SHAW GEORGE BERNARD Autograph Letter Signed G Bernard Shaw t

Sale 2661 - Lot 165

Price Realized: $ 1,000

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500

"CHARLES DICKENS POINTED OUT…THAT…GOVERNMENT…WAS THE ART OF HOW NOT TO DO IT" SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD. Autograph Letter Signed, "G. Bernard Shaw," to H.T. Muggeridge ("My dear Muggeridge"), explaining how Muggeridge was too good to be accepted as an MP by the people of Romford, remarking that his party (the Labour Party) had shown its competence despite Winston Churchill's statement that they could not govern, observing that the inhabitants of Romford are used to people who avoid governing and would prefer to listen to lies about him than to truths about themselves. 1 page, large 4to, "Grand Hotel Imperial" stationery; few short closed separations at folds, faint scattered foxing. (SFC) Dubrovnik, 21 May 1929

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"In my opinion you are far too good a candidate to stand any chance of acceptance in Romford or anywhere else. Forty years ago you and I were making a serious study of politics, only to find that the Conservatives and Liberals had never dreamt of doing anything so troublesome or so likely to shock the British elector. We and our friends found that a new party, based on the realities of the daily lives of nine tenths of the people of this country, and not on the parliamentary back chat of the rich London clubs and the country houses of the unsubmerged tenth who own nine tenths of all the wealth of the land, was the first political need of the time. We were not even laughed at: we were just stared at; but in twenty years we had our party, the Labor Party, established at Westminster; and within forty that party had become so strong that its old rivals actually backed out for a year and allowed Labor to govern just to prove Mr. Churchill's statement that Labor could not do it.
"The experiment proved the exact contrary. Mr Macdonald's Cabinet knew its business so much better than Mr. Baldwin's or Mr. Lloyd George's that there is not now a single public politician who dares repeat Mr. Churchill's rash challenge--least of all Mr. Churchill himself. The scare is now all the other way. Charles Dickens pointed out eighty years ago that the art of government under the old parties--a highly skilled art--was the art of How Not To Do It. The Labor Party stands for the art of How To Do It; and the fossils who survive from the age of Dickens are scared out of their wits accordingly. The Labor Party really means business.
"Probably Romford is scared too. You have been right all along. Romford is accustomed to men who have been wrong all along. You are telling them truths about themselves; and they think it much better fun to listen to lies about you. . . .
"In short, my dear Muggeridge, you haven't a dog's chance. . . ."
Henry Thomas Muggeridge (1864-1942) founded the humanitarian organization Plan International (which exists today), and served as Member of Parliament with the Labour Party for Romford from 1929 to 1931.