BRITISH FASCISTS' FUNDS
SIR,—So far as I call" observe, no other journal in the country has com- mented to the effect that my denial was untrue in theonatter of the recent Government allegation concerning funds in the years r934 and 1935. I will, therefore, deal with the only specific point which you raise in yOur issue of June 14th. The controversy as a whole is covered at much greater length in the preface to a book entitled My Answer, which I am now publishing. The reply To your argument is very simple. All the activities of the British Union wge always paid for direct from its own bank account. The wage-bill and all. the considerable expenditure on propaganda and organisation were merby cheques drawn on that account. This account and all other records of the British Union from the foundation of the move- ment were in the hands of the Government during the war. I, therefore, repeat my question: IT Italian money was paid into this account in 1934 and 1935 how and when was it paid and through what accounts did it pass?
If you suggest that Italian money was used for purposes not shown in British Union accounts, what were those purposes and what conceivable object could they serve? I presume that even those Conservatives who are now indistinguishable from the Labour Party in anything that matters will not suggest that I used Italian money for my own purposes. If , malice from any quarter went so far, the answer would again be simple: (a) my private accounts.were also available to the Government ; (b) I have ever been taunted with being a rich man ; (c) my observable standard of life was considerably below that made possible by my own wealth, which can be proved to haVe been given in large amounts to the political purposes in which I believe. When such charges are made I am entitled to demand a precision, which would be easy if they were well founded. Mr. Lloyd George's charges against the late leader of the Labour Party, Mr. George. Lansbury, when acting as editor of The Daily Herald, at any rate lacked nothing in precision. He stated, inter alia, that the latter's son, Mr. Edgar Lansbury, had been asked by the police to account for the fact that he had in his possession part of the notes realised by the sale of the Russian jewels.—Yours faithfully,
0. MOSLEY.
[It was not stated in The Spectator that Sir Oswald Mosley's denial of the statements in Grandi's letter to Mussolini was untrue ; between the statement and the denial readers can choose for themselves ; it was merely remarked that the protestation that during the war the authorities had access to all the British'Union of Fascists' accounts was completely uncon- vincing. Money cadlie received without going into any accounts ; the alleged transactions took place in r934 and 1935 under normal peace conditions.—En., The Spectator.]
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