ABSTRACT
The Independent Labour Party naturally struck a more challenging note, attacking Liberals and Conservatives alike as existing to “protect the interests of the rich”, and to keep the workers divided. At the General Election of 1900, the Conservatives had returned 334 M.P.s, and Chamberlain’s Liberal Unionists 68, making a block of 402 Tories against 184 Liberals and ‘Lib.-Labs’, 2 Labour Members, and 82 Irish Nationalists. This immense Tory majority had been reduced from 134 to 74 by the end of 1905, chiefly as a result of Liberal by-election victories. Of the 429, the Labour Representation Committee, feeling entitled to call itself the ‘Labour Party’, accounted for 30, and the ‘Lib.-Labs.’ numbered about 24. There were thus 375 Liberals, apart from ‘Lib.-Labs.’, out of a total of 670 M.P.s. Of the 30 successful Labour Party candidates, including one miner who joined the Party after election, only five were elected in three-cornered contests.
