Mosley Out

As often before in his turncoat career, dark, humorless, melodramatic Sir Oswald Mosley was the center of a storm last week. As often before, the storm was more important than its center.

The Black Shirt. Successively a Conservative, Laborite and Socialist, Sir Oswald emerged in 1932 as the firebrand founder of the blackshirted British Union of Fascists. He broadcast his admiration for his friends Hitler and Mussolini, tried to put his country in the Axis orbit. His hoodlums attacked labor meetings, were attacked in turn. Wherever Sir Oswald went, a kind of hate rose that was strange to Britain.

A law banning political uniforms stripped off the black shirts in 1937, but did not change the line of Mosley Fascists. Even the war did not stop Sir Oswald; not until May 1940 did total war make Britain curtail its traditional totally free speech. Then, without trial and for the safety of the kingdom, Sir Oswald and his ardently sympathetic wife, Lady Mosley, were locked up. Since then, he has been a privileged prisoner. In Holloway Prison (for women) he had his wife's company, a four-room apartment, other prisoners for charwomen, medical attendance and permission to visit London doctors after he fell ill of phlebitis (inflammation of the veins).

The Black Symbol. Last week, through a side door of crenelated Holloway, the Mosleys stepped into an automobile. It took them into seclusion where they will be technically free, but still under police supervision.

Word that Laborite Home Secretary Herbert Morrison was about to release the Mosleys had got out before they did. The explanation that Sir Oswald was sick and harmless did not appease angry Britons. Workers' delegations vainly sought Winston Churchill at No. 10 Downing Street, tramped on to Morrison's office, where again they were denied an audience. Factory groups protested. Street speakers cried: "What are we fighting against-- phlebitis or Fascism?" Most of the London press joined the outcry.

To all, it was obvious that Morrison had merely carried out a decision of the Tory-dominated coalition Government. But that circumstance only heightened the fact that Sir Oswald Mosley was a British symbol of Britons' Fascist enemies. To the British working masses, who form the backbone of the Labor Party, Sir Oswald the Fascist symbol loomed large and black.

Laborite Ernest Bevin's big, powerful Transport and General Workers' Union resolved that freedom-for-Mosley indicated that "the Government is wavering in its adherence to the principles for which we are fighting." Morrison promptly broke his silence, chided T.G.W.U. for haste, and promised a full explanation to Parliament.

Politically, freedom-for-Mosley thus had a subtle effect. By deepening the rifts already present in the Labor Party, the release of Fascist Mosley may heighten the Tory chances in Britain's next general elections.

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