For some time past it has been clear that all is not well within the ranks of the British Labour Party. There was first the expulsion of Sir Stafford Cripps because of his advocacy of the formation of a People's Front Government, which he claimed would be able to govern effectively, which aroused the displeasure of the Trade Union Congress and the Labour Party leaders, and now there is a suggestion that a breach may occur between the Trade Union Congress and the Labour Party which it controls by means of finance. Incidentally it is also reported that Mr. James Maxton may shortly find himself the leader of a one man party,—himself,—as the only remaining member of the Independent Labourites as his three supporters are threatening to return to the official Socialist Party. That step has not yet been taken but is regarded as a probability. The difference between the Trade Union Congress and the Labour Party ap~ pears to have arisen out of the report of a T.U.C. economic committee appointed to consider means of solving the unemployment problem. That report does not appear to have followed Labour's classic lines, and in fact represents a departure from the usual Socialist view of such a degree of unorthodoxy that the question of a cleavage between the two bodies has aroused some anxiety. The blow to the Labour Party is to be found in the committee's finding that the present application of socialism was not possible, was consequently of no assistance in solving the important question under consideration, that there was no one cure for unemployment and that Labour should settle down to work out practical proposals of a less academic character than heretofore. It is stated that the whole report suggests that the unemployment problem has too long been the sport of party politics and that old fashioned idea of attributing all, the blame to the capitalistic system is unscientific and out of date. The committee of the T.U.C. are not unanimously agreed upon the report, which has not yet been adopted by the whole body, but it is clear that, if it is, a wide gap will have opened between the doctrinaire outlook of many of the Labour Party devoted to socialism, and those of the Trade Union Congress who take the more realistic view indicated in the report.
The irony of the situation lies in the fact that this report to a very large extent supports the views of Sir Stafford Cripps, and may lead to the Labour leaders approaching the problem of unemployment along the very lines which he has suggested, so that the man who has been expelled as a political heretic, may in the comparatively near future be proved to have been prophetic of events close at hand. One of the chief troubles which the Labour Party has had for some years past is the fact that it has been unable to draft a policy calculated to have a substantial appeal to the electorate. The continual desire to make capital the scapegoat for all the ills which beset Great Britain carries conviction in the minds of a very small proportion of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom. Opposition to the present Government is not imposing because there is nothing which Labour can consistently oppose, being reduced rather to criticism of methods of approach than concerned with ideological opposition to what is being done. The leaders have consequently been searching on all directions for something which would appeal to the minds of the electorate and regain for them that support without which the chances of a return to power are slim in the extreme. Obviously a plan for the solution of the unemployment problem seems to be the most attractive prospect, for it was apparent to all that with a proposal reasonably sure of producing a betterment of conditions thus leading to the reduction of the long list of unemployed, the Labour Party would have been able to go to the country with something into which it could set its teeth. That was as apparent to the Trade Union Congress as it was to the Parliamentary party, and when the former appointed a committee to go into the matter, it was probably not anticipated that that body would astonish the world by recommending what is nothing more nor less than the temporary shelving of the doctrines of socialism.
The declaration that in those doctrines was not to be found the specific for present evils indicates that the T.U.C. committee approached their task in a spirit of realism which alone could have led to this remarkable reversal of formerly-accepted ideas. The unorthodoxy of its report has undoubtedly stricken the dyed-in-the-wool socialist to the heart, for even though the abandonment of socialistic doctrines may only be temporary the magnitude of the blow lies in the fact that their efficacy is thus being so emphatically challenged. The Labour Party is faced with the uncomfortable fact that the T.U.C. controls it through the provision of finances, and when this is realized the possibility of rebellion has to be completely discounted. That is more surely the case when it is remembered that the withdrawal of trade union support from Labour candidates who refuse to pipe the new tune for which the T.U.C. may be calling would lead to their defeat at the polls, so that the political future of those men who are likely to rebel is completely in the hands of the body who originated the investigation. That this latest development may lead to a reorientation of the policy of the Labour Party seems inevitable. It will be from the limitations of old doctrines to the adoption of realistic views which may result in the Party ultimo ately being able to go to the country with a scheme for the reduction of unemployment which might capture its fancy. That in itself may prove a beneficial factor in the future of the Labour Party, though in its initial stages it may place some strain on those men who find in the adoption of the socialistic gospel the only panacea for present evils. On the other hand it might serve to stultify Sir Stafford Cripps's campaign for the union of Liberals, Labourites and Communists in his much-advocated People's Front, but paradoxically enough not because the T.U.C. is opposed to the end which he has in view, but because they are approaching the same problem as that which he has in mind along a route so parallel as to be almost identical with it. If, therefore, in the near future Sir Stafford is found back in the fold of a reorientated Labour Party he will have shown himself not to be the lone voice crying in the wilderness which it was at one time believed he would become.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.