cil exists, the constitution provides for the local Labour Party to discharge the functions of a Trades Council, and it is anticipated that in the course of time all the forces of Labour in every Parliamentary constituency will be united, and that the local Labour Party will be the unit of organization. The rights of representation enjoyed by the Trade Unions, Socialist Societies, Co-operative Societies, Trade Councils, and local Labour Parties have been preserved, but the new constitution confers upon the individual members a stated share in the local and national councils of the Party.

The date of the Annual Party Conference has been changed from January to June. It will be constituted, as hitherto, of delegates representing the affiliated Trade Unions and other societies, on the basis of one for each 1,000 members; of the local Labour Party delegates, who may be either men or women; borough and county constituencies returning one Member to Parliament may send one Labour party delegate to the Party Conference, undivided boroughs returning two Members to Parliament may send two, and divided boroughs may send one delegate for each constituency in the area, the Central Labour Party in such boroughs having the power also to send one delegate. An additional woman delegate must be appointed if the number of affiliated and individual woman members in the local organization exceeds 500. The members of the National Executive of the party, including the Treasurer, the members of the Parliamentary Party, and the duly sanctioned Parliamentary candidates have the right to attend the Conference ex-officio, but have no power to vote unless they are chosen as delegates.

INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION

PROGRAMS

PROGRAM OF THE BRITISH LABOUR
PARTY'

The report on the general policy of the Party (which was adopted in a series of embodying resolutions at the Conference of June, 1918) dealing with reconstruction covers a very wide range of problems. It lays down the doctrine that what has to be reconstructed after the War is not this or that Government Department or piece of social machinery, but society itself. This party declares that whether in opposition or in office it will not tolerate the revival of the social and economic system which the War has destroyed, but will seek to build up a new social order based on a deliberately planned co-operation in production and distribution for the benefit of all who labour by hand or by brain. Four propositions are laid down in the Memorandum upon which the Party proposes to establish the democratic control of all the activities of society:

(a) The universal enforcement of the national minimum; (b) The democratic control of industry;

(c) The revolution in national finance; and

(d) the surplus wealth for the common good.

Applying the first principle, the Labour Party proclaims its resolve to secure for every member of the community, both in good times and bad, all the requisites of a healthy life and worthy citizenship. It proposes to do this by enforcing the universal application of the policy of a prescribed minimum of health, leisure, education, and subsistence by the extension of such legislation as the Factory Acts, Truck Acts, Public Health Acts, Housing Acts, Education Acts, Minimum Wage Acts, and Trade Board Acts.

The policy of the Party in regard to the problems of demobilization is briefly to ensure that the demobilization and

I From Labour Year Book. 1919. p. 17-20.

"Labour and the New Social Order."

discharge of the eight million wage-earners now in the fighting forces or engaged in war work shall be so regulated as to avert the peril of widespread unemployment involving the whole wage-earning class in economic ruin. The Party insists that the obligation to find suitable employment in productive work for all these men and women is national, and that until work is found it is the duty of the Government in the interest of the community as a whole to provide them with adequate maintenance, either through the out-of-work benefit afforded by the Trade Unions or in some other way.

In order to prevent the occurrence of unemployment, either in the course of demobilization or in the first years of peace, the Party urges that all necessary preparations should be made by the Government for putting in hand at once, directly or through the local authorities, urgently needed public works, including the building of a million new cottages, new schools, and training colleges; the making of new roads, railways, canals; afforestation, the reclamation of land, the development of ports and harbours; and the establishment of co-operative small holdings; whilst steps ought also to be taken, for the purpose of relieving pressure upon an overstocked labour market, to raise the school-leaving age to 16 and substantially to shorten the hours of labour for all young people, to reduce wherever practicable the hours of adult labour; and to limit the amount of overtime.

The policy of the Party as applied to industry contemplates a great extension of the principle of democratic control. It demands the progressive elimination of the private capitalist from the control of industry and the scientific reorganization of the nation's industry on the basis of the common general ownership of the means of production, the equitable sharing of the proceeds among all who participate in any capacity, and the adoption of such methods of administration and control as experience has shown to be practicable and necessary.

The Party's policy of nationalization is applied not only to great undertakings like railways, mines, shipping, canals, and the like, and to the great super-power stations for the production of electricity which are in contemplation, but to the whole business of retail distribution of commodities like household coal and milk; and the Party also demands that the activities of the profit-making industrial insurance companies

shall be undertaken by the Departments charged with the administration of health insurance in its various aspects.

In the sphere of political reforms the Labour party demands complete adult suffrage with absolutely equal rights for both sexes, shorter Parliaments, and the same civic rights for soldiers and sailors as for officers. For the complete emancipation of women it affirms the principle of equal pay for equal work on the industrial side and full equality of civic rights with men.

In education the Labour Party is not satisfied with the meagre advance made by the Act of 1918. It demands a systematic reorganization of the whole system on a basis of social equality. For this, education must be provided for child, youth, and adult, schools and colleges, irrespective of social class and wealth, must be regarded solely from the point of educational efficiency, and the teaching profession, without distinction of grade, must be recognized as one of the most valuable to the community.

In the matter of temperance reform the Party proclaims the policy of public right, which it proposes to assert over the liquor traffic by giving localities power to prohibit the sale of liquor within their boundaries, to regulate the conditions under which liquor may be sold, and to determine how the popular refreshment houses shall be conducted.

In housing the Labour Party considers it essential that all funds should be supplied and all plans should be made ready for the provision of a million new houses immediately on the outbreak of Peace.

Standing, as it does, for the democratic control of industry, the Labour Party announces its intention of resisting any attempt to abandon the present profitable centralization of the importation and distribution of raw material used in indispensable industries, and will insist upon maintaining the elaborate system of costing and public audit which has been set up.

The Party's proposals for dealing with the problems of national finance involve the institution of a system of taxation designed to obtain the revenue necessary for meeting war charges and the cost of reconstruction from the largest incomes and the biggest private fortunes. It proposes that the income tax and supertax should be levied in such a way as to make the real sacrifice of all the taxpayers as nearly as possible equal, raising the present unduly low minimum income