whether they will do the only thing that can possibly show
any real independence or make them a factor of first importance in the
nation's politics, that is, overturn a government. Doubtless this day
will come, but it does not seem to be at hand.

This discussion was much intensified by the decision of the executive of
the Labour Party (in order to retain the legal right to use trade-union
funds for political purposes) to relieve Labour members of Parliament of
their pledge to follow a common policy. This decision again was opposed
by the majority of the "Independent" section including Hardie and
Barnes, but favored by a minority, led by MacDonald. With the aid of the
non-Socialistic element, however, it was carried by a large majority at
the Labour Party's conference in 1911. Thus while one element is growing
more radical another is growing more conservative and the breach between
the Independents and the other Labourites is widening.

Perhaps the closest and most active associate of Mr. MacDonald at nearly
every point has been Mr. Philip Snowden. Even Mr. Snowden finally
declared that a recent action of the Labour Party, when all but half a
dozen of its members voted with the Liberals, against what Mr. Snowden
states to have been the instructions of the Party conference, "finally
completes their identity with official Liberalism." Mr. Snowden asserted
that if the "Independents" would stand this they would stand anything,
that the time had come to choose between principle and party, and that
he was not ready to sacrifice the former for the latter.

Shortly after this incident, which Mr. MacDonald attributed to a
misunderstanding, came the great railway strike and its settlement, in
which he and Mr. Lloyd George were the leading factors. Received with
enthusiasm by the Liberal press, this settlement was bitterly denounced
by the _Labour Leader_, the official organ of the "Independents." Mr.
MacDonald on the other hand expressed in the House of Commons deep
satisfaction with the final attitude of the government and predicted
that if it was maintained no such trouble need arise again in a
generation. No statement could have been more foreign to the existing
feeling among the workers, a part of whom it will be remembered failed
to return to work for several days after the settlement. The
"Independents" as the political representatives of the more radical of
the unionists, naturally embody this discontent, while the Labou