The Labour Conference, before separating at the week-end, rejected by
a majority of morc.than two to one the insidious proposal —supported of course by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, M.P.—that the International Socialist Bureau should be reconstituted' forthwith. The small Pacificist section hoped by this means to induce British Socialists to meet the German Socialists, whose leaders, with few exceptions, are the willing tools of the German Government in its endeavour to obtain a premature peace. But the Conference, recognizing that the French and the Belgians would have nothing to do with their cruel enemies now or in the near future, repudiated the suggestion. A definite motion in favour of an early peace was rejected by a majority of over five to one. Before dispersing, the Conference abolished the misleading system under which three insignificant parties—the I.L.P., the Fabian Society, and the British Socialist Party—have had three seats on the Labour Execu- tive of sixteen, and have thus often been able to commit Labour to courses of which the vast majority of Trade Unionists entirely disapproved.
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