Conservatives. However, he thought that this Liberal influence was now on the decline, and said that if the Liberals attempted to strengthen the House of Lords, as suggested in the preamble to their resolution, abolishing its veto power, the Labour Party would be ready to vote against the government. The Labourites did, as a matter of fact, vote against this preamble, and the government was saved only because Balfour and the Conservatives lent it their support. It still remains to be seen if the Labourites will detach themselves from the Liberals on a really crucial question, one on which they know the Conservatives will remain in the opposition--in other words, whether they will do the only thing that can possibly show any real independence or make them a factor of first importance in the nation's politics, that is, overturn a government. Doubtless this day will come, but it does not seem to be at hand. This discussion was much intensified by the decision of the executive of the Labour Party (in order to retain the legal right to use trade-union funds for political purposes) to relieve Labour members of Parliament of their pledge to follow a common policy. This decision again was opposed by the majority of the "Independent" section including Hardie and Barnes, but favored by a minority, led by MacDonald. With the aid of the non-Socialistic element, however, it was carried by a large majority at the Labour Party's conference in 1911. Thus while one element is growing more radical another is growing more conservative and the breach between the Independents and the other Labourites is widening. Perhaps the closest and most active associate of Mr. MacDonald at nearly every point has been Mr. Philip Snowden. Even Mr. Snowden finally declared that a recent action of the Labour Party, when all but half a dozen of its members voted with the Liberals, against what Mr. Snowden states to have been the instructions of the Party conference, "finally completes their identity with official Liberalism." Mr. Snowden asserted that if the "Independents" would stand this they would stand anything, that the time had come to choose between principle and party, and that he was not ready to sacrifice the former for the latter.