Labour's Half-Century
THERE has not been in any country a parallel to the creation and advance of the British Labour Party. And, indeed, how could there be ? Under a parliamentary system national parties as a rule mature slowly ; and in England, where public bodies of almost every kind broaden down from precedent to precedent, a half-century hardly COMB as a period. In Pao° what could have seemed more fantastic than a forecast that within forty-five years a party then non-existent would be in command, and with a great majority ? Mr. Williams begins his story in that year, the occasion being a small conference of 129 delegates. They represented the youthful I.L.P., a few small Socialist societies, and fewer than 600,000 trade unionists.
Their main resolution marked the birth of the Labour Party. It announced the calling of a special congress for "securing the return of an increased number of Labour members in the next Parliament." This was the first step towards the policy devised by the prophet of the movement. Seven years earlier Keir Hardie had founded the I.L.P. with the aim of an alliance between the varied Socialist bodies, at that time far from Socialism and hostile to political action apart from pressure for specific union objects. The first concrete result of the 1900 move was the Labour Representation Committee, with J. Ramsay MacDonald as secretary and organiser. After the resounding Liberal election of 1906 the success of the L.R.C. was visible in twenty-nine pledged Labour members. Among front- bench statesmen Balfour alone noted this group as the portent of a new era. Fulfilment, however, was anything but straightforward.
The basis of the party in the country was precarious. The trade unions were sceptical and the miners refused to come in. Many of the leaders were Lib.-Labs. Moreover, a nascent Labour Party in the House was obliged to give steady support to the Asquith-Lloyd George social measures, and its members were virtually all for Free Trade and Home Rule. Mr. Williams brings out effectively the reasons for the prolonged malaise from which the movement suffered almost continuously from the Taff Vale judgement of 1901 until the crash of 1931. The significant dates make a singular list, for most of them seemed to announce disaster. For example: the Osborne judgement of 19o9, the rebel-syndicalist unrest of 1910-12, the bitter conflicts caused by war in 1914, the Zinoviev letter election in 1924, the General Strike of 1926 ("a decisive watershed ") and the spec- tacular defection of MacDonald and Snowden in 1931. An annalist may well raise the question whether a struggling party was ever before called upon to confront a series of obstacles so formidable. Mr. Williams is justified in concluding that the onward march and the mounting, though uneven, poll must be taken as proof that the roots of the movement are deep in the national soil.
The builders of the party display personality, and Mr. Williams is skilful in his character sketches, as of Blatchford and Keir Hardie. He is generous in presenting MacDonald. His value as organiser, the power of his oratory and his parliamentary skill, unrivalled in the party for many years, are warmly recognised. MacDonald as Prime Minister, of course, is another matter. In explaining 1924 and the bungling over the Zinoviev letter, Mr. Williams might, I suggest, have brought out more precisely the simple Communist trap of the Campbell affair and the important fact that MacDonald did not want to save his tottering Government. The central irony of that election was this: that the electorate, in passing judgement Off Labour, reduced the great Liberal Party to a remnant of forty-two members. Arthur Henderson is for Mr. Williams the ideal party manager and colleague. His insistence upon MacDonald's retention of the leadership after 1924 is praised in unqualified terms.
Mr. Williams, needless to say, is completely informed, and he writes with unflagging animation. But his book, designed as the standard short history, lacks revision in detail. The errors arc not
few, and some are important. Gladstone's vexed 188o Government was not short-lived, nor did the Conservatives return at the election of 1885. The Bitter Cry of Outcast London, by far the most effective penny pamphlet of the age, did not come out of the Stewart Headlam group of Anglican Socialists. It was written in 1883 by a young Nonconformist minister. Home Rule was certainly not, after Free Trade, the leading issue in 1906. The statement that the Fabian' were not interested in the Boer War is mistaken. They debated it with passion, and the society narrowly escaped a split. John Burn, had a huge voice, but he was not "a big man."
S. K. RATCLIFFE
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