“It is to-day the forces of Labour that, in the main, ensure the maintenance of Democracy. Socialists will not allow factitious minorities, taking advantage of their privileged positions, to bring to naught popular liberty. Inspired by the great traditions of past revolutions, Socialists will be ready, without weakness, to resist any such attacks.
“4. The franchise for a Socialist Parliament must be universal, applying with absolute equality to both sexes, without exclusions on grounds of race, religion, occupation, or political opinions. The supreme function of Parliament is to represent all the popular aspirations and desires from the standpoint of the community as a whole. It will deal with defence against aggression from without or within. It will be in charge of the property and also of the finances of the community.
“It will make the laws, and administer the public business. The Ministers in charge of the various departments will be chosen from among its members; and the government of the nation will be its Executive Committee.
“But it will be free to delegate particular powers and duties to any of the other organs of the community hereinafter mentioned, in order to secure the greatest possible participation of those personally engaged in each branch of social life. It will be for Parliament to safeguard not only the interests of the general public of consumers for whose representation on special boards and councils it will provide, but also the interests of the community as a whole in future generations.
“5. It will be for Parliament to determine the general lines of social policy and to make the laws; it will decide to what industries and services the principle of Socialization shall be applied and under what conditions; it will exercise supreme financial control, and will decide upon the allocation of new and additional capital. In the last resort, it will exercise the power of fixing prices.
“6. In the development and expansion of the productive life of the community, a large part will be played by the various organizations formed according to the productive occupations in which every healthy person will be engaged. Thus, provision must be made, in the manner hereinafter described, for the participation in the administration or service of representatives of all the different grades of workers, by hand or by brain, engaged in that particular industry or service. At the same time, each vocation, whether of workers by hand or of workers by brain, desires to regulate the conditions of its vocational life, whatever may be the industries or services among which its membership will find itself dispersed. Each distinct vocation may therefore group itself in a professional association, to which functions of regulation, of investigation, or of professional education may be entrusted by Parliament.
“7. The organizations into which those engaged in the various industries and services will group themselves, whether trade unions or professional associations, may be made the basis of a further organ of social and economic life.
“Alongside Parliament it may be desirable that there should be a National Industrial Council, composed of representatives of the various organizations of trades and professions into which the persons belonging to each occupation may voluntarily group themselves. Such a National Industrial Council would be free to discuss and criticize, to investigate and to suggest, and to present to Parliament any reports on which it may decide. Parliament may, from time to time, delegate to the National Industrial Council the drafting of measures applicable to industry as a whole, or of the regulations to be made under the authority of a statute.”
The Second International and Bolshevism
The British Labour Party was asked at the Geneva Conference to undertake the responsibility of inviting all national Socialist and Labour bodies not represented at Geneva to join like itself the Second International. An appeal was sent out signed in December 1920, by Messrs. A. Henderson, on behalf of the Labour Party, J. H. Thomas, and Harry Gosling, on behalf of the Trades Union Congress, and Ramsay MacDonald, as British International Secretary. This letter declared the position of the Second International and also of the British Labour Party in regard to Bolshevism in the following terms: