Practical and Impractical Politics.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19691, 7 August 1929, Page 10

Practical and Impractical Politics.

Mr Maxton's tirade against the present Labour Government in Britain, reported in yesterday's cable news, will have been read without astonishment by those who know how wide is the gulf between the Independent Labour Party and the Labour Party proper. Indeed, Mr Maxton's professed reluctance to face his constituents " because " Labour's promises are not fulfilled " is not convincing, for it iB hard to imagine a constituency electing him as a believer in and supporter of moderate Labour. The mere fact that he condemns Mr Mac Donald and his followers for saying that it is impracticable to do all the things in which they believe shows the hopelessly impractical nature of his own mind and of the organisation to whitfh he belongs. The I.L.P. is a collection of doctrinaire Socialists, to whom the meaning of the term " Socialism" is quite plain because it is defined in their programme. The Labour Party proper, like all Parties with experience of power, has no complete and logical body of doctrine. It has a partly comprehended ideal towards which it is working, and an immediate programme which represents a compromise between that ideal and existing circumstances, but that programme is no longer Socialism. In the days when Mr Shaw was writing his first tracts for the Fabian Society any middle-class intellectual could explain and define Socialism in a few resounding phrases. Now that Socialism has been on trial only very simple people or inveterate theorists profess to such accurate knowledge. " Socialism," as the term is loosely used on political platforms, is a word capable of many interpretations, and has not a more definite meaning than " Conservatism " and " Liberalism." Mr Maxton, of course, is as well aware of this as anyone else, but he is at present maintaining himself in a position of some power by making promises he knows he will never have to fulfil. He can, if he wishes, make things very difficult for Mr Mac Donald, but Mr Mac Donald cannot, if he wishes, introduce England to Socialism.