British general elections, the pollsters, gamblers and stock-market speculators were laying odds on a Labour victory. Only a week before the same experts were declaring it a neck-and-neck race and suggesting that chances for the Tories were on the rise. Others -- far, far to the left -- were acting as if it didn't really make much difference which party won, there was little to distinguish one from the other.
The publishers of World Outlook see no point, a few days before the voters go to the polls, of placing any bets. One of the reasons, of course, is lack of money.: Yet, if wishes can have any influence on the. outcome, we hope most strongly for a Labour victory. We think it will make a difference which side wins.
First of all, on the international scene Labour coming to power will have a heartening: effect on: workers throughout the: world. This can have a favorable influence in their own struggles.
In Canada and. the United States the consequences can be eg~ pécially important. Labour's victory in England. will put fresh steam in the New Democratic party organized by the Canadian trade unions. In the United States it will inevitably revive interest in the possibility of founding a Labor party there and bring many a militant to once again demand implementation of the many resolutions for a Labor party to be found in union minutes and convention proceedings. The labor bureaucrats in both North American countries will find it harder to justify their continued indifference to independent political action or their ties with such reactionary formations as the Democratic machine.
But in Britain itself the experience is of prime importance. This is net due to any loyalty to the principles of socialism on the part of Harold Wilson -- he has none. It is because a Labour vic= tory is the most favorable way for the British working class to learn the limitations of the Labour movement, as it stands today, and the need to: break through these limitations. A Labour victory offers the most fertile possibilities for forming a left wing standing squarely on the program of revolutionary socialism. It offers the best possibilities, moreover, for forming a left wing on the top rungs of the ladder leading to power. A defeat for Labour, on the other hand, would constitute a bitter setback for the left wing that is even now in gestation.
The British working class stood in the forefront during the whole epoch of the rise and consolidation of capitalism..-Then it- -. lost impetus. Are we now to see this sector of the proletariat | rise again to inspire the whole world with the vision of socialism in a major industrial country? We hope SO«
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