ABSTRACT
Until 1918 the words “Khaki Election” meant the General Election of 1900, held in the heat of the South African War. The year 1919, the first of the transition from war to peace, was crowded with a confusion of events at home and abroad. In international affairs, it was the year of the Peace Conference in Paris, of the signing of the Peace Treaty and of the setting up of the League of Nations and of the International Labour Organisation. Then, in May, came the publication of the Peace Terms, followed promptly by a repudiation by the Labour Party. The Labour movement issued what was in effect a threat of concerted direct action designed to coerce the Government into the adoption of the policy which it put forward. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter, “Black Friday” brought an epoch in the Labour movement’s history to an end.
