The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1918-03-23
anal Yz|NG PROPOSED PROGRAM
Of THE BRITISH LABOR PARTY

that it is largely the creation not Of
the British labor unions themselves,
but of Sidney Webb, the Fabian So
cialist Indeed the program: was pre-
pared by Mr.. Webb, ]. r. .MacDon-
aid, the leader of England's chief So
cialist party, and Arthur Henderson.
leader of the pacifist minority of the
Labor party. This fact is of second
airy importance if the Labor party
accepts the program, but. the first
origin Of the movement is highly sig
! nificant, and aids us greatly to un-
derstand this extraordinary document.
The Socic1istic and revolutionary
nature of the new program is clearly
seen from it's opening sentences.
1--WE need to beware of patchwork.
The view of the Labor party is that
what has to be reconstructed after
the war is not this or that govern
ment department., or : this or that
piece of social machinery, but, so
far as Britain is concerned, society
ITSELF"
This war is consuming the very
basis of the peculiar social order in
which it has arisen. The individual
ist system of capitalist production.
based on private ownership may, we
hope indeed, have received a death
blow. With it must go the political
system and ideas in which it natural-
]y found expression"
The Labor party proposes to COM
plete the revolution already. being
brought about automatically by the
war by demanding in the years fol-
Loving:
"Systematic approach towards a
healthy equality Of material circum-
stances for every person born into
the world-not on an enforced do
minion over subject nations, subject
races, subject colonies, subject
classes, or subject sex. but on that
equal freedom, that general con-
sciousness of consent, and that
widest possible participation in pow
er, both economic and political,
which is characteristic of democ-
racy."
1.-THE Labor party insists on de-
mocracy in industry as we'll as in
government. It demands the pro-
gressive elimination from the control
of industry of the private capitalist.
individual or joint-stock; and the set
ting free Of all who work, whether
by hand or by brain, for the service
of the community, and of the COM
n1unity only"
Up to this point the new program
differs not at all from that of the
revolutionary Socialists of the contin,-
ent, and not very widely from that of
the Bolsheviki. However, il we look
more closely we can detect a consid-
cradle difference, for this British
program expressly denies that it Tex
poets to build society anew in a year
or two. of-,feverish i construction"
Moreover; the party once more throws
overheard, as it has done repeatedly
in times past. both the doctrine of
the class struggle between capital and
labor and all other MARKHAM dogmas.
The new party forming in England,
as we have been repeatedly told in
the cable dispatches, is to be a party
Of hand and brain.'' The proposed
program intends to include as far as
possible all producers, and not merely
manual and intellectual "proletar-'
ians." 1t is to be a party of the pro-
ducers by hand and BRAIN" That is,
it is to include farmowners and ac-
tive business and professional men:
Only those agriculturists, business
men and professional men would be
excluded who find themselves in econ
omic opposition to the masses. Moth
ing could be more remote from con-
tinental Marxism. However, it is
clearly both Socialistic and revolu-
tionary. What we are to think of it,
then, will depend more upon its
practical proposals than the general
theories upon which it is based.