ABSTRACT
In 1908 the Labour Party was virtually a new party, trying out its new-found strength and only beginning upon the task of building up the political Labour movement as a nationwide force. In many places the political the industrial work of the movement was in the hands of the local Trades Council, or of a local Trades and Labour Council which was simply the Trades Council plus the local I.L.P. branch and perhaps one or two other bodies. Labour had become an independent party; but the Labour Members of Parliament owed their seats in the House of Commons to a combined Liberal and Labour vote. The Labour Party, in the form in which it exists to-day, dates essentially from the new Party Constitution of 1918. the new Labour Party Constitution of 1918 was in part the outcome of the changed relationship of the I.L.P. to the party, on account of the divergent war attitudes of the two bodies.
