You may remember General Raymond E Lee from a recent post: the General’s Moustache. Well I have now got his London Journal which consists of his letters to his wife (and young daughter) living in America while he was serving as Military Attaché in London, 1940-1941.
I couldn’t find a copy in the UK but Dorothy Meyer came up trumps with a first edition – of course it may be the only edition. She sells collectable and out of print books in Batavia, Illinois. To save you looking, it’s forty miles west of Chicago. The journal is every bit the gem I hoped for – at least so far, page sixteen. His own aperçus are of the greatest interest but in this extract he describes what M (unidentified) said.
”Lunched with M, who made an interesting point. England was great as long as she was led by her aristocrats, people of spirit and courage who would take great chances and thought little of pounds, shillings and pence. In the last two or three decades the rulership has fallen into the hands of the middle classes, who have invaded Parliament and have completely monopolized the civil service. The instinct of these people is never to risk anything that may interfere with their jobs and pensions and to translate everything into terms of money and profits. They can’t rise to great occasions or do anything on a great scale, so that one has England, no longer led by its aristocrats, opposed to a real aristocracy – a new one, in which everyone, including Hitler, has risen from nothing to power by his own efforts and daring.
If this country is beaten, he says, it will be the civil service that has done it. Churchill’s strongest assistants, he says, are the Labour men, Bevin and Morrison*, and there is no doubt that, if Britain wins, Labour will govern after the war. Therefore he and many other Conservatives are thinking of joining the Labour Party now, so as to act as a brake on it after the war. That last is the old British game.”
General Lee had lunch with M on 2nd July 1940 making his opinions prescient. I would like to agree with M. He evokes the spirit of the Scarlet Pimpernel. But today I admire politicians, both Labour and Conservative, who have risen through the ranks and even I recognise that the aristocracy no longer necessarily have the mindset to rule – with a very few exceptions. Should you be a student of French history you will know the result of France clinging to the Ancien Régime past its sell by date. His view of civil servants is spot on.
Since we have strayed onto politics I shall observe that that those who migrate to new political parties, on the right or left, are often failures at the ballot box. I don’t mean Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland where there is a confusing web of allegiance. I think they should be able to make their mark within a mainstream party – and if they want to jump ship go to another mainstream party.
* Ministers of Labour and Supply in Churchill’s coalition government.
Do you think M might be Mountbatten?
What perceptive comment on ‘phase 2’ of the descent from Empire. It would be fascinating to know how he might have described our present state of affairs in respect of the creeping…nay galloping…, mindless pursuit of diversity in lieu of talent and education.