CHAPTER X
BREAK-UP OF CREEDS AND PARTIES
Even after the War, it seemed as if in this and other democratic countries, something like a restoration of pre-War conditions was feasible. The material havoc of the Great War was quickly repaired, many of the worst conditions of the Bad Peace were in process of correction: the monetary instability which impeded trade was in course of cure. Then came the Slump, worse, longer, and more general, than any previous one, and breaking upon peoples whose minds were no longer attuned to waiting for a natural recovery — after years of misery, poverty, and unemployment.
I am first concerned with the effect of this disaster upon the structure of political government, as I saw it in this country. The Liberal Party had already crumbled before the rise of a nominally Socialist Labour Party, placed in office, though hardly in power, by a popular vote largely drawn from former Liberals. The payment of Members helped to bring into keen politics the trade unions whose leaders saw their way to an honourable career in the House of Commons. The rank and file of the Labour Party are not Marxian or any other brand of Socialist, though they accept the title and send representatives to Conferences and Congresses which pass Socialist resolutions, Some of
