Note 729 — Chapter XI

The new constitution and enlarged programme which the Labour Party adopted at its Conferences of 1917-18, after six months’ consideration and discussion by the constituent organisations, were little more than a ratification for general adoption of what had become the practice of particular districts. Thus, the more active Local Labour Parties, such as those of Woolwich and Blackburn, had long welcomed the adhesion of supporters who were not manual workers. The successive annual Conferences had passed resolutions which, taken together, amounted to a pretty complete programme of constructive legislation, wholly Collectivist in principle. Hence the deliberate and formal opening of the Party, through the Local Labour Parties, to “workers by brain” as well as “workers by hand”; and the explicit adoption, as a programme, of Labour and the New Social Order were not such innovations as the newspapers made out and as the public generally supposed. But they created a sensation, not only in the United Kingdom, but also in the United States and in the British Dominions; and they led to a considerable accession of membership, largely from the professional and middle classes, which was steadily increased as the unsatisfactory character of the Treaty of Peace, the continued “militarism” of the Government, and the aggression of a “Protectionist” capitalism became manifest.