Читать книгу The Times Great Events - Группа авторов - Страница 38
Оглавление10 February 1906
But it is about the future rather than the present that misgiving prevails; the flood-gates seem to many to have opened, and Heaven knows what water they may let through. The Labour members, and especially the Socialistic element, may increase until they swamp everything. They may; but, if the foregoing diagnosis of the election be at all correct, it provides some reasons for doubting that this will happen. The Labour party will continue, and probably increase, but not at an alarming rate. The special circumstances of the present occasion will not be repeated, and great changes are much more often followed by reaction than by still greater changes in the same direction. The Labour party will now be on trial itself and subject to the pendulum. Behind organized labour stand the far larger ranks of unorganized labour, which everybody seems to forget; and they do not care two straws for trade union leaders or Socialists. On the contrary, being strongly conservative and individualist, they dislike both. Let the Labour members support an ignominious surrender to a foreign foe, or fail to maintain British interests, or attack any cherished institution, and they will meet the same condemnation as any other members. As for the Socialist element, it cannot be denied that a good many members profess some measure of Socialism. Besides those who directly represent the Independent Labour party several trade union members are avowed Socialists. But what is Socialism? No term is more elastic; it may mean an economic theory, a political movement, a class warfare, a revolution by force, a pious aspiration, a sentimental impulse, or a form of hysteria. The Social Democratic formula, “Nationalization of all the means of production, distribution, and exchange,” which is borrowed from Germany, may be adopted by trade union leaders as a pious aspiration, but it has no real hold on the rank and file. If realized it would destroy trade unions and co-operative societies alike; both are based on the principle of self-help, of which Socialism is the negation, as the earlier German Social Democrats clearly saw. They only turned to make use of the unions because they were afraid of them; and the alliance now is of the flimsiest, even with the so-called Social Democratic unions, while the other ones are in direct opposition. The Labour party here, consisting of labour men supported by labour money, is entirely different from the Social Democratic party in Germany, which consists of ordinary politicians.
It cannot be too clearly understood that the present election is a triumph of trade-unionism, not of Socialism. No Socialists unconnected with trade union organization got in; only those succeeded who joined hands through the Labour Representation Committee; but nineteen trade-unionists were elected apart from Socialism. Social democrats may be delighted with these results, but they are sanguine and emotional persons, or they would not be Socialists. They look forward to overrunning the country with carpet-baggers next general election, but their failure at the present most exceptional opportunity hardly augurs great success at the next. Labour, meaning the mass of the industrial population, cares nothing for Socialism. It wants what everybody wants, and that is as much as it can get; it wants a larger share of what is going, and will get it, no doubt, by degrees; but the economic and social revolution sounds nonsense in its ears.
From 1895, Britain had a coalition government composed of the Conservatives and a breakaway faction of the Liberals, but its conduct of the Boer War and wrangling over trade tariffs made it increasingly unpopular. It was no surprise when the Liberal Party won a landslide victory in the 1906 election.
Yet, of more significance in the long term were the 29 seats won by – as it was named a few days later – The Labour Party. It had been founded six years before but this was the first General Election that it had contested properly. Keir Hardie was elected the leader of its MPs.
Perhaps surprisingly, The Times broadly welcomed their presence in the Commons, downplaying readers’ fears of revolution. “They are serious men,” it opined, “and intend to take their Parliamentary responsibilities seriously.”
