A Finnish knight with no humbug
J. Enoch Powell
CRUSADE: A LIFE AGAINST THE CALAMITOUS TWENTIETH CENTURY by Patrick Donner
Sherwood, £12.50
Lady Donner was right to insist on Sir Patrick writing what, despite the sub-title, is the autobiography of an extraordinarily lucky man. Born in Finland in 1904 — Finnish father, Scots mother — he narrowly escaped destruction in the Bolshevik re- volution; his father, a wealthy and promin- ent man, became independent Finland's first ambassador to Britain; after public school, Oxford and naturalisation, he took on an unwinnable London seat as a Con- servative, won it in the 1931 landslide, and became Secretary of Churchill's India De- fence League. Instead of losing the seat again in 1935, he was invited (not unani- mously) to the safe country seat of Basing- stoke, near which his father purchased and gave to him a fine landed estate. He married the daughter of an Admiral of the Fleet, was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Sam Hoare, became a keen adherent of Neville Chamberlain and strong munichois, served two and a half years in the RAF (Squadron Leader), and retired after 24 years in the House, having been widowed, and married another admiral's daughter to adopt, at only 50 years of age, the life of a country landowner.
Of one material additional fact the read- er finds no record in the text but has to glean it from the flap of the dust jacket. It is disappointing not to hear in Sir Patrick's own words how it came about that he received the one hitherto missing attribute of a Conservative `knight-of-the-shire', namely, a title; for he was knighted in 1953 as a preliminary to his retirement. It is a popular myth that wherever the Russians go, the snow on their boots never melts. Without commiting what Sir Patrick would regard as the ultimate blasphemy of confusing a Finn with a Russian, I am constrained to resort to that mythological metaphor. Through all those 80 years of seemingly magical transformation into the very model of a Conservative Englishman, the snow never melted off his boots. Hence his never-ending sense of 'calamity', against which he fearlessly and pertina- ciously struggled. It was not 'the 20th century' but the way the English as they really are carry on, which evoked Sir Patrick's horrified resentment.
He hates and fears Russia, and specifi- cally Russian communism, with a hatred and fear which in the English is only provoked by a direct and immediate con- tinental foe. He also admired and all but worshipped the British Empire, which the English only took seriously during a brief and uncharacteristic phase of their history. There is a revealing description of his anguish when the British ambassador to Poland referred to the empire in 1939 before a Polish audience as 'ramshackle' - intending the term, of course, as an affec- tionate compliment. The Labour Party, which Sir Patrick also detests, is dangerous as the dupe or harbinger of communism and as the reckless destroyer of empire. Above all, Sir Patrick reacts with uncom- prehending revulsion to the English capac- ity for working with cruel and cynical perfidy towards the political ends they happen to regard as predestined. Hence the chapters of the book in which is published or cited for the first time documentary evidence of the methods by which the Indian princes were bulldozed into waiving their opposition to the Gov- ernment of India Act 1935. Donner was and, more significantly still, remains, shocked at the combination of bullying, bribery and deceit that Britain used.
I am a useful witness in this case. Like Sir Patrick I fell under the spell of wonder and admiration for the Raj. Like Sir Patrick I believed tht it could be and ought to be upheld. Like Sir Patrick, albeit at an inferior level, I resigned from being secret- ary of the Conservative Parliamentary Par- ty's India Committee rather than be tainted with acquiescence in the renuncia- tion of 1947. Like Sir Patrick I too voted against the treaty evacuating the Suez 'link with India'. By then, however, I had come to perceive that the very nature of England doomed, and had been understood by her greatest servants to doom, the Raj to transience and liquidation. So I could make my peace with an England older and deeper than Curzon's or Milner's or Joe Chamberlain's. It does not lie in my mouth to complain that Sir Patrick could not.
If, unlike his, my latter years are actively dedicated to preventing the good old En- glish methods of bribery and bullying, humbug and perfidy, from being. applied successfully to a part of the United King- dom itself, it is not because I do not understand or even sneakingly continue to admire them, but because I perceive the United Kingdom's parliament as the quint- essential achievement of the English poli- tical genius.
I mentioned humbug just now. The stiffest barrier to be surmounted by those who, not being English, throw in, like Sir Patrick Donner, their lot with England, only to be dismayed and disappointed, is understanding and appreciation of that preservative national virtue. Take Yalta, for example. The Government knew just as well as Donner what nobody and no- thing could prevent happening to Poland in 1945 — or, for that matter, in 1939. Donner and a handful wanted to throw the truth in Russia's face. 'Why', said England, `when a little humbug will keep all sweet?'
In their quiet, instinctual way, the En- glish are not really afraid of Russia. Why should they be, with all Europe in be- tween? And who knows if Russia might not come in handy at a pinch? They have no illusions about the unpleasantness — un- Englishness — of Russian ways; but that is often the trouble with any foreigners. The same instinct counsels them, however, at some considerable expenditure of money and humbug, to avoid explaining all this to the Americans, who are in a position to make themselves much more unpleasant to us than the Kremlin and who wouldn't understand anyhow. I do hope, neverthe- less, that Donner's suspicion that the En- glish are not really serious about Russia in the way that he is serious will not detract too much from the delight he finds in preserving and adorning Hurstbourne.
Sir Patrick, it has been good to know you!
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