PARTY GOVERNMENT 205

The Communists advocate Socialism but believe that the conflict
between classes is so acute that an attempt to introduce Socialism
by democratic methods would be met by the use of force on the
part of the rich. They therefore hold that an effective Socialist
movement must prepare to meet force by force, and to establish
a dictatorship of the working-class, until opposition is destroyed
and democracy can be restored. Labour seems to them not to
have understood the real nature of the class conflict, and they
consider many of its leaders ineffective. Recently, however, they
have sought affiliation to Labour; the proposal provoked con-
siderable dispute between the Right and Left Wings of Labour,
but was defeated, the majority holding that Labour could not
associate with a party which envisaged the use of dictatorship.
The Independent Labour Party was once affiliated to the Labour
Party but severed the connection after 1931. The party considers
Labour to. be insufficiently Left -and the Communist party to be
over-influenced by the wishes of the Government of the U.S.S.R.
There are four I.L.P. Members of Parliament, representing
divisions of Glasgow, where the party survives chiefly because
of the popularity of its leader, Mr. Maxton.

THE LIBERAL PARTY.

Historically, the Liberals inherit the tradition of resistance to
arbitrary Government which animated the lyth and i8th century
Whigs. They were accordingly led to emphasise the authority of
the people, and during the I9th century there is a gradual change
from aristocratic Whig to democratic Liberal, working to secure
the extension of the franchise. As opponents of governmental
restraint they were attracted to laissez-faire, and in thp mid-i9th
century represented the trading and manufacturing, as against
the landed classes. The popular element in Liberalism, however,
has claused the party to advocate social reforms which conflicted
i with pure laissez-faire. Dislike of oppression has shown itself, at
different times, in Fox's opposition to Burke over the French
Revolution, in Gladstone's efforts to solve the Irish problem, in