On Tuesday much embarrassment was caused to the I.L.P. Executive
by the carrying of a resolution (not on the agenda) that I.L.P. Members of Parliament should vote against all war credits. Mr. Shinwell (perhaps vaguely uncomfortable in the recollection that the Laboinr Government authorized.' a policy of cruiser ).iuilding)' denied the right of the Conference to dictate to hint. He would take his orders, he said, from his constituents and from nobody else. Even Mr. Maxton described the decision of the Conference as " serious," and expressed a hope that the branches would be very tolerant towards thoSe who would have the handling of it. His word `.` serious " understates the case. No Labour Government which acted on the decision would he able to subinit Army, Navy :or Air estimates. It seems, however, to have been taken for granted that Mr. Maxton was given discretionary powers.' Members of the I.L.P. will thus be free to say that they are bound, or not bound, by the decision, as may be most convenient in the circumstances. The Conference adopted another noxious resolution which gives the Parliamentary Labour Party, rather than the Prime Minister, the right of select- ing a Labour Cabinet. This strikes at one of the essential principles of Parliamentarism. An outside committee becomes the real ruler. It was precisely the discovery, or suspicion, that Mr. MacDonald was subject to an outside voice at the time of the Campbell prosecution in 1924 that turned the country against him.
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