SUBSIDY FOR MOSLEY

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24896, 8 June 1946, Page 7

SUBSIDY FOR MOSLEY

ALLEGED PAYMENTS FROM ITALY

STATEMENT IN HOUSE OF COMMONS , , LONDON. June 6. Italy spent at the rate of 3.500,000 lire (then £60,400) yearly in 1934 and 1935 to subsidise Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, according to letters read by the Home Secretary (Mr Chuter Ede) in the House of Commons. Signor Grandi, the former Italian Ambassador, wrote to Mussolini: “All the money, believe me, Il Duce. simply goes down the drain.” Mr Chuter Ede said that evidence of these transactions was found among Mussolini’s papers. A letter from Signor Grandi dated January 30. 1934. stated: “Mosley asked me to express his gratitude to you for sending to him a considerable sum. which I arranged to hand over to him to-day.” Another letter dater March 1, 1935. stated: “You are giving Mosley 3,500 : 000 lire yearly in monthly instalments. We, at present, should concentrate our efforts in a different direction. With a tenth of what you give Mosley I feel that I can produce results tenfold better.” Mr Chuter Ede read extracts which were punctuated by members’ laughter. He added: “Unfortunately it was not illegal for Mosley to receive these sums. I only hope that this will be an instructive foreword to the book he proposes to publish.” Sir Oswald Mosley told the Press Association Union that he had received no money from Italy. He added: “I do not doubt that evidence on the subject is now available in alleged Italian archives at a penny a packet.”