c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 231 The state of things, however, was even more complicated. Some other changes in positions are worth mentioning.The successful emergence of parliamentary government in1917was followed by the crisis of parliamentary government in the 1920s. In addition to the Conservatives, the split Liberal Party, and the Social Democrats, two more parties made their entrance into parliament, namely, the Agrarian Party and the Communist Party. This radically influenced the basis for political constellations and made the situation in parliament very unstable. A long line of minority governments followed. When the new rules for universal and equal suffrage were applied in the election of 1921, the Social Democrats won new seats while the Conservatives were weakened.At the same time a movement took place in the opposite direction by the old leftwing majority being weakened in two respects. Firstly, the Communist Party created a strategic problem for the Social Democrats, namely, to demarcate their territory to the left without losing voters by arguing for policies that could be interpreted as too right wing. Secondly, the relationship between the Social Democrats and the split Liberal Party became considerably more hostile. Before the full emergence of parliamentary government and universal suffrage between 1917-21, a prerequisite for cooperation between Liberals and Social Democrats had been a joint policy in legislative matters concerning the trade unions. In the 1920s, these issues had become a substantial obstacle to left-wing co-operation. Now the Liberals kept a considerable distance to their former brothers-in-arms, the Social Democrats, when it came to opposition to legislation concerning collective agreements and establishing a labour court. Now, the Liberals declared that in contrast to the Social Democrats they were in favour of the “legal development of the contract of service”.The opposition at the parliaments of 1910 and 1911 had been based, among other reasons, on the claim that the time for labour legislation was not yet
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