praising "Herr Hittler" (so spelt) and "The German White Labour Party". In 1920 he adhered to the idea of "the Jewish Peril", but noted, "Christian Charity forbids us to join in wholesale and indiscriminate abuse and vilification of an entire race." In 1921 he declared it was not acceptable to "shift responsibility" onto the Jews. In his 1929 Autobiography he wrote, "I feel now that it is ridiculous to make accusations against the Jews, attributing them qualities and methods which are really much more typically English than Jewish," and then indicated the country had only itself to blame if the Jews came in and trampled on it. The historian Colin Holmes argued that while "Douglas had been to the forefront of anti-semitism in the early 1920s, he was quite unable to come to terms with the vicious racist anti-semitism in Germany" under the Nazis. Politically Douglas described himself as "a strong Conservative of the 'Diehard' variety". Libel actions Douglas started his "litigious and libellous career" by gaining an apology and 50 guineas each from the Oxford and Cambridge university magazines Isis and Cambridge for defamatory references to him in an article on Wilde. Douglas was plaintiff or defendant in several trials for civil or criminal libel. In 1913 he was charged with libelling his father-in-law. That same year he accused Arthur Ransome of libelling him in his book Oscar Wilde: A Critical Study. He saw the trial as a weapon against his enemy Ross, not understanding that Ross would not be called to give evidence. The court found in Ransome's favour and Douglas was bankrupted by the failed libel suit. Ransome removed the offending passages from the second edition. The prime case was brought by the Crown on Winston Churchill's behalf in 1923. Douglas was found guilty of libelling Churchill and sentenced to six months in prison. Churchill had been accused as cabinet minister of falsifying an official report on the Battle of Jutland in 1916, when although suffering losses, the Royal Navy drove the German battle fleet off the high seas. Churchill was said to have reported that the British Navy had in fact been defeated, the supposed motive being that when the news was flashed, British security prices would tumble on the world's stock exchanges, allowing a group of named Jewish financiers to snap them up cheaply. Churchill's reward was a houseful of furniture valued at £40,000. The