Labor Conference

At venerable Gloucester, assembled a conference of the Independent Labor Party, which is the mother of the Parliamentary Labor Party headed by ex-Premier Ramsay MacDonald.

With the leaders fully convinced that, in 1929, the Labor Party will again score a heavy election victory, debate on whether the Party should or should not accept office with a minority in the House of Commons (as was the case with the last Government) assumed a seriousness out of proportion to the imminence of the subject. Ex-Premier MacDonald reserved his judgment. The extremist, John Wheatley, was of the opinion that the Government should not accept office except with an absolute majority of the House.

On the final day of the short session, an indecisive debate was held on whether, when any industry or other concern is nationalized, the owners should be recompensed or suffer expropriation. Animated discussion left the matter in the air.

Two resolutions were then moved; one calling upon the Government to accept the offer of C. R. Das, a leader of the Indian Swaraj (home rule) movement, to cooperate with the Indian Government; the other, a motion expressing the belief that the Sudan question (TIME, Oct. 6) should be settled by the League of Nations and that Britain should give Egypt full independence.