By a large majority vote the Conference approved the resolution
deploring the Government's lack of Socialist fervour, and specifically Mr. Snowden's tight hand on the purse-strings. Certainly the Chancellor of the Exchequer, by his virtual pledge not to increase taxation next year, . has effectively stopped " Socialism in our time " and the spending propensities of Sir Oswald Mosley and his friends. The resolution demanded " a bold and humane policy towards the unemployed worker and a definite Socialist approach towards the problem [of unemploy- . ment] as a whole." An amendment, supported by Mr. P. J. Dollan, to insert the words " inside the Labour Party " was defeated. It does not appear, however, either that " the pirates " wish to make at once a bold defiance, or that the Labour Party is in any hurry to take the logical course of extruding the I.L.P. dissentients, as it has extruded the Communists. What is significant is that the Conference has given the National Administra- tive Council of the I.L.P. power to reconstruct its Parlia- mentary group. This move may cause a clash between the principle of delegation, which is the reductio ad absurdum of democratic theory, and the principle of reasonably independent leadership, which has undoubt- . edly obtained for the British Labour Party its considerable status.
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