CHAPTER XVI THE MINOR PARTIES: LABOR IN POLITICS AND IRISH HOME RULE -- Labor in Politics: Trade Unionism and Socialism. - Of the two minor parties prior to 1914, the lesser in parliamentary strength but the more important otherwise was built up mainly by organized labor. Speaking broadly, the Labor party is a product of the twin forces of trade unionism and socialism, of which the one may be said to have supplied mainly the organization and the funds, and the other, the energy and the spirit. Trade unions are organizations of workers in particular crafts intended to promote collective bargaining with employers and other concerted action in the laborers' interest. They began to appear in England during the earlier stages of the industrial revolution, and in the nineteenth century they gained control of most of the important industries. Their legal status was long a source of controversy. The earlier restraints of law upon labor combinations were largely abolished in 1871-76. But in 1901 fresh discontent was aroused by a decision handed down by the House of Lords in the Taff Vale case recognizing the right of employers to collect damages from trade unions for injuries arising from strikes.', In 1906 the Liberals rewarded the labor elements for their support by passing a Trade-Unions and TradeDisputes Act practically exempting the unions from legal process.2 Again, in the Osborne Judgment of 1909 the House of Lords put pressure on the unions by ruling that they could not legally collect compulsory contributions for the support of labor members of the House of Commons; and once more the Liberals saved the day for their allies, first by the act of 1911 providing salaries for all members of the popular branch of Parliament, and later by a new Trade-Union Act of 1913 which permits tradeunion funds to be used for political purposes in so far as they represent contributions made voluntarily for these purposes. The 1 Ogg, Economic Development of Modern Europe, 432-433. See pp. 174-175. 3 Trade-Union Congress, which holds annual meetings for the consideration of political and industrial questions, represents at the present time approximately three million unionists; and since 1899 there has been a General Federation of Trade Unions, whose functions are chiefly financial, and which has a membership somewhat exceeding one million, in part duplicating that of the Congress.1 Forty years ago men freely predicted that socialism would never take root among the English people. But in point of fact England has of late been hardly less stirred by socialist agitation than Germany and France, and the spirit and ideals of socialism have been injected into parliamentary debates, and even into national and local legislation, quite as extensively as in most of the continental states. The number of organized socialists in the country has never been large; even to-day it does not exceed fifty thousand. But there are many men and women who are thoroughgoing socialists, yet not members of any socialist party or society, and multitudes of others whose minds are saturated with socialist ideas, who however do not call themselves by the The oldest socialist organization of importance is the British Socialist party, which, founded in 1880 as the Social Democratic Federation, maintained absolute independence until 1916, when, with a net numerical strength of only ten thousand, it entered into affiliation with the Labor party. The most famous socialist organization is the Fabian Society, established in 1883, and having a present membership of less than three thousand, but including a long list of scholars, writers, clergymen, and other men of achievement and influence.2 The most prominent politically of socialist organizations is the Independent Labor party, organized in 1893 as a result of the first serious effort to unite the forces of socialism and labor. This party, whose membership to-day is about thirty thousand, eventually attained a certain amount of success; at the elections of 1906, 1 The standard treatise on British trade unionism is S. and B. Webb, History of Trade Unionism (new ed., London, 1920). Somewhat more recent is G. D. H. Cole, The World of Labour: a Discussion of the Present and Future of Trade Unionism (2d ed., London, 1915). 2 An official statement of the principles and objects of the Fabian Society will be found in Orth, Socialism and Democracy in Europe, 327-330. The best general account is E. R. Pease, History of the Fabian Society (London, 1916). The New Statesman, a weekly organ, was founded in 1914 to advocate Fabian doctrines. The history of English socialism is accurately presented in B. Villiers, The Socialist Movement in England (2d ed., London, 1910), and in M. Beer, Geschichte des Sozialismus in England (Stuttgart, 1913). There is an English translation of the last-mentioned book under the title History of British Socialism, 2 vols. (London, 1919-20). when the tide of radicalism was running strong, seven of its candidates and sixteen of its members were elected to the House of Commons. It has always been too aggressively socialist, however, to attract the mass of laboring men. The Labor Party: Composition and Character. As far back as 1874 a few members of Parliament were elected as labor men, and as the nineteenth century drew to a close strong demand arose in labor circles for a broadly based party which should carry on political activities in behalf of labor precisely as the TradeUnion Congress and its subsidiaries carried on activities of a financial and industrial character. This need was met by the organization of the present Labor party. The Trade-Union Congress of 1899, meeting at Plymouth, caused to be brought into existence a group of representatives of all coöperative, tradeunion, socialist, and working-class organizations that were willing to share in an effort to increase the representation of labor in Parliament. This body, numbering one hundred and twentynine delegates, held its first meeting at London in February, 1900, and an organization was formed in which the ruling forces were the politically inclined, but non-socialistic, trade unions. The object of the affiliation was declared to be "to establish a distinct labor group in Parliament, who shall have their own whips and agree upon their own policy, which must embrace a readiness to cooperate with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interest of labor, and be equally ready to associate themselves with any party in opposing measures having an opposite tendency."1 The new organization grew rapidly. At the elections of 1906 fifty candidates were put in the field, and twenty-nine (of whom only four had had parliamentary experience), were elected forming by far the largest labor group that had as yet appeared on the floor of the House of Commons. The Liberals now had a majority sufficiently large to make them entirely independent. Yet they were under obligation to the labor elements for past support and by past pledges, and, furthermore, many of them. were not opposed to the more moderate labor demands. Consequently, the political “revolution" of 1906 became the starting point in a new era of labor legislation and labor relief, whose earliest important development was, as has been pointed out, the adoption of the Trade-Unions and Trade-Disputes Act of 1906. After its great victory the Labor Representation Committee, having attained its immediate object of creating a distinct rep 1 Labour Year Book (1916), 306. resentation of labor in Parliament, dropped its unassuming name and took the title of "Labor party." The constitution of the organization was overhauled, and the governing body was made an annual congress, composed of delegates representing the affiliated societies in proportion to their membership. The party executive consists of a national committee of sixteen members, who are apportioned among the principal affiliated bodies and elected at the annual congress by the groups of delegates representing those bodies respectively. This committee elects its own chairman (who thereby becomes chairman of the party), approves candidates and sanctions candidatures, issues party literature, and in a general way directs the work of the party outside of the House of Commons. It coöperates with the parliamentary group in considering the legislative program of each session, and on important matters of policy joint meetings between the two bodies are arranged. It is expected of candidates for seats that they will promise to be guided by the decisions of the party, arrived at in the annual congresses, at least in matters related to the objects for which the party exists.' The party is financed by fees assessed upon the affiliated societies at the rate of id. per member per year. In 1914 the party had committees on foreign affairs, electoral reform, unemployment, finance, government workers' conditions, and several other subjects. The parliamentary group, known as the Parliamentary Labor party, was compactly organized, with its chairman, secretary, and whips. Outside of Parliament, the party was, however, simply a loose federation of trade unions, trades councils, local labor parties, socialist societies, and coöperative societies, having, in 1915, a total membership of somewhat over two millions. This flexibility of organization seems to be a main reason why the party has prospered beyond all other political combinations of labor in the country. An incidental, but extremely important, effect of such flexibility is that men of all social classes and all industrial connections belong to the party - scholars, writers, dramatists, artists, lawyers, teachers, physicians, clergymen, and even employers of labor, equally with the workmen of factory, shop, and farm. The Labor party has served as no other agency to link up socialism and trade unionism. Until 1907 it refused to commit itself to socialistic principles, and, as has been pointed out, the 1 This illustrates the fact that Labor organization is more unified than Liberal or Conservative organization. Liberal and Conservative members of Parliament are in no way bound by the action of the party congresses. party owed its earlier strength largely to this policy. In the year mentioned, however, the party congress adopted a resolution declaring for "the socialization of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, to be controlled in a democratic state in the interest of the entire community, and the complete emancipation of labor from the domination of capitalism and landlordism, with the establishment of social and economic equality between the sexes." This is, of course, a socialistic declaration, yet with no hint of class war or revolution, and its general effect was to augment rather than to diminish the party's strength. In point of fact, such of the party leaders as J. Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden, and more than half of the parliamentary group, are socialists. The adoption of the resolution of 1907 brought the Labor party and the "I. L. P." into closer accord, and thereafter the Labor forces at Westminster acted substantially as a unit. In the period 1907-09 the Labor members advocated medical inspection of school children, compulsory provision of meals for necessitous school children, the setting up of wage boards for sweated industries, a more generous administration of the fair-wages clause of government contracts, unemployment insurance and the establishment of labor exchanges, regulation of the liquor trade on the principle of local option, and taxation aimed at securing for the communal benefit all unearned increment of wealth" and at "preventing the retention of great fortunes in private hands." It aided in the enactment of the old age pensions and miners' eight hour laws, and it strenuously opposed tariff reform, especially taxes on food. It urged salaries for members of the House of Commons and the placing of returning officers' expenses upon the public treasury; and in a notable resolution introduced in 1907 it called for the abolition of the House of Lords, as being "a hindrance to national progress." 1 At the elections of January and December, 1910, some seats were lost. None the less, the spokesmen of labor in the House of Commons from 1910 to the war fluctuated between forty-two and forty-five, of which number about half were identified with the Labor party proper and the remainder with the Independent Labor party or with a Liberal Labor element which pursued its own policy in industrial matters but in other respects was only a segment of the Liberal party. After 1910 the Labor group occupied a position of power altogether disproportionate to its numerical strength; for the Liberal government, having lost the 1 Labour Year Book (1916), 323. |