30 JUNE 1923, Page 2

The Labour Party Conference opened on Tuesday in London. One

of its first acts was to reaffirm by a majority of 2,514,000 on a card vote the decision not to admit to affiliation the Communist Party of Great Britain. Mr. Newbold, the only Communist M.P., has been refused the Labour-Party whips. The presidential address was delivered by Mr. Sidney Webb. He said that the gradual evolutionary change in the Parlia- mentary status of the Labour Party made it necessary for the Party henceforth to speak and to act under the sense of liability that at any moment it might be charged with taking office. He pointed out that if the curve of Labour votes continued to rise at the rate recorded since 1900, the Labour Party would have a clear Parliamentary majority about the year 1926. This reminds us of the calculation made by an artist's young wife when one of her husband's sketches, which took half an hour to do, was sold for £10. His income was demonstrably going to be £7,000 a year.

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