WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 1917

136 WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
British Labour Deputation should accompany the French
party with the same object. This was done, and Will Thorne
and James O'Grady joined the Mission.
Their prospects of success in Russia were not improved
by the action of some of their colleagues at home. British
Socialism was then divided in opinion, the majority supporting
the War, while the pacifist minority, strongly represented
in the Independent Labour Party, whose leading figure was
Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, devoted itself to criticising and
creating difficulties and generally weakening the morale of
the nation. When the delegates of the Labour Party were in
Russia, a member of the I.L.P. sent a message to a Russian
Socialist, asserting that they were the paid emissaries of the
British Government, and not real representatives of British
Labour. This gave rise to violent attacks on them in the
Russian Socialist Press — a dangerous effect in a country
where discipline had vanished and murder by a suddenly excited
mob was a commonplace occurrence. As Sir George
Buchanan records in his book, "My Mission to Russia":
"The matter was eventually put right by Mr. Hyndman, who
requested Kerensky by telegraph to 'contradict most emphatically
lying statement of the I.L.P.' "
Meantime, discussion was on foot as to the holding of an
international Socialist Conference at Stockholm. This suggestion
had arisen as follows: the international confederation
of the Socialist organisations in various countries —
known as the Second International — which existed before
the War and had its headquarters at Brussels, had been temporarily
scattered by the German invasion of Belgium. Its
offices were abandoned, and its chief officials escaped to The
Hague. But efforts were made to revive it by the Dutch and
Scandinavian Socialists, and in April, 1917, a joint Dutch-
Scandinavian Committee, presided over by the Swedish Socialist
statesman, Mr. Branting, issued an invitation to all