A LABOUR SPLIT.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 482, 15 April 1909, Page 5

A LABOUR SPLIT.

I.L.P. CONFERENCE. RESIGNATIONS OF NOTED LEADERS. BECAUSE OF GRAYSON. |UY THI.KUIIA I'll— I'HESS ASSOCI ATION COI'VIHOUT.) (Roc. April 14, 10.5 p.m.) London, April 14. Tlio Conference at Edinburgh of the Independent Labour Party has produced a sensation, in that four leaders in the movement liiivo rosiryiod their membership of tlio Administrative Council. The Conference adopted a vote of sonusympathy with Mr. A. V. Grayson, Socialist neniber of the House of Commons for Colne falley, suggesting that tho Administrative Council should endeavour to como to terms vith Mr. Grayson, Mr. Robert Blatchford 'editor of tho "Clarion"), and other "irreconiilables" who obiect to the Council's desire a work with tho Liberals. This was considered as a vote of censure )y Messrs. Kcir Hardio, Philip Snowden, md Ramsay Macdonald (Labour members of ,lie House of Commons), and by Mr. Ed. 3ruce Glasier (editor of "The Labour deader," official organ of the Independent jabour Party). After a hot-tempered dobate, ;hey resigned from tho Council. Tho Conference bogged thorn to reconsideT heir decision. Mr. Glasier is resigning tho xlitorship of "The Labour Leader." CHARGES AGAINSTMR. GRAYSON. A DINNER. INCIDENT. The Socialists have made several attempts :o capture Labour' Conferences, and with some legree of success; and this eflort to draw the Independent Labour party closer to the Socialst wing, and further away, from the Liberal majority in the Commons, is, no doubt, part jf the same tactics. But in the case of Mr. 3rayson, at any rate, that gentleman s own Deculiar methods are the main subject in dispute. There has been friction between him and >ther Labour members in the House of Commons ; and the present resolution of the lnlependent Labour Party Conference reads somewhat strangely, in view of the cablegram pubislied last Tuesday, which read: By 332 votes :o fr4, the Conference passed a resolution lirected against Mr. Gravson—that no salary 30 paid to any member of tho House of Lomnons who does not sign t"hp of me Independent Labour party. Mr. Grayson's Boasts. In October last, after the House of Conimons iad suspended him for the autumn session because he refused to obey tho ruling of tlie ;hair, Hr. Grayson addressed the unemployed. 3no report stated: Hr. Kciv Hardie having described him as a useless and irresponsible person, Mr. Grayson stated that he had cancelled iis engagement to speak at Glasgow that day n support of Mr. Keir Hardie's candidature for the Lord Rectorship of the Uniyersitv. Fohn Burns was the man who pledged himself :o the people and had sold them for two thousand pieces of gold. (Groans.) He did not inow whether he would appear at Bow Street ->r not, but lie said to the unemployed that light that if tbev saw their children and their ivives starving they were cowards if they did lot take food when they saw it. hero were ;ho police? If they charged him on that statement, he said, with the utmost calm, that he ivas proud of telling the hungry man that Tie ivas less than a man if lie starved when he ttuld steal. "If you are going to steal, he uided, "steal from those who have. . . * They have chucked me out of Parliament, vbnt I un still M.P.-on half-pay." The Labour members, he added, would not support him, be:ause they found their seats too comfortable, ifter tlie meeting, Mr. Grayson was carried shoulder high in the hunger-marchers' chair, lccompaniea by Mr. Blatchford. The Other Side. On the same evening Mr. Philip Snowden, me of the Labour members whose resigns:ions have perturbed tho Independent Labour Party Conference, made an attack on Mr. Grayson's conduct in Parliament. _ • "It is quite impossible/' he said, to conrey an adequate idea of its theatricality or, is one man put it, of its contemptible char>cteT. This young man came to the House of Commons after having been a stranger to it 'or many months. In the present session ho iias registered only thirty-two divisions out of learly 300. He h-is seldom been in the House, ind hardly upon one occasion when a question lffecting tho interest of the vorking classes ivas being discussed. "He left tho House or, June 10, and never put in an appearance again, though the session did not end until August 1, except upon iho last night in June, the night when he had Irawn his quarter's salary, from tlio Labour party. He came not into the House, but into ihe dining-room, and entertained a number of friends to a sumptuous dinner, which for days ivas the talk of the waiters in the House. (Sensation.) "Last Sunday, speaking in Lancashire, he was reported to have said he was not going to the House on Monday because they were dismissing the Licensing Bill. There you have in illustration of the interest this man takes in the work he nas undertaken to discharge and is paid Tor by the Labour party. , , If the Labour party had taken precipitate action, it would in all probability hare destroyed all possibility of schemes (for relief oi unemployed) now being considered by the Government ever maturing at all." Mr. Pete Curran, Labour M.P., said member! of tho Labour party in Parliament had to de cide whether to submit to the leadership ol Mr. Victor Grayson, together with the degradation of Mr. Keir .Hardie, or stick to the party. "We are jot going to bo switched in or out side the Houso of Commons by a boy," h< added.