from speculating by his position. Now he set to. In America to give highly paid lectures and to write for American magazines, he wrote joyfully to his wife on September 20, 1929, from California that “very great and extraordinary good fortune” had attended him on the stock exchange, thanks to the advice of Sir Harry McGowan, chairman of Imperial Chemicals, whom he had got elected to the Other Club and who, in return, was looking after his money. He instructed Clemmie to embark on plans for large-scale entertainment in London of “colleagues and MPs and a few business people who are of importance.” He had earned nearly £ 20,000 since he last wrote:
So here we have really recovered in a few weeks a small fortune. And this with the information I can get and now am free to use may earn further profits in the future. I am trying to keep £20,000 fluid for investment and speculation with Vickers da Costa [stockbrokers] and McGowan. This “mass of manoeuvre” is of the utmost importance and must not be frittered away. But apart from this, there is money enough to make us comfortable and well-mounted in London this autumn.
A month later all had gone with the wind as the great Wall Street crash reverberated through the skyscraper canyons. He was present to hear a dinner host address a table full of top businessmen with the words “Friends and former millionaires.” He added: “Under my window a gentleman cast himself down fifteen storeys and was dashed to pieces.” McGowan had been investing his funds “on margin” (something Churchill did not understand), so he not only lost all his money but had to buy himself out of the mess. He considered selling Chartwell, but it was “a bad time.” Instead he redoubled his writing output, negotiating fresh contracts and lecture tours. His earnings rose to over £40,000 a year, an immense income in those days. But his confidence had been shaken, and in his bruised condition he began to make political mistakes again.
First he resigned his seat on the Conservative front bench. The issue was India. True, both the new Labour government, plus Baldwin and most of his colleagues, supported by the report of the Simon Commission and the liberal viceroy, Lord Irwin (later Lord Halifax), were united in backing a gradual progression to self-rule. Churchill rejected this totally and got himself into a die-hard position. He fought a campaign, making speeches all over the country, associating with the extreme right-wing of the Tories, and moving closer than ever before to the press barons, especially Beaverbrook and Rothermere, who controlled the Daily Mail group. Churchill had not been back to India since 1899. He had only met Gandhi, who now led the resistance movement, once, when undersecretary to the colonies, and mistaking his significance dismissed him as “a half-naked fakir,” a phrase which stuck, to his own discredit. His speeches were notably less impressive than those he made as chancellor. Worse, his activities were seen as part of a move to replace Baldwin, in which the press barons enthusiastically joined. This was a huge mistake, for the drive to get rid of him gave “the old turnip lanthorn,” as Churchill called him, a new lease on life, and he made some of the best speeches in his career, slaughtering the press lords and putting Churchill right out into the cold. In August 1931 the Labour government collapsed and MacDonald formed a national coalition with Baldwin as number two but the real power, as most of its huge majority were his Tory followers. Churchill was away and does not seem to have been even considered for office. The coalition went to the country and was returned with a vast majority, Labour being reduced to a mere fifty-two seats. Churchill found his majority doubled but he seems, for the moment, to have been without direction in politics, obsessed with the need to make money. So he returned to America to lecture and write.
On December 13, 1931, crossing
So here we have really recovered in a few weeks a small fortune. And this with the information I can get and now am free to use may earn further profits in the future. I am trying to keep £20,000 fluid for investment and speculation with Vickers da Costa [stockbrokers] and McGowan. This “mass of manoeuvre” is of the utmost importance and must not be frittered away. But apart from this, there is money enough to make us comfortable and well-mounted in London this autumn.
A month later all had gone with the wind as the great Wall Street crash reverberated through the skyscraper canyons. He was present to hear a dinner host address a table full of top businessmen with the words “Friends and former millionaires.” He added: “Under my window a gentleman cast himself down fifteen storeys and was dashed to pieces.” McGowan had been investing his funds “on margin” (something Churchill did not understand), so he not only lost all his money but had to buy himself out of the mess. He considered selling Chartwell, but it was “a bad time.” Instead he redoubled his writing output, negotiating fresh contracts and lecture tours. His earnings rose to over £40,000 a year, an immense income in those days. But his confidence had been shaken, and in his bruised condition he began to make political mistakes again.
First he resigned his seat on the Conservative front bench. The issue was India. True, both the new Labour government, plus Baldwin and most of his colleagues, supported by the report of the Simon Commission and the liberal viceroy, Lord Irwin (later Lord Halifax), were united in backing a gradual progression to self-rule. Churchill rejected this totally and got himself into a die-hard position. He fought a campaign, making speeches all over the country, associating with the extreme right-wing of the Tories, and moving closer than ever before to the press barons, especially Beaverbrook and Rothermere, who controlled the Daily Mail group. Churchill had not been back to India since 1899. He had only met Gandhi, who now led the resistance movement, once, when undersecretary to the colonies, and mistaking his significance dismissed him as “a half-naked fakir,” a phrase which stuck, to his own discredit. His speeches were notably less impressive than those he made as chancellor. Worse, his activities were seen as part of a move to replace Baldwin, in which the press barons enthusiastically joined. This was a huge mistake, for the drive to get rid of him gave “the old turnip lanthorn,” as Churchill called him, a new lease on life, and he made some of the best speeches in his career, slaughtering the press lords and putting Churchill right out into the cold. In August 1931 the Labour government collapsed and MacDonald formed a national coalition with Baldwin as number two but the real power, as most of its huge majority were his Tory followers. Churchill was away and does not seem to have been even considered for office. The coalition went to the country and was returned with a vast majority, Labour being reduced to a mere fifty-two seats. Churchill found his majority doubled but he seems, for the moment, to have been without direction in politics, obsessed with the need to make money. So he returned to America to lecture and write.
On December 13, 1931, crossing
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