But
gradually the organisation was tightened up, and in 1907 a scheme was
adopted which gave twenty votes each to the leading nations, and
proportionately fewer to the others. Moreover a permanent Bureau was
established at Brussels, with Emile Vandervelde, the distinguished
leader of the Belgian Socialists, later well known in England as the
Ministerial representative of the Belgian Government during the war, as
Chairman. In England, where the Socialist and Trade Union forces were
divided, it was necessary to constitute a special joint committee in
order to raise the British quota of the cost of the Bureau, and to
elect and instruct the British delegates. It was decided by the Brussels
Bureau that the 20 British votes should be allotted, 10 to the Labour
Party, 4 to the I.L.P., 4 to the British Socialist Party (into which the
old S.D.F. had merged), and 2 to the Fabian Society, and the British
Section of the International Socialist Bureau was, and still remains,
constituted financially and electorally on that basis.
In France and in several other countries the internal differences
between sections of the Socialist Party have been carried to far greater
lengths than have ever been known in England. In France there have been
hostile groups of Socialist representatives in the Chamber of Deputies
and constant internecine opposition in electoral campaigns.
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