The I.L.P. Secedes In deciding by a vote of 241
to 142 to leave the Labour Party, the Independent Labour Party conference at Bradford on Saturday brought a long simmering quarrel to a head. The I.L.P. was founded in 1898 and, by inducing the Trade Unions to co-operate with it in 1908, established the modern Labour Party. But the two elements—" intellectuals" and Trade Union officials— have never been very happy together as each wanted to rule. Their quarrels broke up the first Labour Ministry of 1924, and hampered the second Labour Government of 1929-31 so much that Mr. MacDonald and Mr. (now Lord) Snowden resigned from the I.L.P., which they had helped to found, because in their view it was no longer needed. Mr. Maxton and his friends on the Clyde thought that it was their business to "ginger up" the official leaders and wean them from "the inevitability of gradualness" to "Socialism in our time." But they have now concluded, honestly enough, that they cannot stay in a party and yet flout its leaders and its rules. However, their campaign for "revolu- tionary Socialism" is to be impeded at the outset ; for their dissentient comrades, beaten in conference, are now trying to secure a majority among the fifteen thousand paying members who still remain faithful to the I.L.P. Extremists are always quarrelsome.
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