[13] From _Statement of Principles of the League_.
[14] Even at this time the conservatism of the unions was hard to break. The vote to take this step was 546,000 to 434,000 in favor of appointing the committee.
[15] Election expenses are borne by the candidates, not by the state. They frequently are over $3,000, and it obviously is impossible for a workingman to conduct such a campaign at his own expense.
[16] Proceedings of Labor Party, Annual Congress, 1907.
[17] See _Socialists in Great Britain_, a compilation published by the London _Times_, p. 24.
The following table shows the membership of the Labor Party since its formation in 1900, from the annual report of the party executive, 1911:
Trades Councils and Local Labor Trade Unions Parties Socialist Societies No. Membership No. No. Membership Total 1900-1 41 353,070 7 3 22,861 375,931 1901-2 65 455,450 21 2 13,861 469,311 1902-3 127 847,315 49 2 13,835 861,150 1903-4 165 956,025 76 2 13,775 969,800 1904-5 158 885,270 73 2 14,730 900,000 1905-6 158 904,496 73 2 16,784 921,280 1906-7 176 975,182 83 2 20,885 998,338{ 1} 1907 181 1,049,673 92 2 22,267 1,072,413{ 2} 1908 176 1,127,035 133 2 27,465 1,158,565{ 3} 1909 172 1,450,648 155 2 30,982 1,486,308{ 4} 1910 137 1,306,473 125 2 31,377 1,342,610{ 5}
{ 1} This total includes 2,271 Co-operators. { 2} Includes 472 Co-operators. { 3} Includes 565 Co-operators, and 3,500 members of the Women's Labor League. { 4} Includes 678 Co-operators, and 4,000 members of the Women's Labor League. { 5} Includes 760 Co-operators, and 4,000 members of the Women's Labor League.
The decrease in membership during the last year is ascribed to the Osborne judgment.
[18] HAROLD COX, _Socialism in the House of Commons_, p. 1.
[19] See J.A. HOBSON, _The Crisis of Liberalism_, for a discussion of the new party alignments.
ÉMILE BOUTMY, philosophical critic of the English, says that England, "transformed in all outward seeming, ... has just begun a new history." See his _The English People: A Study in Their Political Psychology_, London, 1904, for a keen analysis of English political proclivities.
[20] _Parliamentary Debates_, 5th series, vol. 21, p. 649. Speech by G. Lansbury.
[21] The new Liberal government invited John Burns into the cabinet. He is the first workingman in English history to occupy a cabinet position. The more restless Socialists are inclined to call him a Liberal because responsibility has taught him caution. But he still persists that he is a Socialist. He is a Fabian, and boasts of the three times that he was imprisoned for participating in labor agitations. About twenty years before his elevation he said in the Old Bailey, where he had been arraigned for "sedition and conspiracy" in conducting a strike: "I may tell you, my lord, that I went to work in a factory at the early age of ten years and toiled there until five months ago, when I left my workshop to stand as Parliamentary candidate for the western division of Nottingham."