Turning to Communism Mr. MacDonald said :— " Pettyfogging conspiracies,
secret associations, back-stairs wire-pulling, mischievous stirring up of strife, are neither in method nor in ideal the Socialism that built up our Labour Party. Never - was it more necessary for our Labour Movement to raise as its own flag the banner of democracy, of freedom, of progress by reason, of condemnation of tyranny by power. . . . Communism as we -know it has nothing practical in common with us. It is a product of Tsarina and war mentality."
Next Mr. MacDonald dealt with the Liberals, and showed that he had never ceased to harbour intense resentment against Mr. Asquith for having in effect said that if Labour took office it would have to eat out of the Liberal hand. The Liberal policy thus inaugurated had been "unwinding its unworthy course" ever since, and had culminated in "a trumped-up stunt" about the dropping of the Campbell prosecution. The Liberal tactics displayed "dishonesty and obliqueness." The Conservatives had at least put down a straightforward motion on this subject. A vote of censure such as the Unionists were going to propose was honest fighting ; whereas the Liberal amendment was "conceived in the spirit of mediaeval crookedness and torture."
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