If there was a case as described 100 years ago, the veracity of Barltrope's reporting was doubted shortly after publication by D'Arcy in the Standard, then the incident was not appropriately dealt with.I feel sure that party democracy has matured and become confident enough to deal with any mis-use of democracy. Surely if the party moves to secrecy in such a fundamental issue it is only a short step to secrecy in other areas of the party. And what would that mean to a socialist society?