Download Category: British Lion - Fascism

AN ANNOUNCEMENT
The Apology

THE new Editor of BRITISH FASCISM commences this resumption of the papers activities by presenting to the regular subscribers the most ample apologies on behalf of all concerned for the lapse of these activities during the last few months. The loss of both the joint editors and the dislocation of normal activities during a period of re-organisation have resulted in an interregnum which is now at an end. Unlike the orthodox modern politician, Fascists are to be judged by their works rather than by their promises and we feel therefore, that an apology would nor neither worth offering nor worth accepting unless it is accompanied resumption of the regular issue of the paper at intervals of not less than one month from the issue of the present number.

The First Announcement

After a period of something over a year at 22, Stanhope Gardens, the British Fascists are removing to more convenient quarters. The new address will be announced later

SHALL WE LOSE ULSTER
NO SURRENDER?

As Ireland is so •very much in the public eye at the moment, I feel that a few words of explanation as to the conditions which obtain before and during a “free” Irish election.

The English are, by nature, a law-abiding nation. In England, if you want the public not to use a certain path, you merely place a small stick or cord across the said path, and all pedestrians, meekly turn aside and go another way. In Ireland, should you wish to block a path, you need to put up barb wire barricades, and then you will probably find that some bright lad has produced wire cutters and forced his way through!

The law, in Ireland, must be enforced with a very strong hand if it is not to be broken and the ordinary conventions of life count for nothing with a people who are half dreamers and half unsentimental materialists.

Only those who have been through the intimidation which is practised at a present-day Irish election can have any idea of the conditions.

It is not easy for a woman living alone in an isolated cottage to go to the polls and vote as her conscience dictates, if she knows that the I.R.A. have her under observation, and that it is more than probable that the night before the election her cow will be maimed, her windows broken by revolver shots, and that she herself will be hustled and probably injured as she attempts to enter the polling booth.

I was living just inside the Ulster border during the first post-war election, and was responsible for bringing many trembling elderly women voters to the polls. Being loyalists, they would have stood no chance of recording their votes had we not fetched them from their outlying homes, and literally fought our- way through the members of the I.R.A. who lined the steps of the school where the voting was taking place, with the avowed- intention of preventing loyalists from recording their votes.

The outline of a 4.50 colt, worn beneath a thin coat is a useful barrier against terrorism, and the only one which gains- any respect from the lawless element in Ireland, where pacifism and conciliation are merely counted as weakness.

BRITISH FASCISTS AND RUSSIAN BUTTER
HOUSE OF COMMONS GETS A SHOCK

PROBABLY most of the Conservative Members of Parliament receive a circular which emanates from their party headquarters giving useful information about Soviet activities. But whether they ever read it is quite another matter!

A recent issue contained the following quotation from the Russian official newspaper Pravda:—

“The Soviet Farm Molcchnoye” is one of the largest industrial combines included in the Butter Trust… The main task of this gigantic milk factory is to obtain the highest possible production for the market The Soviet farm, however, is not a good example of organization of labour, but, on the contrary, works less successfully than Collective farms. The cattle are fed on a starvation ration… The workers of the Soviet farm drive out the cattle at 8 a.m., and bring them in at 8 p.m…. What does the cattle-yard of the Soviet farm represent? Certainly not a milk- centre, for the sheds are small and dirty. In the third yard the cows stand knee deep in mud. This makes milking very difficult and spoils the milk. The calves are also kept in very dirty sheds. They are often fed on sour and unsterilized milk from tubercular cows… The production of this factory is transported on the same vans as- Benzine and Kerosine, of which the butter often acquires the smell.”

Prompt Fascist Action

The Publicity Department at General Headquarters immediately wrote to a large number of members of Parliament, including the Prime Minister, the Minister of Health, and the Secretary of State for India, urging that steps should be- taken at once to prevent an epidemic arising from this contaminated butter.

DON’T MISJUDGE THE DOMINIONS!

MANY people seem to have gathered a rather low idea of the aims and objects of the Dominions from what happened at the Imperial Conference. That unfortunate event, which showed little practical result of any benefit, has done real harm if it has implanted any misunderstanding of our Overseas cousins in our minds. We have heard the view expressed that the Dominions were mainly actuated by the desire for more power and that other considerations were mainly secondary to that. It seems to be assumed that the possession by the Dominions of more power automatically means a loosening of the ties of Empire.

Perhaps this is the case, and if so it is very regrettable. Nevertheless whoever is to blame for this, it is not the Dominions. Nobody can say sincerely that the present British Government is a satisfactory one, that it is doing all that the nation requires, and is honestly straining every nerve to abolish unemployment! Can it be wondered, then, that the Dominions, seeing what a muddle and mess the Socialists have made of this country, should desire to have as little as possible to do with them? Do we in this country wish to see ourselves, not to mention the Empire, under Socialist control? The Dominions are not to be blamed, they are to be envied, for being outside the control of the crack-brained authority of British party politicians.

Let us remember one very important point. The Dominions have a system of government in most things very similar to our own, and that system here involves the right of the British Prime Minister to advise the Sovereign direct. Can any valid reason be advanced against ac-cording the same privilege to the Dominion Prime Ministers?

British Fascist Policy

IT is very easy to misunderstand British Fascism, and easier still for those who wish to do so to misrepresent it to the minds of people who know nothing about us.

OUR CRITICS CRITICIZE THEMSELVES!

On the one hand we are accused of being almost a foreign organization—certainly one with the intention of imposing foreign ideals on this country—which takes its marching orders from Rome, just as Communists are declared to do from Moscow. The only difference is, that nobody, however mad, or however much they hated us, has ever suggested that we received money from abroad, or even that it was offered to us and refused. It is a cause for thankfulness that we are understood to the small extent that everybody knows that British patriots will only use British money.

From the other side we are attacked with the accusation that we are not Fascists, that because we don’t adopt some trifling detail of Italian origin, therefore we are impostors. Personally, I prefer to wear a clean shirt, and one that is visibly so, and I believe that in order to proclaim my Fascism to the world it is not necessary to trespass upon the wardrobe of comic opera and go about in fancy dress.

THE FIRST DUTIES OF A BRITISH FASCIST

TOO many people seem to be under the impression that the signing of an enrolment form and the purchase of a badge, render the new member a Fascist in every sense of the term.

These are but the outward signs of the fact that he or she has recognised the duty of taking part, as an active worker, in the struggle against a foe who prefers intrigue to force, but who will not scruple ruthlessly to use the latter when the years of underground machination have done their work.

Great emphasis is laid on the common sense of our argument that force must be opposed by force, but far too little attention has been paid to the fact that, if the body politic be debilitated by ever-increasing doses of Communist poison, it will succumb under the shock of the ultimate armed conflict. A moment’s reflection must show that we must ceaselessly counter the intrigue while prepar­ing for forcible action should the enemy have recourse thereto.

Optimism has been the dominating characteristic of the usual flood of forecasts for the New Year.

Such cheerfulness is commendable and its apparent sincerity more so, but honest examination of facts res­trains us from sharing such views.

Far be it from us wilfuly to paint a gloomy picture of the future; the realities which must be faced are grim, and no amount of nebulous platitudes will surmount the difficulties that lie ahead. It is a pleasing pastime to build castles in the air, to Counè oneself into believing that all is well, and to sit comfortably in cheerful expectation. To wake up and find hopes dreams abortive and hopes shattered is the penalty of such idle romance. We know of all too much strife on foot to be optimistic.

The class war may have become a trifle less vigorous over the Christmas season, when “Peace on earth, goodwill towards men” permeated our Christian festivities, but such is the present state of things that The Master’s message passes readily into that oblivion where it is compelled to remain by the seeker after industrial unrest.

The class war and the complexity of the machinations responsible for its promotion, remain with increased bitterness at the commencement of Anno Domini 1927, and for that reason we can see no real industrial peace of a duration which will make some compensation for the strife that has almost been the undoing of the nation. We would dearly love to be justifiably lulled into that sense of security which the acceptance of the “Pinks” as moderates so readily afford. Equally so, we would love to feel that goodwill and co-operation were possible in industry throughout the coming twelve months, and that both “Pinks” and “Reds” would learn that the econo­mic fundamental of our national existence is Capital and Labour in harmony. Unfortunately, we find England to­day struggling for her markets with strife between the two component parts of her industries. Both “Reds” and “Pinks” refuse anything in the nature of a com­promise, with very few exceptions. On the other hand, we find a few “Capitalists” animated by a true sense of magnanimity, extending in tangible form the co-operative hand to their employees.

The Marquess of Ailesbury’s Message to British Fascists

I trust “The British Lion” may enjoy a prosperous future. Fascism, as I see it, is the expression of patriots to uphold Law and Order and is the greatest safeguard that a nation could have in maintaining a just balance between militarism and mob rule.

The Lion Awakes

SINCE the last issue of this journal, an alteration has been made in the departmental organisation under which it is edited and we now present, it to you in its new form.

It has been forced to out notice that the keenness of our contributors, in pressing forward incessantly the unadulterated reasoning of the Fascist Creed; has made “The British Lion” a magazine of purely internal character. It has been suitable for members of the British Fascists but not so attractive to readers outside the movement. Whether a poor impression has been justly or unjustly attributed to it, the mere suggestion has given us furiously to think. The outcome has been an attempt to exclude all matters relating to internal organisation which can have no interest for non-Fascists, and the widening of the scope of the magazine to include a greater variety of subjects. Unfortunately, this issue will still only represent a partial approach to this ideal, but we fully anticipate that those of you who read this and subsequent issues will find that the general broadness of the subjects covered will create a new interest in the periodical itself.

The Most Honorable, The Marquess of Ailesbury, D.S.0 , T .D., who was mentioned in despatches in both the South African War and in the World War (in France, Belgium and Germany) gives us here his reason for his belief in the British Fascists.

Introduction
OUR POLICY:
STATESMANSHIP!
1st June, 1935.

THIS booklet outlines the Aims and Policy of the Imperial Fascist League. Since August 1933 we have used the special issue of “THE FASCIST” of that month as a synopsis of Policy, but it is now practically out of print. We therefore reproduce in the following pages the articles which have appeared in that and other issues of “THE FASCIST” and in I. F. L. Publications.

These articles have been arranged to make a connected whole, so that anyone who reads this summary of our Policy may readily understand not only the spirit which moves us, but also the direction in which that spirit moves us and cannot fail to acknowledge the firm foundation on which it is based and the consistency of the Policy itself.

The original source of each article is clearly indicated and any items written specially to complete this booklet are enclosed in square brackets thus: [ ]
.
The following summary of our general policy has been printed in almost every issue of “THE FASCIST” since November 1931 and prior to that, the same Policy was published in different words.

BRITONS AWAKE!

Join the IMPERIAL FASCIST LEAGUE, an Organisation consecrated to the Service of the British Race and Empire in every sphere of national activity.