THE LABOUR PARTY AND ITS PROGRAMME.
ON the last three days of next week the Labour Party will meet to draw up a, Parliamentary programme. Over three hundred delegates are expected to attend the Confer- ence at the Memorial Hall, and the policy then determined on will, it is said, be imposed upon every Labour Member. It is by no means certain what the extent of this minimum standard of party obligations will be. Will every Labour representative be expected to vote for the measures con- templated in the programme, of which a draft was published on Wednesday, or for so many of them, at least, as may survive the ordeal of the Conference ? In that case, the tie of party union will be drawn more tightly than has hitherto been customary in political organisa- tions. It has usually been sufficient for the Members of the several parties—Liberals, Conservatives, and Nationalists —to agree upon a few great questions. Outside these MembersMemrs have been left free to vote as they pleased. But if the fifteen resolutions which appear on the agenda- paper prepared for the consideration of the Conference are all carried, and if the Labour Members are all directed to support them by their votes in the House of Commons, the discipline of the group will reach a degree of per- fection hitherto unknown in English parties. It is not very obvious, for example, why the Labour Members should necessarily be of one mind on such questions as woman's suffrage, or the transfer of the cost of education from the rates to the taxes, or international disarmament, or a local veto on the liquor traffic. We can imagine working men holding quite opposite views on all these questions, and yet being equally stout adherents of the Labour Party. That the limits of difference among them- selves should not be unduly narrowed is of special im- portance to Labour Members, because we imagine that the payment of a Member's salary will depend on his voting as he is directed. Where a Member draws his salary from the several Committees which compose the party Executive it is inevitable that some restrictions should be placed on his liberty of voting, and to all appearance that Executive is not disposed to weaken its hold upon the representatives. Among the fifteen subjects on the agenda- paper payment of Members by the State is not included. The Labour leaders, seemingly, are not anxious that the Exchequer should take the place of the party purse.
When we turn to the resolutions themselves we are first of all impressed by the entire absence of any proposals that can be called startling or revolutionary. They are of varying degrees of wisdom, it is true, but they contain nothing that has not been heard of before, nothing, that has not already obtained more or less support in previous Parliaments. They begin with an assertion of " absolute political independence." A Labour Member may be bound to vote for many things, but he will remain absolutely free as between Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Chamberlain, and Mr. Redmond. Ho may be Liberal or Conservative, Protectionist or Free-trader, Nationalist or Unionist, as regards his private opinions, and, we imagine, though this is not quite plain, as regards his individual votes. The Labour Whip will only be issued, and the Labour answer to it only expected, in regard to matters dealt with in the forthcoming statement of policy. This voluntary isolation may seem to conflict with the old and sound idea that the business of a Member of Parlia- ment is to do his best for his constituents in all the matters that come before him. But if the Labour Members are left free to go into which lobby they please in all divisions not affecting Labour interests, they will be as independent as most of their colleagues. Most of the latter have some point on which they vote, not as Liberals or Conservatives, but as believers in some more limited creed. To the second and third resolutions no exception can be taken. We all want to see the position of Trade-Unions defined '• in the clearest possible terms." We all want to see the " national and local authorities enabled to deal more thoroughly with the unemployed." The contents of the Bills which will be introduced to give effect to these wishes will give room, no doubt, for much difference of opinion, but there can be none as regards the imperative need for further legislation. When we come to the demand for an eight-hour day " for all industries," and to " compulsory closing of shops and a sixty-hour week for shop assistants," we arrive at the long debated question whether it is good for workmen to have the pro- tection of the law against themselves. It seems to us that the only justification for such an attempt is the proved incapacity of the workmen to protect themselves. Hitherto the State has only interfered in the case of women and children. Recent experience makes it doubtful whether there is any reason for carrying its intervention further. If there be one class less able than another to protect itself, it must surely be the unemployed, but we hear constantly of their refusing work because they do not like the conditions on which it is offered. A man who can do this when he, pre- sumably, is starving seems quite able to take care of himself. In the case of skilled labour and the eight-hour day the case is further complicated by the seeming want of consistency between the real and the assigned reasons for the demand. Is the root of the agitation the desire for more leisure and less exhausting spells of work, or is it simply the wish for an additional hour for which to charge overtime? The propriety of State intervention turns in part on the answer to this question. As regards the resolutions which deal with subjects of a more general character, there is one which has a special interest at this time. The seventh resolution proposes that the Labour Party shall demand that the whole cost of education shall be" borne by the Imperial Exchequer." We incline to believe that the change asked for would be bene- ficial. The anticipations in which the making education a charge on the rates rather than on the taxes had its origin have not been realised. It has not led to economy. It has not led to a more intelligent adaptation of the educational provision to local needs. Indeed, for some un- explained reason economy seems incompatible with rates. The ratepayers grumble, but they do nothing more. They seldom go to the poll ; indeed, they rarely have any idea whom they ought to vote for if they did go. The different requirements of town and country are never regarded, except as furnishing material for an additional "extra subject" to be pitchforked into a time-table which is already overcrowded. The real improvements in our system of elementary education have been effected by the central Board; the local contribution has usually taken the shape of a preference for the most costly method of carrying out these improvements. Education, after all, is a matter of Imperial rather than local interest. The State wishes to see its citizens properly brought up, and it has the machinery for giving effect to that wish if it chooses to use it. Why, then, should it make over the determination of what money is needed for the purpose to less well-informed local bodies ? It is a special disadvantage of the existing system that it has created the religious difficulty. So long as the State grant constituted the whole of the educational charge nothing was heard of " passive resistance." This difference would alone be a very trenchant argument in favour of making education a national rather than a local charge. Another argument is to be found in the greater attention paid to the varying financial capacities of different districts, and to their varying educational needs. The remaining resolutions are for the most part old friends. Woman's suffrage, local veto, disarmament, have been with us as long as we can remember. As regards one that is of less venerable antiquity, "the production of a Labour newspaper," the working man is master of the situation. Will he buy the Labour paper when it is produced? Whether he will approve of the " total prohibition of betting news " we have no data to go upon, but should such an Act become law we should certainly not break our hearts. It is certainly somewhat strange to forbid public gambling as we do, and yet allow the raw material of gambling to be provided by the Press without let or hindrance.
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