LABOUR IN COUNCIL
HE dissolution of the Comintern," wrote Dr. Reinhold I Niebuhr in The Spectator a fortnight ago, "leaves non- ussian Communists in a state of confusion, for they have been volved in a curious kind of patriotism for some years. They d a country which was not their own country. Russia was their dopted fatherland." That fact, for a fact it unquestionably is, pro- ided Mr. Herbert Morrison with irrefutable arguments against
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e affiliation of the British Communist Party with the British abour Party when he put the Labour executive's case at the arty Conference on Wednesday. The outstanding characteristic if the British Communist Party is a ceaseless activity. It learned art of propaganda from Lenin, who was the greatest of propa- andists, incomparably greater than the spectacular Goebbels, d it is bent on pressing itself at almost any cost to the front f the political stage. With the electors it has had poor success. ace or twice isolated Communists have got elected to the House Commons—Mr. Walton Newbold (who soon ceased to be a mmunist) in 1922, Mr. Gallacher in 1935. No very hopeful stas are opening up along that road. But if the Communists uld get inside the Labour Party, secure some places on its execu- ye, conduct their propaganda from within, throw their solid veight on this side or that in any contested issue, then an influence ut of all proportion to their not very considerable numbers might e secured. The Labour Party, fully alive to all this, on Wednes- ay rejected the Communists' application for affiliation by the cisive vote of 1,951,000 to 712,000.
It is unlikely that the effective speeches of Mr. George Ridley ad Mr. Herbert Morrison contributed much to this reuit, for the pplication had been under discussion for months, and virtually 11 delegates came with instructions from their unions how to ore. But it was very necessary that the case against the applica- on should be convincingly stated, both that Labour's position hould be made plain to the world and that trade unions and mai Labour Parties should have their own minds clear as to e issues involved, in case the application is advanced again, as is likely enough it will be. Mr. Morrison handled the question ffectively, leaving, indeed, little more to be said. From the lemma he presented—that if Communists agreed fundamentally ith the Labour Party their right course was to join it as indi- iduals, and if they did not there was no place for them in it— ere is no escape. And that they do not agree with it is plain tom their record. As both Mr. Ridley (whose succession to the residency takes to that office a man of considerable ability and ii litical sanity, combined with firm Socialist convictions) and r. Morrison recalled, the Communist Party for the first twenty- o months of war separated itself conspicuously from the great ass of patriotic Labour, whose single-minded purpose was the igorous prosecution of the war, and it was only regard for Russia nich turned the Communists, in whose make-up regard for ritain had small part, into vociferous anti-Nazis after Hitler's tack on Russia in 1941. There is something more fundamental ;tun that The Communist creed postulates revolution by faience. Till that is repudiated there can be no association b,aween such a body and representatives of evolutionary Socialism 'Ike the Labour Party. When it is repudiated, to return to the old argument, the raison d'être for a separate Communist Party very largely disappears.
The political wisdom which prompted the decision of the Labour Party Conference regarding the Communists marked the whole of its proceedings. Many controversial issues were raised, and in the handling of them no mistakes were made. The Con- ference is in an obvious difficulty, as the Party as a whole has been for the last three years or more. With a Conservative Government in office, Labour was justified in believing that its political position would be strengthened by a series of victories at by-elections or more sweeping success at a General Election. The political truce has precluded all that, and ardent Labour politicians have had the irritation of seeing ephemeral organisa- tions like Common Wealth profiting by Labour support in con- stituencies where on account of the truce no Labour candidate was standing. In such circumstances it was inevitable that the Conference should have before it demands for the termination of the truce—particularly since the Labour members of the War Cabinet come under occasional accusation of being caught in a capitalist "net—and it is a notable tribute to its good sense that the demand was rejected by as large a majority as 2,243,000 vows to 374,000. That decision does not stand alone. With it must be coupled the chairman's declaration, which clearly represented the mind of the Conference, that nothing would induce the Labour Party to tolerate a " coupon " General Election for the support of another coalition Government after the war. No exception need be taken to that. In the present circumstances such an attitude is perfectly natural. But the situation that the country, and the world, may have to face when the fighting ends is so un- predictable that no party should or can decide irrevocably today what its line in circumstances not yet discernible will be.
The same discretion—by no means a discretion of evasion— marked the executive's handling of the controversial issue of the application of the Postal Workers' Union for affiliation with the Trades Union Congress in defiance of the Trade Disputes Act of 1927. That does not concern the Labour Party directly, but it concerns it very closely indirectly, since the three Labour members of the War Cabinet share responsibility for the Govein- ment's ultimate decision on this matter, and the Labour Party iLe.f, taking its stand habitually on constitutional political action, could never allow itself without complete stultification to be swung into support of action consisting undisguisedly of violation of a law constitutionally passed. If Labour expected to find itself in permanent opposition for all time it might be under some temptation to countenance such a challenge to legality. But if it hopes, as it obviously does, to find itself in office in the future as in the past, it must refrain resolutely from setting any precedent by which its political opponents might one day profit. There are Labour members old enough to remember the Curragh. The executive acted wisely in deprecating public argument on a matter which must form the subject of delicate negotiations in the three months that remain before a final decision is taken. At the same time, the statement read on the executive's behalf proclaimed unyielding hostility to the Trade Disputes Act, and insistence on the urgent necessity of securing its amendment by the proper constitutional means.
Altogether members of other parties have little to criticise in the attitude organised Labour has adopted at its annual conference. It showed itself deeply concerned lest the Government should on one pretext or another evade any adequate execution of the Beveridge Plan, and Mr. Arthur Greenwood found himself under the necessity of defending before the conference the attitude adopted in the House of Commons by Mr. Herbert Morrison, whom he had just defeated in a contest for the treasurership of the party. Here again the argument was unanswerable. Labour has rightly decided to form part of a coalition Government. The function of its representatives in the War Cabinet in such circum- stances is to press Labour policies to the farthest point practiclble, but, when once the Cabinet as a whole has evolved its own policy, to defend that policy loyally m the House or else resign. Mr. Greenwood, who is no longer a member of the Cabinet, put that point convincingly, and the conference showed no disposition to contest it. Coalitions inevitably impose some strain on the parties associated in them, and it may be necessary some time to decide whether a given action represents inevitable compromise in the national interest or an impossible sacrifice of political principle. That point has not been reached, or looked like being reached, in this country in the last three years, partly because of the sound sense and public spirit exhibited by Labour on both its pol:ti, and its industrial sides. It was not so to the same degree in last war. The change is due in no small measure to Labou growth in strength and self-confidence and political experien, That is of good. omen for our approach to the tasks of peac whether they fall to be undertaken by a party administration wi an effective opposition in the House of Commons, or by anoth Natonal Government like the present. A good case can be made f either method.
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