Trades Union Socialist
Membership Membership Total
1900-1 353,070 22,861 375,931
1901-2 455,450 13,861 169,311
1902-3 847,315 13,835 861,150
1903-4 956,025 13,775 969,800
1904-5 885,270 14,730 900,000
1905-6 904,496 16,784 921,280
1906-7 975,182 20,885 *998,338

*This total includes 2,271 co-operators"[1167]

Apparently only one-fiftieth of the members of the Labour party are
Socialists, but in reality their proportion is very much larger,
because only a few working men with Socialistic leanings have actually
joined a Socialist party. "When the daily Press states that out of a
million affiliated members of the Labour party there are only 17,000
Socialists, its readers naturally inquire, 'How then is it that there
are at least twenty Socialists among its thirty M.P.s?' The reply is
that as the trade union candidates were elected by the ballot of the
members of their respective societies, it must be supposed that those
candidates with Socialist views were the most acceptable to the
majority of members. This situation was strikingly reflected in the
results of the election of 1906. The votes cast for declared
Socialists account for 232,378, or 70 per cent. of the total Labour
Representation Committee poll of 331,280, whilst of the whole Labour
poll, comprising that of the L.R.C., Scottish workers, miners, trades
union group, and Socialists, the votes for declared Socialists
accounted for 274,631 out of 530,643, or nearly 52 per cent."[1168]
"The Labour party is not a Socialist party yet, but those who possess
an ear for the great changes now taking place in the depths of the
nation will understand that the Labour party is going to be a
Socialist party one day."[1169]

It seems likely that the more or less Socialist Labour party in
Parliament will soon absorb practically the whole trade union group.
"Of the eighteen miners' representatives in the House of Commons
fifteen are in the trade union group. In October 1907, at the
Conference of the Federated Miners' Associations, a resolution was
adopted declaring that the time had come for joining the Labour party
and ordering a ballot of the whole Federation area to be taken. It is
practically a foregone conclusion that the proposal will be carried,
in which case the fifteen miners' representativ