not be recorded here. But the working out of its characteristic and immediate purpose has resulted in one of the most remarkable changes in British politics. The Party foresaw from the beginning that under any free government the Socialist movement must unite for political purposes with the industrial organisations of the workers. That is the explanation of the battles in the Trade Union Congresses.
This policy is, indeed, but the carrying out of what Marx advised. Socialism cannot succeed whilst it is a mere creed; it must be made a movement. And it cannot become a movement until two things happen. It must be the organising power behind a confluence of forces each of which is converging upon it, but not all of which actually profess it as a consciously held belief; it must also gain the confidence of the mass of the working classes. The Social Democratic Federation neglected both of these tasks, the Independent Labour Party busied itself with both of them; the Social Democratic Federation drifted into a backwater, the Independent Labour Party kept in midstream. A study of the fates which overtook each of these bodies is one of the most fruitfully suggestive which offers itself to the student of politics.
When the din of these trade-union battles died away, the Trade Union Congress which met at Plymouth in 1899 resolved that a conference, to which all Socialist and trade-union bodies were to be summoned, should be held to discuss the possibility of union for political purposes.
