Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

132 LIFE AND IDEAS OF MITRINOVIC

she nominated were Professor Soddy, Rev. A. D. Belden, Lt. Colonel J. V. Delahaye, Jack Murphy, David Davies, and Winifred Gordon Fraser. The seventh was Mr. H. E T. Rhodes. So powerfully did she address the gathering that her proposal was accepted by general acclaim. One of those present recalled the evening many years later:

I remember Lilian Slade getting up and making a most marvellous statement. She really was inspired. She carried it off beautifully. She gave a potted biography of each of these people that were proposed. She did it marvellously and was almost on fire . . . Most impressive. After all the years I can still remember that. It was carried of course by acclamation. I can remember at one stage my friend who was sitting next to me said, “Isn’t it about time we got up and cheered?” We were so moved. So we all got up and cheered.

The address from the platform might have been moving, just as the cheers of this informant were undoubtedly genuine, but what they were witnessing was the execution of a coup. Members of the central group had met with Mitrinović the previous evening. Fearing that the constitutional proposals that were to be presented on the Sunday might be accepted, with the consequent erosion of their guardian-like position within the movement, they had planned their pre-emptive strike and had got away with it. They might dismiss formal voting procedures as belonging to ‘Old Britain, but they could rival the most devious of the old world politicians when the occasion and their own interests demanded it.

One has to feel some sympathy for the outflanked Andrew Campbell who, the following morning, had the task of presenting the constitutional proposals to the conference in the aftermath of the previous evening’s events. Moreover, he had to contend with Gordon Fraser, one of the key movers behind the coup, who, whilst claiming to recognise the advantages of organising the movement efficiently, objected that “to impose an elaborate system in order to strip of authority the very persons who are responsible for what exists was a very Old Britain idea of democracy!”

Little headway was made with the discussion as people were too busy trying to find out what had happened the previous evening, arguing about the decision to appoint seven leaders and debating the legitimacy of the means adopted to obtain that decision. In the afternoon Charles Purdom expressed from the chair his dissatisfaction with the proceedings and with the decisions arrived at. Again it was left to Jack Murphy to publicly defend the interests of the central group. People had nothing to fear, the new leaders were not going to dissolve any organisations that the members had created, they would draw up a new constitution and present it to the movement,