the voice of politicians was not the voice of England? I was to tell them that he and his like were there to restore the lost tradition of Britain, to renew the pride in their heritage which Britons all over the world had once shared between them. The men who had returned sulkily or defiantly to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand would once again be glad that they had sprung to arms. In spite of myself I was moved, not only by his discernment of the feelings which were troubling the hearts of my countrymen, but by the warm, personal friendliness of his manner, and the spontaneity of his words.
Yet even while I talked with him, pandemonium was spreading through the streets as darkness fell over the city. The authorities had been deceived by the quiet and orderly way in which the meeting had begun, and had relaxed their precautions. But what had begun on the Town Hall steps as a tumultuous procession developed within twenty minutes into a riot. It was a Saturday, and the large Jewish population of the city was out enjoying the Sabbath holiday. The sight of the crowded pavements and brightly lit shop windows seemed to enfuriate the Leaguers. One of them levelled his banner-pole like a lance, and with a shout of “Come on, boys, we’ll show ’em” dashed it through a window. With the crash of the broken glass rose the ugly, long-drawn sound of women’s screaming, and with a roar the fight began. It became the worst kind of street battle. The local citizens fought furiously against the invaders. The Jews among them were not the timid refugees of recent years, but a hardy race
born and bred in the industrial slums, and they fought back with the jagged armouries of the race-gangs and the back streets.
The inadequate police forces struggled desperately to regain control, but they were swept aside or trampled underfoot as the battle raged up and down the main shopping thoroughfares. At first the Leaguers, united in a blind enthusiasm, had the upper hand, and drove the crowd before them. Then, as local resentment boiled up and as reinforcements poured out of the public houses and side streets, they in their turn were hurled back. Gradually the main battle broke up into a number of vicious and hard-breathing struggles between small bodies of men, and it was then that the worst casualties occurred. Fortunately by this time the police had collected enough reinforcements to clear the streets, and this they did with repeated truncheon charges and a good deal of very necessary hard-hitting.
If Hitler Comes Page 4