THE BRITISH LABOR PARTY 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN HALVOR LEEK 
 A. B. James Millikin University, 1920 
 
 THESIS 
 
 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the 
 
 Degree of 
 
 MASTER OF ARTS 
 IN POLITICAL SCIENCE 
 
 IN 
 
 THE GRADUATE SCHOOL 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 1921 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 / 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
TABLE OF COITEITTS 
 
 Chapter Page. 
 
 Chapter I. -Early Stages of the Movement: to 1906 1. 
 
 Chapter II. -The Intermediate Period: 1906 to 1914 32. 
 
 Chapter III. -The Lar and After. 
 
 First Phase: Truce and Coalition 55. 
 
 Second Phase: The Revival of the Labor Party 62. 
 
 Third Phase: Contemporary Politics ....90. 
 
 Bibliography 
 
 105 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 I 
 
 https://archive.org/details/britishlaborpartOOIeek 
 
1 . 
 
 CHAPTER I. -Early Stages of the Movement** to 1906. 
 
 Fifty years or more ago, Y/alt Whitman, the poet of Democracy, 
 wrote the following: "I expect to see the day when the like of the 
 
 present personnel of the governments, Federal, State, municipal, 
 
 military, and naval, will he looked upon with derision, and when 
 
 qualified young mechanics and young men will reach Congress and 
 other official stations, sent in their working costumes, fresh from 
 their working benches and tools and returning to them again with 
 
 dignity. The young fellows must prepare to do credit to this des- 
 
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 tiny, for the stuff is in them.” The forecast must have sounded 
 wild and improbable when it was uttered, but to-day we have the 
 spectacle of a group of sixty representatives of labor, most of 
 whom have been 'actual working men, in the British House of Commons. 
 
 Since the whole political labor movement in Great Britain has 
 depended for its strength on the organized trades unions, it might 
 be as well to begin a study of the former by outlining briefly the 
 history of the latter. Trades unions, which the Webbs define as 
 
 "continuous associations of wage-earners for the purpose of main- 
 
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 taining or improving the conditions of their v/orking lives", were 
 under the old English common law considered illegal, as being con- 
 spiracies, or combinations in restraint of trade, and such law was 
 enforced from the time of Edy/ard I do wn to the days of George IV. 
 But late in the XVIII Century the effects of the Industrial Revol- 
 ution 7/ere such that not only v/as labor organization on a hitherto 
 incredible scale rendered possible because of grouping of laborers 
 
 1. -Quo ted £y 17. Diack in the Arena for May, 1906, pp 476-480. 
 
 2. -Webb, S.and B. -History of Trade Unionism, Revised Ed., 1920, p.l. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 around the factories, hut the sudden ascendancy and power of the 
 employer was such as to make such combinations almost inevitable, 
 in the interests of self defense. Consequently, just before the 
 opening of the ZIZ Century, the trade union movement experienced a 
 great impetus. It proved to be a bad time for such organization, 
 for the excesses of the Prench Revolution had inspired in the 
 English people a temporary panic and revulsion toward democratic 
 movements; hence the legislation of 1799 and 1800, whereby the 
 common la w against combinations, both of employers and employees, 
 was reiterated emphatically, with heavy penalties provided for its 
 infraction. However, the lav/ was so unequally enforced, persecu- 
 
 tions of unjustified severity being balanced by open and unpunished 
 
 violation, that insistent demand for reform led to the action of 
 
 1824, which v/ent to the opposite extreme and sanctioned all forms 
 of combination without restriction. The following year, hov/ever, 
 under pressure from the employing classes, Parliament reenacted 
 the old la w in a modified form by declaring the common law nominal- 
 ly in force while specifically exempting from prosecution associa- 
 tions for the purpose of regulating hours or wages of labor. Thus 
 for a number of years labor organizations held the anomalous 
 position of being technically illegal but not subject to punish- 
 ment. Such a position was, to say the least, precarious, and 
 finally, continued agitation and periodic legislation culminated in 
 the acts of 1871-1876, which specifically legalized trades unions 
 and even went so far as to free them from possibility of suit. It 
 was declared that no organization could be prosecuted for collect- 
 ive action which would be legal if practiced by an individual. 
 
 Meanwhile the movement had successfully weathered the revolu- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
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 tiogary period of 1830-1848 in European politics and had resisted 
 the determined efforts of the Chartists to capture the unions for 
 their own purposes. The movement had always been averse to politi- 
 cal action, and following the collapse of the Chartists for a 
 number of years the trades unionists placed their whole confidence 
 in the strike as a means of attaining their ends. Indeed, however 
 the idea may have originated, its practical origin is credited to a 
 
 man not belonging to the laboring classes at all, John Stuart 
 
 Mill, since it was at his suggestion that the experiment was 
 
 first tried. The first avowedly labor candidature was that of 
 George Jacob Holyoake, who made a campaign in 1857 in the Tower 
 Hamlets Qonstituency . The strength of his effort was never really 
 tested, however, since late in the campaign he withdrew in favor of 
 the Liberal candidate. For several years following this effort 
 there were several sporadic attempts at securing labor members in 
 the House of Commons, but the first organized attempt was the for- 
 mation of the London Workingmen 1 s Association in 1866. Its pur- 
 poses were claimed at first to be simply industrial; indeed, 
 
 favoring labor representation was the exception rather than the 
 rule with the really influential labor organizations of those days; 
 but the Association was finally induced to include labor represen- 
 tation in its program following some much resented judicial 
 decisions in 1867. 
 
 Of course such pretensions could not but bring down upon the 
 organization the wrath of the Conservative element throughout the 
 country, and much angry rhetoric was expended upon this effort at 
 so-called class legislation. Labor denied, however, that it was 
 seeking special privileges, and discredited the class legislation 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 argument by pointing out in quite orthodox fashion that the Consti- 
 tution did not recognize classes. Campaign expenses and payment of 
 members were early difficulties, but it was finally decided that 
 such constituencies as decided to run candidates would be willing to 
 pay their representatives, if elected, The Association officially 
 favored the extension of the suffrage to a residential and regis- 
 tered manhood basis. Only three candidates ran under the auspices 
 of the Association in 1868; and they polled but 4012 votes in all 
 in the three constituencies of Warwick, Aylesbury, and Halifax. This 
 
 was the first election after the reform of 1867, but no one of the 
 
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 three was elected. 
 
 The failure of the Association was generally attributed to a 
 lack of centralized control, and so, not at all daunted by the ill 
 success of their first venture, the leaders of the movement pro- 
 ceeded to reorganize their forces under the name of the Labor Rep- 
 resentation League in the following year, ihe noteworthy feature of 
 the new organization was the fact that its primary purpose was the 
 election of labor representatives to Parliament. It is of interest 
 to note that the movement protested against the possibility of 
 British participation in the Pranco-Prussian War, which broke out 
 in 1870. Generally, however, its attitude toward the Government was 
 conciliatory, almost subservient. Its early efforts in local and 
 bye-elections were fruitless, but in 1874 the political labor move- 
 ment achieved its first signal success in the return of Thomas Burt 
 for Morpeth and Alexander Macdonald for Stafford, both represent- 
 
 ing miners' organizations. 1'his proved to be the climax of the 
 League's career, however, for it declined in importance and finally 
 
 disappeared, oignificant, however, was its protest, in 1876, of 
 1 * " Humphrey, A. W. , -History of Labor Representation, p.28. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Queen Victoria's assumption of the title of impress. 
 
 Meanwhile the trade union movement had held its first national 
 Congress in 1868, and the meeting soon became an annual event, ihe 
 Congress half-heartedly acquiesced in the attempt at direct repre- 
 sentation of labor, but gave no appreciable aid to the organizations 
 formed for that purpose. It appointed a Parliamentary Committee, 
 whose functions were to influence the progress of legislation 
 affecting the interests of labor in the nouse of Commons through 
 lobbying, petitioning, or any other indirect means they might de- 
 vise. But toward the idea of direct political action the Congress 
 was but lukewarm. Just at this time, anyway, labor was in the midst 
 of its fight for the legalization of trades unions, and it had 
 little time or energy to spare for the representation project, and 
 so Congress after Congress passed without anything definite being 
 done in spite of the persistent efforts of a few leaders, cnee the 
 safety of the trades unions was assured, the Congress adopted a 
 more sympathetic attitude toward the problem, and urged upon its 
 membership the desirability of working and voting for labor candi- 
 dates. But no practical or financial aid was given for a number of 
 years, there being at the time a prejudice against the use of 
 trades union funds for such a purpose. Political action by working- 
 men was discouragingly difficult at this time, anyway, for, it 
 being before the Eeform Bill of 1884, there were registration dif- 
 ficulties to be overcome; unmarried men were required to p&y the 
 equivalent of a yearly rooming bill of fifty dollars; vrorkingmen 
 were allowed to vote in the urban districts but not in the counties; 
 and there was a delay of two years in voting involved in moving, 
 which was especially hard on labor, since the fluctuating and 
 
6 . 
 
 uncertain conditions of employment made a permanent domicile 
 
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 almost impossible. 
 
 The elections of 1880 had resulted in the return of both hurt 
 and Macdonald, and yielded one further labor victory in the choice 
 of henry hroadhurst for Stoke-on-xrent . his election marks the rise 
 of a coalition movement known as Liberal-haborism, which was des- 
 tined to flourish for some twenty years. Most of the labor leaders 
 at this time were xdberals, and the alliance was a very natural one. 
 The Liberal Party took a sympathetic vi ew toward the political 
 labor movement, regarding it as a sort of left wing of its own 
 organization. On this basis for many years it was customary for the 
 majority of labor candidates to stand for election only where the 
 Liberals conceded their strength and the justice of their claim; 
 and for labor Members of Parliament to constitute a little group 
 working in harmony with the Liberal Parliamentary g-'oup. indeed, 
 some critics claim that during the '80’s in particular, labor was 
 actually backward in agitation for political reform; that it tagged 
 at the heels of Liberalism; that laissez faire was even trade union 
 creed until about 1885. Such political agitation as was attempted 
 by labor during this period was that of individual unions, working 
 without coordination, and, at times, even at cross-purposes, and 
 
 they v/ere successful only insofar as their aims coincided with 
 
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 those of the Liberal Party. The reforms of 1884 were both good and 
 bad for the cause of labor representation. Of course they extended 
 the labor vote, but they did away with the double constituencies, 
 and it had been mainly in such districts that labor candidates had 
 
 been campaigning. One new labor member was added to the contingent 
 
 1 . -Of . article by J. Keir Hardie in the Porum for August, 19007 
 
 pp. 726-733 . 
 
 2. Webb, op.cit., p. 368 et. seq. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 in the elections of 1885, and it is perhaps indicative of the grow- 
 ing importance and prestige of the movement that workingmen were 
 first appointed Justices of the Peace in that year, The appointees 
 were Liberals, the appointments being secured through the influence 
 of Broadhurst. As a matter of fact, the movement gained ground 
 locally much more rapidly than it did in the national government. 
 
 The attitude of the Trades Union Congress, meanwhile, had re- 
 solved itself into the shape of an annual declaration in favor of 
 labor representation, and nothing further; until in 1886 persistent 
 efforts resulted in the appointment of a special committee to 
 devise ways and means of promoting the project, in the following 
 year, however, this body declared its independence of the Trades 
 Union Congress and entered upon a separate existence as the Labor 
 Electoral Association. It was a unifying organization promoting the 
 interests of Liberal-Laborism. It was curiously inconsistent, how- 
 ever, in that, although decidedly class bound, as was shown in its 
 refusal to admit to its annual congresses any but actual manual 
 workers, it refused to promote an independent labor organization 
 and insisted on continuing the alliance with the Liberals. Perhaps 
 that very dependence was its weakness, for it had neither a long 
 nor an eventful existence, finally merging with the Liberal Party 
 and disappearing about 1895. 
 
 Probably the most significant political development of the 
 ^O's, however, especially from the labor standpoint, was the sud- 
 den revival and growth of Socialism. Since the collapse of the 
 
 idealistic Socialism of Robert Owen and that Christian Socialistic 
 movement with which the name of Charles Kingsley is connected. 
 Socialism had been in a state of quiescence bordering on total 
 

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 eclipse. The influence of John Stuart Mill and William Morris and 
 others, however, and the sudden and widespread popularity of nenry 
 George's Progress and Poverty quickened it into n ew life, The 
 organized movement "began with the democratic federation, in 1881, 
 which had some Socialistic items in its program, hut v/as not wholly 
 committed to that doctrine, The conversion of the body to a com- 
 pletely Socialistic program was rapid, however, and two years later 
 the name was changed to the oocial Democratic federation, and its 
 attitude became more distinctly political, if not revolutionary. In 
 1884 there was a split in the ranks, and William Morris headed a 
 new movement ¥/hich called itself the Socialist League, whose aims 
 were less extreme and whose methods were educational rather than 
 political. Its influence v/as never very ?/i despread, however, and 
 the organization came to an end in 1890. The formation of the 
 Christian Socialist Society extended the movement to the churches, 
 and there were other lesser organizations, all of whom helped in 
 spreading the propaganda and in popularizing the movement, though 
 many of them were small and ephemeral. 
 
 The most important of these early groups, however, and the one 
 which has succeeded in maintaining an existence and extending its 
 influence right down to the present day, was the fabian society, 
 which took its name from the old foman general Quintus Pabius 
 Maximus, who was noted for the extreme caution of his military tac- 
 tics. The Pabian Society believed in the achievement of a Social- 
 istic state through an evolutionary process, by means of education 
 and propaganda. It has never been a very large organization from 
 the standpoint of numbers, but it has contained in its membership 
 some of the brightest intellectual lights of England, such, for 
 

 
 
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 instance, as George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Sidney and Beatrice 
 Uebb, Graham Wallas, and others. It has published innumerable pam- 
 phlets on Socialistic topics and has been instrumental in spreading 
 abroad a clearer understanding and a better knowledge of the sub- 
 ject throughout the nation. 
 
 The now Socialism, as compared with the older, was emphatically 
 more practical and scientific, and was inclined to state its pro- 
 positions in terms of economic theory. Its significance to the 
 labor movement was not at first apparent, for it did not start as a 
 class movement, even though many of its extremer advocates did 
 preach the class war. Although very naturally a large number of the 
 early converts to the new theory were themselves trades union 
 members, yet for a number of years those in authority in the Trades 
 Union Congress were bitterly hostile to the movement. The Parlia- 
 mentary Committee in particular opposed it. But one fact which 
 favored the growth of Socialism in the labor ranks was that the 
 
 skilled laborers, those who were dubbed the aristocratic trades 
 
 unions, feeling their power and position to be better assured 
 
 than that of some of their fellows, were rather inclined to hold 
 themselves aloof in the matter of aid to the whole concerted labor 
 movement; and the Socialists, playing strongly on that point, 
 
 managed to make very substantial gains for their cause in the 
 
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 unskilled labor groups. Economic conditions, too, were favorable 
 to the Socialistic propaganda, for the industrial depression which 
 marked the middle '80’s brought unemployment and consequent suffer- 
 ing which furnished the most effective sort of political capital. 
 
 A few years later, too, when business had revived, there occurred 
 
 l.-Webb, op.cit., p.588. 
 

 
 
 
 
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 a number of great strikes which strengthened the radical element. 
 1888 and 1889 were years of great expansion in the trades union 
 movement, and the most significant part of it ?;as the formation of 
 a number of unions of unskilled laborers, most of whom had hereto- 
 fore been entirely outside the organized labor fold. The great 
 London dock strike, for instance, led to the formation of strong 
 unions of unskilled dock laborers, and that fact, coupled with the 
 strong influence of the Socialist propaganda among the unskilled 
 forecasted a change in the attitude of organized labor. Significant, 
 too, was the extension of the trades union movement to what was 
 known as the black-coated proletariat, or those who would be more 
 easily recognized ih the American terminology, as the white collar 
 men. The Union of Commercial Clerks and the National Union of 
 Teachers both began their existence in 1890, and though they devel- 
 oped rather slowly for a time, their beginning was a noteworthy 
 sign of the times. Subsequently there have been formed Technicians' 
 organizations, a Medico-Political Union, and Actors 1 Association, 
 
 a National Union of Journalists, an insurance agents 1 organization 
 
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 and many others, even including civil service unions. The period 
 just preceding the last decade of the XIX Century, then, was one 
 of increasing solidarity and sympathy among the workers, and the 
 progress of the Socialist element in the trades union organization 
 turned its activities, which had threatened to be revolutionary, 
 into constitutional channels. 
 
 The deferential attitude assumed by the Trades Union Congress 
 toward the Liberal Party, and the continuance of the Liberal -Labor 
 coalition were extremely distasteful to the more militant of the 
 
 l.-Webb, op.cit., p.503 et seq. 
 

 
 
 
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 Socialist labor leaders. By 1893 this new, aggressive group was 
 practically in control of the Congress, hut it was unable to per- 
 suade the body to make an actual appropriation for the purpose of 
 electing to Parliament a body of labor representatives who should 
 act in complete independence of either Liberals or Conservatives in 
 the House of Commons. In 1889 the Scottish Labor Party had been 
 formed at Glasgow, and it, together with a number of local indepen- 
 dent labor associations which had sprung up all over England, 
 
 participated in the election of 1892, which resulted in the return 
 
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 of twelve Liberal-Labor members and three Independents . Since that 
 time the labor representation in the House has never fallen belo?/ 
 ten men. In the following year a group of militant Socialists under 
 the lead of J. Keir Eardie founded an organization which they 
 called the Independent Labor Party, with two distinctive purposes: 
 in the first place, its program v/as avowedly Socialistic; and in 
 
 the second place, it proposed to be an entirely independent politi- 
 
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 cal unit. It aimed at a cooperative commonwealth, based on the 
 socialization of land and capital; its methods were both education- 
 al and political. Its membership, though overwhelmingly of trade 
 unionists and laborers, was by no means confined to them; a fact 
 which gave it a decided advantage over the more class-bound Liberal- 
 Labor group. As a national party, its numbers have remained com- 
 paratively small, but it has maintained a most vigorous propaganda 
 
 1. -Districts returning labor members: London and environs: Batter- 
 sea, South Division of West Ham, Haggerston Division of Shoreditch, 
 Horth-East Bethnal Green, East Division of Einsbury; urban dis- 
 tricts: Middlesbrough, Morpeth; county districts: Horth-West Divi- 
 sion of Uorfolk, Wansbeek Division of Ho r thumb er land, ITormanton 
 Division of South-West Hiding of Yorkshire, Middle Division of 
 Durham, Ince Division of South-West Lancashire; Ireland: West 
 Division of Limerick, Ossory Division of Queen's County; wales: 
 Hhondda Division of Glamorganshire. 
 
 2. -Humphrey, op.cit, p. 135 et seq. 
 
12 . 
 
 and has exerted an influence on politics out of all proportion to 
 its actual membership . 
 
 The Independent Labor Party began its political career under 
 most discouraging conditions. It put numerous candidates in the 
 field for the elections of 1895, but all of them were defeated. Hot 
 only that, but the total labor group was reduced from fifteen to 
 twelve, and among those who lost their seats was Mr. Hardie, the 
 leader of the new party. All parties, including even the Liberal- 
 Labor group and the Trades Union Congress, united in the bitterest 
 hostility to the new group. A less indomitable group than Hardie 
 and his followers would have succumbed to such a situation, but 
 the Independent Labor Party continued its activities undaunted. 
 Increasing dissatisfaction with the Liberal regime, coupled with 
 unemployment and bad industrial conditions in the f 90's strength- 
 ened its forces, and gradually the breach which separated the 
 movement from the Trades Union Congress was bridged; though it is 
 but fair to say that the yielding was all on the part of the 
 latter, for the Independents did not retreat an inch from their 
 position. Probably the most influential factor in this change of 
 front was several legal decisions rendered during this period 
 which apparently threatened the hard-won immunity of trades unions, 
 and which put an end to the political apathy of the Trades Union 
 Congress and forced it into politics to protect itself. At any 
 rate, after insistent agitation on the part of the more aggressive 
 element, the Congress If 1899 finally passed an innocent-looking 
 and apparently uneventful resolution which ran as follows*. "That 
 this Congress, having regard to the decisions of former years, and 
 with a view to securing a better representation of the interests 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 of labor in the House of Commons, hereby instructs the Parliamen- 
 tary Committee to invite the cooperation of all Co-Operative, 
 Socialistic, Trades Union, and Other working class organizations 
 to jointly cooperate on lines mutually agreed upon in convening a 
 special Congress of representatives from such of the above-named 
 organizations as may be willing to take part to devise ways and 
 
 means for the securing of an increased number of Labor Members in 
 
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 the next Parliament." 
 
 The Parliamentary Committee, however, was not trusted with the 
 next move. Delegates from the Independent Labor Party, the Social 
 Democratic Federation, the Fabian Society, and the Trades Union 
 Congress met and appointed Mr. J. Bamsay Macdonald to draft a con- 
 stitution for the proposed organization. The resulting Labor Rep- 
 resentation Committee proceeded to take advantage of the opportu- 
 nity afforded it, and the very next year it proposed the formation 
 of an independent group in the House of Commons, to hold the 
 balance of power between the two existing parties, and to act with 
 whatever side favored labor proposals and measures. An executive 
 committee of twelve members was appointed to represent the inter- 
 ests of the various cooperating organizations. Four years after 
 its foundation, the Labor Representation Committee, though still 
 retaining its trade union affiliations and backing, declared its 
 independence of the Trades Union Congress and embarked on an inde- 
 pendent career as a political entity. Its first difficulties were, 
 of course, financial. Most trades unions were forbidden to spend 
 any of their income for political purposes, and to change such a 
 rule was a difficult matter. But the afore-mentioned legal en- 
 
 1. -Humphrey, op.cit., p. 143. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 croachments on the position of labor made manifest the necessity 
 for an organization of political offense and defense; so a campaign 
 was at once started for funds. The proposition was necessarily de- 
 layed because each union had to ballot on such a proposal separ- 
 ately. Heretofore, each union had managed its own finances and 
 campaigns, the labor members elected being really the representa- 
 tives of their own unions rather than of labor as a whole. Host of 
 the unions ultimately contributed voluntarily to the expenses of 
 the Committee. At the Newcastle Conference of the Committee, in 
 1902, a separate fund was provided for by a levy of one penny per 
 member per year. 
 
 The political sagacity of the movement cannot be doubted. 
 Hitherto, the weakness of the whole political labor cause had been 
 that its advocates were split between the Liberals and the Conser- 
 vatives, though the former party probably received the mass of 
 their support. However, it had been impossible to swing the whole 
 power of labor because of this dissension between partisan follow- 
 ers of the two great parties. The new departure enabled them to 
 come together on a compromise basis, whereby both sides forsook 
 their former allegiance and threw their whole support to the side 
 of labor. The political methods of the party were a curious mix- 
 
 JU 
 
 ture of decenralization and democracy on the one hand, and cen- 
 tralization and somewhat autocratic control on the other. Each 
 trade union or affiliated organization decided on the number of 
 candidates whose campaign expenses and possible salary it thought 
 it could afford to pay, and then chose the men it wished to run, 
 as well as the constituencies for which they had decided to fight. 
 These names were then forwarded to the labor Representation 
 

 
 
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 Committee, which usually approved the names and endorsed them as 
 the official labor candidates in their respective districts; which 
 
 meant that practically the whole weight of organized labor was 
 
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 pledged to the candidates so approved. The presence of the Inde- 
 pendent Labor Party and the Pabian Society prevented the movement 
 from becoming a purely class one, for, their membership containing 
 considerable numbers of middle class representatives, they were at 
 liberty to choose whomsoever they would to run as their candidates, 
 and the trades unions pledged themselves to back them as impartial- 
 ly as they did their Own candidates. Priction occasionally devel- 
 oped, however, especially among the Trades Union members, who made 
 several vain efforts to secure the exclusion of the Independent 
 Labor Party and the Socialists. As an indication of the relative 
 numerical strength of these two elements, it is interesting to note 
 that in the eventful Congress of 1900 there were delegates from 
 
 sixty-seven trades unions totalling 545,316 members, and three 
 
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 Socialistic parties having an aggregate membership of 22,861. 
 
 In spite of the energy of its exponents, the new arrangement 
 did not manifest any alarming strength in the elections of 1900. 
 True, they contested a total of fifteen constituencies and polled 
 a vote approximately five times as large as that of five years be- 
 fore; but, even including the Liberal -Labor group, there were only 
 two added to the total labor representation. There were, of course, 
 offsetting factors in this campaign. In the first place, the Com- 
 mittee had scarcely been formed ¥/hen it found itself right in the 
 midst of a general election, for which it had very little time for 
 
 1 . -C f . article by J. Keir Hardie in the nineteenth Century for 
 
 April, 1903, pp. 686-694. 
 
 2. -E. R. Pease, in the American Journal of sociology * or 
 
 560-5 61 ^ 
 
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 preparation. In the second place, the election of 1900 took place 
 during the South African war, and the labor candidates and members 
 were outspoken in their condemnation of that war, declaring it to 
 be imperialistic and unjustifiable; and naturally, v/ith the country 
 in such a fever of patriotism as marked it at the time, men whose 
 doctrines were so unpopular v/ith the great majority could scarcely 
 ezpect an overwhelming victory. However, as the v/ar feeling sub- 
 sided, resentment against the labor leaders on that score gradually 
 disappeared. This fact was reflected in the bye-elections of 1902, 
 
 in which three new labor members were added to the Parliamentary 
 
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 group. In reality, the war was not so much of a handicap to the 
 movement as one might at first surmise, since it converted into 
 out-and-out Labor Party men a number of radicals who had persisted 
 in hanging on to the coat tails of the Liberal Party. The labor 
 leaders stigmatized the Liberals as the commercial party, and 
 claimed that its nature made inevitable an imperialism for the sake 
 of world markets which would make it tend toward coalescing with 
 Toryism. 
 
 All candidates who ran under the auspices of the Labor Hepre- 
 sentation Committee were required to pledge themselves to the 
 program and constitution of their party, and the small group of 
 independent labor members in the House were kept in unity by a 
 ruling whereby they were obliged to abide by the decision of the 
 Parliamentary group or resign. This strictness of discipline, to- 
 gether v/ith a refusal to endorse candidates as Socialistic alien- 
 ated the Social Democratic Federation, which withdrew its member- 
 ship from the Committee. The Co-Operative movement was the only 
 
 1 . -Humphrey , op . cit . , p . ‘154 . 
 
17 . 
 
 other important radical or labor organization (with the exception 
 of the Miners' Federation, which affiliated later) ?/hich was not 
 included, however, it having never formally accepted the invitation 
 to affiliate with the Committee. The Constitution of the Committee 
 was revised in 1905, and in the new form was inserted that famous 
 clause summarizing its objects and methods which has been so widely 
 quoted: 
 
 "1. The Labor Representation Committee is a Federation of 
 Trades Unions, Trades Councils, the Independent Labor Party, and 
 the Fabian Society. Co-Operative Societies are also eligible for 
 membership . 
 
 "2. Object: to secure, by united action, the election to Par- 
 liament of candidates promoted, in the first instance, by an Affil- 
 iated Society or Societies in the constituency, who undertake to 
 form or join a distinct group in Parliament, with its own whips epid 
 its own policy on Labor questions; to abstain strictly from iden- 
 tifying themselves with or promoting the interests of any section 
 of the Liberal or Conservative Party, and not to oppose any other 
 candidate recognized by this Committee. All such candidates shall 
 pledge themselves to accept the Constitution, to abide by the de- 
 cisions of the Group in carrying out the aims of this Constitution 
 
 or to resign; and to appear before their constituencies under the 
 
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 title of Labor candidates only." 
 
 Such, then, was the organization that was destined to cause 
 such surprise and alarm at the election of 1906. Thus far it had 
 occasioned bpt little comment, and the stalwarts of both parties 
 
 1. -Quoted by J. Keir Hardie in the Forth American Review for 
 August, 1903, pp-. £33-241. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
18 . 
 
 were inclined to treat it with a more or less good-natured toler- 
 ance, regarding it as a temporary bubble on the sea of politics. 
 Before proceeding to a consideration of that election wherein the 
 Labor Party was to figure so conspicuously, however, it becomes 
 
 necessary to turn aside for a moment to consider a certain court 
 
 1 . 
 
 action known as the faff Vail Case, which was to become a potent 
 political factor in the next election. 
 
 During the year 1900 the employees of the faff Vail hailway 
 Company called an unauthorized strike v/hich developed considerable 
 violence and called into play a number of illegal and doubtful acts 
 such as picketing. In spite of the adviee of the Company’s lawyers 
 to the contrary, the General Manager brought suit for damages, not 
 against the employees who had committed the unlawful acts, but 
 against the national union to which they belonged, the Amalgama- 
 
 ted Society of Railway Servants. Furthermore, he insisted on taming 
 
 the case on appeal to the highest court in the land, the Law 
 
 Lords. This body proceeded to hand down a very surprising decision, 
 which completely reversed the precedent of twenty-five years and 
 practically nullified what had generally supposed to be the will 
 of Parliament itself, as expressed in the legislation of 1876. 
 
 They admitted that the union was not a corporate body; and then 
 they proceeded to state that it could, however, be sued in a cor- 
 porate capacity for damages supposedly caused by the action of its 
 officers. " the Trade Union could be sued in a cor- 
 
 porate capacity for damages alleged to have been caused by the 
 action of its officers, not merely from criminal acts, but also 
 
 l.-A.C.426;70-L. J.K.B . -905; 85-L . T.-147 ; 17-T .L .R.-698 ; 65- J.P . -596 ; 
 50-W.R.-44. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 •fcv ’ 1 
 
 * 
 
 . 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 
19 
 
 from unlawfully, though without the slightest criminality, causing 
 
 1 . 
 
 loss to other persons." This was indeed a holt from the blue. At 
 one stroke it destroyed the immunity which had been won with such 
 difficulty in 1876; it jeopardized the Trades Union funds and put 
 
 them at the mercy of any reactionary court, indeed, the union 
 
 implicated in the Taff Vail case was compelled to pay some $120,000 
 in actual damages, the whole costs amounting to a total of approxi- 
 mately $200,000, ; it practically scrapped the strike as a weapon 
 
 either of offense or defense; it paralyzed the activities of the 
 
 union officials, who feared to act because they might be made per- 
 
 2 . 
 
 sonally liable for the deeds of the unions. 
 
 The results of sueh a, momentous decision can scarcely be over- 
 estimated. It gave a rude jolt to the complacency of the older and 
 better established trades unions and jarred a number of others 
 loose from their ancient prejudices against the independent labor 
 movement. It converted the Labor Representation Committee into a 
 compact and powerful political unit by adding strength of numbers 
 to an already abundant supply of energy and ability. By 1902 -5 
 the number of affiliated trades unions had doubled, and by the end 
 of 1906 it had been multiplied by three. It is a rare incentive 
 that acts more strongly than that of self defense, and the unions 
 in this crisis felt that they were indeed fighting for their very 
 existence. The organization, once fully roused, gave an indication 
 of their potential strength in the election Of 1906, not only in 
 those constituencies where candidates of the Representation Commit- 
 
 V. 
 
 tee were actually running, but also in other districts, by inter- 
 
 1. -Y/ebb, S. and B. - History of Trade Unionism , p. 600 
 
 2 . - Ibid . t pp .600-604. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
20 . 
 
 rogating candidates as to their attitude toward the Taff "Vail de- 
 cision, and voting accordingly. It may he said without exaggeration, 
 I think, that the Taff Vail decision was the chief factor in the 
 labor situation preceding the elections of 1906. It was Frederic 
 
 Harrison who made the statement 11 The working class is the only 
 
 1 . 
 
 class which is not a class. It is the nation." and the astonishing 
 results achieved by the awakened labor movement almost prove the 
 truth of his statement. 
 
 It must not be overlooked, however, that there were other 
 factors which contributed to the situation. The Conservative Party 
 during its period of power had incurred a great deal of unpopular- 
 ity, and its move to revive a preferential tariff gave the Liberals 
 a rallying cry which they did not fail to avail themselves of. 
 Moreover, the majority of the Liberals had apparently not noticed 
 the fundamental change which had occurred in the purposes and 
 methods of the labor movement, and still professed to look upon it, 
 in spite of the protests and warnings of the labor men themselves, 
 as a sort of left wing of their own party. There was still a con- 
 siderable group of Liberal-Labor men in Parliament who maintained 
 an attitude of independence toward the Labor Representation Com- 
 mittee group and continued to vote with the Liberal Party. At any 
 rate, all of the labor candidates, whether of the independents or 
 of the Liberal-Labor group were thoroughgoing Free Traders, and 
 since the Liberal Party had staked everything on the repudiation 
 of protection at this election, they refused to risk the election 
 of Tories in a number of districts where labor men were running by 
 making it a three-cornered fight. That this was an important iac uor 
 
 was afterwards pointed out by the Liberals themselves, who cirew 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
21 . 
 
 attention to the indisputable fact that of the successful labor 
 
 candidates, very few were opposed by Liberals, whereas the great 
 
 1 . 
 
 majority of those who were defeated had Liberal opposition. Indeed, 
 one critic coined a striking phrase which no doubt had some truth 
 
 in it when he referred to the labor triumph as mere "driftwood on 
 
 2 . 
 
 the tide of Free Trade." 
 
 Such, then, was the situation immediately preceding the general 
 election of 1906. It was aggravated by the fact that the period 
 following the South African War had been one of industrial depres- 
 sion and widespread distress. There had been, for instance, in 1905 
 a cotton famine in Lancashire more serious serious than any which 
 
 had occurred since the American Civil V/ar, and there had been large 
 
 3 . 
 
 numbers of men out of ?/ork all over the country. Heedless to say 
 the Labor Representation Committee made the most of their opportu- 
 nities. They put in the field a total of fifty candidates and con- 
 ducted a vigorous campaign in every contested constituency, appeal- 
 ing to the people on the basis of: protection of trade union funds 
 and legalization of strikes through legislation annulling the Taff 
 Vail decision; free trade; a graduated income tax; woman suffrage; 
 nationalization and secularization of education; local government 
 
 home rule; relief of the unemployment situation; nationalization of 
 
 4. 
 
 railways; and a number of other issues of lesser or local import. 
 Mr. J. Heir Kardie, the leader of the Independent Labor Party, 
 struck the keynote of the labor campaign when he declared in one of 
 his election speeches that "The immediate object of the Labor Party 
 
 1. -Cf. an article by L. A. Atherley- Jones , II. P., in the nineteenth 
 
 Century for October, 1906, pp. 576-586. 
 
 2 . - Ed inbur gfa R e v i ew for October, 1906, pp. 273-305. 
 
 3. -S. Brooks, in Harper ' s Weekly for October 24, 1903, p. 1698. 
 
 4. -W. Diack, in the Arena 1 2 3 4 for May, 1906, pp. 476-480. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
22 . 
 
 is to create a driving force in politics which will overcome the 
 inertia of politicians in regard to social reforms, and give the 
 nation a strong, true lead along the paths which make for national 
 righteousness. To see that children are properly fed and cared for; 
 that the able are given an opportunity to work; and that comfort is 
 brought into the life of the aged; are objects worth striving for. 
 
 These things lie outside the domain of ordinary party politics, but 
 
 1 . 
 
 they must be attended to if the nation is to be saved from decay." 
 
 To the same man is credited the statement, in a different connec- 
 tion, that "A Labor Party is the logical and inevitable outcome of 
 a popular suffrage; the object of such a party cannot be any one 
 particular reform with the accomplishment of which the motive for 
 the party would disappear. It is an outward and visible sign of the 
 
 determination of the disinherited democracy to have government of 
 
 2 . 
 
 the people by the people and for the people." 
 
 When the smoke of battle had cleared away, it was found that 
 the Labor Representation Committee, which in that same year had 
 definitely committed itself to the name of Labor Party, and will 
 henceforth be referred to as such, had succeeded in electing a, 
 total of twenty-nine out of its fifty candidates. In addition, ten 
 Liberal -Labor men had been returned, and the Iliners* Pederation, 
 which, though friendly to the Labor Party, still maintained its own 
 independence and conducted its own campaigns, had elected a total 
 of fourteen representatives; so that the aggregate of labor members, 
 of all kinds, in the House of Commons, reached the rather impres- 
 
 1. -Quo ted by W. Diaek in the Arena for May, 1906, pp. 476-480. 
 
 2. -J. Keir Hardie in the nineteenth Century for January, 
 
 1906, pp. 12-24. 
 

 f 
 
23 . 
 
 1 . 
 
 sive figure of fifty-three. 
 
 The election was followed hy a perfect flood of comment in the 
 current newspapers and magazines, and as much of it affords a 
 pretty fair index to the attitude of the two older parties besides 
 offering a very interesting study, it seems worth while to give 
 some time to an analysis of it. Some of it seems to he mainly the 
 expression of the spontaneous wrath called forth hy the entirely 
 unexpected success of a party which had hitherto been looked upon 
 with a rather tolerant contempt as being comparatively harmless. 
 That attitude seems particularly to have marked the writings of the 
 Conservative publicists, such remarks as the following excerpts 
 from an article in Blackwood's Magazine being typical of the more 
 extreme criticism: "Their egoism is insatiable. If they have any 
 ambition beyond legislating for the profit of their own class, they 
 have not yet revealed it." "What they demand is power without res- 
 ponsibility." "If the Labor Party has its way, there would be no 
 room in the state for any but manual workers." "Above all the 
 friends of Labor are indifferent to the problems of empire. To them 
 the Civis Bomanus makes no appeal. They will never rejoice that 
 
 1. -Districts returning Labor members: London and environs: Dept- 
 ford, Woolwich, South Division of West Ham; urban districts: Bar- 
 row-in-Purness , Blackburn, Bolton, Bradford, Chatham, Halifax, 
 
 East Division of Leeds, Leicester, Uorth-East and South-West Div- 
 isions of Manchester, ITewcastle-on-Tyne, Uorwich, Preston, St. 
 Helens, Sunderland, Stockport, West Division of Wolverhampton; 
 county districts: Barnard Castle Division of Durham, Clitheroe, 
 
 Inee, Hewton, Westhoughton, and Gorton Divisions of Lancashire;Scot- 
 land:Dundee, Blackfriars Division of Glasgow; Wales:Merthyr Tydvil. 
 
 Districts in which Labor candidates were defeated: London and 
 environs: Croydon; urban districts: Bordesley and East Divisions of 
 
 Birmingham, Darlington, Dewsbury Gravesend, Grimsby. Huddersfield, 
 South Division of Leeds, Kirks dale and West Toxteth Divisions of 
 Liverpool, Monmouth Boroughs, Portsmouth, Stockton, Wakefield, York; 
 county districts: Jarrow Division of Durham, Eccles Division.of 
 Lancashire; Scotland: Camlachie Division of Glasgow, Govan Division 
 of Lanarkshire; Ireland: Worth Division of Belfast. 
 

24 . 
 
 they are citizens of no mean city." "The rebellious natives of 
 Ratal are as dear to our independent Democrats as the unemployed." 
 And here is one that seems to reveal the spirit of the whole ar- 
 ticle: "We suppose that a too frequent communication with the 
 
 1 . 
 
 Liberal Party has corrupted the manners of a sturdier time." There 
 is an evident failure on the part of this writer to think twice, 
 if, indeed, he has thought at all. Llany of his statements are so 
 absurd as to require no answer at all. At best, his charges are 
 misleading half truths. The Labor candidates had repeatedly denied 
 that they would legislate solely for class interests. The charge of 
 coolness toward the empire is the truest one that was made, and yet 
 it was unfairly expressed. The workers were loyal and patriotic 
 Englishmen, but they regarded the imperialistic ambitions of the 
 Conservative Party as unjustifiable chauvinism. 
 
 There was much petty persecution Y/orthy of our most approved 
 
 methods of American partisan politics, such, for instance, as the 
 
 attempt to discredit the Independent Labor Party by alleging a 
 hostility toY/ard religion among its members. The Pabian Society 
 members were referred to as "Burgesses of wjiat is known as Bohemia”, 
 
 whose purpose was "to spend other people ’s money and dragoon other 
 
 2 . 
 
 people’s lives". The various organizations Y/hich had combined for 
 the purpose of electing labor representatives were referred to as 
 sham labor parties. And the difficulties of the Labor Party in 
 steering a neutral course between the critics are apparent when we 
 note here a critic who attacks it as demanding solely class and 
 
 1 . - Blackwood ’ s magazine , June, 1906, pp. 844-849. 
 
 2. -H. Vivian in the Port nightly Review for January, 1906, 
 
 pp. 151-162. 
 

 . 
 
 - 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
25 . 
 
 1 . 
 
 selfish legislation, and there one who says the movement is all 
 
 right so long as its representatives confine their attentions to 
 
 2 . 
 
 social and industrial reform; here a critic who ridicules the idea 
 of manual workers representing it in Parliament, and there one who 
 
 attacks it for allowing anyone who is not a manual worker to run 
 
 3 . 
 
 on its platform; here a critic who denounces the movement as 
 
 4. 
 
 malignant, unadulterated Socialism, and there one who reproaches 
 
 5. 
 
 it with having no program which goes "beyond that of Liberalism; 
 and so forth. 
 
 Yet there was much of the criticism which was well-founded, and 
 some of it was positively constructive. As to the charge of Social- 
 ism, certainly it is true that of the number elected, twenty-one 
 
 of the Labor Party men were Socialists, as were six of the Liberal - 
 
 6 . 
 
 Labor group and one of the miners. At the same time, the great 
 majority of writers agreed as to the uniformly high type of ability 
 of the men, and admitted that so far from being mere noisy agi- 
 tators, they were generally extremely practical, business-like, 
 
 and unrhetorical . Out of the total group of fifty-three, all but 
 
 7. 
 
 ten were trade unionists. Some of the more thoughtful students of 
 current politics pointed out the fact that there was no particular 
 
 reason for surprise that seven-tenths of the electorate should 
 
 7. 
 
 have succeeded in electing fifty-three representatives. 
 
 1. -Cf. article entitled Simple Egoism in Blackwood's Magazine 
 
 for June, 1906, pp. 844-849. 
 
 2. -Cf. 17. H. Mallock's article on Political Powers of Labor 
 
 in the nineteenth Century for August, 1906, pp. 202-214. 
 
 3. -and 4.-Cf. B. Taylor’s article on Laborism .in Parliament 
 
 in the Fortnightly Beview for June, 1906, pp. 1115-1130. 
 
 5. -Cf. H. Vivian’s article on Pretended Labor Parties in the 
 
 Fortnightly Review for January, 1906, pp. 151-162. 
 
 6. -17. Liack, op.citl (see note 4, page 21.) 
 
 7. -Uorth American Review for April, 1906, pp. 617-622. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
26 . 
 
 The Liberal element were especially cautious and discriminating 
 in their criticism, for many of them, including their leaders, 
 still hoped for cooperation and aid from the Labor group, and 
 hesitated to offend them. Their arguments, therefore, were all 
 directed toward promoting an alliance between the two forces. They 
 claimed that the Labor Party represented either Socialists or trade 
 unionists, and therefore were really not representative of all 
 labor, since two million unionists could scarcely be called repre- 
 sentative of one quarter of the total population. They also inti- 
 mated that Labor might find it difficult to accomplish its ends 
 through legislation, but here they were using a weapon ?/hich dan- 
 gerously resembled a boomerang, for practically the only alterna- 
 tive to Parliamentary procedure was direct action. The most serious, 
 and at the same time the most justifiable charge brought forward by 
 the Liberals, however, was that the Labor Party in the campaign of 
 1906 had no definite program. The policies enumerated above in 
 connection with the Labor campaign were really but a compendium of 
 the various platforms of the individual candidates, rather than a 
 definite platform on which the Labor Party as a whole went to the 
 polls. Indeed, the Labor Party particularly avoided committing 
 itself to such a program at that time, and it probably displayed 
 political wisdom in doing so. It was still in its formative period, 
 and a program clashing or coinciding with various elements in the 
 Liberal or Conservative programs might have alienated some of those 
 Labor Party exponents whose allegiance had with difficulty been won 
 over from the two older parties by the promise of absolute neutral- 
 ity and independence, and whose new loyalty was at best a precari- 
 ous one. It is true, therefore, that the Labor Party appealed to 
 

 
 
 
 1 
 
27 . 
 
 the electorate rather on the basi3 of labor representation than on 
 a definite and distinctive program, and that their actual political 
 convictions did not differ so very radically from those of the 
 Liberal Party. 
 
 There was this important difference between the position of the 
 Labor members and that of the Liberals, however. Many of the 
 Liberal H.P.’s, and Conservatives as well, were playing a game; 
 they had made politics a career, and had to fit their actual deeds 
 of legislation to the political expediency of the times, rather 
 than to the platform on which they had been elected. The Labor 
 members, on the other hand, considered politics merely as a means 
 to an end, and were in deadly earnest. Critics claimed that the 
 progress of social reform through legislation had demonstrated the 
 fact that a separate Labor Party was unnecessary; but, curiously 
 enough, it was generally the Labor members who were largely instru- 
 mental in forcing the Liberal program through. And, though the 
 programs of the two parties might be approximately the same, the 
 emphasis was different. The Liberals emphasized the political as- 
 pects; the Labor men, the social. Por instance, the Liberal regime 
 of 1906 was bent on pushing a general Education Bill improving the 
 quality and range of public education ; the Labor members were 
 particularly insistent on what was apparently the minor detail of 
 providing free meals for school children. Indeed, many of the more 
 radical Liberals themselves conceded the importance of this point, 
 as is evidenced in such remarks as the following by C . P. Masterman 
 in the nineteenth Century for November, 1906: "The laborer in the 
 country wants direct access to the land. The workman in the town 
 wants better houses; more leisure; a fairer chance for his children; 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
28 
 
 some security against unemployment and old age. I think that if the 
 Liberal Party fails to satisfy these demands it will dwindle and 
 presently fall into impotence, as the Liberal Parties on the Con- 
 tinent have dwindled and fallen into impotence; because they failed 
 
 1 . 
 
 rightly to interpret the signs of the times." 
 
 All this was mainly a priori argument, of course. By the end 
 of 1906, when a year of Parliamentary experience with the new 
 party had passed, the tenor of criticism had changed somewhat. 
 
 The conciliatory attitude of the Liberals had disappeared com- 
 pletely, once they had become convinced of the determination of 
 the Labor men to be really independent, and many of them became 
 nearly as bitter toward the new element as the Conservatives. 
 
 Their early claim that there was dissension in the Labor ranks, 
 because one-third of the Labor members refused to follow the lead 
 of J. Keir Eardie, was really not true, however, for the Liberal- 
 Labor group had never pretended to yield allegiance to the Labor 
 Party group. It is true that a bit of acrimonious debate occurred 
 between these two wings over the claim of the latter to the ex- 
 clusive designation of Labor members. Yet the bitter charge of 
 disloyalty hurled at the Labor men by the Liberals was rather 
 absurd, considering the fact that the former had never professed 
 allegiance to the Liberals, and had, indeed, on the contrary, 
 repeatedly repudiated all party connections. The Labor Party men 
 did succeed in making things very uncomfortable for the Liberal- 
 Labor group, however, for by constantly threatening a division on 
 
 important questions and thereby forcing the Liberal-Labor men and 
 cabinet members to choose between their allegiance to the cause 
 
 of Labor and their loyalty to the Qovernnent, they wielde d _a_pg^rgy 
 1 . -nineteenth Century for ITovember, 1906, pp. 706-718. 
 

very great influence. Indeed, Liberal-Labor ism practically went 
 out of existence as a separate political entity with this Parlia- 
 ment, for by the end of the year, the Labor Party members had 
 succeeded in bridging the gap which had separated the two branches. 
 An appraisal of the work of Liberal-Laborism is a difficult matter; 
 on the one hand, the Liberal-Labor men had been consistent workers 
 for the amendment of laws relating to trades unions, for the right 
 of combination by workmen, for statutory regulation of coal mines, 
 factories, and railways, for workmen's compensation, for the crea- 
 tion of a Labor Department of the Board of Trade, for the estab- 
 lishment of the Labor Gazette . for the increase of local government- 
 al power; on the other hand, such an influential leader as Chamber- 
 lain had declared in 1900, when the Liberal-Labor group was 
 practically the only labor element in Parliament, that labor 
 
 representation had done practically nothing to further the cause 
 
 E. 
 
 of social reform. And certainly it was partially dissatisfaction 
 with the results so far achieved that led to the formation of an 
 independent labor group. 
 
 The actual achievements of the Labor Party group in Parliament 
 were even more surprising than might have been expected from their 
 astonishing show of strength at the polls. There were two reasons 
 for this fact: first, the club held over the Government by reason 
 of the Liberal-Labor group (because of the Government’s desire to 
 maintain the Liberal-Labor group intact, the Labor Party forced a 
 division whenever possible on issues which especially concerned 
 them, and in a number of important cases succeeded in swinging the 
 
 1. -B. Taylor in the Fortnightly Review for January, 1906 
 
 pp. 151-16E. 
 
 2. -C. F. llasterman in the nineteenth Century ,pp .pit . ( 3ee notel,p..88 
 

 
 : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
50 . 
 
 Government to the Labor side, because of a fear of a split in the 
 Liberal-Labor ranks); and second, the fact that many of the Liberal 
 members had committed themselves during the course of the campaign 
 to the labor side of important issues. Foremost among these was, of 
 course, the question of the legal position of trades unions. She 
 Government brought in a Trades Disputes Act which proved utterly 
 unacceptable to the Labor members, and, to its astonishment, found 
 itself forced to change the bill qnite radically, member after 
 member of the Liberal majority explaining that he had promised his 
 constituency to pass a bill which would.be satisfactory to Labor. 
 
 It is not necessary to go into the details of this bill; suffice it 
 to say that it restored the immunity which had supposedly been 
 conferred by the legislation of 1871-76, by declaring that no civil 
 action shall be entertained against a Trade Union in respect of any 
 wrongful act committed by or on behalf of the Union. 
 
 The Labor members almost succeeded in forcing through a bill to 
 provide free meals for school children, also. Ordinarily the Labor 
 men worked with the Government, but it was always on the basis of a 
 bargain, in which they never failed to get their money’s worth. 
 
 They were among the most active members in the House, bringing in 
 bills for old age pensions to be paid from state funds, trades 
 union rates for Government employees, recognition of trades unions 
 by all Government departments, political enfranchisement of women, 
 prevention of eviction of strikers from houses owned by employers, 
 classing as undesirable aliens imported to break strikes, Y/orkmen's 
 compensation, income tax reform, revision of procedure in the House 
 of Commons, taxation of land values in Scotland, nationalization of 
 canals, better conditions for Postal servants, and so forth. Their 
 

 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
31 . 
 
 efficiency is evidenced by the fact that the Parliamentary Commit- 
 tee of the Trades Union Congress, which had continued its lobbying 
 right down to 1906, in spite of such labor representation as there 
 had been, finally ceased its operations, ho doubt the Labor members 
 rendered themselves rather obnoxious to some of the older members 
 by their lack of respect for precedents, and by their extreme de- 
 mocracy, but it was but natural to expect something of that kind. 
 
 A Tory critic, for instance, remarked of a certain Labor member, 
 
 "When he has been a little longer in the House, he will doubtless 
 
 1 . 
 
 discover that tradition is nine-tenths of life". However, in spite 
 of obstacles and lack of experience, the Party succeeded in making 
 a very creditable record in its first session in the House of 
 Commons . 
 
 1 . - Blackwood T s Ivlagas ine , op.cit.,(see llote 1, p. 25). 
 

 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CHAPTER II. The Intermediate Period: 1906 to 1914. 
 
 During the eight years following the advent of the Labor Party 
 in English politics in 1906, it can scarcely he said that the new 
 group fulfilled either the best hopes of its advocates or the worst 
 fears of its opponents. A great many people apparently vie re looking 
 for the immediate inauguration of the Milennium, or something equal- 
 ly revolutionary, and the fact that the Labor Party soon settled 
 down into much the same humdrum parliamentary round as the t?/o older 
 parties was a great disappointment to the more radical reformers. 
 Politically the period was not one of tremendous activity, with the 
 exception of the two general elections of 1910. The Labor group, 
 through influential in the passage of the Trades Disputes Act, the 
 Miners’ Eight Hours Act, the Trades Board Act, and other reforma- 
 tive legislation, failed to force its will on the House of Commons. 
 And in spite of their unflagging energy and activity, it really 
 seems as if their power and influence declined somewhat as the fear 
 inspired by their unexpected show of strength in 1906 gradually 
 abated. 
 
 The momentum of their early success, however, carried them 
 successfully through several bye-elections before the reaction set 
 in. The new party waged w ar relentlessly and without discrimination 
 against both the older groups. A bye-election at Jarrow in 1907 
 resulted in the election of the Labor candidate, Pete Curran, in 
 place of a Liberal. And again in 1909, in the Attercliffe Division 
 of Sheffield, the Labor man, J. Pointer, replaced a Liberal. In the 
 same year, J. 0. Hancock, Labor, w as elected for the constituency 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
33 . 
 
 of Mid-Derbyshire, which had formerly been Liberal. In this latter 
 case, however, it is but fair to state that the Liberal Party 
 entered no candidate. While it is true that there were many more 
 bye-elections in which the Labor Party was not successful, yet 
 these victories are significant because they register a reversal of 
 the vote of the constituency in the last general election; and 
 because they demonstrate the force of the first onslaught of the 
 Labor Party. They are further important in that they occurred while 
 the movement as a whole was starting on a period of decline. It 
 was not until 1912 that a Labor seat was lost at a bye-election, 
 the loss occurring in the constituency of Hanley. The years inter- 
 vening between the elections of 1910 and the war period were par- 
 ticularly unfruitful for Labor candidates as far as bye-elections 
 were concerned. The country sustained somewhat of a shock, however, 
 in a bye-election occurring in the Colne Valley Division of York- 
 shire in July 1907, which resulted in the choice of Victor Grayson, 
 an unattached Socialist. 
 
 By the end of the first year of parliamentary experience, the 
 Labor Party group had effected a working agreement with the remnant 
 of the Liberal -Labor group whereby all the Labor forces in the 
 House cooperated with a fair degree of harmony. They held monthly 
 meetings to determine the basis of common action on labor questions 
 and agreed not to oppose each others' candidates. The Party consist 
 ently championed the labor side of every question, and in cases not 
 involving labor interests, took an independent position. In its 
 direct appeal to the people, however, the Labor Party was at a 
 decided disadvantage in those early days, in view of the fact that 
 they controlled no daily paper of their own while the press of the 
 
34 
 
 country was largely directed against them. Consequently, the Labor 
 men were under the necessity of spreading their propaganda by word 
 of mouth, which they proceeded to do with great energy and fervor, 
 holding thousands of public meetings, and even utilizing the street 
 corners. Uor did they allow their activities to lapse after the 
 election of 1906. Meanwhile, the Conservatives, who had at first 
 welcomed the independent Labor movement, as injuring the Liberals 
 only, began to discover that there ¥/as desertion in their own ranks 
 as well. They therefore took up the challenge of the Labor propa- 
 ganda, and prepared to meet them on their own ground. Accordingly, 
 they sent out all over the country what were called propaganda vans, 
 
 small houses on wheels, in which the Conservative speakers 
 
 visited every nook and corner of the land and addressed the people 
 
 in hopes of counteracting the effects produced by the Labor soeak- 
 
 1 . 
 
 ers. Indeed, the winter of 1907-1908 was a time of widespread in- 
 terest in Labor policies and Socialistic doctrines. 
 
 One of the most significant events during this period was the 
 final affiliation of the Miners’ Federation with the Labor Party. 
 This group, one of the strongest of the industrial groups in the 
 country, was really the eraliest to secure representation in Parlia- 
 ment, both Burt and Macdonald, the earliest Labor members, having 
 been elected by miners’ organizations .From that time on, the miners 
 had insisted on maintaining a separate political organization, and 
 had run their own candidates. Even after the formation of the sup- 
 posedly all-inclusive Labor Representation Committee in 1900, the 
 Miners had insisted on retaining their independence. The movement 
 
 l.-E. Porritt, The British Socialist Labor Party , in the 
 Political Science Quarterly for September, 1908. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
35 
 
 for federation with the Labor Party began within the miners' organ- 
 ization itself. It grew slowly at first, probably because the 
 miners had been so successful in their political efforts, but the 
 election of 1906, demonstrating the remarkable strength of a com- 
 paratively united labor movement, gave a decided impetus to the 
 movement for affiliation, and the project finally achieved success 
 in the annual conference of the Federation at Chester, in 1908, the 
 vote on the question being 215,137 to 168,294. There was at this 
 time, however, a total of fourteen miners' representatives who had 
 been elected independently of the Labor Party in 1906, and on 
 account of them, the Federation in affiliating stipulated that these 
 men should not be called on to sign the party constitution except 
 in case of another general election. They agreed, however, that 
 should any candidates run in bye-elections, preceding the next 
 general election, such candidates would be required to sign the 
 constitution. The election of J. 0. Hancock, mentioned above, 
 marked the first success of the miners after their affiliation with 
 the Labor Party. 
 
 Some of the older representatives of the miners had so long 
 cooperated with the Liberal Party that such action on the part of 
 the Federation was bound to develop trouble. The matter came to a 
 head in 1909, when the Federation notified its representatives that 
 if they desired reelection they must sign the Labor Party Constitu- 
 tion. Burt, Fenwick, and Wilson, three of the best known and most 
 influential of the labor M.P.'s, refused to do so. Burt had been in 
 the House continuously since 1874, Fenwick since 1885, and Wilson 
 since 1892, and to cast off these men nov/ because of their refusal 
 to sign the Labor Party Constitution seemed like the grossest in- 
 

 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
36 . 
 
 gratitude. Therefore, in spite of thejr insubordination, these men 
 received the loyal support of their constituencies in the elections 
 of 1910, and were returned to Parliament, where they continued 
 their association with the Labor Party, in spite of the fact that 
 they v/ere thence forv/ard officially Liberals. 
 
 Another event of similar import was the final extension of the 
 Labor Party activities into Scotland. The Scottish Labor Party had 
 preceded the British organization in point of time, but since 1900 
 had accomplished comparative little. There was a v/idespread feeling 
 that the labor movement should be united throughout the Kingdom, 
 and for that reason many desired that the stronger group should 
 affiliate local labor organizations in Scotland. However, relations 
 betv/een the two parties v/ere not all that might be wished, and 
 because of the delicacy of the situation, the British party for a 
 long time refrained from invading the territory and jurisdiction of 
 the other group. Finally, in 1909, the difficulty was settled 
 through the action of the Scottish Labor Party in officially decree- 
 ing its own dissolution. The southern party then proceeded to 
 affiliate the constituent societies of the Scottish party, and the 
 labor movement had finally achieved unity throughout the island. 
 
 Perhaps there was no field of operations in which the Labor 
 Party met with less success and approval than that of foreign re- 
 lations. At the very outset of their history they had strenuously 
 opposed the Boer T .7ar, and they did not hesitate to do anything in 
 their pov/er to embarrass the Government when they felt that its 
 designs v/ere at all imperialistic or unworthy. On the other hand, 
 they warmly supported any movement promising to strengthen inter- 
 national peace and to make war impossible. The Party had officially 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 ' • 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
37 
 
 affiliated with the International Socialist and Labor bureau in 
 1904, and had been represented at each of its conferences since. 
 Every effort was made to combat the growing undercurrent of hostil- 
 ity between England and Germany which was beginning to make itself 
 felt at this time. Resolutions were exchanged in 1908 with the 
 Social Democratic Party of Germany deprecating the possibility of 
 war, and again in the following year there was a friendly exchange 
 of opinion between the two groups on the question of naval disarm- 
 ament. Another matter which raised quite a furor throughout the 
 country, though perhaps really of small importance, was the atti- 
 tude of the Party tov/ard the proposed visit of the Czar of Russia 
 to England, The Labor leaders on the floor of Parliament, through 
 their pamphlets and publications, and in specially arranged protest 
 meetings, registered their strenuous disapproval of the exchange of 
 civilities with the head of a nation so flagrantly autocratic as 
 Russia was at that time. I/hether or not their protest was ethically 
 justifiable, it certainly v/as not expedient, for the country at 
 large resented such an attempt as calculated to disturb the friend- 
 ly relations existing between the two countries. 
 
 In spite of the difficulties and failures and indiscreations of 
 the new party in its first Parliament, however, it is a pleasure to 
 record the opinion of such a well-known publicist as mr. i'. P. 
 O'Connor, M.P., as follov/s: The Labor Party has profoundly influ- 
 enced the present Louse of Commons more than it realizes itself, it 
 is the sense that there is this power in the background, discon- 
 tented, independent, hostile, that drives the Government, and 
 
 that compels it always to keep legislation at the high speed v/hich 
 it had reached at the present moment. I have my doubts v/hether Old 
 

 
38 . 
 
 Age pensions would have been introduced if it had not been for the 
 existence of this Party; the gift has not been accepted with any 
 
 special grace by the Labor men; but it is they, nevertheless, who 
 
 1 . 
 
 probably forced it from the hands of the Government." 
 
 Probably the most important event in the life of the Labor 
 Party during this time was what is known as the Osborne Judgment. 
 Walter Y. Osborne, a member of the Amalgamated Society of Hailway 
 Servants, and a man who had achieved some prominence in his local 
 union, had long objected to the compulsory Parliamentary levy 
 because he felt that the money so secured was used to further the 
 Socialist cause, which he strongly opposed. Finding himself unable 
 to interfere with the course of events within the local union, he 
 at last consulted a number of lawyers concerning the matter, and, 
 in spite of the fact that they advised him against the proceeding, 
 brought suit for injunction against the union to prevent it from 
 using its funds for political purposes, contending the illegality 
 of such action. Osborne lost his case in the Chancery Court, but 
 he took it to the Court of Appeals, and there the decision of the 
 lower court v/as reversed. The union then appealed the case to the 
 
 Law Lords, which confirmed the decision of the Court of Appeals, 
 
 2 . 
 
 thus leaving the final victory with Osborne. The case was first 
 instituted on July 22, 1908, and the final decision was rendered in 
 December, 1909. Among the points settled in the final decision were 
 the following: that henceforth trades unions were to be considered 
 to be corporate bodies; that as such they could not do anything for 
 which they were not incorporated; that the Trades Onion Act of 1876 
 
 1. -Labor Part?; Leaflet Ho. 1 - Labor and Politics T" 
 
 2. -Osborne vs. Amalgamated Society of Hailway servants, 
 
 L. R., Ap. Cases 87,- 1910. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
39. 
 
 defined such activities; and that political action was not among 
 such activities, and could not, therefore, "be practiced. 
 
 The Osborne case was by no means a one-sided matter# there was , 
 indeed, much to be said on either side. In explanation of the de- 
 cision it should be made clear that the law merely interprets the 
 surface language of documents, without trying to interpret the 
 meaning Parliament might have had in its original formulation of 
 them. Furthermore, the conception of a corporation had gradually 
 changed the nineteenth Century. It had been the theory originally 
 that a corporation is a persona f ict a which could only be created 
 by a superior body. So many associations had sprung up, however, 
 with all the characteristics and privileges of corporations, and 
 yet lacking the official act of incorporation, that it is small 
 wonder that the courts should say that they should be regarded as 
 corporations. The situation was doubtless affected also by the 
 theories of the English jurist Maitland, in his History of English 
 Law (written in collaboration with Sir Frederick Pollock) and his 
 Constitutional History of England . 
 
 It must be admitted, too, that two of the three judges partici- 
 pating in the decision of the Court of Appeals had been, but a 
 short time before, members of the House of Commons, and Liberals of 
 strong popular sympathies. It was argued that the Trades Union Act 
 of 1906 had rendered the unions immune from all actions of wrong, 
 either direct or through their officials, and that such dangerous 
 liberty could not be expected to attach to any activity which a 
 union might take up. The act simply went too far, and it v/as but 
 natural that the courts would intervene to limit its scope. Some of 
 justices also declared that the act of signing the Party Constitu- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
40 
 
 tion was contrary to public policy in that it bound the individual 
 to vote in accordance with the dictates of the group rather than 
 according to his own best judgment. They held that such an agree- 
 ment amounted to a practical disfranchisement of the minority. 
 Objection to the Labor M.P. was also raised on the ground that he 
 represented only his own trade union rather than the whole consti- 
 tuency for which he was elected. Labor Party discipline, however, 
 though formally more binding than that of the other two parties, 
 v/as found to be, in reality, no more so. It is difficult to under- 
 stand why a Labor member did not represent the Liberal and Conser- 
 vative people in his constituency at least as well as the Liberal 
 member represented the Labor and Conservative voters in his district. 
 And surely public policy is a rather indefinite basis for a legal 
 charge. 
 
 The Act of 1876, around which the controversy raged, had de- 
 fined a trade union in section 16 as "any combination, whether 
 temporary or permanent, for regulating the relations between work- 
 men and masters, or between w orkmen and workmen, or between masters 
 
 and masters, or for imposing restrictive conditions on the conduct 
 
 1 . 
 
 of an^ trade or business." The main contention on which the Osborne 
 Judgment was based v/as that Parliament, in passing the Act of 1876, 
 had intended to make a full and complete definition of trades 
 unions, and that consequently any action not falling within the 
 category of functions prescribed by the Act was forbidden to such 
 unions. It cannot be denied that the Act makes no mention of poli- 
 tical action on the part of unions, and therefore, by a strict 
 interpretation of the law, such action was illegal. And yet at the 
 
 1 . -Webb , - History pf Trade Unionism , p. 617. 
 

 
 . 
 
 
 
 
41 . 
 
 very time when the much-discussed Act was being passed there were 
 two Labor members in the House, and one of these, Burt, was being 
 paid for his services by union funds. Surely if Parliament had in- 
 tended to exclude political action from the privileges of trades 
 unions it would not have overlooked such a situation as that* In- 
 deed, in their history preceding 1876 the unions had exercised 
 many functions in addition to those mentioned in the Act, without 
 objectionon the part of the Government. As far back as the time of 
 the Chartist agitation, some unions had constituted themselves 
 employers of labor, and had taxed their members in order to keep 
 the work going; others had organized a political federation for the 
 purpose of supporting Chartism* and trades unions had been by no 
 means insignificant organizations then. Had Parliament intended to 
 render such acts illegal it was inexcusably negligent in failing to 
 mention them at all. Moreover, for more than thirty years, from the 
 time of the passage of the Act down to the Osborne Judgment, the 
 unions had exercised, without objection, many functions in addition 
 to those specifically allowed. Indeed, so deeply rooted had become 
 the tradition of the privileges and immunities of the unions that 
 the legal experts first consulted by Osborne were, as I have said, 
 emphatic in their belief that he had no case; and it was on prece- 
 dent that the Court of Chancery decided the case against him. 
 
 Approaching the question from another angle, the Labor men 
 argued that the Court was construing the Act with undue strictness. 
 Even if it were to be conceded, for the sake of argument, that 
 Parliament had intended in 1876 to make an exclusive and inclusive 
 catalog of the approved functions of trades unions, it was still 
 open to question whether politics might not legitimately be con- 
 

 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
42 . 
 
 sidered as a means to regulating industrial conditions. The Courts 
 apparently gave but little consideration to the contention, however. 
 In answer to the objection to the party solidarity clause of the 
 Constitution, the Labor men pointed out the fact that in several 
 instances, such as the Education, Temperance, and Finance bills, 
 some Party members had voted in opposition to the majority, and 
 had not been punished. And as for the Parliamentary levy on the 
 trades union members, the Court was reminded that since the Govern- 
 ment made no provision for the payment of Members of Parliament, 
 Labor representatives, having no independent fortune, would be 
 absolutely excluded except as their constituencies paid them a 
 salary at least sufficient to take care of their ordinary living 
 expenses. Moreover, when the financial policy of the Labor Party 
 had first been formulated, expert legal opinion, almost without 
 exception, sanctioned it. Trades unions could scarcely be expected 
 to test every doubtful action and decide it by costly court proce- 
 dure; delimitation of union functions should be the province of 
 Parliament, not of the Courts. Nor was it possible strictly to 
 separate political and industrial functions; they were very often 
 combined, as in social legislation. 
 
 The Osborne case is especially peculiar in that it seems to 
 present three sides rather than two . The complainant, Osborne, 
 seems to have occupied a position independent ana about half way 
 between those of the unions and the courts. It is a matter of great 
 difficulty to get at the exact truth in a case in which feeling ran 
 so high and charges and counter charges flew so bewilderingly back 
 and forth, and I shall not attempt to state the truth of the matter; 
 but it seems but just at least to consider the position of Osborne 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 y 
 
 
 C 
 
 
 
 
 / 
 
 1 
 
 
 « 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 V. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
45 . 
 
 1 . 
 
 as he states it himself, for, whether or not he was merely a tool 
 in the hands of the capitalists, his position was certainly a 
 palusible one which probably represented the convictions of many 
 an ardent and loyal trade unionist. The Amalgamated Society of 
 Railway Servants had been one of the earliest of the large unions 
 to affiliate with the Labor Party, but Mr. Richard Bell, who had 
 been elected to Parliament as one of its representatives in 1900 
 had refused in 1906 to sign the Constitution of the Party because 
 
 of its Socialistic tendencies. The Party, of course, refused to 
 
 2 . 
 
 endorse him, but there v/as strong dissenting opinion as to its 
 action within the Union, and among the objectors v/as Osborne. The 
 solidarity rule of the Parliamentary Party v/as also resented. But 
 Osborne and his friends, though a by no means inconsiderable group, 
 were a minority in their Union, and were therefore helpless to 
 interfere. The majority were intolerant with those v/ho did not 
 agree with them, and threatened to expel non-conforming members 
 and to confiscate their benefits, which they were undoubtedly in a 
 position to do, if they chose, necessarily such a threat gave the 
 majority a strangle hold on the others, for a man v/ill think a long 
 time before he v/ill forfeit the savings of a lifetime. Osborne 
 finally determined that in spite of the difficulties and the un- 
 popularity that he realized v/ould attend such a course, the situa- 
 tion was such that he must do whatever he could to remedy it. 
 
 Court action, however, v/as a costly procedure, and since he had 
 no money, he had first to raise the necessary funds through a news- 
 paper appeal. The money v/as forthcoming when he had made clear his 
 
 1. -17. V. Osborne, My Case . London, Eveleigh Bash, 1910. 
 
 2. - He v/as reelected, hov/ever, as a Liberal-Labor candidate. 
 

 
 
 . 
 
 ' 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
44 . 
 
 case. He declared that the trades unions were not really voluntary 
 organizations , and that the political methods used forced a great 
 many of the members who were Liberals or Conservatives, or others 
 who were bitterly opposed to Socialism, to contribute to a cause 
 which they abhorred. The Party menifestoes, he claimed, were clear- 
 ly Socialistic, and the group was represented in the Socialist 
 Internationale. Majority rule was all right in its own sphere, but 
 
 V 
 
 that sphere must not be extended to include matters of religion or 
 principle. On these bases Osborne made his appeal and won his case. 
 The trades unionists, of course, attacked him bitterly, and charged 
 him with being a tool in the hands of the employers; they claimed 
 that capitalists furnished the necessary funds wherewith to carry 
 on the case. On the other hand, Osborne offers to submit proof as 
 to the source of every penny of money he received; and so the 
 matter stands. 
 
 It seemed at first that a more serious blow could scarcely have 
 been aimed at the political aspirations of Labor than that involved 
 in the Osborne Judgment. It invalidated the parliamentary levy, 
 which was the essential basis of the political movement. Hot only 
 that; it rendered illegal, if the decision was to be interpreted 
 strictly, a great number of other activities which the unions had 
 undertaken. The activities of the Trades Councils and the Trades 
 Union Congress would have to stop. The educational interests of the 
 unions, their scholarship funds for Buskin College, and so forth, 
 and many other perfectly innocent and beneficial activities were 
 technically illegal . Osborne himself had claimed that the decision 
 would affect only the political activities, but if the judgmend is 
 to be construed as strictly as it had construed the Act of 1876, 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
45 . 
 
 all these other functions would have to he declared unlawful. As to 
 the actual results in the months and years immediately following 
 the event, there does not seem to he evident any very serious cur- 
 tailment in the activities of the trades unions. As to the financial 
 situation of the Lahoi* moevment, there seems to he some difference 
 of opinion*, Oshorne claimed that the contributions of his own union 
 fell off greatly, while the Labor men declared that the voluntary 
 contributions were entirely satisfactory. However that may have 
 been, the receipts of the Parliamentary fund of the Party do not 
 
 1 . 
 
 indicate any very great falling off, as the following figures show: 
 
 Income for Quarter ending 
 
 Pounds 
 
 s . 
 
 d. 
 
 September 30, 1908 
 
 581 
 
 19 
 
 
 March 31, 1909 
 
 1406 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 June 30, 1909 
 
 1298 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 Osborne Judgment, December, 1909 
 March 31, 1910 
 
 789 
 
 13 
 
 11 
 
 March 31 , 1911 
 
 963 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 September 30, 1911 
 
 1384 
 
 10 
 
 3 
 
 Probably the most important result was the feeling of bitterness 
 that developed between the Labor Party and the two opposing parties 
 because of the frank satisfaction of the Conservatives and the 
 apparent indifference of the Liberals. On the whole, it seemed that 
 the judgment, rather than weakening the Labor movement politically, 
 tended to strengthen it. The first thought was, as it had been 
 after the Taff Vail decision, redress through legislation, but the 
 final decision of the Law Lords was made public just before the 
 precipitation of a general election, and there was no opportunity 
 of accomplishing anything immeidateiy. 
 
 The Parliament elected in 1906 had made extensive promises to 
 the country in the realm of social legislation, and in accordance 
 
 l.-See the Quarterly Reports of the Labor Party for 1908-1912. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
46 . 
 
 with its promises, had passed a number of acts such as those rela- 
 ting to workmen’s compensation, child welfare, education reform, 
 old age pensions, protection against unemployment and sweated labor, 
 housing and land problems, and others. Naturally the Government 
 could not embark upon such a program without incurring heavy expen- 
 ditures, and it was necessary to look for new sources of revenue in 
 order to meet the growing budget. Early in 1909, David Lloyd George, 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, introduced a budget bill which was 
 considered radical in the extreme. Indirect taxes, since they fall 
 most heavily, relatively, on the poorer classes, were kept at about 
 the same rates, while direct taxes were levied at a much higher 
 rate. Hates we re raised on luxuries, such as motor cars, and the 
 super tax on incomes was steeply graduated; rates on death duties, 
 or what we call inheritance taxes, were raised; but worst of all, 
 from the standpoint of the aristocracy of the country, land and the 
 unearned increment therein were subjected to a heavy duty. The 
 Conservatives at once attacked the bill as Socialistic, claiming 
 that rather than being a revenue measure, it really aimed at a re- 
 distribution of wealth in the country, by taking from the rich in 
 the form of taxes, and giving to the poor in the form of benefits 
 from the social legislation which had been passed. The Labor Party 
 members ?/ere, of course, enthusiastic advocates of the bill, and it 
 passed the House of Commons v/ithout difficulty, although it encoun- 
 tered a great deal of hostile criticism. 
 
 In the House of Lords, the situation v/as different. Here the 
 landed proprietors were in the overwhelming majority, and they 
 regarded the budget as utterly unbearable. Shorn of much of their 
 power as they had been, they had grown accustomed to agreeing with- 
 

47 . 
 
 out much opposition to most of the work of the House of Commons, 
 hut this was too much. Technically the Lords had no right to inter- 
 fere with a finance hill, hut they got around the difficulty hy 
 declaring that this budget was, in its implications, much more than 
 simply a finance hill, and demanded that the country express its 
 opinion before they would agree to it. Their action, of course, 
 necessitated a general election on the issue. 
 
 The election of January, 1910, was precipitated rather suddenly, 
 and the Labor Party was not as well prepared as it might have been 
 had the appeal to the country come a little later. It was about 
 this time that charges of a Liberal-Labor alliance began to be made 
 by Conservative speakers. It would seem, however, that the Labor 
 Party never had any official agreement with the Liberals, in spite 
 of circumstances that looked very much like deliberate cooperation. 
 Indeed, nearly all of the Labor Party's contests in the election 
 were three-cornered affairs. Labor supported the Lloyd George 
 budget because it had been voted for the purpose of carrying out 
 social reform, and because they favored the principles of taxation 
 it involved. It is true that the Labor Party did not enter as many 
 candidates in the election as they had been expected to, but one 
 reason for that fact was that they were simply not prepared for the 
 situation. On the other hand, it is true that they conducted their 
 campaign with a view to insuring the defeat of the Conservatives 
 who had rejected the budget. In all, the Labor Party withdrew from 
 the field a total of twenty-four candidates, its list being reduced 
 from one hundred and two to seventy-eight . These withdrawals were 
 made so as not to endanger the victory of the budget, eleven of 
 them being in constituencies in which the Party had never campaigned 
 

 
 
48 . 
 
 1 . 
 
 "before, and the remainder in industrial centers. Of the seventy- 
 eight Labor candidates who went to the polls in January, 1910, 
 fourteen were Independent Labor Party men, two were Fabians, 
 thirty-seven were trades unionists, and twenty-five were miners. 
 These men fought in sixty-five single members and thirteen double 
 constituencies. Of the sixty-five, twenty-seven were opposed by 
 Liberals or Liberals and Conservatives, and thirty-eight were 
 
 opposed by Conservatives. Nineteen former Liberal seati were en- 
 
 1 . 
 
 danger ed. 
 
 As a result of the election, forty Labor members were returned. 
 This number was larger than the number of Labor Party men returned 
 in the former election, but was less than the total of labor men 
 in the last Parliament. Three new seats had been added, but nine 
 old ones were lost. The Party confined its efforts to industrial 
 and mining constituencies. It is noteworthy that the Party ran its 
 first candidate in Ireland in this election. In spite of the rather 
 disappointing showing of the Party in actual Parliamentary repre- 
 sentation, the total vote polled in 1910 ?/as 499,011, as compared 
 with 323,195 in 1906. The fact that the action of the House of 
 Lords was the chief issue was a distinct disadvantage to Labor, 
 inasmuch as it strengthened the Liberal cause in those constituen- 
 cies where Labor was strongest. In this election the Anti-Socialist 
 Union maintained a training school for speakers, and conducted an 
 energetic propaganda. The social Democratic Federation, campaign- 
 ing in complete independence of all other parties, elected one 
 representative. A unique feature of the campaign was the effort of 
 
 l.-E. Porritt, The British Labor Party . in the Political 
 Science Quarterly for June, 1910. 
 

 
 
 
 
 i 
 
49 . 
 
 the Conservatives to capture the labor vote by the formation of the 
 Tory Democracy, which ran six candidates, none of whom were success- 
 ful. The net result of the election was the retention of the Liber- 
 als in power, but dependent on independent groups, such as the Labor 
 Party and the Irish nationalists for sufficient support to continue 
 
 them in office* and the consequent passage of the much-discussed 
 
 1 . 
 
 Lloyd George budget. Incidentally the remnant of the Liberal-Labor 
 group utterly disappeared. The Labor group in Parliament moved from 
 the opposition benches to the Government side of the House; not 
 because they intended to consolidate their strength with that of 
 the Government, but simply because as a result of the election there 
 was not sufficient room for them on the opposition side of the 
 House. As for the other election, which occurred at the end of the 
 year, it did not materially change the aspect of affairs; the Labor 
 
 Party gained a couple of seats and brought up its total to forty- 
 
 2 . 
 
 two . 
 
 Of course the first thing sought by Labor under the new Govern- 
 ment was legislation designed to nullify the effects of the Osborne 
 Judgment. Winston Churchill, a Liberal member, brought in a bill so 
 shaped as to meet Osborne's objections to the political methods of 
 trades unions. It provided that union expenditure for political 
 purposes should be made out of a separate fund, to which no member 
 was to be forced to subscribe against his will. Refusal to subscribe 
 was not to mitigate against the standing of the individual in the 
 
 1. -It is an interesting commentary on this much-discussed increment 
 
 tax on land values that it turned out to be far less productive 
 than its advocates had hoped, and was finally dropped with the 
 consent of Lloyd George. 
 
 2. -Investigation of particular constituencies shows that the Party 
 
 was particularly strong in Wales and Scotland, and in Durham, 
 Lancashire, and Yorkshire in England. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 / 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
50 . 
 
 union. However, the hill was satisfactory neither to the Labor mem- 
 
 bers nor to their opponents among the Liberals and Conservatives, 
 and so it died a natural death. Several other attempts on similar 
 lines were made in subsequent sessions, but nothing was done direct- 
 ly to counteract the effects of the judgment. It seemed as if Labor 
 had lost that almost hypnotic influence which had achieved such a 
 speedy and far-reaching reversal of the Taff Vail situation in 1906. 
 
 The new Parliament enacted one piece of legislation, neverthe- 
 less, which had been agitated for many years past by Labor members; 
 indeed, from the days of the Chartist movement, in 1848i I refer to 
 the payment of Members of Parliament. The passage of the act was 
 consummated without much reference to the situation produced by the 
 Osborne Judgment, but there can be no doubt that that situation was 
 influential in bringing the agitation to a head and forcing the 
 action of Parliament. There was much display of fervid oratory on 
 this question, for many of the members seemed to feel it to be an 
 insult that they should be offered any remuneration for their ser- 
 vices. Seventy M.P.'s declared they would not accept the proposed 
 
 1 . 
 
 salary, and most of the others stated that they disliked the idea. 
 However, in spite of the opposition, a bill was finally passed 
 providing for the payment of an annual salary of four hundred pounds 
 to Members of Parliament. 
 
 In 1912 the Labor Party provided for the satisfaction of a long- 
 felt want by establishing a daily Labor newspaper, which was to be 
 known as the Daily Citizen . The possibility of such a move is large- 
 ly traceable to the action of Parliament in providing for the pay- 
 
 1. -Baumann, A. A. f Law and the Labor Party . in the 
 Fortnightly Review for October, 1911. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
51 . 
 
 ment of members, for the Party was enabled to divert a very sub- 
 stantial part of what had been their Parliamentary fund to the 
 necessary capitalisation of the new enterprise. The paper was not 
 to be merely a means of spreading propaganda and Labor opinion, but 
 was designed to be a full-fledged and up-to-date newspaper. There 
 is no doubt the enterprise was a very valuable asset to the Party, 
 
 but for a long time it maintained but a very precarious existence 
 
 \ 
 
 because of the insufficiency of its financial basis. 
 
 Indeed, the period that intervened between the elections of 1910 
 and the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 was one of rather rough 
 sledding for the Labor Party. It seems as if a good many of its 
 earlier adherents had expected it to discover some immediate and 
 potent panacea for social and industrial ills, and its failure to 
 do so was held against it. Even many of those who were naturally 
 sympathetic with the workers reproached the Party with lowering the 
 political morality of the working man by holding out to him the 
 prospect of power without responsibility. According to a friendly 
 critic, the Labor representatives were sent to Parliament "for 
 purposes which are specific and with definite tasks to perform, and 
 not merely to be beneficent at large", the implication being that 
 
 they represented their own group rather than the constituency for 
 
 1 . 
 
 which they were elected. This same critic complained that the Party 
 aimed at capturing the economic and political organization of 
 society for its own advantages; that it stressed &ot citizenship 
 but similarity of ecomomic conditions as the basis of unity; that 
 the sacredness of the State was not sufficiently emphasized; that 
 
 l.-H. Jones, Corruption of the Citizenship of the Workingman . 
 in the Hibbert Journal for October, 1911. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
52. 
 
 it appealed to a selfish retaliation for past wrongs, and lacked 
 idealism and a real faith in the people; together with much more 
 to the same effect. 
 
 There was much of such unfavorable comment in the influential 
 journals and magazines of the time. From a position of comparative 
 prestige and power in 1906, the Party seemed to have fallen into 
 disrepute and feebleness in 1912 and 1913. These years, it is true, 
 we re a time of great industrial unrest, with continual strikes and 
 
 threat of strikes. Real wages had fallen off from twelve to fifteen 
 
 1 . 
 
 per cent, from 1900 to 1912, and it was charged that the Labor Party 
 had done nothing to remedy the situation. The mass of the Labor men 
 were reproached with being subservient to the Liberal Government, 
 which, in spite of the commercial prosperity of its tenure of 
 office, found labor worse off in 1913 than when it had begun its 
 work. The Labor group, it was charged, had no homogeneity, and its 
 leaders had, through their elevation to Parliament, lost contact 
 with the workmen themselves. Much of the social legislation which 
 had been passed, such, for instance, as compulsory arbitration and 
 the Insurance Act, had been in a great many instances, detrimental 
 to the cause of the trades unions. These critics further urged that 
 the inability of the Parliamentary group to formulate a constructive 
 program, and their failure to achieve anything very definite had 
 been the cause of the rapid spread of Syndicalism among the trades 
 unionists. Establishment of the Government Labor Exchanges, sup- 
 ported by the Labor Party, had broken down the trades union mono- 
 poly of the labor market; the Workmen's Compensation Act had tended 
 
 l.-J. M. Kennedy, Eai lure of the Labor Party , in the 
 Fortnightly Review for February, 1910. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
53. 
 
 to exclude older men from employment; and so forth, _ad inf ini turn . 
 
 There is such a volume of this sort of criticism that it is 
 impossible to consider it at great length. Much of it was directed 
 against the Socialistic objectives of the Party, which had been 
 defined at its Conference at Hull in 1908 as follows: "That in the 
 opinion of this Conference the time has arrived when the Labor Party 
 should have as a definite object the socialization of the means of 
 production, distribution, and exchange, to be controlled by a 
 Democratic State in the interests of the entire community, and the 
 complete emancipation of Labor from the domination of Capitalism 
 and Landlordism with the establishment of social and economic equal- 
 ity between the sexes." 
 
 Hot all the comment was so disparaging, however. Most observers 
 admitted the sincerity and efficiency of the Labor members in the 
 House, and many were inclined to agree that the movement had been, 
 on the whole, a good thing. The ratio of the working population of 
 
 the country to the remainder was estimated as high as fifteen to 
 
 1 . 
 
 one, and one apologist in the Westminster Review declared that the 
 grievances of Labor were practically the grievances of the whole 
 nation, adding "The real aim of the Labor Movement is to work for 
 a state of social life in which each man will have free scope for 
 the development of his faculties, and yet be free from the exploit- 
 ation which under the present system is bad alike for the Individual 
 and for Society"; and again, "Poverty, where there is sufficient for 
 all, is an anachronism, and the best energies of mankind cannot 
 possibly be exerted so long as the overwhelming mass of the people 
 
 1. -Maurice Hewlett, The Labor Party and the Future . in the 
 Fortnightly Review for October, 1913. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 ' 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
54 . 
 
 1 . 
 
 are almost wholly occupied in securing an animal existence.” 
 
 The potential strength of the Labor Party continued to grow in 
 spite of dissatisfaction and adverse criticism. The trades unions, 
 
 on which the Party relied for strength, had increased in total 
 
 2 . 
 
 membership from 2,113,806 in 1906 to 3,987,115 in 1913. Of course 
 not all these can be considered as members of the Labor Party, since 
 there were still some of the smaller unions which had not affiliated 
 with the Party. In addition to the trades union membership, there 
 were the Socialist societies, whose membership had increased, at a 
 
 3. 
 
 rough estimate, from about 20,000 in 1906 to about 35,000 in 1913. 
 Luting the period, therefore, it can be said that the potential 
 strength of the movement had approximately doubled. 
 
 1. -R. 0. Lavis, The Labor Movement; a psychological study . in 
 
 the Westminster Revie?/ for June, 1907. 
 
 2. -Webb, History of Trade Unionism . Appendix VI, p. 750. 
 
 3. -Humphrey, A. 7/., A History of Labor Representation . 
 
 Appendix IV, p. 196. 
 
‘ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
55 . 
 
 CHAPTER I II. -The War and After. 
 
 First Phase: Truce and Coalition. 
 
 The months immediately preceding the outbreak of war in 1914 
 were a time of constantly increasing industrial unrest. The politi- 
 cal labor movement seemed to have lost the confidence of its own 
 constituency, and was fast approaching a state of practical impoten- 
 cy to remedy the industrial situation. Disappointment at the failure 
 of the Labor Party to bring about an immediate Utopia in living con- 
 ditions had turned the thoughts of great numbers of the more radical 
 of the working classes into channels of Syndicalism, and direct, 
 rather than Parliamentary action, was much favored. From 1911 to 
 1914 there had occurred a series of great strikes; in July, 1914, a 
 serious strike in the building industry was just closing, and trou- 
 ble was brewing in the mines, on the railways, and in the engineer- 
 ing and other trades. Indeed, it seemed as if the industrial situa- 
 tion was moving inevitably toward a grand crisis, and it is impos- 
 sible to conjecture what might have been the economic and political 
 complexion of Great Britain at this day, had it not been for the 
 sudden precipitation of the Great T .7ar. 
 
 In view of the strong Socialist element in it, and its inter- 
 national affiliations, the stand of the Labor Party with regard to 
 the war was, to say the least, problematical. Its leaders had 
 densed the growing hostility between the British and German nations 
 in the preceding years, and had done their best to avert difficul- 
 ties by exchanging messages of good will, and trying to reach an 
 understanding. During those anxious latter days of July, both the 
 

 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 
 
 ,v| 
 
 . 
 
 i lh 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Labor Party and the British Section of the Internationale demanded 
 that the Government do its utmost to prevent a European war, and 
 insisted further, that if the war were inevitable, Britain had no 
 business in it, and should remain neutral. On Sunday, August 2, a 
 great anti-war demonstration was held in Trafalgar Square under the 
 auspices of the British Section of the International, J. Heir Hardie 
 Arthur Henderson, Will Thorne, and George Lansbury being the prin- 
 ciple speakers. This meeting confirmed the decision of the two 
 afore-mentioned bodies with respect to England's position. Germany's 
 attitude toward Belgium and Sir Edward Grey's speech in the House of 
 Commons changed the aspect of affairs, however, and England was 
 plunged suddenly into the war. 
 
 It was scarcely to be expected that a party embracing so wide a 
 range of opinion as the Labor group would maintain a united front 
 on such an issue as the war. The extreme right, including such men 
 as Mr. Will Crooks, were among the first to declare for war. On the 
 other hand, ardent internationalists such as Bamsay Macdonald 
 strongly opposed the war and insisted that the country maintain its 
 
 neutrality. Indeed, Macdonald's position nearly cost him his posi- 
 
 1 . 
 
 tion in public life. It soon became evident that probably five- 
 
 sixths of the Labor M.P.'s and nine-tenths of the Party membership 
 
 2 . 
 
 favored English participation in the war, and Macdonald consequently 
 resigned the Party leadership. John Burns, former Liberal-Labor man, 
 
 quietly dropped out of public life as a result of his opposition to 
 
 1 . 
 
 the war, and it looked as if Macdonald was destined to do likewise. 
 Arthur Henderson assumed the Party leadership. But, in spite of his 
 
 1. -G. D. H. Cole, Labour in War Time . p. 30. 
 
 2. -Webb, S. and B., History of Trade Unionism , p. 690 
 

 
 
 
57 . 
 
 ■belief that the war should have heen avoided, Macdonald maintained 
 that since England was in, she should carry the matter through to a 
 successful conclusion. As he wrote to the Mayor of Leicester, in 
 connection with a recruiting campaign, 
 
 "Should an opportunity arise to enable me to appeal to the pure 
 
 love of country which I know is a rare sentiment in all our hearts 
 
 keeping it clear of thoughts which I believe to be alien to real 
 
 patriotism I shall gladly take that opportunity. If need be I 
 
 shall make it for myself. I want the serious men of the Trade Union, 
 the Brotherhood, and similar movements to face their duty. To such 
 men it is enough to say ’England has need of you’ ; to say it in the 
 right way. They will gather to her aid. They will protect her, and 
 when the war is over they will see to it that the policies and 
 
 conditions that make it will go like the mists of a plague and the 
 
 1 . 
 
 shadows of a pestilence." 
 
 The great mass of Trade Unionists stood solidly behind the 
 Government. The Fabians, according to their traditions, took the 
 situation philosophically and resolved to make the best of it. The 
 most important section of the Labor Party to take a definitely anti- 
 war stand was the Independent Labor Party. This group, typified by 
 such men as Macdonald and Eobert Smillie, the head of the Miners' 
 Federation, stood consistently throughout the war for peace by 
 negotiation. The consensus of opinion within the Party is pretty 
 well conveyed by the following excerpt from the report of the Par- 
 liamentary Party for 1914: "The opinion of the majority of the 
 Party, after several meetings to consider the situation, crystal- 
 lized into a conviction that under the circumstances it was 
 
 l.-Cole, op. cit., p. 52. 
 

58 . 
 
 1 . 
 
 impossible for thie country to have remained neutral." In a further 
 
 2 . 
 
 statement, issued in October, 1914, it was declared that Labor had 
 stood for peace, and had made special efforts for peace with Ger- 
 many; but it was recognized that peace was impossible in this case, 
 since a German victory would mean the death of democracy in Europe. 
 And even Ramsay Macdonald declared in a letter to the Morning Post 
 
 that ’’Among other things, they could not make peace until Belgium 
 
 5. 
 
 was freed and compensated for the evil she had suffered." 
 
 Under the domination of its more moderate leadership, then, the 
 Labor Party entered into a political truce with the Liberal and 
 Conservative parties whereby all bye-elections would be held without 
 contest, the party in power in the constituency returning its ov/n 
 candidate. This truce was continued until the end of 1916, when the 
 Labor Party declared that the other parties had tried to import 
 extraneous and unacceptable conditions into the agreement. The 
 spirit of the agreement was generally observed for eighteen months 
 longer, in spite of the fact that the written agreement was discon- 
 tinued. The Party accepted the decision of its executive in this 
 matter only with great reluctance, however, and in several instances 
 conducted insurgent campaigns without official authorization. A bye- 
 election at Salford resulted in the election of the Labor candidate, 
 Ben Willett, on a pro-war basis, and this success probably encour- 
 aged further efforts. In two cases, however (Keighley and Y/ansbeck) , 
 the Labor candidates, running without executive authorization, and 
 on a peace by negotiation platform, were defeated. Robert Smillie 
 declared that the truce weakened Labor, and gave it as his opinion 
 
 1. -A. W. Humphrey, British Labor Movement and the .. : ar . in the 
 
 Political Science Quarterly for March, 1917, pp. 1-27. 
 
 2. -Cf. Liberal Magazine for 1914, pp. 703-705. 
 
 3. -Quoted in the Liberal Magazine for 1915, p. 265. 
 

59 . 
 
 that Labor would, have won the Uansbeck election with the official 
 aid of the Labor Party. Arthur Henderson declared, fairly enough, 
 that either the truce would have to be observed, or the executive 
 should be relieved of responsibility in the matter. 
 
 The political truce amounted practically to merging the Party 
 individuality with the Government. But the Party went even further 
 when the Liberal Government was succeeded by the Hirst Coalition 
 Government, in 1915. In the redistribution of offices, Hr. Asquith 
 appointed Mr. Henderson, the leader of the Labor Party, to the 
 Presidency of the Board of Education, and Mr. G. H. Barnes was made 
 Minister of Pensions. Under the Second Coalition Government, which 
 was formed by Lloyd George the following year, Henderson was made 
 Paymaster-General , and a member of the 17 ar Cabinet; Barnes was 
 continued in his position; John Hodge was made Minister of Labor; and 
 W. Brace, G. H. Roberts, and James Parker were appointed to minor 
 offices. Such participation was opposed to the fundamental princi- 
 ples of the Party, and was severely criticized, not only by the 
 anti-war minority, but also by many who supported the war. The Party 
 also cooperated, in the early days of the war, in a Parliamentary 
 recruiting campaign, in which the Government and the Opposition 
 ?/orked together under the terms of the party truce. This proposal 
 also caused a great deal of disagreement and discussion within the 
 Party, but the national executive finally sanctioned the action of 
 the Parliamentary Party, and Mr. Arthur Henderson became one of the 
 Presidents of the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, other Labor 
 appointees being James Parker, 3?. 17. Goldstone, and J. Pointer. 
 
 whether or not participation in the Coalition Government was 
 advisable under the circumstances, there were some, at least, who 
 
60 • 
 
 had no doubts in the matter: the extremists of the left bitterly 
 opposed the project, and have consistently declared from that day to 
 this that the action weakened the political position of Labor. From 
 the very outset, war exigencies were such as to make it evident 
 that the hard-won rights and privileges of Labor would have to be 
 modified considerably, at least during the war period. The Govern- 
 ment tried to institute an industrial truce for the avoidance of 
 strikes during the war, and the Parliamentary Labor Party enjoined 
 its observance upon its constituent bodies. The truce was observed 
 only for a period of about six months, however, for strikes broke 
 out again in 1915, and were more or less prevalent throughout the 
 remainder of the war, in spite of such legislation as the various 
 Munitions of War Acts and Defense of the Kealm Acts, which not only 
 involved a considerable curtailment of personal liberty, but also 
 imposed what was practically compulsory arbitration as to wages. 
 
 The Government also instituted a policy of what was known as the 
 dilution of labor, which involved the introduction of women and 
 unskilled, non-union labor in trades formerly controlled by the 
 unionists. Both sides agreed, however, as to the necessity of much 
 of this legislation, though it is now generally admitted that the 
 extension of working hours went too far. On the other hand, however, 
 the war was a time when there was plenty of work for all at abnor- 
 mally high wages (for the rise in prices did not overtake the rise 
 in wages until late in the war) . 
 
 In some of these matters, the Labor Party felt it its duty to 
 protest against the action of the Government, though for the most 
 part it acquiesced. The greatest difficulty occurred over the matter 
 of conscription, which was proposed by the Government in 1915. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 - 
 
 
61 . 
 
 Practically all sections of the labor movement, whether right or 
 left, were outspoken in their criticism of the principle of compul- 
 sory military service. ' Indeed, the Party had entered the Parliamen- 
 tary Recruiting Campaign in hopes that the success of the voluntary 
 system would make conscription unnecessary. Even the conservative 
 Trades Union Congress opposed the idea, but after a representative 
 labor group had been addressed on the subject by Lord Kitchener, 
 they formed a committee to aid the Government, though still reiter- 
 ating their position with regard to the principle involved. Arthur 
 Henderson, when finally convinced that the move was inevitable, 
 agreed to the proposal with reluctance, stipulating that the Govern- 
 ment should not continue the policy beyond the war nor use the 
 powers thus conferred upon them against the masses in industrial 
 disputes. The Rational Registration Act was finally passed in August 
 1915, with the I. L. P. men and three other Labor men opposing it. 
 This Act was merely the prelude to the actual conscription measure, 
 which v/as not decided on until after Christmas. The final bill was 
 
 passed with eleven Labor men opposing it on the second reading, and 
 
 u 
 
 five on the third, with two pairing. A second military service act 
 v/as passed four months later, practically without opposition, fhe 
 Labor Party still continued to condemn the act, though they refused 
 to agitate for its repeal. 
 
 Labor was, indeed, politically futile, almost subservient, 
 during the earlier stages of the war. The Party seemed to have lost 
 the power of thought and independent action. A spirit of chauvinism 
 seemed to have replaced the breadth of international view v/hich had 
 formerly characterized the Party. Eor instance, when Samuel Gompers 
 suggested holding an international trades union congress coincident 
 

 
 
 ■ ' .. 
 
 
 
 
 - » i*wm. 
 
 
 . 
 
62 . 
 
 with the official peace conference to protect the interests of 
 
 labor, the Birmingham Conference of the Trades Union Congress (1916) 
 
 1 . 
 
 voted down the project hy 1,486,000 to 723,000. Will Thorne, M.P., 
 welcomed the suggestion for an Inter-Allied Conference, but de- 
 clared absurd the idea of including enemy delegates. The Bail?/ 
 Citizen , which had been founded with such high hopes in 1912, 
 finally ceased publication after a short and troubled existence, in 
 1915. V/hen the encroachments of the Government on labor rights went 
 unendurably far and the Party w as stung to protest, its members were 
 taunted with pacifism and defeatism. Practically the only encour- 
 aging event in those days was the affiliation of the British Social- 
 
 2 . 
 
 ist Party with the Labor Party in January, 1916. This accession was 
 supposed to add about ten thousand members, but the group was split 
 shortly afterward , the right wing, under the leadership of the 
 veteran Hyndman forming the national Socialist Party. As late as 
 1916 the Labor Party refused to consider problems of peace, lest 
 such discussion be considered disloyal. The Scottish section re- 
 mained more independent; its executive refused to join in the re- 
 cruiting campaign, denounced the military service acts, and called 
 for a meeting of the Internationale; but its attitude was not 
 characteristic of the mass of the Party. 
 
 Second Phase: The Revival of the Labor Party. 
 
 It was not until 1917 and 1918 that Labor experienced a reawa- 
 kening and began to express itself once more. The factor which 
 turned the tide (or was at least instrumental) was the Russian 
 
 1. -Kellogg and Gleason, British Labor and the Bar, pp. 19-20. In 
 
 these conferences, each vote represents one thousand members. 
 
 2. - A. 17. Humphrey, British Labor Movement and the Var, in the 
 
 Political Science Quarterly for Liar eh , 1917. 
 

 
63 . 
 
 Revolution, for it was the Kerensky government which precipitated 
 the project of the Inter -Allied Socialist Conference at Stockholm, 
 for the purpose of discussing war aims, which caused such a furor 
 in Allied political circles. There had "been an Inter -Allied Social- 
 ist Conference in London in February, 1915, hut it had done little 
 
 1 . 
 
 beyond condemning the treatment of Belgium, Poland, and Servia. 
 
 Since that time, such conferences for the purpose of discussing war 
 aims had been frowned on by the Allied governments, as savoring of 
 pacifism, and that idea had been reflected in the overwhelming 
 sentiment of the Labor Party and the Trades Union Congress. Shortly 
 after the Revolution, however, Henderson was dispatched to Russia 
 by Lloyd George for the purpose of investigating conditions and 
 bringing about the most efficient cooperation with the new govern- 
 ment. He was even authorised to remain as ambassador, if he saw fit, 
 
 2 . 
 
 at a salary of $40,000 a year. Henderson had at first opposed the 
 idea of the Stockholm Conference, but after conferring with Keren- 
 sky and investigating conditions in Russia, he decided that the 
 conference would be productive of good results. He saw that the 
 Russian government was on a rather unstable foundation, and that in 
 order to insure its hearty support of the war it would be necessary 
 to make very definite the aims for which the Allied nations were 
 fighting. It 7/as also hoped that an appeal such as the conference 
 v/ould doubtless make to the workers of Austria and Germany would 
 lead to a revolt against the autocratic governments of the Central 
 PoY/ers. Henderson felt further that it v/ould be very unwise to 
 allow/ the Russian delegates to meet v/ith those from the Central 
 
 1. -Kellogg and Gleason, op. cit., p. 76. 
 
 2. -3. and B. Webb, op. cit., p. 694. 
 
64. 
 
 powers without the presence of any counteracting forces, such as 
 would he supplied hy Allied representatives. 
 
 Henderson returned from Russia, therefore, thoroughly converted 
 to the idea of the conference. The Government had originally "been 
 rather favorably inclined toward the project, but in the meanwhile 
 the French, Italian, and American governments had registered their 
 strong disapproval of the scheme, and had peremptorily refused pass-: 
 ports to their delegates. Lloyd George veered around and did like- 
 wise, and Henderson, charged with breach of faith as a member of 
 the bar Cabinet, resigned (Barnes and the other Labor men remaining 
 in the ministry, however). Meanwhile a Party Conference, called at ■ 
 Central Hall, Westminster , London, on August 10, 1917, had, under 
 
 the influence of Henderson, decided by a vote of 1,846,000 to 
 
 1 . 
 
 550,000 to send delegates to Stockholm. The vote records the first 
 victory of the left wing since 1914. 
 
 Henderson's resignation marks the beginning of his restoration 
 to the real leadership of the Party. As a member of the I7ar Cabinet, 
 he had been the Parliamentary leader of his Party, but there had 
 been a constantly v/idening breach between the Labor men in the 
 Government and the great mass of the workers. But Henderson, appear- 
 in the light of the martyred champion of Labor's cause, and freed 
 from the restrictions imposed by his position in the Government, 
 made a powerful appeal. The change that took place in the labor 
 movement as a whole was very striking. In January, 1917, the 
 Manchester Conference of the Labor Party had gone on record as 
 opposing any such scheme as the Stockholm conference; in March of 
 the same year, the invitation of the Lutch-Scandinavian Committee 
 
 1. -Kellogg and Gleason, op', cit., p. 12. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
65 » 
 
 had been refused; and to the announcement that the Russian Council 
 of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies had invited all Socialist and 
 labor movements to a conference to adopt a general working class 
 policy, no response was made. A committee was appointed to visit 
 Russia, hut it never left England. All the more remarkable, then, 
 was the reversal in opinion registered in the August conference 
 under the influence of Henderson. Even the Blackpool Conference of 
 the Trades Union Congress, the most conservative constituent element 
 of the labor movement, expressed its disapproval of the course 
 
 adopted by the Government by the overwhelming vote of 2,849,000 to 
 
 1 . 
 
 91,000. It is significant that the same Will Thorne who had, some 
 eighteen months before, characterized as "absurd" a plan to have 
 "delegates from Germany, Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria at a confer- 
 ence that was to advise our plenipotentiaries upon the terms of 
 
 2 . 
 
 peace" was the man who seconded Smillie's resolution, from the 
 Parliamentary Committee, that the Trades Union Congress assist and 
 take part in an inter - belligerent conference. Host of the negative 
 votes on the proposition can be traced to the Sailors' and Eiremens' 
 Union, v/hich had suffered so heavily from the submarine activities 
 of the Germans that they had become the most implacable of bitter- 
 enders, and announced, through their President, Havelock Wilson, 
 that they would refuse to convey such an expedition as the proposed 
 one to Stockholm. They also prevented Ramsay Macdonald from making 
 
 rj 
 
 • 
 
 a proposed trip to Russia. 
 
 1. -Hellogg and Gleason, op. cit., p. 16. 
 
 2. -Ibid.; p. 20. 
 
 3. -Inasmuch as the Union took this action on their own initiative, 
 
 without consulting the Government, it is especially interest- 
 ing as savoring of syndicalism, on the part of one of the most 
 conservative of unions; had a union taken such a position in 
 contravention of the Government's wishes, a most interesting 
 situation would have arisen. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
66 • 
 
 Having taken issue with the Government over the Stockholm pro- 
 ject, Labor, not daunted by its apparent defeat, turned its energies 
 to securing Inter-Allied Labor agreement on the terms of peace. 
 
 These efforts marked the beginning of a period of renewed activity 
 which continued on into and through 1918, and which not only lifted 
 the political labor movement out of the condition of impotence into 
 which it had fallen, but brought it to a plane of achievement to 
 which it had not theretofore attained. As a prelude to securing 
 Inter-Allied agreement on war aims, it was of course essential that 
 British Labor be brought to agree on a program. The task was under- 
 taken by the national Executive of the Labor Party and the Parlia- 
 mentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, under the direction 
 of Arthur Henderson, who had the sanction of the British Government. 
 
 The result of their labors was the publication of a remarkable 
 
 1 . 
 
 document known as the Memorandum on war Jims, which v/as presented 
 
 to the Westminster Conference of the Labor Party and passed by a 
 
 2 . 
 
 vote of 2,132,000 to 1,164,000. Five days later it was approved by 
 a Joint Conference of the Labor Party and the Trades Union Congress, 
 and thereby secured the stamp of approval of the whole British 
 labor movement. Inasmuch as this document became the basis of 
 President Wilson's subsequent fourteen points, it is perhaps worth 
 while to examine the paper in detail. 
 
 The pronouncement begins with a declaration to the effect that 
 Labor's aim is to secure a lasting peace for the v/orld. It goes on 
 to state that war must be eliminated by the democratization of 
 nations; by the suppression of imperialism and secret diplomacy; by 
 
 1. -A. Henderson, The Aims of Labour , Appendix I. 
 
 2. -Kellogg and Gleason, op. cit., p. 51. 
 
 

 
 . 
 
67 
 
 the abolition of compulsory military service everywhere; by the 
 limitation of armaments and the nationalization of the armament 
 industry; and by the formation of a League of Nations with compul- 
 sory powers. It demands as a basis of peace that there shall be no 
 conquests; that Belgium shall be restored; that Alsace-Lorraine 
 shall exercise • self-determination by means of a plebiscite; that 
 there shall be a Special International Commission to settle the 
 Balkan difficulties on the basis of self-determination; that the 
 purely Italian districts in the neighborhood of the head of the 
 Adriatic Sea shall be turned over to Italy; that Palestine shall be 
 made an independent Jewish state; that Constantinople shall be a 
 neutralised free port, and the freed Turkish provinces shall be 
 administered under the League of Nations; that the conquered African 
 colonies shall be likewise managed, and eventually formed into a 
 state; and deals with international problems of lesser import in 
 the same spirit. The Memorandum denounces any she erne of economic 
 warfare after the consummation of peace, and declares for free trade 
 except as protection may be necessary to safeguard the interests of 
 the masses. As to domestic affairs, the statement favors the con- 
 tinuation of Government retention of control of commodities until 
 war shortage and emergencies are a thing of the past; demands that 
 action be taken to prevent unemployment, and suggests that public 
 works anticipated in the near future be begun immediately upon the 
 cessation of hostilities in order that work may be provided for the 
 demobilized troops. It concludes with a statement that all nations 
 
 should aid in the reitoration of the devastated regions, even to 
 
 the peasants' homes; and insists that the charges of atrocities so 
 freely made during the war be tried, and appropriate awards and 
 

68 . 
 
 punishments meted out. 
 
 The Allied governments finally agreed to, and furnished the 
 necessary passports for, an Inter-Allied Labor and .Socialist Confer- 
 ence which convened at London, February 20-24, 1918. There was much 
 opposition to such a meeting, probably the strongest voices in 
 condemnation of it being raised in America. After the United States 
 had entered the war, the American Federation of Labor, under the 
 leadership of Samuel Gompers, which had formerly been engaged in 
 efforts to bring about inter-belligerent conferences, became the 
 most violently nationalistic labor movement to be found in any of 
 the Allied nations, and they, in particular, were outspoken in 
 their opposition to any consideration uf war aims and peace terms 
 before a military victory had been achieved. As a matter of fact, 
 however, it would seem that most of the critics of the movement 
 misunderstood the theory underlying the attempt of British labor. 
 Arthur Henderson, who had several sons in the war, was no pacifist; 
 but he saw, as President V/ilson did also, that the military offen- 
 sive could be rendered more effective if backed up by a moral and 
 political one. From the entrance of the United States into the war, 
 President Uilson had been trying to detach the German people from 
 their Junker leadership by distinguishing between the government 
 and the people; and in the month preceding the Inter-Allied Confer- 
 ence he had issued his note embodying the famous Fourteen Points; 
 but no one had considered it as a particularly pacifist move, 
 though it had undoubtedly discussed peace terms. What Arthur Hender- 
 son and the Labor Party men associated with him we re trying to do 
 was of the same nature . The adoption of well-defined war aims by 
 the representatives of the most democratic interests of the Allied 
 
69 . 
 
 nations was a clever lit of propaganda well calculated to offset 
 the misrepresentations of the German military leaders to their 
 people concerning Allied intentions. Moreover, the scheme was de- 
 signed to make even the military offensive more effective; for in 
 1917 and 1918, when war-weariness was "beginning to affect the 
 nations, and labor was "becoming increasingly restive and ill-satis- 
 fied, such an agreement acted as an incentive to renewed effort. 
 
 The Belgian Socialist, Vandervelde, repudiated the charge of 
 pacifism in a speech at the London Conference in the following 
 words: "But we have more to do than to congratulate ourselves on 
 the achievement of the Russian Revolution; we must also draw 
 lessons from its failures. The great lesson is that democracy was 
 committing an irretrievable mistake by throwing away its arms before 
 militarism had been defeated, whilst holding the olive branch in one 
 hand, we have to hold the sword in the other. We have been forced to 
 take up the sword as the only means of defense. Y/e must not forget 
 that if we are able to assemble here, it is because the British 
 navy holds the seas, and the millions of Allied soldiers maintain 
 the line. If the German offensive were to succeed the resolutions 
 we pass would be mere 'scraps of paper' and of no more value than 
 the bank notes of the Russian state bank. If our soldiers are able 
 to throw back the attack with which we are threatened, we shall have 
 the glorious opportunity of taking a leading part in the effort that 
 can be made to attain a just and democratic peace.” And Vandervelde 
 pretty fairly expressed the opinion of the conference. The confer- 
 ence finally adopted a memorandum on war aims based in all essential 
 points on the document passed by British labor two months before. 
 
 I. -Kellogg and Gleason, op., cit., p. 75. 
 
70. 
 
 Henderson summed up the idea of the conference at its final 
 session in these words: "As I understand the position of Allied 
 labor, it is this: We seek a victory; hut we do not seek a victory 
 of a militarist or diplomatic nature. We seek a triumph for great 
 principles and noble ideals. We are not influenced by imperialist 
 ambitions or selfish national interests. We seek a victory; but it 
 must be a victory for international moral and spiritual forces, 
 finding its expression based on the inalienable rights of common 
 humanity. By the acceptance of the amended war aims, the Inter- 
 Allied Conference has declared that, whilst we are unprepared to 
 continue the conflict for an imperialistic peace for the Allies, 
 neither would we consent to the acceptance of terms which would 
 mean a German militarist peace. We have made our declarations of 
 policy in good faith, repudiating all deceit and cunning. We shall 
 refuse to countenance any attempt by either group of belligerents 
 to defeat the principle for which we stand. We shall oppose any 
 unscrupulous application of these principles to any particular 
 cases in which any country may be interested. We shall continue to 
 press our case against all opposition, whether it be internal or 
 external, in order that we may eventually secure that constructive 
 
 democratic peace so essential to social and economic peace the 
 
 1 . 
 
 v/orld over." 
 
 Thus did British labor contribute at once to the hastening of 
 peace, and the more effective prosecution of the war. And through 
 the months that followed it continued to exert its influence to 
 insure a just peace and a speedy one. It is but fair to say, though, 
 that during the dark days stretching bet ween March and July, when 
 
 1. -Kellogg and Gleason, op', cit., p. 79. 
 

71 . 
 
 it looked as though the German armies might break through the Allied 
 line and reach Paris, the Party exerted its energies rather toward 
 increased military resistance than in discussion of peace terms. For 
 instance, in April the executive of the Party passed the following 
 resolution: 
 
 "Resolved, That the national Executive of the Labor Party 
 places on record its deep sense of gratitude for, and admiration of, 
 the heroic resistance offered by our armies in the field to the 
 terrible onslaughts of the enemy during the recent offensive. Such 
 
 magnificent courage and resolution so consistent with the best 
 
 British traditions imposes an imperative obligation upon all 
 
 sections of the country to assist by their skill, energy, or sub- 
 stance to carry on the great work of liberation in which our armies 
 are engaged in order that our joint efforts may eventually result 
 
 in the final overthrow of militarism and secure for the world a 
 
 1 . 
 
 lasting and democratic peace." 
 
 A second Inter-Allied Labor and Socialist Conference was held 
 in London on September 17, 18, and 19, and in this meeting even 
 Samuel Gompers and an American delegation participated, together 
 with British, French, Italian, Serbian, and Greek delegations. The 
 convention gave unanimous endorsement to President Wilson* fourteen 
 propositions, and steered a straight course between the extremists 
 both on the right and on the left. And throughout these conferences, 
 and others I have not mentioned, the moderating, steadying influence 
 was Henderson. 
 
 A second manifestation of the reviving energy of Labor was the 
 promulgation of an extensive and elaborate reconstruction program. 
 
 1 ‘-Kellogg and Gleason * op. cit., p. 95 . 
 

 
 • • * - - .«* . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
72 . 
 
 In the Allied nations there had been much talk of the problems that 
 
 must be met v/hen the war ended, but nothing very definite had been 
 
 1 . 
 
 done in preparation for that time. The report was drafted by the 
 Executive Committee of the Labor Party and first submitted to the 
 
 annual conference of the Party at Nottingham, January 23-25, 1918, 
 
 2 . 
 
 under the title of Labor and the Hew Social Order . The pamphlet at 
 once attracted widespread attention, and was extensively quoted and 
 copied throughout the Allied nations. It was reprinted as a supple- 
 ment to the New Republic in the United States, and was partially 
 embodied in the platforms in many of the fall elections. So import- 
 ant and far-reaching v/as this document also, that it is necessary 
 to summarize its provisions. 
 
 The report begins with a quotation from the Japanese statesman, 
 Count Okuma, to the effect that the war signalizes the collapse of 
 the existing industrial civilization; society must be entirely re- 
 constructed; hope is expressed that political and industrial indi- 
 vidualism has been forever downed; the new order must be based on 
 fraternal cooperative production. The four essential elements of the 
 new social order, referred to as the four pillars of the house, are 
 summarized as follows: 
 
 a. Universal enforcement of the national minimum. 
 
 b. The democratic control of industry. 
 
 c. The revolution in national finance. 
 
 d. The surplus wealth for the common good. 
 
 By the national minimum, Labor means securing to all, in good 
 
 1. -The British Government did, indeed, appoint a Ministry of Re- 
 
 construction, but its work was inadequate to the exigencies 
 of the situation. 
 
 2. -A. Henderson, op. cit., Appendix II. 
 

 
 
 
73 . 
 
 times or bad, the requisites of a healthy life and worthy citizen- 
 ship; employment must he assured to all, and there must he some form 
 of social insurance; the administration of existing social legisla- 
 tion must he improved, and a national minimum wage of thirty shil- 
 lings a week is suggested for the present. The report refers to the 
 dangers attendant upon demobilization; reminds the Government that 
 Labor had some time before called upon the Government to declare its 
 demobilization policy, and had received no answer; suggests that 
 those men engaged in the most essential industries be released 
 first. Labor insists that unemployment be avoided, and accuses the 
 Government and the Liberal and Conservative parties with evading 
 this issue entirely. Employment problems, declares the document, 
 should be handled through the trades unions and the Employment 
 Exchanges, the latter to be jointly controlled by employers and 
 trades unionists. The standard of living must not be lowered; the 
 pre-war trades union privileges must be restored, and the Government 
 is reminded of its pledge. The rates of real wages should hot be 
 lowered, and the Government, as an employer, should set the example 
 in this regard. Again the idea is advanced that the Government, in 
 order to prevent unemployment, should utilize public works and the 
 Government service to regulate the demand for labor. In order to 
 take care of the labor that will be released by demobilization, the 
 following are suggested: rehousing, extension of educational work, 
 both in building and in a vocational way, roads and light railv/ays, 
 unification and reorganization of the railway and canal system, 
 afforestation, reclamation of land, development and better equipment 
 of ports and harbors, access to land by cooperative small holdings. 
 In addition it is suggested that the school-leaving age be raised to 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
74 . 
 
 sixteen; that the number of scholarships and bursaries for higher 
 education be increased; that the hours of labor of young people be 
 shortened; and that the forty- eight hour week be adopted as the 
 national standard for adult workers wherever practicable. As for the 
 unemployable, they should be cared for by social insurance, the cost 
 of which should be borne partly by the Government; poor laws and 
 private charity cannot be longer tolerated. 
 
 As to the democratic control of industry: The report states that 
 democracy means effective personal freedom; it demands that the 
 Military Service Acts (conscription) be repealed at the earliest 
 possible opportunity; supplementary to the present state of politi- 
 cal democracy, it stands for " complete adult suffrage, with not 
 more than a three months' residential qualification, for effective 
 provisions for absent electors to vote, for absolutely eoual rights 
 for both sexes, for the same freedom to exercise civic rights for 
 the 'common soldier' as for the officer, for Shorter Parliaments, 
 for the complete Abolition of the House of Lords, and for a most 
 strenuous opposition to any new Second Chamber, whether elected or 
 
 not, having in it any element of Heredity or Privilege, or of the 
 
 1 . 
 
 control of the House of Commons by any Party or Class. 11 But the 
 Labor Party demands industrial, as well as political, democracy, 
 implying the elimination of the private capitalist, service to be 
 for the community only. It is stated that increased production will 
 only be secured by common ownership of the means of production, and 
 a demand is made for nationalization, as soon as possible, of land, 
 railways, mines, electrical power, a national Service of Communi- 
 cation and Transport, and, ultimately, insurance. It is suggested 
 
 l.-A. Henderson, op. c it .,• Appendix II, p. 99. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 « ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 ~ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 - * 
 
75 . 
 
 thet the liquor business be taken from the hands of individuals, 
 and deparate districts be given the privilege of local option on 
 the question of license. The Party advocates the municipalization 
 of all local utilities, among which it includes the following: 
 land, housing, town planning, parks, libraries, music, recreation, 
 milk supply, in addition to those activities usually included under 
 the head of public utilities. 
 
 On the point of financial reform: There is to be no protective 
 tariff; indirect taxation shall be limited to luxuries, and neces- 
 saries shall not be taxed; the scope of sumptuary taxation shall be 
 extended, however. There shall be direct and steeply graduated 
 of surplus income and inheritances, the former to be assessed by 
 families. A direct capital levy is suggested for the payment of 
 war debts. The excess profits tax shall shall be continued "in an 
 appropriate form", though its application to Cooperative Societies 
 shall be stopped. The unearned increment shall be reached by direct 
 taxation of land values. Surplus income above the standard of liv- 
 ing shall not go to the building up of individual fortunes, but 
 will provide Society's capital needs and care for those who cannot 
 aid in production, and for the cultural advancement of the 7/hole 
 communi ty . 
 
 Under the heading of The Street of To-I.lorrow the report then 
 discusses in a general way some international problems; there 
 shall be home rule for the British Empire; the idea of an Imperial 
 Senate is definitely repudiated; the principle of self-determination 
 of nations is reiterated; there shall be no economic war; secret 
 diplomacy and alliances shall be abolished, and a League of Nations 
 with super -national authority, together with an International ^-ign 
 
76 . 
 
 Court for the settlement of disputes, and an International Legis- 
 lature, shall be set up. The report concludes with a plea that the 
 Labor Party base its advance upon Science and Knowledge, stating 
 that Good Will without Knowledge is warmth without light, while 
 both are essential to progress. 
 
 The pronouncement became increasingly important as time went on, 
 not only because of the international attention it attracted, but 
 because it became practically the Party platform at the next 
 general election, and is still extensively referred to. Its prin- 
 ciples are clearly Socialistic, and show that the Party had travel- 
 ed a long way since its inception in 1900. The report was, of 
 course, roundly condemned as well as praised, the nature of the 
 comment depending on the source. The following excerpt from an 
 article in the nineteenth C entury expresses pretty well the bitter- 
 ness of some of the adverse comment that greeted the report: 
 
 " It has evidently been written by a Pabian doctrinaire and 
 perhaps touched up here and there by a Labor leader in order to 
 
 adapt it to the manual workers’ point of view The most 
 
 painful passage ..of the Report as a whole is the evident 
 
 object of stirring up class war by the use of catchwords calculated 
 
 1 . 
 
 to deceived because never defined.” 
 
 But aside from the virtues or failings of the Report itself, it 
 cannot be denied that it made such an appeal to the labor v/orld of 
 Britain as had not been made, probably, since its first attempt at 
 politics. The Memorandum on V/ar Aims and Labor and the Hew Social. 
 Order, indeed, mark a new departure in the political labor move- 
 ment; heretofore one of the truest and most general criticisms 
 
 l.-Lord Sydenham of Combe, , The Peril of Socialism , in the 
 nineteenth Centur;; for March, 1918, 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
77 . 
 
 directed against the Labor Party had been that it had no specific 
 program of its own; here we find it, in the midst of war, at a time 
 when the other political parties seemed dazed and incapable of ex- 
 pression, promulgating a most complete and far-reaching program, 
 outlining not only the general principles of their political creed, 
 but also applying them in more or less detail to the domestic and 
 international problems of the day. 
 
 There was, however, a third important document marking the re- 
 juvenation of the Party. The organization of the group had been for 
 a long time unsatisfactory. The constitution provided for member- 
 ship either on a basis of trade union membership, or affiliation 
 v/ith one or other of the Socialist bodies connected with the Party. 
 Such a restriction meant that many middle class and professional 
 well-wishers of the movement were excluded from the Party except as 
 they might join one of the Socialist bodies, which maiy of these 
 people were unwilling to do. This matter was one of especial impor- 
 tance because many of those so excluded were of the so-called in- 
 tellectual class, and were capable of rendering the movement great 
 aid if they could be put in a position to do so. Moreover, when 
 this matter was under particular discussion (in the fall of 1917) 
 it was believed that franchise reform was imminent, and it was 
 necessary that the Party make some provision to capture its share 
 of the millions of new voters who would owe their privilege in no 
 small degree to the efforts of the Labor group. As a. matter of fact, 
 the Representation of the People Act, which granted woman suffrage 
 
 ( and it is but fair to remark that the Labor Party, as A. Lawrence 
 
 1 . 
 
 Lowell says, was the only group which had favored the movement when 
 
 l.-A. Lawrence Lowell, The. Government of England , Vol.II, p. 216. 
 
« 
 
 I , I II . 'I I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
78 . 
 
 it had been unpopular) and greatly extended male suffrage, besides 
 making some changes in the constituencies and slightly increasing 
 the number of representatives in the House of Commons, was passed 
 by Parliament early in 1918, and resulted in a total increase in 
 the electorate of about thirteen millions. Inconsideration of these 
 facts, then, the Party adopted at its conference in London on 
 February 21, 1918, a new constitution designed to widen the scope 
 of its membership and to make the most of the situation created by 
 the new franchise act. 
 
 It is true that some of the most active of the local Labor 
 Parties, such as those of Woolwich and Blackburn, had for some time 
 been accepting the aid of those who were not manual workers, but 
 
 their example was not widely followed. The main features of the new 
 
 1 . 
 
 constitution were as follows: membership was to be based, as before, 
 on the affiliated societies, and on membership in local Labor 
 Parties, where such members subscribed to the Constitution and 
 Program of the Party. There follows a section outlining the Party 
 objectives, which have already been discussed. As to the Party 
 program, it is specified that it shall be decided on by the Party 
 Conference, by a two-thirds majority; the national Executive and 
 the Parliamentary Party shall define the issues before every 
 general election. "It shall be the duty of every Parliamentary 
 representative of the Party to be guided by the decisions of the 
 meetings of such Parliamentary representatives, with a view to 
 
 giving effect to the decisions of the Party Conference as to the 
 
 2 . 
 
 General Programme of the Party." The work of the Party shall be in 
 
 1. -Kellogg and Gleason, op. cit.. Appendix III. 
 
 2. -Ibid., p. 239. 
 

79 . 
 
 charge of the Conference, which shall meet once a year, and at 
 other times as convened hy the national Executive. The Conference 
 shall consist of delegates from affiliated societies on the "basis 
 of one for every thousand paid-up members represented; and of 
 representatives from the local Labor Parties according to the 
 number of Parliamentary representatives returned by the constituen- 
 cy of the party; and of delegates at the rate of one each from 
 Trades Councils affiliated to the Party prior to November 1, 1917. 
 The National Executive shall consist of twenty-three members, to be 
 elected by the Conference; shall be responsible for the Party work 
 and shall cooperate with the Parliamentary Party for the purpose of 
 furthering the Party program. Party candidates must be approved by 
 the National Executive and must appear on a Labor platform only; 
 they shall be aided in their campaign by the Executive, and shall 
 received financial aid to cover their campaign expenses according 
 to the size of the constituency they happen to be contesting. The 
 last section deals with the matter of Party finance, which is on a 
 basis of twopence per member of affiliated organizations, with 
 special arrangements for Trades Councils and local Labor Parties. 
 
 This last point was, indeed, the most difficult one of all. The 
 matter of expansion could have been cairied out without difficulty 
 had it not been necessary to retain the Trades Union basis as fund- 
 amental because of its financial assistance .Hence the outcome was 
 more or less of a compromise between radical bodies such as the 
 Independent Labor Party, which had long been agitating for the 
 admission of all workers "by hand or brain" , rather tnan the re- 
 striction of the movement to manual workers, and the conservative 
 Trades Unions, which preferred to keep the Party on its original 
 
80 . 
 
 trade union "basis. The Fabians were also influential in the change. 
 
 Many have argued that "by its action the Party threw out the old 
 class war doctrine of the orthodox Socialists "by permitting the 
 affiliation of petit "bourgeois intellectuals. The Party hoped, also, 
 to secure the aid of the Cooperative movement, which had first 
 entered politics in 1917 as a protest against the action of the 
 Government in attempting to apply the excess profits tax to their 
 earnings. The Cooperatives, in declaring their intentions of 
 running candidates for Parliament, made no mention of party affil- 
 iation, "but it was generally understood that the majority of them 
 would "be labor men, since the whole Cooperative movement was 
 largely a working class undertaking. 
 
 The new constitution had been originally adopted as far back 
 as October, 1917, by the Party Executive, whose action was approved 
 by the Conference. The first National Executive elected under the 
 provisions of the new constitution was chosen at the June, 1918, 
 Conference, and the personnel was as follows: Of the twenty-two 
 members (excluding the Treasurer, Ramsay Macdonald), thirteen were 
 representatives of Trades Unions or other affiliated organizations; 
 five were from local Labor Parties; and four were women. The Inde- 
 pendent Labor Party had lost its right to separate representation; 
 but it is noteworthy that of those elected, two were at the time 
 members of the I. L. P. Executive, and one was an ex-member of that 
 body; one of the women was Mrs. Philip Snowden, and the Treasurer 
 was a member of the Independents , showing that that group had by 
 
 no means its influence, even though deprived of separate represen- 
 
 1 . 
 
 tation. 
 
 1. -Kellogg and Gleason, op. cit., p. 257. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
81 . 
 
 Women had become increasingly important in the industrial and 
 political affairs of the nation during the war years. Prom 1910 the 
 
 number of women workers enrolled in trades unions had increased 
 
 1 . 
 
 from 129,074 to 556,965, and this number had practically doubled 
 during the war. And yet the trades unionists were but a small 
 section of the total of working w omen, who had increased in number 
 nearly a million and a half during the war. ITaturally the Labor 
 Party spread its net to capture the votes of these women who had 
 recently been franchised; had, indeed, taken them into partnership 
 long before the nation had done so. The local Labor Parties had 
 organized women’s auxiliaries, and women delegates had appeared in 
 national gatherings, especially among the more radical groups, such 
 as the Independent Labor Party. In 1918 the Trades Union Congress 
 elected Margaret Bondfield, who was already a member of the Execu- 
 tive of the I. L. P. to membership on its Parliamentary Committee. 
 The election of Dr. Ethel Bentham, Mary Macarthur, Mrs. Philip 
 Snowden, and Susan Lawrence to the Executive of the Labor Party has 
 already been mentioned. In addition to appearing at the national 
 conferences, women often held conferences in conjunction with those 
 held by the men. Thus at the Southport Conference of the Labor 
 Party, the women convened a day earlier than the remainder of the 
 Conference, and held a session, one hundred and fifty-four strong, 
 under the leadership of Susan Lawrence. The Women's Labor League 
 was formed to assist in the formation of women's sections of local 
 Labor Parties, and its organ, Labor Women was taken over by the 
 Party. Yet in spite of these efforts, it is interesting to note the 
 impressions of an American eye-witness, who admitted "I must leave 
 
 l.-A. Gleason, What the Workers Want , p. 259 
 

82 . 
 
 it as my impression of half a dozen labor conferences that women as 
 
 1 . 
 
 yet with difficulty gain a hearing." 
 
 The potential strength of the labor movement had increased 
 greatly during the war. During the five year period 1914-1919, the 
 trades unions had practically doubled their membership. There had 
 been the accession of the British Socialist Party in 1916, and 
 there had been some gains from the Cooperatives in 1917 (much of the 
 membership of the Cooperative movement had, of course, been already 
 affiliated with the Labor Party). The membership of the Independent 
 Labor Party had also doubled, and its propaganda was becoming con- 
 stantly more effective and influential. At the twenty-sixth annual 
 conference of this body at Leicester in March, 1918, it was an- 
 nounced that one hundred and fifty-three new branches had been 
 
 established, and there had been a gain of fifty per cent, in mem- 
 
 2 . 
 
 bership during the year which had just closed. 
 
 Another matter which tended to strengthen the political movement 
 was the final repudiation of the political truce. At every labor 
 conference this truce was the object of attack from the left wing. 
 
 As a matter of fact, it had not been officially subscribed to by 
 the Party since the end of 1916, but it had been observed with the 
 exception of two or three instances already alluded to. Labor 
 members still retained their position in the Ministry, though there 
 was a constantly widening gulf between several of them and their 
 labor constituencies. At the time of the Bottingham Conference of 
 the Labor Party, in January, 1918, there were eight labor leaders 
 in the ministry, and G. IT. Barnes was in the Cabinet. At this 
 
 1. -A. Gleason, op. cit., p. 107. 
 
 2 . -Kellogg and Gleason, op. cit., p. 216. 
 

 
85. 
 
 conference there was voiced the first menacing demand that the 
 Labor members resign from the ministry on questions of policy. But 
 the moderating influence of Arthur Henderson was sufficient to hold 
 the forces of the conference together and to sidetrack the resolu- 
 tion calling for the break-up of the Coalition. But the move for 
 separation from the Government was a determined one, based on the 
 feeling that the policy of the Labor Party had become widely di- 
 vergent from that of the Government. Party members did not care to 
 be responsible for war aims and reconstruction plans openly avowed 
 by reactionary elements in the Government. But even the extremists 
 moved slowly because of the uncertainty of the political situation, 
 and put the soft pedal on their propaganda during the spring and 
 early summer days of German menace. 
 
 The agitation against the continuance of the political truce 
 came to a head in the June Conference. But even then the Party did 
 not insist on the Labor members leaving the Government; it merely 
 made a formal declaration of its subsequent freedom in elections. 
 
 The resolution was brought forward by the national Executive, and 
 read as follows: 
 
 "That this Conference of the Labor Party accepts the recommen- 
 dation of the Party Executive that the existence of the political 
 
 1 . 
 
 truce should be no longer recognized." 
 
 The actual vote on the proposition was 1,704,000 for, and 
 
 2 . 
 
 951,000 against, registering a majority of 755,000. This conference, 
 too, was dominated by the more moderate element, such as Henderson, 
 Thomas, and Clynes. The latter had been reelected to the executive 
 
 1. -Kellogg and Gleason, op. cit., p. 113. 
 
 2. -Ibid., p. 119. 
 
I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
84 . 
 
 of the Labor Party by a vote of over two millions. He had, at the 
 death of Lord Rhondda, become the Pood Controller of Great Britain. 
 Relative to the truce, he voiced the attitude of the Conference 
 when he declared that its termination did not mean any lessening 
 support of the Government in the war, but was necessary to allow 
 Labor to exert the strength it had newly acquired under the reform 
 bill. As a matter of fact, the Labor members of the Cabinet were 
 not called out by the Party until three days after the signing of 
 
 the Armistice, on the eve of the general election. Barnes, who 
 
 had become estranged from the labor movement during his years of 
 Government service, and had been defeated for the Labor Party nom- 
 ination in his own constituency, refused to obey the summons, 
 joined the Lloyd George coalition permanently, and was dropped by 
 the Party. Clynes, on the other hand, though he opposed the resolu- 
 tion, nevertheless obeyed it, and campaigned for Labor in the 
 election. Three other Labor members followed the example of Barnes, 
 namely: G. H. Roberts, John Hodge, and J. G. ITardle; the rest 
 obeyed the Party dictum and withdrew. 
 
 There were, of course, many divergent elements at work during 
 these troubled days. Though 1917 and 1918 were, on the whole, times 
 of rapid expansion and growing popularity for the movement, yet it 
 required cool leadership and real tact for Henderson, Clynes, and 
 Thomas to steer a neutral course between Macdonald, Snowden, and 
 Smillie on the extreme left, and Havelock Wilson, Barnes, and 
 Roberts on the right, without losing the discordant elements. The 
 moderates were not altogether successful, as we have seen; but they 
 did remarkably well considering the difficulties with which they 
 had to deal. It was inevitable that some divisions would crop out 
 

85 . 
 
 which could not he fused again. Of these was the British Workers’ 
 League, an organization formed by the most chauvinistic and reac- 
 tionary elements in the labor movement. The group was formed during 
 the war ostensibly to promote cooperation with the Government, but 
 it did its utmost to combat the steady movement of the Labor Party 
 toward the left, and v/as, accordingly, regarded by that group as 
 what might be termed a counter-revolutionary body. Some of the more 
 radical organs, such as the London Hat ion and the Herald , for in- 
 stance, even charged the group with being financed by capitalist 
 funds, for the purpose of hindering the real labor movement. The 
 League declared against Free Trade, and proposed a modified capital- 
 ism on the basis of a minimum wage after the war, besides attack- 
 ing the leadership of Sidney Webb and Arthur Henderson in the 
 Labor Party. The organization was founded by Victor Fisher, a 
 former member of the Social, Democratic Federation, and enrolled 
 several well-known labor leaders among its earlier followers. When 
 it revealed its real nature, however, by attacking the war aims 
 memorandum and by announcing that it would run candidates in opposi- 
 tion to Labor Party men in some constituencies in the coming 
 election, most of the Labor men who had been attracted to it with- 
 drew their membership. At the ITottingham Conference of the Labor 
 Party it seemed to be the general opinion that one could not well 
 belong to the Party and the League at the same time. Smillie 
 
 1 . 
 
 referred to the Workers' League as a "black-leg organization", 
 and the house signified its approval by applause. 
 
 In the spring of 1918 another apparent split occurred in the 
 Party; or at least a movement which the hostile publicists were 
 
 1. -Kellogg and Gleason, op. cit., p. 55. 
 
86 . 
 
 pleased to call a split. The movement was headed by J. B. Williams, 
 head of the Amalgamated Musicians’ Union, who issued a circular 
 advocating a trade union party, to he under the exclusive control 
 of the Trades Union Congress. One such circular was signed hy 
 twenty trades union officials and members, two of them being mem- 
 bers of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress. 
 
 A joint meeting of the Parliamentary Committee and the Labor Party 
 Executive replied to their propaganda in the following resolution*. 
 
 "That this Joint Meeting of the Parliamentary Committee and 
 Labor Party Executive, having considered the circular issued by 
 J. B. Williams and signed by certain trade union officials, wherein 
 an appeal is made for the formation of a Trade Union Labor Party 
 which, in our opinion, is calculated to disrupt a movement built up 
 by years of sacrifice, calls upon those responsible to immeidately 
 discontinue such action, and trusts no further stept will be neces- 
 sary to enforce what loyalty our movement has a right to expect 
 
 from those holding such responsible positions 
 
 "The Executive Committee holds very strongly that no worse 
 service could be rendered to the movement under present circumstan- 
 ces than that any attempt should be made to disrupt either the 
 
 1 . 
 
 political or industrial forces of labor " 
 
 Havelock Wilson was an easy convert to the new movement, and 
 he and Williams proceeded to organize a meeting at Caxton Hall, 
 Westminster (v/hich was reported to have been attended by four hun- 
 dred people) for the purpose of repudiating the breaking of the 
 truce and advancing the cause of the new movement. This body, it is 
 
 1. -Kellogg and Gleason, op. cit., p. 258. 
 
87 . 
 
 true, managed maintain its existence through the December elections, 
 and was more or less successful, but inasmuch as neither Williams, 
 Wilson, nor W. J. Davis (Amalgamated Brass Workers), nor their 
 respective unions had been affiliated with the Labor Party, they 
 could not, strictly speaking, comprise a split in the Party. The 
 Tories were glad to hail it as a real party, but Liberal and 
 Radical groups minimized its importance. The group carried on an 
 active propaganda, however, and by the end of August they announced 
 that they had distributed a million and a half copies of their 
 party manifesto. The group advocated a five year boycott of Germany 
 after the war, and Havelock Wilson announced to the Trades Union 
 Congress at Derby in September that he had secured a total of 
 550,000 declarations among members of the fighting forces favoring 
 such a boycott, among them being 152,000 trades unionists. His 
 proposal was discarded by the Congress, however, without much dis- 
 cussion. The new body finally adopted the name of national Democra- 
 tic and Labor Party, and entered the general election under that 
 title. 
 
 These were, then, in brief, the main events in Labor's career 
 leading up to the election of 1918: the Stockholm conference, 
 publication of the Memorandum on War Aims and Labor and the Hew 
 Social Order , the adoption of a new constitution, organization of 
 the women's movement, and the appearance of rival labor organiza- 
 tions.The general election, which should have come not later than 
 the end of 1915, had been several times postponed by the Govern- 
 ment because of the country T s dislike of engaging in the distrac- 
 tions and political quarrels incident to a campaign while the war 
 continued. The election was finally set for December, 1918. Mean- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
88 . 
 
 while, all forces had realized that it could not he postponed much 
 longer, and had been preparing for the contest. It had been an- 
 nounced at the June Conference that the Party would contest a total 
 of four hundred seats in the coming election. She Party had to face 
 a new political formation, headed by Lloyd George, a most astute 
 politician. It was generally understood beforehand that the Coal- 
 ition premier would make the most of his record as the man who had 
 piloted the nation successfully through the war, and would appeal 
 to the voters on the basis of patriotism, with reference to the 
 pacifism and defeatism of the Labor Party. Por, as the forces lined 
 up before the election, it became evident that Labor would be the 
 most important single independent element. She Conservatives prac- 
 tically dominated the Coalition, and were whole-heartedly for its 
 continuance; the Liberals were split, half of them throwing in 
 their 3-ot with the Coalition, and the remainder following the 
 independent leadership of Mr . Asquith. 
 
 In view of these facts, it is little wonder that Labor was con- 
 siderably disappointed in the results of the election. Phe contest 
 was fought while pride in the nation’s successful emergence from 
 the war was still high, and while people were still praising Lloyd 
 George as the war leader, and it was only too easy to remember the 
 attitude of Macdonald, Snowden, and other labor leaders who had 
 favored peace by negotiation. Phe result of the election was an 
 overwhelming victory for the Coalition, the Labor Party running a 
 total of three hundred and sixty-one candidates, and returning a 
 total of fifty-nine members. P'he total vote in the election was 
 9,690,109, of which Labor polled 2,575,222, or about one-fourth. 
 
 Phe vote of the rival organization, the National Democratic Party, 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 i - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
89 . 
 
 1 . 
 
 was 161,521. further analysis makes out a rather more hopeful case 
 for Labor. The remnant of the Liberals, under the leadership of Mr. 
 Asquith, secured less than half as many representatives as the Labor 
 Party, which thereupon became the most numerous minority party in 
 
 the House, and were officially designated as His Majesty's Opposi- 
 
 2 . 
 
 tion. Unfortunately, among those who went down under the avalanche 
 of anti-pacifist votes were the most experienced and able parlia- 
 mentarians in the Party, such as Henderson, Macdonald, Snowden, 
 
 W. C. Anderson, and E. W. Jowett. Henderson has since regained his 
 seat at a bye-election, but Macdonald, one of the original leaders 
 of the Party, has not, up to the present, succeeded in getting into 
 the House, though he has Since made the effort at bye-elections. 
 
 The total vote, which was around ten millions, was only about 
 half of the estimated potential maximum under the new franchise lav;. 
 Of these, Labor polled roughly one-fourth, and should have had, it 
 was estimated, on a proportional basis, at least one hundred and 
 twenty-five representatives. P'he Coalition, polling not greatly in 
 excess of fifty per cent, of the total vote, secured an overwhelming 
 majority in the House. One other element which might have been a 
 
 1 . -Districts in; which the Labor candidate lost by a majority of 
 
 less than one thousand were as follows: London and environs: 
 Poplar Division of Bow and Bromley, Stepney Division of 
 Whitechapel and St. George's; urban communities: Barrow-in- 
 Furness, East Division of Bradford, East Division of Leyton, 
 Rossendale, Hanley Division of Stoke-on-Trent, South Division 
 of Tottenham; county districts: Camborne Division of Cornwall, 
 Consett, Durham, and Sedgefield Divisions of Durham, Horth- 
 East Division of Derbyshire, St. Albans Division of Hertford- 
 shire, Earmworth Division of Lancashire, King's Lynn Division 
 of Norfolk , Peterborough Division of Northamptonshire, Erome 
 Division of Somerset, Cleveland and Sowerby Divisions of York- 
 shire; Scotland: Dundee, Shettleston Division of Glasgow, 
 Bothwell Division of Lanarkshire. Total, twenty-three . 
 
 2. -S. and B. Webb, op. cit., p. 699. 
 
90 . 
 
 potent factor in the election, though just what its effect would 
 have "been it is useless to conjecture, is the fact that only a very 
 small percentage of the soldier vote was cast. As for the national 
 Democratic and Labor Party, it ran a total of thirty candidates and 
 secured some ten seats, their greatest success consisting in their 
 president’s defeat of Arthur Henderson. 
 
 Third Phase: Contemporary Politics. 
 
 The events which have transpired since the Armistice and the 
 last general election seem confused and somewhat contradictory. 
 During the past thirty months the fortunes of Labor politically have 
 fluctuated rather violently. The immediate result of the election 
 was, very naturally, a feeling of injustice and disappointment over 
 the results of the election; it was felt that there was something 
 very radically wrong with a system in which one party polled a vote 
 five-eighths as large as that of another, and only secured one- 
 eighth as many representatives. For a time Labor seemed to lose 
 interest in the political situation, and was agsin attracted by the 
 possibility of using direct industrial action in order to attain its 
 ends. Its attentions were devoted rather more to foreign affairs 
 than had been the case in the past. A rapid review of its stand in 
 particular instances will perhaps serve to make clear the general 
 principles lying' back of its attitude toward foreign relations: 
 
 As for Germany, the Labor Party took the stand that the war was 
 a thing of the past, and that the best thing for all concerned was 
 
 a restoration of good feeling and a complete renewal of economic 
 relations with the defeated nation. The Southport Conference of the 
 
 Labor Party (1919) heartily applauded a speech of Hamsay Macdonald's 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
91. 
 
 in which he demanded a real league of nations providing for a mem- 
 
 hership for Germany; and passed an anti-blockade resolution with 
 
 1 . 
 
 only one dissenting vote. 
 
 Several of the most interesting of the developments in the Labor 
 situation have arisen out of the Russian Revolution and the condi- 
 tions to which it has given rise. The first crisis occurred in the 
 summer of 1919, over the issue of English participation in the 
 Allied aid for counter-revolutionary forces in Russia. The extreme 
 position was well stated at the Southport Conference by Heil 
 Maclean, M.P., as follows: 
 
 ■ "Ho war has been declared on Russia. Ho war credits have been 
 voted. The war is unconstitutional on the part of the Government. 
 
 We are in the war because 1,600 millions of British capital is in- 
 vested in Russia. Three Cabinet ministers. Sir Eric Ged&es, Austen 
 Chamberlain, and Walter Long, have money invested in Russia, and 
 wish Xoltchak to win. Our troops use weapong made by British arm- 
 ament firms who have money invested in Russia, the Birmingham 
 Small Arms Company among them. In the House of Commons men who 
 call the Labor Party Bolshevik hold shares in Russian companies, 
 and allow the boys of the working class to be sent to fight for 
 their capital. The dowager Empress of Russia can enter this 
 country without difficulty, but labor's two delegates from Prance 
 are turned back. As between the Czarist, Xoltchak, and Bolshevik 
 regime, I stand by the Bolshevik regime. So I call on Labor to 
 
 assist those of us who are in the House of Commons, who wish to 
 
 2 . 
 
 withdraw out troops." 
 
 1. -A. Gleason, op. cit., pp. 92-95. 
 
 2. -Ibid., pp. 98-99. 
 
92 . 
 
 The Conference voted for direct action on the Russian situation, 
 
 1 . 
 
 if necessary, hy a total of 1,893,000 to 935,000. The Conference 
 also called for immediate cessation of Allied operations in Russia, 
 and instructed their Executive to confer with the Parliamentary 
 Committee of the Trades Union Congress "with a view to effective 
 
 action "being taken to force these demands hy the unreserved use of 
 
 2 . 
 
 their political and industrial power". The moderate element, inclu- 
 ding Clynes and Henderson, opposed the use of direct action, 
 reminding the Conference that minority violence is a dangerous 
 precedent to he set hy a body which hopes in the near future to 
 form a Government. 
 
 Another serious situation developed a year later, in connection 
 with the Polish war. Previous to this event, however, in the spring 
 of 1920, the Labor Party had sent a commission to Russia which had, 
 upon its return, recommended that British Labor demand the removal 
 of the blockade, the cessation of intervention schemes, the resto- 
 ration of communication, and unconditional recognition of the 
 
 3. 
 
 Soviet Government by England. 
 
 In spite of its sympathetic attitude toward Russia, the Labor 
 Party cannot be said to be Bolshevist. Its leaders have practically 
 all repudiated the extremes of the Bolshevik doctrines. The Inde- 
 pendent Labor Party, on the extreme left, had refused, at its 1920 
 
 Conference at Glasgow, to affiliate with the Moscow Internationale 
 
 4 . 
 
 by a vote of 472 to 206. Both Snowden and Macdonald, leaders of the 
 
 1. -A Gleason, op, cit., p. 105. 
 
 2. -J. 3. Firth, Labor and the State . in the Fortnightly Review 
 
 for August, 1919, pp. 187-200. 
 
 S.-Cf. article British Labor Reports on Russia , in the Ration 
 for July 10, 1920, p. 53. 
 
 4.-Y. Fisher, Where Is Labor Going? in the nineteenth Century 
 for May , 1920, pp. 916-928. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
93 
 
 left wing, were opposed to violent revolution and proletarian dic- 
 tatorship. The British Socialist Party is the only constituent 
 body to which the epithet of Bolshevik can he applied with any 
 degree of justice, and its total membership is only about two 
 thousand. The Labor Party as a whole still adheres to the Second 
 Internationale . 
 
 But to return to the Russian situation: In midsummer of 1920, 
 when the Poles were being forced back toward Warsaw in a precipitate 
 retreat, and there was considerable talk of Allied intervention to 
 save them from disaster, Labor again took action. The Labor leaders 
 agreed with the Allied governments that an independent Poland was 
 essential, but they deniec. that Poland was in danger. A joint labor 
 conference was again convened, and again the problem of direct 
 action came up. The conference approved direct action in case of 
 emergency, even Thomas and Clynes, the moderate leaders, concurring 
 in the use of the weapon, except as concerned domestic issues. The 
 conference passed the following resolution: 
 
 "That the Council of Action is hereby authorized to take any 
 steps that may be necessary to give effect to the decisions of this 
 conference and the declared policy of the Trade union ana Labor 
 Movement. 
 
 "The conference also recommends that the Parliamentary Committee 
 of the Trades Union Congress should raise a special fund to meet the 
 financial requirements of the Council of Action and for this purpose 
 
 impose a levy equal to a half-penny per member upon affiliated 
 
 1 . 
 
 organizations as and when required." 
 
 1*-V. Pisher, Labor Evolution and Social Revolution , in the 
 lineteenth Century for October, 1920, pp. 595-606. 
 
94 . 
 
 The threat implied in the institution of a Council of Action 
 was never put to the test, for Polish fortunes of war took a sudden 
 turn for the “better, and Allied intervention was unnecessary. 
 Critics disagree, of course, as to the potency of Labor's warning. 
 Defenders of the Government claim that the Party was fighting 
 enemies that did not exist, inasmuch as Lloyd George had no inten- 
 tions of committing the nation to war with Russia. Harold Laski , 
 on the other hand, declared that Labor had averted war with Russia 
 by its action, Laski admitted that direct action was constitutional 
 
 usurpation, but declared that no one any longer respected Parlia- 
 
 1 . 
 
 ment . 
 
 These instances are typical of the spirit of Labor in foreign 
 affairs. The Party has at the present time a very able Advisory 
 Committee on International Relations, and is exceptionally well- 
 informed. They have not relied on haphazard sources of information, 
 but have usually dispatched their own investigating commissions, so 
 that they might have first-hand, dependable knowledge of conditions 
 in foreign nations. Their attitude toward imperial problems has 
 been similarly open-minded and disinterested. They have advocated 
 home rule for India and virtual independence for Egypt. The Irish 
 problem, naturally, presented rather greater difficulties. 
 
 Labor members have always favored Irish home rule, ever since 
 the question was first seriously agitated, thirty-five years ago. 
 
 In the crisis of 1918, when the Government wished to pass a simul- 
 taneous home rule-conscription bill for Ireland, the Labor members 
 had objected. J. H. Thomas made a visit to Ireland to investigate 
 
 l.-H. J. Laski, British Labor and Direct Action , in the Hat ion 
 for September 11, 1920, pp. 291-292. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
95 . 
 
 conditions for himself, and returned favoring home rule, hut not at 
 
 the price of conscription. Some two years later, the Labor Party 
 
 1 . 
 
 sent to Ireland a Commission, consisting of Arthur Henderson, 
 William Anderson, and H. S. Lindsay. These men took the stand that 
 partition would furnish no remedy for Ireland’s ills, and suggested 
 instead a full Dominion self-government, -with protection for minor- 
 ities; defense and foreign affairs to he taken care of hy an 
 Imperial Parliament; the form of government to he chosen hy a Con- 
 stituent Assembly, representing all the people, elected on a basis 
 of proportional representation. They disclaimed all responsibility 
 on the part of Labor for the state of affairs in Ireland. Acting 
 on the report of its Commission, the Party reiterated its belief in 
 self-determination, but stated its belief that there should be at 
 least a link between Ireland and England. The Party did not go 
 quite so far as the Commission in their recommendations, but de- 
 clared rather for a constitution to be conferred upon Ireland, not 
 to be subject to change for an agreed number of years. It would 
 seem from this that not even Labor could bring itself to contem- 
 plate with equanimity the prospect of an independent Ireland. A 
 special conference of the Trades Union Congress in July, 1920, de- 
 clared by a large majority, for direct action to force the Govern- 
 ment to change its Irish policy, but nothing seems to have come of 
 2 . 
 
 the matter. The Westminster Conference of the Labor Party, meeting 
 December 29, 1920, passed a resolution on Ireland, calling for 
 judicial inquiry of reprisals, and condemned Sinn Eein outrages and 
 
 1. -Cf. article, Ireland and British Labor . in the Hat ion 
 
 for April 10, 1920, p. 450. 
 
 2. -G. D. H. Cole, Bri tish Labor Hesitates , in the ITew Republic 
 
 for September ? 29 , 1920, .pp. 121-125. 
 

 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 $ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
96. 
 
 1 . 
 
 and reprisals both. 
 
 In domestic affairs the past few months have added greatly to 
 the strength of the labor movement, at least as far as its trades 
 union basis is concerned. The trades union movement is now estima- 
 ted to have a total membership of upwards of six millions, which, 
 considering the families of the men, represents roughly half the 
 population of Great Britain. The actual paid-up membership of the 
 Labor Party as announced at the June Conference, in 1919, totalled 
 
 3,015,129, 7/hich represented a net gain of a half million over the 
 
 2 . m 
 
 vote registered by the Party six months before. The trades unions 
 furnished ninety-nine per cent, of the membership, the, Socialist 
 societies aggregating 52,720 members (a large number of these being 
 likewise trades unionists). At the Scarborough Conference, a year 
 
 later, the Party membership 7/as estimated at 3,500,000, represent- 
 
 3. 
 
 ing a further gain of a half million during the intervening year. 
 
 By that time the Party was organized in nine-tenths of the five 
 hundred and eighty constituencies, and had three hundred candidates 
 in readiness for the next general election, with a probability of 
 running five hundred altogether. 
 
 nevertheless, Labor was politically v/eak during this period. 
 
 Its successes were due largely to the natural swing of the political 
 pendulum, and to the v/idespread discontent with the existing Govern- 
 ment. The Parliamentary group representing the Party was the weak- 
 est in political ability that had as yet sat in the House of Com- 
 mons, deprived as they were by the fortunes of the election, of 
 
 1 . - Labour Gazette for January, 1921, p. 10. 
 
 2. -A. Gleason, op. cit., pp. 251-252. 
 
 3 . -Y/ebb , S., British Labor in Conference , in the ITew Republic 
 
 for August’ 11, 1920, pp. 307-309. 
 
 
97 . 
 
 their leaders. The Parliament of 1919 was a great disappointment to 
 Labor. Luring that year and the year following there occurred a 
 number of strikes in the country. The causes of unrest we re numer- 
 ous: dissatisfaction over the unfair result of the election of 1918, 
 Lloyd George's attack on the Labor men as Bolshevists, unemploy- 
 ment, the Government's reversion to an individualistic policy, the 
 fact that there seemed to be no definite policy of demobilization, 
 continuance of conscription, failure of the Government to withdraw 
 
 war restrictions soon enough, delay and evasion on the question of 
 
 1 . 
 
 nationalization of railways, profiteering, and war restlessness. 
 
 The tendency toward the left was strongly evident in these 
 days. The movement in favor of direct industrial action has already 
 been noticed; it grew in strength until it finally received the 
 sanction not only of the Labor Party, but even of the more slowly 
 moving Trades Union Congress, as regards certai n foreign problems : 
 in domestic affairs the moderate, constitutional influence of 
 Henderson, Clynes, and Thomas kept direct action out of the program 
 of Labor. Efforts at industrial reform were redoubled, in spite of 
 the Government's unfavorable attitude. Foremost among these efforts 
 was the institution of the Sankey Coal Commission. Phis Commission 
 differed from its predecessors in that it was a statutory commission 
 rather than a Royal Commission. As Lloyd George himself said, "A 
 royal commission would not anSY/er the purpose; it v/ould not have 
 the necessary powers . We have decided to have a statutory commission 
 with authority of Parliament behind it, with the same power as now 
 rests in a court of justice." The Government v/as pledged to make its 
 
 1. -A. Gleason, op. cit., pp. 251-252. 
 
 2. -Ibid, p. 40. 
 
98 . 
 
 findings lav; on wages and hours. The Commission compelled some of 
 the leading capitalists of the country to. give evidence vefore it 
 as to prices and profits. The miners' cause was in the hands of 
 
 three miners, Robert Smillie, Herbert Smith, and Prank Hodges, 
 
 and three expert advisers, Sidney Webb, Sir Leo Chiozza Honey, and 
 
 R. H. Tawney; and even Conservative organs admitted, with annoyance, 
 that their case was much more efficiently presented than was that of 
 
 the capitalists, who v/ere represented by three coal owners, J. T. 
 
 Porgie, R. W. Cooper, and Evan Williams, and their three advisers, 
 Arthur Balfour, Sir Arthur Buckram, and Sir Thomas Roy den. Hr. 
 
 Justice Sankey, in charge of the Commission, eventually threw in his 
 
 1 . 
 
 ballot with the miners, and the resultant report not only made re- 
 commendations on hours and wages, but came out strongly for nation- 
 
 2 . 
 
 alization. Lloyd George has since refused to be bound by that 
 section of the report, and Labor now has it as one of its objectives 
 to force the Government to take that stand. Lloyd George was also, 
 at one time, quite favorable to the project of the nationalization 
 of railways, but he also retreatec from that position. 
 
 1. -Por Report of the Sankey Commission, see A. Gleason, op. cit.. 
 
 Appendix, Section 4, p. 422 et sec. 
 
 2. -It must be remembered that the term na tionalization now has a 
 
 somewhat different connotation from what it formerly had. 
 nationalization, in the sense in which British Labor uses the 
 term, does not mean simply state socialistic ownership and 
 bureaucratic control of the mines, but means rather that the 
 actual title to the properties is vested in the state, while 
 control is in the hands of the miners themselves. Of late 
 there has arisen another term in connection with coal 
 
 disputes, pooling of profits, which means virtually 
 
 operating the coal industry as a unit as far as profits are 
 concerned, so that wages will not be regulated, as they 
 have been in the past, by the amount that the least produc- 
 tive mine can afford to pay, but rather by the average; the 
 workers also hope by this method to eliminate the tremendous 
 differential profits accruing to the owners of the most pro- 
 ductive properties under the individualistic scheme at present 
 in vogue . 
 
 v_0 
 
99 . 
 
 labor's reform efforts in other directions seem to have made 
 but little impression as yet. It has repeatedly proclaimed its 
 position on financial reform, but the Government is not very likely 
 to take action on it for some time to come. As to the franchise, 
 the Party, though elated over the reform of 1918, would prefer 
 further changes, with greater leniency in the matter of residence 
 requirements, since labor is necessarily a more or less mobile 
 element of the population. 
 
 While the study of bye-elections may afford a rather uncertain 
 basis for prediction, still it must be admitted that those which 
 have occurred since 1918 at least demonstrate the growing unpopu- 
 larity of the Coalition Government. In the first seventeen bye-elec- 
 tions since the general election, the Coalition vote has totalled 
 136,917, or forty-three per cent, of the total vote; the anti- 
 Coalition vote has been 178,186, or fifty-seven per cent. In these 
 elections the Coalition has lost sis seats. Ten independent Liber- 
 als competed, with an average vote of 6,024; sixteen Coalition 
 
 candidates averaged 8,558; and the twelve Labor candidates who ran 
 
 1 . 
 
 had an average vote of 9,482. The Labor Party would have contested 
 a greater number of these elections had it not been for a shortage 
 of funds. As it was, Labor increased its representation to sixty- 
 two. In the most recent months, however, the Party seems to have 
 lost some of its popularity. The inability of the former leaders, 
 such as Macdonald and Snowden, to regain their seats, is a dis- 
 couraging sign. The most recent defeat of Macdonald in the bye- 
 election at Woolwich, which had for a long time been a Labor strong- 
 
 l.-S. Webb, Portent of Spen Valiev . in the ITem Republic 
 for February 4, 1920, pp. 285-288. 
 

 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
100 . 
 
 hold, indicates that a great many people still remember with resent- 
 ment the pacifist attitude of several of the Labor Party's ablest 
 
 leaders during the war. And even so sympathetic a critic as kt. 
 
 1 . 
 
 Harold Laski , writing from London less than six months ago, gave 
 it as his opinion that the movement is just at present on the de- 
 cline, as compared w ith that it had been one year previously. A 
 Labor Government, according to this observer, instead of being the 
 likely successor to the present Government, will probably not 
 arrive for ten years yet. The reasons he gives for the situation 
 are as follows: the impotence of the Labor M.P.'s, their inex- 
 
 pertness in debate, and their apparent indifference; the fact that 
 the wrong men have been chosen to lead Labor; the aggressive 
 counter-offensive of capitalism; and the fact that Labor has no 
 effective official organ. 
 
 The future of the British Labor Party looks cloudy and uncer- 
 tain. It se~ms probable that the time will come when there will be 
 a Labor Government, but whether that time will be 1925 or 1950 it 
 is, of course , impossible to forecast. At the present time, it seems 
 doubtful whether the gains due to the new form of organization 
 adopted in 1918 are not somewhat offset by a loss of solidarity. 
 
 J. E. Thomas recently complained that the Labor Party could no 
 longer command the loyalty of its own members. The present Y/eakness 
 of the Party seems to lie in the problem of organization, and in 
 the question of finances. 
 
 It may be said that both the strength and the weakness of the 
 
 l.-H. J. Laski, British Labor ' s future , in the Survey for 
 February 26, 1921, pp . 7S5-75&. 
 
101 . 
 
 political labor movement is its trade union basis. Of course the 
 trades unions furnish the great organized mass of voters; but 
 politically they are slow moving and jealous of their own preroga- 
 tives. They prefer to run their own candidates for election, rather 
 than to vote for some middle class intellectual or Socialist on the 
 Labor ticket; which is entirely within their rights, of course, but 
 unfortunately for the cause of Labor, they usually select one of 
 
 their trades union officials, President or Secretary, and these 
 
 men, in many eases, have no particular ability. Moreover, the 
 unions, in many cases, retain these men in their executive rela- 
 tionship to their unions, and so their attentions and activities 
 are divided between their two duties, instead of being concentrated 
 toward securing the greatest efficiency in the House'. They dare not 
 resign their union offices, not only because it would tend to es- 
 trange them from their constituencies, but also because these 
 offices carry with them a salary, and most of the Labor M.P.'s are 
 so situated financially that they cannot afford to rely on their 
 po itical fortunes for a livelihood. Moreover, the executive author- 
 ity of the labor movement has been so split up betv/een the three 
 
 bodies, the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, 
 
 the national Executive of the Labor Party, and the Parliamentary 
 
 Party, that considerable confusion of policy and lack of harmony 
 
 and cooperation between them has resulted, in spite of the forma- 
 tion of a Joint Board to coordinate their efforts. 
 
 Another serious weakness which seriously hampers the effective- 
 ness of the Party is its lack of sufficient funds. The sums afforded 
 by the comparatively insignificant levy of twopence per member per 
 year are entirely inadequate to supply the needs of a national 
 
102 . 
 
 party which proposes to contest practically every constituency in 
 the country in the next general election. The number of candidates 
 entered in the 1918 election had to he cut down, the number of 
 bye-elections contested was curtailed, and recently Sidney '7 ebb has 
 written that it is probable that funds will be insufficient to 
 finance the number of candidates that the Party wishes to run in 
 
 the next general election. The Scarborough Conference of the Party 
 
 1 . 
 
 in 1920 raised the affiliation fee of the Party fifty per cent. 
 
 Some have hoped that the accession of the Cooperative movement 
 might mean the possibility of drawing upon their large financial 
 reserves for political purposes, but this seems to be a rather 
 remote possibility, and it must be admitted that the financial 
 problem is a serious one which shows no signs of solution as yet. 
 
 Another weakness charged to the account of Labor is that the 
 Party lacks the requisite leadership to conduct a Government, should 
 the verdict of the polls call upon them to do so. Just at present 
 this point seems to be worked mainly by Liberal publicists who are 
 anxious to arrange a new Liberal-Labor alliance, in which the 
 Liberal Party would furnish the necessary leadership, to be swept 
 into power on the Labor vote. But it would seem that there is 
 plenty of effective and able leadership in the Labor movement, 
 
 provided only that labor can be persuaded to select the right men. 
 
 \ 
 
 It seems especially unlikely that Labor, having attained its 
 present strength unaided, would novr consent to share the fruits of 
 a political victory with the Liberal Party. A general realignment 
 of political forces in the country is probable, however, before 
 
 l.-S. Y/ebb, British Labor in Conference , in the Hew Republic 
 for August 11, 1920, pp . 507-309. 
 
103 . 
 
 another general election occurs. 
 
 On the whole, the British Labor Party seems to have been a 
 stimulating, clarifying influence in British politics of the last 
 twenty years. Labor has formed a very real interest group, as 
 compared with the older political parties of the nineteenth Cen- 
 tury. There are those, of course, who claim that it is purely a 
 class movement; it would seem that recent reorganizations would go 
 far to refute such a charge, but even if it were admitted, the 
 Labor Party might retort that all government is more or less class 
 
 rule, whether the ruling influence be recognized or not. The 
 
 Party had become increasingly Socialistic, it is true; but the 
 charge of Socialism is not in itself an argument; and even the most 
 anti-Socialistic who yet subscribe to the principles of democracy 
 and majority rule cannot conscientiously charge with malice and 
 perfidy a majority which proceeds, by regular, constitutional 
 procedure, to enforce a program with which we may disagree. And, 
 though the British do not initiate their reforms suddenly and with 
 violence, it must be admitted that the availability of the consti- 
 tutional weapon was a powerful offsetting influence to the growth 
 of syndicalism and the idea of direct industrial action. Even now 
 the struggle between the two modes of procedure rages, and it is to 
 be sincerely hoped that the next election, however it may go, will 
 at least reflect the opinion of the country with greater justice 
 than did the last one, in order that the extremists may be deprived 
 of the apparent justification for direct action that they are 
 using so effectively to-day. The labor movement in Great Britain 
 is better organized politically and industrially than anywhere else 
 in the world; it is well within the range of possibilities that 
 
104 . 
 
 within the next few years Great Britain may have a Labor Govern- 
 ment; hut it is well to remember that in the past, as it has been 
 admitted to power, Labor has adopted a more moderate and cautious 
 tone; her most moderate leaders to-day are constitutionalists; in 
 view of these facts, therefore, and considering the British genius 
 for compromise and reform by degrees, there is little reason to 
 fear, in the eventuality of a Labor Government, any violent over- 
 turning of existing institutions, but rather we may expect a steady, 
 gradual process of reform which shall in time bring about far- 
 reaching and fundamental changes in the social and political 
 status of the country. 
 
105 . 
 
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