The Conference of the "Independent Labour Party," held at Bradford
under the presidency of Mr. Keir Hardie, M.P., came to an end last Saturday. In the course of the debates, Alderman Ben Tillett declared that the Conference "should keep away from their name any term of Socialism." "He had got thoroughly sick of people who bore on their foreheads Socialism, and who were no more Socialists than Bismarck." Ultimately it was resolved to form an administrative Council of fifteen members, and a programme was adopted which in- cluded the abolition of overtime, piecework, and child-labour, an eight-hours working-day, the nationalisation of the land and of all means of production and distribution, adult suffrage, second ballots, the payment of Members and of election ex- penses, the abolition of the Monarchy and the House of Lords, shorter Parliaments, the Referendum, the abolition of indirect taxation, and a graduated Income-tax." Here are enough provisions for fifty separate splits in the " Labour " party. They might almost as well have embodied a " plank " on the philosophy of evolution. A resolution pledging the members of the party never to vote for Liberal Unionists or Conservatives was proposed but lost,—a fortu- nate event for a party whose sole aim is to be independent. On Saturday evening a special service of the Bradford Labour Church—whatever that may be—was held in St. George's Hall, at which Mr. Keir Hardie declared that "the Independent Labour party at the present moment controlled 18i per cent. of the electorate of Great Britain, and could as inevitably as fate decide whether the Liberal or the Tory party should succeed at the polls." That is, of course, nonsense ; but at the same time, we should not wonder if Mr. Keir Hardie and his friends gave the Govern- ment many a nasty quarter of an hour.
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