Upon the Committee's re-appointment in grudging compliance with a branch resolution passed at the 1926 Annual Conference , the financially orthodox members resigned rather than submit their orthodoxy to the criticism of their fellow-committeemen , and the work contributed by the remaining members was brought to naught by manoeuvres of the Party Executive , inspired by the almost total lack of interest felt by that body in understanding the operations of finance , notwithstanding much platform oratory on the subject .sx A Lazy Myth .sx The " Living Wage " programme , aptly described by Ellen Wilkinson as a " myth " but " not an energising " " was launched at the same conference at which the Nationalisation reports were withdrawn from discussion .sx It perpetuates the wordy and deceptive unreality that characterised the Nationalisation reports .sx This report claims its proposals as a " frontal attack upon poverty , " but it resolves itself into a vague hope of the living wage being achieved after enormous administrative changes have taken place for which no method but general political propaganda is proposed .sx It rests for sanction upon a Commission of " the whole Labour movement " to fix a living wage , and it suggests no changes in financial policy to provide the colossal funds required for its operation , relying instead upon certain taxation expedients which any statistician with Inland Revenue data before him could prove totally insufficient even were its collection possible without violent revolution .sx The situation of the Independent Labour Party is in many respects equivocal .sx Its excursions into politics and economics proper are hopelessly crippled by the association of idealistic and unorthodox aims with complete orthodoxy in finance and economics .sx Its oratory denounces " unearned income , " whilst its Nationalisation proposals rest in important part upon attracting the savings of the small investor as a basis for credit issue which can only be done by offering an attractive " unearned income " on his money !sx Moreover , the I.L.P. allies itself with the Co-operative movement , one of whose chief attractions is the distribution of its trading surplus as dividends to its members .sx But the most serious blind spot in I.L.P. policy .sx lies in its present central activity the Living Wage programme which perpetuates the idea of livelihood only through the wage system , just at a time when the conception of a common human right to participation in the boundless wealth of the modern world is evoking a widespread response and when technical proposals for superseding the wage system the object of Socialism itself are being made .sx The new hope for humanity , that lies in directing the financial system to serve this beneficent and urgent purpose , finds no recognition in the I.L.P. vision .sx On vast political problems in the realm of international affairs the I.L.P. issues pronunciamentos of portentous solemnity , quite ill-formed , and not infrequently discomforting to the " native race " they desire to protect or encourage .sx It " demands " the withdrawal of all British troops at the moment when a long course of political and commercial activity has produced its explosion from the people who are being " developed .sx " It " demanded " the withdrawal of all British troops from the Rhineland , in spite of the protests of the " fraternal delegate " from the Rhineland at its Conference , who explained that the presence of the British troops there was the only check upon the excesses of the French troops , and that his people would be terribly injured by the British withdrawal !sx A Negligible Contribution ?sx Thus the contribution of the I.L.P. to the thinking of the day has been almost negligible ; and if thinking were the whole of life the I.L.P. could look for no future , nor would it be worth any man's while to expend himself in maintaining its name or its organisation .sx But thinking is not the whole of life .sx Who that has shared the enthusiasm out of which the I.L.P. was born , and who that has experienced the spirit which pervades I.L.P. Conferences beneath the mixture of ill-formed wrangling and lazy friendliness that characterises their intellectual work , can believe that a movement so deeply impelled by conscious sense of the community , so unselfish , and so fixed in the hearts of its adherents , can cease to have meaning whilst its beatific temper is not known in either of its immediate critics .sx The Labour Party is materialistic and bourgeois , respectable and cold .sx The Communist Party is equally materialistic , but sees the world solely as " worker .sx " It is relentless and unanswerable in its sullen fury .sx It is at least well :sx But its fire bursts up from unwholesome depths ; itdoes not glow from any central sun ; no man may warm his hands in its sulphurous blazes .sx How , then , may the divine fire , which certainly inspired the inception of the independent Labour Party , be retained to warm the hearts of men and women ; to blow sun-laden air into the refrigerated chambers of Eccleston Square ; and to convert the destructive heat of Communist hatred into the life-giving heat of human warmth ?sx England needs this function performed ; and if the I.L.P. will abandon its intellectual pretensions and , in psychological phrase , give up its " masculine role , " accepting instead its purely " feminine function , " it may do more in a year to bring about the changes in social structure that it so ardently desires than it will ever do if it persists in its course of intellectual dishonesty .sx It may " put its work out " without shame , for it will speak to the heart of men .sx Wage or Income .sx It is to be observed that however perverse , ignorant of technical work upon its own subjects , and verbose in its unrelated idealism the I.L.P. may be , it never moves away from the centre of community feeling .sx It can be trusted emotionally .sx Like Shakespeare , too , it knows that all men are the same more than they are different ; so that its wordy resolutions on the political enfranchisement of India ( or whatever may be the point of heat to which it addresses itself ) conceive the people , whoever they are , as a British constituency , and their feelings such as any man may meet in any street anywhere .sx It knows the world is one ; and all its internationalism , often ridiculous in point of expression , has this profound background .sx The I.L.P. puts out a " Living Wage " programme , hopeless as a technical document , and so insecure that it hastily peppers its Executive's resolutions at the last moment with the word " Income " instead of " Wage , " in anticipation of attack upon the point so unscrupulous in its devotion to the main objective .sx But what does that mean ?sx That its real care is for " Living .sx " Whether " wage " or " income " ; what mighty change of conception and technique the second word connotes , does not concern the I.L.P. one bit .sx The name for this faculty is genius ; its vehicle is the woman in man .sx The I.L.P. is out " that they might have life ; and that they might have it more abundantly .sx " The I.L.P. may have to change its name and pass through dissolution in expiation of its error .sx But if the men and women who compose that body will take upon themselves the function of seeing what society needs , feeling the moment ; and meeting .sx with unblenching denial the assurances of the unseeing and unfeeling that " it cannot be done , " their drive to genuine revolution of the anarchy called capitalism will be irresistible .sx But in this re-birth all depends upon their vision .sx If they so misconceive the aspirations of the modern human soul in the Christian West that they call for slavery under a huge centralised control because " that is Socialism " ; lend themselves to the horrible superstition that money is real and life must bow to it ; give way to standardisation under any pressure of expert argument ; support the insane assumption that the country which can send most of its wealth abroad is the most successful ; or give credence to any of the other lies that chain humanity down in material suffering , they will fail utterly , and will die the second death , from which there is no resurrection .sx But if the I.L.P. can rise to express the craving of man for freedom and its pains ; for the utmost decentralisation and humanisation of all industrial and political associations ; for economic satisfaction based upon the free use , apart from any labour , of the wealth piled up by the sweat and genius of all the ages ; for variety in every department of life :sx if it can so believe in its divine fire that it can re-create its own shibboleth to mean the utmost social well-being of all , by whatever political , industrial and economic framework which will give that result , and abandon its fixation on the particular form to which the conception of Socialism has been harnessed , it has a future , richer than its past , as maturity is richer than youth , for maturity is the period of social responsibility .sx THE .sx FOREIGN FIELD .sx IMPERIAL POLICY IN IRAQ .sx by F. SEYMOUR COCKS .sx THIS IS the fourth of a regular series of articles on Foreign Affairs which Mr. Seymour Cocks is contributing to the Socialist Review .sx A COUPLE of months ago I dealt with the position in Syria .sx I now wish to say something about Iraq and the fixed determination of British Imperialists to retain their privileged position in this part of the world .sx Upon this point British Foreign Policy has never altered .sx Nor have the views of the various statesmen who at one time or another have influenced that policy .sx Mr. Lloyd George has been known to vary his views and his principles , but upon this subject he has maintained an unnatural consistency .sx The late Lord Curzon could scarcely be termed a slavish admirer of Georgian policy , yet upon this question he was as rigid as his predecessor .sx Mr. Bonar Law told the world that he wished we had never gone to Mespot .sx ; he remained there all the same .sx In 1923 Mr. Baldwin promised to leave Iraq within four years ; the years have passed but still we stay .sx In order to secure our position at Bagdad and Mosul we have betrayed the Arabs of Syria , broken our promises to the people of Iraq , squandered L175,000,000 of the taxpayers' money , found ourselves on various occasions at cross-purposes with France and America , risked a war with Turkey , and rejected the opportunity of establishing a durable peace in the Middle East .sx Amidst all the shifts and changes of the inter-national scene the British Government has , on this point , been immovable .sx What is the meaning of this strange consistency ?sx What is the answer to this riddle ?sx The Turkish Petroleum Concession .sx Old Abdul Hamid first scented oil in Mosul .sx Abdul the Damned on his infernal throne , " as Sir William Watson politely called him , had a very shrewd nose for a bargain .sx So he took the oil rights of Mesopotamia from the State , put them in his privy purse and proceeded to grant concessions .sx But that was long ago and far away , and we need not dwell upon these ancient iniquities .sx There are plenty of modern ones to occupy .sx our attention .sx But the important point is this :sx Just prior to the war Sir Ernest Cassel of Frankfort , London and New York was engaged in an attempt to reconcile the conflicting interests of Germany and Britain .sx He got together an Anglo-German group which proceeded to form the Turkish Petroleum Company .sx In the fortunes of this company the British Government took an active interest .sx It did more it took an active share .sx On the direct initiative of the Government half the shares were acquired by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company ( in which the Government holds a controlling interest) .sx The remaining shares were divided equally between the Royal Dutch-Shell ( Lord Bearsted , Sir Henri Deterding , Mr. Gulbenkian , etc ) and the Deutsche Bank .sx In June , 1914 , this company obtained from the Grand Vizier a letter promising them the right to exploit the oil of Mosul and Mesopotamia .sx It was a promise only :sx no consideration passed and the transaction was not completed .sx Such was the position on the outbreak of the war .sx Mosul in the French Sphere .sx And now we made a great mistake from the oil magnates' point of view .sx On May 16th , 1916 , we signed the Sykes-Picot Secret Treaty with France .sx By this treaty we were authorised to establish such administration as we desired in the provinces of Basra and Bagdad .sx