Cornell University Library HX 11.F5P4 The history of the Fabian society. mil' iniiiii ninillllil 3 1924 002 405 599 THE LIBRARY OF THE NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924002405599 The History of the Fabian Society. Cornell University Library HX 11.F5P4 The history of the Fabian society. 3 1924 002 405 599 The History of the Fabian Society By Edward R. Pease Secretary for Twenty-five Years With Twelve Illustrations NEW YORK EP-DUTTON & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Preface THE History of the Fabian Society will perhaps chiefly interest the members, present and past, of the Society. But in so far as this book describes the growth of Socialist theory in England, and the influence of Socialism on the political thought of the last thirty years, I hope it will appeal to a wider circle. I have described in my book the care with which the Fabian Tracts have been revised and edited by members of the Executive Committee. Two of my colleagues, Sidney Webb and Bernard Shaw, have been good enough to revise this volume in like manner, and I have to thank them for innumerable corrections in style, countless suggestions of better words and phrases, and a number of amphfications and additions, some of which I have accepted without specific acknowledgment, whilst others for one reason or another are to be found in notes; and I am par- ticularly grateful to Bernard Shaw for two valuable memoranda on the history of Fabian Economics, and on Guild Socialism, which are printed as an appendix. The MS. or proofs have also been read by Mrs. Sidney Webb, Mrs. Bernard Shaw, Sir Sydney Olivier, 6 Preface Graham Wallas, W. Stephen Sanders, and R. C. K. Ensor, to each of whom my cordial thanks are due for suggestions, additions, and corrections. To Miss Bertha Newcombe I am obliged for per- mission to reproduce the interesting sketch which forms the frontispiece. E. R. P. The Pendicle, LiMPSFIELD, Surrey, January, 19 16. Contents Chapter I The Sources of Fabian Socialism PAGE The ideas of the early eighties — ^The epoch of Evolution — Sources of Fabian ideas — Positivism — Henry George — John Stuart Mill— Robert Owen— Karl Marx— The Democratic Federation — " The Christian Socialist " — Thomas Davidson 13 Chapter II The Foundations of the Society : 1883-4 Frank Podmore and Ghost-hunting — ^Thomas Davidson and his circle — ^The preliminary meetings — The Fellowship of the New Life — Formation of the Society — ^The career of the New Fellowship . . .28 Chapter III The Early Days : 1884-6 The use of the word Socialism — Approval of the Deiho- cratic Federation — ^Tract No. i — ^The Fabian Motto — Bernard Shaw joins — ^His first Tract — ^The Industrial Remuneration Conference — Sidney Webb and Sydney Olivier become members — ^Mrs. Annie Besant — Shaw's second Tract — The Tory Gold controversy — " What Socialism Is " — ^The Fabian Conference of 1886 — Sidney Webb's first contribution, " The Govern- ment Organisation of Unemployed Labour " . . 37 8 Contents Chapter IV The Formation of Fabian Policy: 1886-9 FAGB The factors of success ; priority of date ; the men who made it — The controversy over policy — ^The Fabian Parliamentary League — " Facts for SociaUsts " — ^The adoption of the Basis — ^The seven Essapsts in com- mand — Lord Haldane — ^The " Essays " as Lectures — How to train for Public Life — Fabians on the London School Board — " Facts for Londoners " — Municipal Socialism—" The Eight Hours Bill " . . .60 Chapter V " Fabian Essays" and the Lancashire Campaign: 1890-3 " Fabian Essays " published — Astonishing success — ^A new presentation of Socialism — Reviewed after twenty- five years — Henry Hutchinson — ^The Lancashire Cam- paign — Mrs. Besant withdraws — " Fabian News " . 86 Chapter VI "To your tents, O Israel": 1894-1900 Progress of the Society — ^The Independent Labour Party — ^Local Fabian Societies — University Fabian Societies — ^London Groups and Samuel Butler — The first Fabian Conference — ^Tracts and Lectures — The 1892 Election Manifesto — ^The Newcastle Program — The Fair Wages Policy — The " Fortnightly " article — The Intercepted Letter of 1906 .... 101 Chapter VII " Fabianism and the Empire" : 1900-I The Library and Book Boxes — Parish Councils — ^The Workmen's Compensation Act — The Hutclunson Trust — ^The London School of Economics — Educa- tional Lectures — Electoral Policy — ^The controversy over the South African War — The publication of " Fabianism and the Empire " . . . .120 Contents 9 Chapter VIII Education : 1902-5, and the Labour Party : 1900-15 Housing — " The Education muddle and the way out " — ""^ge Supporting the Conservatives — The Education Acts of 1902 and 1903 — Feeding School Children — ^The Labour Representation Committee formed — ^The Fabian Election Fund — ^Will Crooks elected in 1910 — A Fabian Cabinet Minister — Resignation of Graham Wallas — The younger generation : H. W. Macrosty, J. F. Oakeshott, John W. Martin — Municipal Drink Trade — ^Tariff Reform — ^The Decline of the Birth-rate 139 Chapter IX The Episode of Mr. Wells : 1906-8 His lecture on administrative areas — " Faults of the Fabian " — ^The Enquiry Committee — The Report, and the Reply — ^The real issue. Wells v. Shaw — ^The women intervene — ^The Basis altered — The new Executive — ^Mr. Wells withdraws — His work for Socialism — The writing of Fabian Tracts . . .163 Chapter X The Policy of Expansion: 1 907- 1 2 Statistics of growth — ^The psychology of the Recruit — Famous Fabians — The Arts Group — ^The Nursery — The Women's Group — Provincial Fabian Societies — University Fabian Societies — ^London Groups revived — Annual Conferences — ^The Summer School — ^The story of " Socialist Unity " — The Local Government Information Bureau — The Joint Standing Committee — Intervention of the International Socialist Bureau i8j Chapter XI The Minority Report, Syndicalism and Research : 1909-15 The emergence of Mrs. Sidney Webb — The Poor Law Commission — The Minority Report — Unemployment — The National Committee for the Prevention of lo Contents rAGB Destitution — " Vote against the House of Lords " — Bernard Shaw retires — Death of Hubert Bland — Opposition to the National Insurance Bill — The Fabian Reform Committee — The " New Statesman " ^The Research Department — " The Rural Problem " — " The Control of Industry "— Syndicalism— The Guildsmen — ^Final Statistics — ^The War . . .212 Chapter XII The Lessons of Thirty Years Breaking the spell of Marxism — A French verdict — Origin of Revisionism in Germany — ^The British School of Socialism — Mr. Ernest Barker's summary — Mill versus Marx — ^The Fabian Method — ^Making Socialists or making Socialism — ^The life of propa- gandist societies — ^The prospects of Socialist Unity — The future of Fabian ideas — ^The test of Fabian success ........ 235 Appendix I A. On the History of Fabian Economics. By Bernard Shaw 258 B. On Guild Socialism. By Bernard Shaw . . . 265 Appendix II The Basis of the Fabian Society .... 269 Appendix III List of the names and the years of office of the ninety-six members of the Executive Committee, 1884-1915 . 270 Appendix IV Complete List of Fabian publications, 1884-1915, with names of authors ...... Index 273 285 Illustrations frontispiece, from a drawing by Miss Bertha Newcombe in i8gs Mrs. Annie Besant Hubert Bland William Clarke . (Sir) Sydney Olivier G. Bernard Shaw Graham Wallas . Sidney Webb Edward R. Pease Frank Podmore . Mrs. Sidney Webb H. G. Welis The Seven Essayists From a photograph 86 37 lOI 60 120 139 drawing 185 photograph 235 i> 28 It 212 ,, 163 The History of the Fabian Society Chapter I The Sources of Fabian Socialism The ideas of the early eighties — ^The epoch of Evolution — Sources of Fabian ideas — Positivism — Henry George — John Stuart Mill — Robert Owen — Karl Marx — The Demo- cratic Federation — " The Christian Socialist " — Thomas Davidson. " T)RITAIN as a whole never was more tranquil fj and happy," said the " Spectator," then the organ of sedate Liberalism and enlightened Progress, in the summer of 1882. " No class is at war with society or the government : there is no disaffection anywhere, the Treasury is fairly full, the accumulations of capital are vast " ; and then the writer goes on to compare Great Britain with Ireland, at that time under the iron heel of coercion, with Pamell and hundreds of his followers in jail, whilst outrages and murders, like those of Maamtrasma, were almost everyday occurrences. Some of the problems of the early eighties are with us yet. Ireland is still a bone of contention between poUtical parties : the Channel tunnel is no nearer completion ; and then as now, when other topics are 13 14 History of the Fabian Society exhausted, the " Spectator " can fill up its columns with Thought Transference and Psychical Research. But other problems which then were vital, are now almost forgotten. Electric lighting was a doubtful novelty : Mr. Bradlaugh's refusal to take the oath excited a controversy which now seems incredible. Robert Louis Stevenson can no longer be adequately described as an " accomplished writer," and the introduction of female clerks into the postal service by Mr. Fawcett has ceased to raise alarm lest the courteous practice of always allowing ladies to be victors in an argument should perforce be abandoned. But in September of the same year we find a cloud on the horizon, the prelude of a coming storm. The Trade Union Congress had just been held and the leaders of the working classes, with apparently but Uttle discussion, had passed a resolution asking the Government to institute an enquiry with a view to relaxing the stringency of Poor Law administration. This, said the " Spectator," is beginning " to tamper with natural conditions." " There is no logical halting-place between the theory that it is the duty of the State to make the poor comfortable, and socialism." Another factor in the thought of those days attracted but little attention in the Press, though there is a long article in the " Spectator" at the beginning of 1882. on " the ever-increasing wonder " of that strange faith, " Positivism." It is difficult for the present generation to realise how large a space in the minds of the young men of the eighties was occupied by the reUgion invented by Auguste Comte. Of this however more must be said on a later page. But perhaps the most significant feature in the periodical Uterature of the time is what it omits. April, 1882, is memorable for the death of Charles The Sources of Fabian Socialism 1 5 Darwin, incomparably the greatest of nineteenth- century Englishmen, if greatness be measured by the effects of his work on the thought of the world. The " Spectator " printed a secondary article which showed some appreciation of the event. But in the monthly reviews it passed practically tumoticed. It is true that Darwin was buried in Westminster Abbey, but even in 1882, twenty-three years after the publication of the " Origin of Species," evolution was regarded as a somewhat dubious theorem which respectable people were wise to ignore. In the monthly reviews we find the same odd mixture of articles apposite to present problems, and articles utterly out of date. The organisation of agriculture is a perennial, and Lady Vemey's " Peasant Proprietorship in France " (" Contemporary," January, 1882), Mr. John Rae's " Co-operative Agriculture in Germany " (" Contemporary,' ' March, 1882), and Professor Sedley Taylor's " Profit-Sharing in Agricul- ture " (" Nineteenth Century," October, 1882) show that change in the methods of exploiting the soil is leaden-footed and lagging. Problems of another class, centring round " the Family," present much the same aspect now as they did thirty years ago. In his " Infant Mortality and Married Women in Factories," Professor Stanley Jevons (" Contemporary," January, 1882) proposes that mothers of children under three years of age should be excluded from factories, and we are at present perhaps even farther from general agreement whether any measure on these lines ought to be adopted. But when we read the articles on Socialism — more numerous than might be expected at that early date — we are in another world. Mr. Samuel Smith, m.p., writing on " Social Reform " in the " Nineteenth Century " for May, 1883, says that : " Our country is 1 6 History of the Fabian Society still comparatively free from Commimism and Nihilism and similar destructive movements, but who can tell how long this will continue ? We have a festering mass of human wretchedness in all our great towns, which is the natural hotbed of such anarchical move- ments : all the great continental countries are full of this explosive material. Can we depend on our country keeping free from the infedtion when we have far more poverty in our midst than the neighbouring European States ? " Emigration and temperance reform, he thinks, may avert the danger. The Rev. Samuel (later Canon) Bamett in the same review a month earlier advocated Free Libraries and graduated taxation to pay for free education, under the title of " Practicable SociaHsm." In April, 1883, Emile de Lavelaye described with alarm the " Progress of Socialism." " On the Continent," he wrote, " Socialism is said to be everywhere." To it he attributed with remarkable inaccuracy, the agrarian movement in Ireland, and with it he connected the fact that Henry George's new book, " Progress and Poverty," was selhng by thousands "in an ultra popular form " in the back streets and alleys of England. And then he goes on to allude to Prince Bismarck's " abominable proposition to create a fund for pensioning invalid workmen by a monopoly of tobacco " ! Thirty years ago politics were only intermittently concerned with social problems. On the whole the view prevailed, at any rate amongst the leaders, that Government should interfere in such matters as little as possible. Pauperism was still to be stamped out by ruthless deterrence : education had been only recently and reluctantly taken in hand : factory inspection alone was an accepted State function. Lord Beaconsfield was dead, and he had forgotten The Sources of Fabian Socialism 17 his zeal for social justice long before he attained power. Gladstone, then in the zenith of his fame, never took any real interest in social questions as we now under- stand them. Lord Salisbury was an aristocrat and thought as an aristocrat. John Bright viewed in- dustrial life from the standpoint of a Lancashire mill- owner. William Edward Forster, the creator of national education, a Chartist in his youth, had become the gaoler of ParneU and the protagonist of coercion in Ireland. Joseph Chamberlain alone seemed to reaUse the significance of the social problem, and unhappily political events were soon to deflect his career from what then seemed to be its appointed course. The political parties therefore offered very little attraction to the young men of the early eighties, who, viewing our social system with the fresh eyes of youth, saw its cruelties and its absurdities and judged them, not as older men, by comparison with the worse cruelties and greater absurdities of earlier days, but by the standard of common fairness and common sense, as set out in the lessons they had learned in their schools, their imiversities, and their churches. It is nowadays not easy to recollect how wide was the intellectual gulf which separated the young generation of that period from their parents. " The Origin of Species," pubHshed in 1859, inaugurated an intellectual revolution such as the world had not known since Luther nailed his Theses to the door of All Saints' Church at Wittenberg. The older folk as a rule refused to accept or to consider the new doctrine. I recollect a botanical Fellow of the Royal Society who, in 1875, told me that he had no opinions on Darwin's hypothesis. The young men of the time I am-describing grew up with the new ideas and accepted them as a matter of course. Herbert Spencer, then 1 8 History of the Fabian Society deemed the greatest of English thinkers, was pointing out in portentous phraseology the enormous significance of Evolution. Professor Huxley, in brilliant essays, was turning to ridicule the simple-minded credulity of Gladstone and his contemporaries. Our parents, who read neither Spencer nor Huxley, lived in an intellectual world which bore no relation to our own ; and cut adrift as we were from the intellectual moorings of our upbringings, recognising, as we did, that the older men were useless as guides in reUgion, in science, in philosophy because they knew not evolution, we also felt instinctively that we could accept nothing on trust from those who still believed j that the early chapters of Genesis accurately described the origin of the universe, and that we had to discover somewhere for ourselves what were the true principles of the then recently invented science of sociology. One man there was who professed to offer us an answer, Auguste Comte. He too was pre-Darwinian, but his philosophy accepted science, future as well as past. John Stuart Mill, whose word on his own sub- jects was then almost law, wrote of him with respectful admiration. His followers were known to number amongst them some of the ablest thinkers of the day. The " Religion of Humanity " offered solutions for all the problems that faced us. It suggested a new heaven, of a sort, and it proposed a new earth, free from all the inequalities of wealth, the preventable suffering, the reckless waste of effort, which we saw around us. At any rate, it was worth examination ; and most of the free-thinking men of that period read the " Positive Polity " and the other writings of the founder, and spent some Sunday mornings at the little conventicle in Lamb's Conduit Street, or attended on Simday evenings the Newton Hall lectures of Frederic Harrison. The Sources of Fabian Socialism 1 9 Few could long endure the absurdities of a made-up theology and a make-believe religion : and the Utopia designed by Comte was as impracticable and un- attractive as Utopias generally are. But the critical and destructive part of the case was sound enough. Here was a man who challenged the existing order of society and pronounced it wrong. It was in his view based on conventions, on superstitions, on regula- tions which were aU out of date ; society should be reorganised in the light of pure reason ; the anarchy of competition must be brought to an end ; mankind should recognise that order, good sense, science, and, he added, religion freed from superstition, could turn the world into a place where all might live together in comfort and happiness. Positivism proposed to attain its Utopia by moralis- ing the capitalists, and herein it showed no advance on Christianity, which for nineteen centuries had in vain preached social obligation to the rich. The new creed could not succeed where the old, with all its tremendous sanctions, had completely failed. We wanted something fresh, some new method of dealing with the inequalities of wealth. Emile de Lavelaye was quite correct in attributing significance to the pubUcation of " Progress and Poverty," though the seed sown by Henry George took root, not in the slums and alleys of our cities — ^no intellectual seed of any sort can germinate in the sickly, sunless atmosphere of slums — but in the minds of people who had sufficient leisure and education to think of other things than breadwinning. Henry George proposed to abolish poverty by political action : that was the new gospel which came from San Fran- cisco in the early eighties. " Progress and Poverty " was published in America in 1879, and its author visited England at the end of 1881. Socialism hardly 20 History of the Fabian Society existed at that time in English-speaking countries, but the early advocates of land taxation were not then, as they usually are now, uncompromising individuaUsts. " Progress and Poverty " gave an extraordinary impetus to the poUtical thought of the time. It pro- posed to redress the wrongs suffered by the working classes as a whole : the poverty it considered was the poverty of the wage workers as a class, not the desti- tution of the unfortunate and downtrodden individuals. It did not merely propose, hke philanthropy and the Poor Law, to relieve the acute suffering of the outcasts of civilisation, those condemned to wretchedness by the incapacity, the vice, the folly, or the sheer mis- fortune of themselves or their relations. It suggested a method by which wealth would correspond approxi- mately with worth ; by which the reward of labour would go to those that laboured ; the idleness alike of rich and poor would cease ; the abundant wealth created by modem industry would be distributed with something like fairness and even equaUty, amongst those who contributed to its production. Above all, this tremendous revolution was to be accomplished by a poUtical method, applicable by a majority of the voters, and capable of being drafted as an Act of Parliament by any competent lawyer. To George belongs the extraordinary merit of recognising the right way of social salvation. The Socialists of earlier days had proposed segregated communities ; the Co-operators had tried voluntary associations ; the Positivists advocated moral suasion ; the Chartists favoured force, physical or poUtical ; the Marxists talked revolution and remembered the Paris Commune. George wrote in a land where the people ruled themselves, not only in fact but also in name. The United States in the seventies was not yet dominated by trusts and controlled by millionaires. The Sources of Fabian Socialism 2 1 Indeed even now that domination and control, dan- gerous and disastrous as it often is, could not withstand for a moment any widespread uprising of the popular will. Anyway, George recognised that in the Western States political institutions could be moulded to suit the will of the electorate ; he believed that the majority desired to seek their own well-being and this could not fail to be also the well-being of the com- munity as a whole. From Henry George I think it may be taken that the early Fabians learned to asso- ciate the new gospel with the old political method. But when we came to consider the plan proposed by George we quickly saw that it would not carry us far. Land may be the source of all wealth to the mind of a settler in a new country. To those whose working day was passed in Threadneedle Street and Lombard Street, on the floor of the Stock Exchange, and in the Bank of England, land appears to bear no relation at all to wealth, and the allegation that the whole surplus of production goes automatically to the landowners is obviously untrue. George's political economy was old-fashioned or absurd ; and his solution of the problem of poverty could not withstand the simplest criticism. Taxation to extinction of the rent bl English land would only affect a small fraction oi England's wealth. There was another remedy in the field. Socialism was talked about in the reviews : some of us knew that an obscure Socialist movement was stirring into life in London. And above all John Stuart MiU had spoken very respectfully of Socialism in his " Political Economy," which then held unchallenged supremacy as an exposition of the science. If, he wrote, " the choice were to be made between Communism^ with * The words Communism and Socialism were interchangeable at that period, e.g. the " Manifesto of the Communist Party," by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 1848., 22 History of the Fabian Society- all its chances, and the present state of society with all its sufferings and injustices, if the institution of private property necessarily carried with it as a conse- quence that the produce of labour should be appor- tioned as we now see it almost in inverse proportion to labour, the largest portions to those who have never worked at all, the next largest to those whose work is almost nominal, and so in descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as the work grows harder and more disagreeable until the most fatiguing and exhausting bodily labour cannot count with certainty on being able to earn even the necessities of life ; if this or Communism were the alternative, all the difficulties, great or small, of Communism would be but as dust in the balance."^ And again in the next paragraph : " We are too ignorant, either of what individual agency in its best form or Socialism in its best form can accomplish, to be qualified to decide which of the two will be the ultimate form of human society." More than thirty years had passed since this had been written, and whilst the evils of private property, so vividly depicted by Mill, showed no signs of mitiga- tion, the remedies he anticipated had made no sub- stantial progress. The co-operation of the Rochdale Pioneers had proved a magnificent success, but its sphere of operations was now clearly seen to be confined within narrow limits. Profit-sharing then as now was a sickly plant barely kept alive by the laborious efforts of benevolent professors. Mill's indictment of the capitalist system, in regard to its effects on social life, was so powerful, his treatment of the primitive socialism and communism of his day so sympathetic, that it is surprising how little it prepared the way for the reception of the new ideas. But to some of his * " Political Economy," Book II, Chap, i. Sec. 3. The Sources of Fabian Socialism 2 3 readers, at any rate, it suggested that there was an alternative to the capitaUstic system, and that Socialism or Commtmism was worthy of examination. ^ The Socialism of Robert Owen had made a profound impression on the working people of England half a century earlier, but the tradition of it was confined to those who had heard its prophet. Owen, one of the greatest men of his age, had no sense of art ; his innumerable writings are unreadable ; and both his later excursions into spiritualism, and the failure of his communities and co-operative enterprises, had clouded his reputation amongst those outside the range of his personality. In later years we often came across old men who had sat at his feet, and who rejoiced to hear once more something resembling his teachings : but I do not think that, at the beginning, the Owenite tradition had any influence upon us. Karl Marx died in London on the 14th March, 1883, but nobody in England was then aware that the greatest figure in international politics had passed away. It is true that Marx had taken a prominent part in founding the International at that historic meeting in St. Martin's Town Hall on September 28th, 1864. The real significance of that episode was over- rated at the time, and when the International dis- appeared from European politics in 1872 the whole thing was forgotten. In Germany Marxian Socialism was already a force, and it was attracting attention in England, as we have seen. But the personality of Marx must have been antipathetic- to the English workmen whom he knew, or else he failed to make them understand his ideas : at any rate, his sociaUsm fell on deaf ears, and it may be said to have made no lasting impression on the 1 William Morris attributed to Mill his conversion to Socialism. See J. W. Mackail's " Life," Vol. II, p. 79. ' 24 History of the Fabian Society leaders of English wotking-class thought. Though he was residen t in England for thirt y-four^yea js, Marx remained a rt^ennantoTEe"last. ^ "Bis writmp"werenof "IFaiisTateaTnto iinglish at -this^eriod, and Mr. Hynd- man's " England for All," published in 1881, which was the first presentation of his ideas in Enghsh, did not even mention his name. This book was in fact an extremely moderate proposal to remedy " something seriously amiss in the conditions of our everyday life," and the immediate programme was no more than an eight hours working day, free and compulsory edu- cation, compulsory construction of working-class dwellings, and cheap " transport " for working-class passengers. It was the imauthorised programme of the Democratic Federation which had been founded by Mr. Hyndman in 1881. " Socialism Made Plain," the social and political Manifesto of the Democratic Federation (undated, but apparently issued in 1883), is a much stronger docimient. It deals with the dis- tribution of the National Income, giving the workers' share as 300 out of 1300 millions sterling, and demands that the workers should " educate, agitate, organise " in order to get their own. Evidently it attracted some attention, since we find that th.6 second edition of a pamphlet " Reply " by Samuel Smith, m.p., then a person of substantial importance, was issued in January, 1884. At the end of 1883 Mr. Hyndman published his " Historical Basis of Socialism in England," which for some time was the text-book of the Democratic Federation, but this, of course, was too late to influence the foimders of the Fabian Society. We were however aware of Marx, and I find that my copy of the French edition of " Das Kapital " is dated 8th October, 1883 ; but I do not think that any of the original Fabians had read the book or had The Sources of Fabian Socialism 2 5 assimilated its ideas at the time the Society was founded. To some of those who joined the Society in its early days Christian Socialism opened the way of salvation. The " Christian SociaUst "^ was established by a band of persons some of whom were not Socialist and others not Christian. It claimed to be the spiritual child of the Christian Socialist movement of 1848-52, which again was Socialist only on its critical side, and con- structively was merely Co-operative Production by volimtary associations of workmen. Under the guid- ance of the Rev. Stewart D. Headlam^ its policy of the revived movement was Land Reform, particularly on the hnes of the Single Tax. The introductory article boldly claims the name of Socialist, as used by Maurice and Kingsley : the July number contains a long article by Henry George. In September a formal report is given of the work of the Democratic Federa- tion. In November Christianity and Socialism are said to be convertible terms, and in January, 1884, the clerical view of usury is set forth in an article on the morality of interest. In March Mr. H. H. Champion explains " surplus value," and in April we find a sym- pathetic review of the " Historic Basis of Socialism." TilT_Aprj1, tS^5, apppars a ](>);]g f^ni^fnll report of a le£ture_by Bernard^haw toJthe__JLiberal jiiid,„,SQcial Union, tlie- greatjer parf "of the paper .is „filled^with Land NationaUsation, Irish affairs — the land agitation in Ireland was then at its height — and the propaganda of Henry George : whilst much space is devoted to the religious aspect of the social problem. Sydney Olivier, * No. I, June, 1883, monthly, id. ; continued until 1891. 2 Born 1847. Founded the Guild of St. Matthew 1877 and edited its organ, the " Church Reformer," till 1895. Member of the English Land Restoration League, originally the Land Reform Union, from 1883. Member of the London School Board 1888- 1904 ; of the London County Council since 1907. 26 History of the Fabian Society before he joined the Fabian Society, was one of the managing group, and amongst others concerned in it were the Rev. C, L. Marson and the Rev. W. E. Moll. At a later period a Christian Socialist Society was formed ; but our concern here is with the factors which contributed to the Fabian Society at its start, and it is not necessary to touch on other periods of the movement. Thomas Davidson ^ was the occasion rather than the cause of the founding of the Fabian Society. His socialism was ethical and individual rather than economic and political. He was spiritually a de- scendant of the Utopians of Brook Farm and the jPIjI^galfiiy, and what he yearned for was something m tne nature of a community of superior people withdrawn from the world because of its wickedness, and showing by example how a higher life might be led. Probably his Scotch common sense recoiled from definitely taking the plunge : I am not aware that he ever actually proposed that his disciples should form a self-contained community. In a lecture to the New York Fellowship of the New Life, he said, " I shall set out with two assumptions, first, that human Ufe does not consist in material possession ; and second, that it does consist in free spiritual activity, of which in this life at least material possession is an essential condi- tion." There is nothing new in this : it is the common basis of all religions and ethical systems. But it needs ^ See " Memorials of Thomas Davidson : the wandering scholar." Edited by William Knight. London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1907. Thomas Davidson was born in Aberdeenshire in 1840 of a peasant family ; after a brilliant career at Aberdeen University he settled in America, but travelled much in Europe. His magnetic person- ality inspired attachment and admiration in all he came across. He lectured and wrote incessantly, founded Ethical Societies and Schools, and published several volumes on philosophical subjects, but his achievements were scarcely commensurate with his abilities. He died in 1900. The Sources of Fabian Socialism 2 7 to be re-stated for each generation, and so stated as to suit each environment. At the time that I am describ- ing Davidson's re-statement appealed to the small circle of his adherents, though the movement which he started had results that he neither expected nor approved. I have now indicated the currents of thought which contributed to the formation of the Fabian Society, so far as I can recover them from memory and a survey of the periodical literature of the period. I have not included the writings of Ruskin, Socialist in outlook as some of them undoubtedly are, because I think that the value of his social teachings was concealed from most of us at that time by reaction against his religious medievalism, and indifference to his gospel of art. Books so eminently adapted for young ladies at mid-Victorian schools did not appeal to modernists educated by Comte and Spencer. Chapter II The Foundations of the Society : 1 8 8 3-4 Frank Podmore and Ghost-hunting — Thomas Davidson and his circle — ^The preliminary meetings — The Fellowship of the New Life — Formation of the Society — The career of the New Fellowship. IN the autumn of 1883 Thomas Davidson paid a short visit to London and held several little meet- ings of young people, to whom he expounded his ideas of a Vita Nuova, a Fellowship of the New Life. I attended the last of these meetings held in a bare room somewhere in Chelsea, on the invitation of Frank Podmore,^ whose acquaintance I had made a short time previously. We had become friends through a common interest first in Spiritualism and subsequently in Psychical Research, and it was whilst vainly watch- ing for a ghost in a haunted house at Notting Hill — the house was unoccupied : we had obtained the key from the agent, left the door unlatched, and returned late at night in the foolish hope that we might per- ceive something abnormal—that he first ^scussed with me the teachings of Henry George in " Progress and Poverty," and we found a common interest in social as well as psychical progress. ' Frank Podmore, m.a. — ^b. 1856, ed. Pembroke College, Oxford, 1st class in Science, ist class clerk, G.P.O. Author of " Apparitions and Thought Transference," 1894, " Modem Spiritualism," 1902, " The Life of Robert Owen," 1906, etc. D. 1910. 28 Fro*n a copyright fy Van der Weydt WILLIAM CLARKE, ABOUT 1895 Face page loi Chapter VI "To your tents, O Israel": 1894-1900 Progress of the Society — ^The Independent Labour Party — Local Fabian Societies — University Fabian Societies — London Groups and Samuel Butler — ^The first Fabian Conference — ^Tracts and Lectures — ^The 1893 Election Manifesto — The Newcastle Program — ^The Fair Wages Policy— The " Fortnightly " article— The " Intercepted Letter " of 1906. DURING the next two or three years the Society made rapid progress. The membership was 541 in 1892, 640 in 1893, and 681 in 1894. The ex- penditure, £640 to March, 1891, rose to £1100 for 1892, and £1179 in 1893. In both these years large sums — ^;f35o and £450 — ^were given by two members for the expenses of lectures in the provinces, and in provincial societies the growth was most marked. In March, 1892, 36 were recorded : the report for 1893 gives 74, including Bombay and South Australia. This was the high-water mark. The Independent Labour Party was founded in January, 1893, at a Conference at which the Fabian Society of London and nine local Fabian Societies were represented, and from this time onward our provincial organisation declined until, in 1900, only four local and four University Societies remained. The attitude of the parent society towards its branches has always been somewhat unusual. In early days it made admission to its own ranks a matter of some difficulty. A candidate resident in London I02 History of the Fabian Society had to secure a proposer and seconder who could personally vouch for him and had to attend two meet- ings as a visitor. We regarded membership as some- thing of a pri-\dlege, and a candidate was required not only to sign the Basis, but also to take some personal trouble as evidence of zeal and good faith. To our provincial organisation the same principle was applied. If the Socialists in any town desired to form a local society we gave them our blessing, and received them gladly. But we did not urge the formation of branches on lukewarm adherents, and we always recognised that the peculiar political methods of the London Society, appropriate to a body of highly educated people, nearly all of them speakers, writers, or active political workers, were unsuitable for the groups of earnest workmen in the provinces who were influenced by our teaching. In fact the local Fabian Societies, with rare exceptions, of which Liverpool was the chief, were from the first " I.L.P." in personnel and policy, and were Fabian only in name. This somewhat detached attitude, combined with the recognition of the differences between the parent society and its offspring, led to the adoption of a system of local autonomy. The parent society re- tained complete control over its own affairs. It was governed by a mass meeting of members, which in those days elected the Executive for the year. It decided that a local Fabian Society might be formed anywhere outside London, by any body of people who accepted the Fabian Basis. The parent society would send them lecturers, supply them with literature and " Fabian News," and report their doings in the " News." But in other respects complete autonomy was accorded. No fees were asked, or subventions granted : no control over, or responsibility for, policy was claimed. Just as the political policy of each " To your tents, O Israel " 103 Fabian was left to his own judgment, so we declined the impossible task of supervising or harmonising the political activities of our local societies. When the I.L.P. was founded in Bradford and set to work to organise Socialism on Fabian lines, adopting practically everything of our policy, except the particular methods which we had selected because they suited our personal capacities, we recognised that provincial Fabianism had done its work. There was no room, except here and there, for an I.L.P. branch and a local F.S. in the same place. The men who were active in the one were active also in the other. We made no effort to maintain our organisation against that of the I.L.P., and though a few societies survived for some years, and for a while two or three were formed every year at such places as Timbridge Wells, Maidstone, and Swindon, they were bodies of small importance, and contributed scarcely anything to the sum of Fabian activity. The only local Fabian Society which sur- vived the debacle was Liverpool, which has carried on work similar to that of the London Society down to the present time. Its relations with the I.L.P. have always been harmonious, and, like the I.L.P., it has always maintained an attitude of hostility towards the old poUtical parties. Its work has been lecturing, the publication of tracts, and political organisation. The University Fabian Societies are of a different character. Formed by and for undergraduates, but in some cases, especially at Oxford, maintaining continuity by the assistance of older members in permanent residence, such as Sidney Ball of St. John's, who has belonged to the Oxford Society since its formation in 1895, they are necessarily fluctuating bodies, dependent for their success on the personahty and influence of a few leading members. Their mem- bers have always been elected at once to the parent 1 04 History of the Fabian Society society in order that the connection may be unbroken when they leave the University. Needless to say, only a smaJl proportion become active members of the Society, but a few of the leading members of the move- ment have entered it in this way. Oxford, Glasgow, Aberystwyth, and latterly Cambridge have had flourishing societies for long periods, and quite a number of the higher grade civil servants and of the clergy and doctors in remote districts in Wales and Scotland are or have been members. Moreover, the Society always retains a scattering of members, mostly officials or teachers, in India, in the heart of Africa, in China, and South America, who joined it in their undergraduate days. Almost from the first the Executive has endeavoured to organise the members in the London area into groups. The parent society grew up through years of drawing-room meetings ; why should not the mem- bers residing in Hampstead and Hammersmith, in Bloomsbury or Kensington do the same ? Further, the Society always laid much stress on local politics : there were County Council and Borough Council, School Board and Poor Law Guardians elections in which policy could be influenced and candidates promoted or supported. In fact it is only in the years when London govern- ment was in the melting-pot, or in times of special socialist activity, and in a few districts, such as Hamp- stead, where Fabians are numerous, and especially when one or more persons of persistence and energy are available, that the groups have had a more than nominal existence. The drawing-room meetings of the parent society attracted audiences until they out- grew drawing-rooms, because of the exceptional quality of the men and women who attended them and the novelty of the doctrines promulgated. These " To your tents, O Israel" 105 conditions were not repeated in each district of London, and in spite of constant paper planning, and not a little service by the older members, who spent their time and talents on tiny meetings in Paddington or Streatham, the London group system has never been a permanent success. What has kept the Society together is the series of fortnightly meetings carried on regularly from the first, which themselves fluctuate in popularity, but which have never wholly failed. ^ We now return to the point whence this digression started. Our local societies were then flourishing. They were vigorously supported from London. We had funds for the expenses of lecturers and many willing to give the time. W. S. De Mattos was employed as lecture secretary, and arranged in the year 1891-2 600 lectures, 300 of them in the provinces. In all 3339 lectures by members during the year were recorded. All this activity imparted for a time * Bernard Shaw has sent me the following note on this para- graph :— One London group incident should be immortalized. It was in the W.C. group, which met in Gt. Ormond St. It consisted of two or three members who used to discuss bi-metallism. I was a member geographically, but never attended. One day I saw on the notice of meetings which I received an announcement that Samuel Butler would address the group on the authorship of the Odyssey. Know- ing that the group wovdd have no notion of how great a man they were entertaining, I dashed down to the meeting ; took the chair ; gave the audience (about five strong including Butler and myself) to understand that the occasion was a great one ; and when we had listened gravely to Samuel's demonstration that the Odyssey was written by Nausicaa, carried a general expression of enthusiastic agreement with Butler, who thanked us with old-fashioned gravity and withdrew without giving a sign of his feelings at finding so small a meeting of the famous Fabian Society. Considering how extraordinary a man Butler is now seen to have been, there is some- thing tragic in the fact that the greatest genius among the long list of respectable dullards who have addressed us, never got beyond this absurd little group. io6 History of the Fabian Society considerable vitality to the local societies, and on February 6th and 7th, 1892, the first (and for twenty years the last) Annual Conference was held in London, at Essex Hall. Only fourteen provincial societies were represented, but they claimed a membership of about iioo, some four-fifths of the whole. The Conference was chiefly memorable because it occasioned the preparation of the paper by Bernard Shaw, entitled " TTie Fabian Society : What it has done and how it has done it," published later as Tract 41 and renamed, when the passage of years rendered the title obsolete, " The Fabian Society : Its Early History," parts of which have already been quoted. This entertaining account of the Society, and brilliant defence of its poHcy as opposed to that of the Social Democratic Federation, was read to a large audience on the Saturday evening, and made so great an impression that comment on it seemed futile and was abandoned. The Conference on Sunday was chiefly occupied with the discussion of a proposal that the electors be advised to vote at the coming General Election in accordance with certain test questions, which was defeated by 23 to 21. A resolution to expel from the Society any member becoming " an ofiicial of the Conservative, Liberal, Liberal Unionist, or National League parties " was rejected by a large majority, for the first but by no means for the last time. The Conference was quite a success, but a year later there was not sufficient eagerness in the provinces for a second, and the project was abandoned. Amidst all this propaganda of the principles of Socialism the activity of the Society in local govern- ment was in no way relaxed. The output of tracts at this period was remarkable. In the year 1890-1, " To your tents, O Israel" 107 10 new tracts were published, 335,000 copies printed, and 98,349 sold or given away. In 1891-2, 20 tracts, 16 of them leaflets of 4 pages, were published, 308,300 printed, and 378,281 distributed, most of them leaflets. This was the maximum. Next year only 272,660 were distributed, though the sales of penny tracts were larger. At this period the Society had a virtual monopoly in the production of political pamphlets in which facts and figures were marshalled in support of propositions of reform in the direction of Socialism. Immense trouble was taken to ensure accuracy and literary excellence. Many of the tracts were prepared by Committees which held numerous meetings. Each of them was criticised in proof both by the Executive and by all the members of the Society. Every tract before publication had to be approved at a meeting of members, when the author or authors had to consider every criticism and justify, amend, or delete the passage challenged. The tracts published in these years included a series of " Questions " for candidates for Parliament and all the local governing bodies embodying progressive programmes of administration with possible reforms in the law — ^which the candidate was requested to answer by a local elector and which were used with much effect for some years — and a number of leaflets on Municipal Socialism, extracted from " Facts for Londoners." In 1891 the first edition of " What to Read : A List of Books for Social Reformers," classified in a somewhat elaborate fashion, was prepared by Graham Wallas, the fifth edition of which, issued as a separate volume in 1910, is still in print. " Facts for Bristol," drafted by the gentleman who is now Sir Hartmann Just, k.c.m.g., c.b., was the only successful attempt out of many to apply the method of " Facts for Londoners " to other cities. io8 History of the Fabian Society It is impossible for me to estimate how far the Progressive poUcy of London in the early nineties is to be attributed to the influence of the Fabian Society. That must be left to the judgment of those who can form an impartial opinion. Something, however, the Society must have contributed to create what was really a remarkable pohtical phenomenon. London up to 1906 was Conservative in politics by an overwhelming majority. In 1892 out of 59 seats the Liberals secured 23, but in 1895 and 1900 they obtained no more than 8 at each election. All this time the Progressive Party in the County Council, which came into ofhce un- expectedly after the confused election in 1889 when the CouncU was created, maintained itself in power usually by overwhelming majorities, obtained at each succeeding triennial elections in the same constituen- cies and with substantially the same electorate that returned Conservatives to Parliament. In the early nineties the Liberal and Radical Working Men's Clubs of London had a political importance which has since entirely disappeared. Every Sunday for eight months in the year, and often on weekdays, pohtical lectures were arranged, which were constantly given by Fabians. For instance, in October, 1891, I find recorded in advance twelve courses of two to five lectures each, nine of them at Clubs, and fifteen separate lectures at Clubs, all given by members of the Society. In October, 1892, eleven courses and a dozen separate lectures by our members at Clubs are notified. These were all, or nearly all, arranged by the Fabian office, and it is needless to say that a number of others were not so arranged or were not booked four or five weeks in advance. Our list of over a hundred lecturers, with their subjects and private addresses, was circulated in all directions and was constantly used by the Clubs, as well " To your tents, O Israel " 109 as by all sorts of other societies which required speakers. Moreover, in addition to " Facts for Londoners," Sidney Webb published in 1891 in Sonnenschein's " Social Science Series " a volume entitled " The London Programme," which set out his policy, and that of the Society, on all the affairs of the metropolis. The Society had at this time much influence through the press. " The London Programme " had appeared as a series of articles in the Liberal weekly " The Speaker." The " Star," founded in 1888, was promptly " collared," according to Bernard Shaw,^ who was its musical critic, and who wrote in it, so it was said, on every subject under the sun except music ! Mr. H. W. Massingham, assistant editor of the " Star," was elected to the Society and its Executive simul- taneously in March, 1891, and in 1892 he became assistant editor of the " Daily Chronicle," under a sympathetic chief, Mr. A. E. Fletcher. Mrs. Besant and the Rev. Stewart Headlam had been elected to the London School Board in 1888, and had there assisted a Trade Union representative in getting adopted the first Fair Wages Clause in Contracts. But in the first London County Council the Society, then a tiny body, was not represented. At the second election in 1892 six of its members were elected to the Council and another was appointed an alderman. Six of these were members best known to the public as Trade Unionists or in other organisa- tions, but Sidney Webb, who headed the poll at Deptford with 4088 votes, whilst his Progressive colleague received 2503, and four other candidates only 5583 votes between them, was a Fabian and nothing else. He had necessarily to resign his appoint- ment in the Colonial Office, and thenceforth was able > Tract 41. " The Fabian Society," p. i8. no History of the Fabian Society to devote all his time to politics and literary work. Webb was at once elected chairman of the Technical Education Board, which up to 1904 had the manage- ment of all the education in the county, other than elementary, which came under public control. The saying is attributed to him that according to the Act of Parliament Technical Education could be defined as any education above elementary except Greek and Theology, and the Board under his chairmanship — he was chairman for eight years — did much to bring secondary and university education within the reach of the working people of London. From 1892 onwards there was always a group of Fabians on the London Coimty Coimcil, working in close alliance with the " Labour Bench," the Trade Unionists who then formed a group of the Progressive Party under the leadership of John Bums. Under this silent but effective influence the policy of the Progressives was largely identical with the immediate municipal policy of the Society itself, and the members of the Society took a keen and continuous interest in the triennial elections and the work of the Council. All this concern in local administration did not interfere with the interest taken by the Society in parliamentary politics, and one illustration of this may be mentioned. The Liberal Party has a traditional feud with Landlordism, and at this period its favourite panacea was Leasehold Enfranchisement, that is, the enactment of a law empowering leaseholders of houses built on land let for ninety-nine years, the common practice in London, to purchase the freehold at a valuation. Many Conservatives had come round to the view that the breaking up of large town estates and the creation of numerous freeholders, would " To your tents, O Israel " in strengthen the forces upholding the rights of property, and there was every prospect that the Bill would be passed. A few hours before the debate on April 29th, 1891, a leaflet (Tract No. 22) was published explaining the futility of the proposal from the Fabian standpoint, and a copy was sent to every member of Parliament. To the astonishment of the Liberal leaders a group of Radicals, including the present Lord Haldane and Sir Edward Grey, opposed the Bill, and it was defeated by the narrow majority of 13 in a house numbering 354. A few years later the proposal was dropped out of the Liberal programme, and the Lease- hold Enfranchisement Association itself adopted a new name and a revised policy. But the main object of the Fabians was to force on the Liberal Party a programme of constructive social reform. With few exceptions their members belonged or had belonged to that party, and it was not difficult, now that London had learned the value of the Pro- gressive policy, to get resolutions accepted by Liberal Associations demanding the adoption of a programme. Sidney Webb in 1888 printed privately a paper entitled " Wanted a Programme : An Appeal to the Liberal Party," and sent it out widely amongst the Liberal leaders. The " Star " and the " Daily Chronicle " took care to publish these resolutions, and everything was done, which skilful agitators knew, to make a popular demand for a social reform pro- gramme. We did what all active politicians in a democratic country must do ; we decided what the people ought to want, and endeavoured to do two things, which after all are much the same thing, to make the people want it, and to make it appear that they wanted it. The result — how largely attribut- able to our efforts can hardly now be estimated — was the Newcastle Program, reluctantly blessed by 112 History of the Fabian Society Mr. Gladstone and adopted by the National Liberal Federation in 1891.^ The General Election of 1892 was anticipated with vivid interest. Since the election of 1886 English Socialism had come into being and Trade Unionism had been transformed by the rise of the Dockers, and the other " new " imions of imskilled labour. But a Labour Party was still in the future, and our Election Manifesto (Tract 40), issued in June, bluntly tells the working classes that until they form a party of their own they will have to choose between the parties belonging to the other classes. The Manifesto, written by Bernard Shaw, is a brilliant essay on labour in ' Bernard Shaw has sent me the following note on this point : — The exact facts of the launching of the Newcastle Program are these. Webb gave me the Program in his own handwriting as a string of resolutions. I, being then a permeative Fabian on the executive of the South St. Pancras Liberal and Radical Association (I had coolly walked in and demanded to be elected to the Asso- ciation and Executive, which was done on the spot by the astonished Association — ten strong or thereabouts) took them down to a meeting in Percy Hall, Percy Street, Tottenham Court Road, where the late Mr. Beale, then Liberal candidate and subscription milch cow of the constituency (without the ghost of a chance), was to address as many of the ten as might turn up under the im- pression that he was addressing a public meeting. There were certainly not 20 present, perhaps not 10. I asked him to move the resolutions. He said they looked complicated, and that if I would move them he would second them. I moved them, turning over Webb's pages by batches and not reading most of them. Mr, Beale seconded. Passed unanimously. That night they went down to The Star with a report of an admirable speech which Mr. Beale was supposed to have delivered. Next day he found the National Liberal Club in an uproar at his revolutionary break-away. But he played up ; buttoned his coat determinedly ; said we lived in pro- gressive times and must move with them ; and carried it off. Then he took the report of his speech to the United States and delivered several addresses founded on it with great success. He died shortly after his last inevitable defeat. He was an amiable and worthy man ; and the devotion with which he fought so many forlorn hopes for his party should have earned him a safe seat. But that debt was never paid or even acknowledged ; and he felt the ingratitude very keenly. " To your tents, O Israel " 113 politics and a criticism of both the existing parties ; it assures the working classes that they could create their own party if they cared as much about politics as they cared for horse-racing (football was not in those days the typical sport) ; and it concludes by advising them to vote for the better, or against the worse, man, on the ground that progress was made by steps, a step forward was better than a step back- ward, and the only thing certain is the defeat of a party which sulks and does not vote at all. The Manifesto was widely circulated by the then vigorous local societies, and no doubt had some effect, though the intensity of the antipathy to Liberal Unionism on the one side and to Home Rule on the other left little chance for other considerations. Six members of the Society were candidates, but none of them belonged to the group which had made its policy and conducted its campaign. In one case, Ben Tillett at West Bradford, the Society took an active part in the election, sending speakers and collecting £152 for the Returning Officer's expenses. Of the six, J. Keir Hardie at West Ham alone was successful, but Tillett did well at West Bradford, polling 2,749, o^ly ^ ^^^ hundred votes below the other two candidates, and preparing the field for the harvest which F. W. Jowett reaped in 1906. The result of the election, which took place in July, was regarded as a justification for the Fabian policy of social advance. In London, where Liberalism was strongly tainted with it, the result was " as in 1885," the year of Liberal victory, and the only Liberal seat lost was that of the President of the Leasehold Enfran- chisement Association ! In the industrial cities, and in Scotland, where Liberalism was still individualist, the result was rather as in 1886, when Liberalism lost. In London also " by far the largest majorities were H 114 History of the Fabian Society secured'ty Mr. John Bums and Mr. Keir Hardie, who stood as avowed SociaUsts, and by Mr. Sydney Buxton, whose views are really scarcely less advanced than theirs."! I have pointed out that Fabian policy began with State Socialism, and in quite early days added to it Municipal SociaUsm ; but in 1888 the authors of " Fabian Essays " appeared to be unconscious of Trade Unionism and hostile to the Co-operative movement. The Dock Strike of 1889 and the lecturing in London clubs and to the artisans of the north pointed the way to a new development. Moreover, in the summer of 1892 Sidney Webb had married Miss Beatrice Potter, author of an epoch-making little book, " The Co-operative Movement," and together they were at work on their famous " History of Trade Unionism." The " Questions " for local governing bodies issued in 1892 were full of such matters as fair wages, shorter hours, and proper conditions for labour, and it was speedily discovered that this line of advance was the best suited to Fabian tactics because it was a series of skirmishes all over the country, in which scores and hundreds could take part. Each locality had then or soon afterwards three or four elected local councils, and hardly any Fabian from one end of the coimtry to the other would be unable in one way or another to strike a blow or lift a finger for the improvement of the conditions of publicly employed labour. But the Government of Mr. Gladstone had not been in office for much more than a year before a much more ambitious enterprise on this line was undertaken. In March, 1893, Sir Henry (then Mr.) Campbell- Bannerman had pledged the Government to " show themselves to be the best employers of labour in the ' " Fabian NewSj" August, 1892. " To your tents, O Israel " 115 country " : " we have ceased," he said, " to believe in what are known as competition or starvation wages." That was a satisfactory promise, but enun- ciating a principle is one thing and carrying it into effect in scores of departments is another. Mr. Gladstone, of course, was interested only in Home Rule. Per- manent of&cials doubtless obstructed, as they usually do : and but a few members of the Cabinet accepted or understood the new obligation. The Fabian Society knew the Government departments from the inside, and it was easy for the Executive to ascertain how labour was treated under each chief, what he had done and what he had left undone. At that time legislative reforms were difl&cult because the Government majority was both small and uncertain, whilst the whole time of Parliament was occupied by the necessary but futile struggle to pass a Home Rule Bill for the Lords to destroy. But administrative reforms were subject to no such limitations : wages and conditions of labour were determined by the department concerned, and each minister could do what he chose for the workmen virtually in his employment, except perhaps in the few cases, such as the Post Office, where the sums involved were very large, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer had the same opportunity. Bernard Shaw and Sidney Webb then decided that the time had come to make an attack on old-fashioned Liberalism on these Unes. The " Fortnightly Review " accepted their paper, the Society gave the necessary sanction, and in November the article entitled " To Your Tents, O Israel " appeared. Each of the great departments of the State was examined in detail, and for each was stated precisely what should be done to carry out the promise that the Government would be " in the first flight of employers," and what in fact had been done, which indeed, with rare exceptions, 1 1 6 History of the Fabian Society was nothing. The " Parish Councils Act " and Sir Wilham Harcourt's great Budget of 1894 were still in the future, and so far there was little to show as results from the Liberal victory of the previous year. The case against the Government from the Labour standpoint was therefore unreUeved black, and the Society, in whose name the Manifesto appeared, called on the working classes to abandon Liberalism, to form a Trade Union party of their own, to raise £30,000 and to finance fifty candidates for Parliament. It is a curious coincidence that thirteen years later, in 1906, the Party formed, as the Manifesto demanded, by the big Tra(Je Unions actually financed precisely fifty candidates and succeeded in electing thirty of them. The Manifesto led to the resignation of a few dis- tinguished members, including Professor D. G. Ritchie, Mrs. Bateson, widow of the Master of St. John's GDUege, Cambridge, and more important than aU the rest, Mr. H. W. Massingham. He was on the Continent when the Manifesto was in preparation ; otherwise perhaps he might have come to accept it : for his reply, which was published in the same magazine a month later, was Uttle more than a restatement of the case. " The only soimd interpretation of a model employer," he said, " is a man who pays trade union rates of wages, observes trade union limit of hours, and deals with ' fair ' as opposed to ' tmfair ' houses. Apply all these tests and the Government unquestion- ably breaks down on every one of them." If this was all that an apologist for the Government could say, no wonder that the attack went home. The opponents of Home Rule were of course delighted to find another weak spot in their adversary's defences ; and the episode was not soon forgotten. In January the article was reprinted with much " To your tents, O Israel " 117 additional matter drafted by Bernard Shaw. He showed in considerable detail how a Labour Party ought to be formed, and how, in fact, it was formed seven years later. With our numerous and still flourishing local societies, and the newly formed I.L.P., a large circulation for the tract was easily secured. Thousands of working-class politicians read and remembered it, and it cannot be doubted that the " Plan of Campaign for Labour," as it was called, did much to prepare the groimd for the Labour Party which was founded so easily and flourished so vigor- ously in the first years of the twentieth century. At this point the policy of simple permeation of the Liberal Party may be said to have come to an end. The " Daily Chronicle," under the influence of Mr. Massingham, became bitterly hostile to the Fabians. They could no longer plausibly pretend that they looked for the realisation of their immediate aims through Liberalism. They stiU permeated, of course, since they made no attempt to form a party of their own, and they believed that only through existing organisations. Trade Unions on one side, the poUtical parties on the other, could sufficient force be obtained to make progress within a reasonable time. In one respect it must be confessed we shared an almost universal delusion. When the Liberal Party was crushed at the election of 1895 we thought that its end had come in England as it has in other countries. Conservatism is intelligible : Socialism we regarded as entirely reasonable. Between the two there seemed to be no logical resting place. We had discovered long ago that the working classes were not going to rush into Socialism, but they appeared to be and were in fact growing up to it. The Liberalism of the decade 1895-1905 had measures in its programme, such as Irish Home Rule, but it had no policy, and it seemed 1 1 8 History of the Fabian Society incredible then, as it seems astonishing now, that a party with so little to offer could sweep the country, as it was swept by the Liberals in 1906. But nobody could have foreseen Mr. Lloyd George, and although the victory of 1906 was not due to his leadership, no one can doubt that it is his vigorous initiative in the direction of Socialism which secured for his party the renewed confidence of the country. Twelve years later another attempt to get adminis- trative reform from the Liberal Party was made on somewhat similar lines. The party had taken office in December, 1905, and in the interval before the General Election of 1906 gave them their unpre- cedented majority, " An Intercepted Letter," adopted at a members' meeting in December, was published in the " National Review " for January. It purported to be a circular letter addressed by the Prime Minister to his newly appointed colleagues, giving each of them in turn advice how to run his department. In this case there was no necessity to suggest administrative reforms only. The Liberals were certain of a majority, and they had no programme : they were bound to win, not on their merits, but on the defects of their oppo- nents. The Letter, written by Webb in a rollicking style, to which he rarely condescends, touched on each of the great departments of Government, and advocated both the old pohcy of Trade Union hours and wages, for which the new Prime Minister had made himself in 1893 personally responsible, but also all sorts of progressive measures, graduated and differ- entiated income-tax for the Treasury, Compulsory Arbitration in Labour Disputes for the Home Office — we discovered the flaw in that project later — reform of Grants in Aid for the Local Government Board, " To your tents, O Israel " 119 Wages Boards for Agriculture, and so on. A few weeks later the country had the General Election to think about, and the Letter was merely reprinted for private circulation amongst the members of the Society. But we took care that the new Ministers read it, and it served to remind them of the demands which, after the election, the Labour Party, at last in being, would not let them again forget. Chapter VII "Fabianism and the Empire": 1900— i The Library and Book Boxes — Parish Councils — ^The Work- men's Compensation Act — The Hutchinson Trust — ^The London School of Economics — Educational Lectures — Elect oral Policy — ^The controversy over the South African War — ^The publication of " Fabianism and the Empire." THE next few years were devoted to quieter work than that of the period described in the previous chapter. The Co nservative Party was in power , Liberalism, whiclTEad. lost its great leader, and a year or two later lost also his successor. Lord Rosebery, was in so hopeless a minority that its return to power i n the near future seemed to be and was impossible." It had been easy to permeate the Liberals, because most of our members were or had been connected with their party. It was impossible to permeate Con- servatism on similiar lines, both because we were not in touch with their organisation and because Con- servatives in general regarded our proposals with complete aversion. I twas a time, therefore, for educ a- ■tion al rather than political activity, and to this the Soci ety devoted the greater part of its ene rgies. Its work in this field took various forms, some of which may be briefly described. We had started a lending library in boxes for our local societies, and as these died away we offered the Frcm „ photograph | t*y Ef'ry Walter G. BERNARD SHAW, IN 1889 Face page I20 " Fabianism and the Empire " 121 use of it to working-class organisations, and indeed to any organisation of readers or students. Books were purchased from special funds, a collection of some 5000 volumes was ultimately formed, and for the last twenty years the Society has kept in circulation anything up to 200 boxes of books on Socialism, economics, history and social problems, which are lent for ten shillings a year to Co-operative Societies, Trade Unions, Socialist Societies, and miscellaneous organisations. The books are intended to be educa- tional rather than directly propagandist, and each box is made up to suit the taste, expressed or inferred, of the subscriber. Quarterly exchanges are allowed, liut the twenty or -thirty books in a box usually last a society for a year. It is a remarkable fact that although boxes are lent freely to such shght organisations as reading classes, and are sent even to remote mining vOlages in Wales or Scotland, not a single box has ever been lost. Delays are frequent : books of course are often missing, but sooner or later every box sent out has been returned to the Society. Another method of securing the circulation of good books on social subjects has been frequently used. We prepare a list of recent and important publications treating of social problems and request each member to report how many of them are in the Public Library of his district, and further to apply for the purchase of such as are absent. The Local Government Act of 1894, commonly called the Parish Councils Act, which constituted out of chaos a system of local government for rural England, gave the Society an opportunity for practising that part of its policy which includes the making the best use of all forms of existing legislation. Mr. Herbert 122 History of the Fabian Society Samuel was at that time a friend, though he was never a member, of the Society, and the first step in his successful political career was his candidature for the typically rural Southern Division of Oxfordshire, He was good enough to prepare for us not only an admirable explanation of the Act, but also Questions for Parish Councillors, for Rural District Councillors, and for Urban District Councillors. Probably this was the first time that an analysis of a new Act of Parliament had been published at a penny. AnjTway the demand for it was considerable, and over 30,000 copies were sold in five months. Then it was revised, with the omission of temporary matter, and re- published as " Parish and District Councils : What they are and what they can do," and in this form has gone through many editions, and is still in print. The tract states that the secretary of the Society will give advice on any obscure point in the law, and in tMs way the Society has become an Information Bureau; hardly a week passed for many years after the autumn of 1895 without a letter from some village or small town asking questions as to housing, common rights, charities, the duties of chairmen of councils, the qualifications of candidates, and so on. Similar tracts were published describing the powers and duties of the London County Council, the London Vestries, and the Metropolitan Borough Councils, established in 1899, while one giving the powers of various local authorities for housing (No. 76, " Houses for the People ") has gone through many editions and still has a steady sale. The Workmen's Compensation Act, 1897, afforded another opportunity for this sort of work. Our penny tract (No. 82) describing the rights of the workmen " Fabianism and the Empire " 123 under the Act was reprinted thirteen times in eight months, and over 120,000 were sold in the first year of publication. This tract offered free advice to every purchaser, and the result has been an enormous amount of correspondence which during seventeen years has never entirely ceased. This work of pro- viding expert advice on minor legal matters has been a qtiiet service to the community constantly rendered by the Society. The barristers amongst our members have freely given assistance in the more difl&cult matters. Occasionally the solicitors amongst us have taken up cases where the plaintiff was specially helpless. In 1894, Henry Hutchinson, who had provided the funds for much of our coimtry lecturing, died, and to our complete surprise it was found that he had ap- pointed Sidney Webb, whom he hardly knew person- ally, his executor, and had left the residue of his estate, between £9000 and £10,000, to five trustees — Sidney Webb, his daughter, myself, WiUiam Clarke, and W. S. De Mattos — ^with directions that the whole sum be expended within ten years. The two last named took but little part in administering the trust, and Miss Hutchinson died only fifteen months later, also leaving to her colleagues the residue of her estate, something under £1000, for similar purposes. The trustees — Mrs. Bernard Shaw, Hubert Bland, and Frederick Whelen were appointed at later dates — resolved that the money in their charge should be used exclusively for special work, as otherwise the effect would be merely to relieve the members of their obligation to pay for the maintenance of their Society. They decided to devote part of the funds to initiating the London School of Economics and Political Science, because they considered that a thorough knowledge 124 History of the Fabian Society of these sciences was a necessity for people concerned in social reconstruction, if that reconstruction was to be carried out with prudence and wisdom : and in particular it was essential that all classes of public officials should have the opportunity of learning what- ever can be known of economics and politics taught on modem lines. Our old Universities provided lec- tures on political science as it was understood by Plato and Aristotle, by Hobbes and Bentham : they did not then — ^and indeed they do not now — ^teach how New Zealand deals with strikes, how America legislates about trusts, how municipalities all over the world organise tramways. The trustees, as I have said, originated the London School of Economics, but from the first they associated others with themselves in its management, and they made no attempt to retain any special share in its control. Their object was to get taught the best science that could be obtained, confident that if their own political theories were right, science would confirm them, and if they were wrong, it was better that they should be discredited. The London School of Economics, though thus iounded, has never had any direct or organic connection with the Fabian. Society, and therefore any further account of its successful career would be out of place in this volmne. But it may be said that it has certainly more than justified the hopes of its founders, or rather, to be accurate, I should say, founder, since the other trustees were wholly guided by the initiative of Sidney Webb. Besides the School, and the Library connected with it, the Trust promoted for many years regular courses of Fabian educational lectures on social and political subjects, such as SociaUsm, Trade Unionism, Co- operation, Poor Law, Economics, and Economic " Fabianism and the Empire" 125 History. Lecturers were selected with care, and were in some cases given a maintenance allowance during the preparation of their lectures. Then arrangements were made for courses of four lectures each, on what may be called University Extension lines, in four or five centres in one part of the country. For example, in the year 1896-7 180 lectures were given in fifty towns, half of them under the auspices of branches of the I.L.P., and the rest organised by Co-operative Societies, Liberal Associations, Trade Unions, and other bodies. Very careful syllabuses were prepared and widely circulated, and the whole scheme was intended to be educational rather than directly pro- pagandist. The first lecturers engaged were J. Ramsay Macdonald and Miss Enid Stacy, whose premature death, a few years after her marriage to the Rev. Percy Widdrington, was a great loss to the movement. This lecturing was maintained for many years. In 1900, shortly after the creation there of County and District Councils, we experimented upon Ireland, where J. Bruce Glasier and S. D. ShaJlard gave a number of, courses of lectures, without any very obvious restdts. In 1902 W. Stephen Sanders took over the work, but the fund was coming to an end, and after 1904 subsidised lecturing virtually ceased. In order to help working-class students who had the desire to study more continuously than by atten- dance at lectures, correspondence classes were started in the same class of subject as the lectures. A textbook was selected and divided into sections, to each of which an introduction was written, concluding with questions. Written answers were sent in and corrected by the conductor of the class. This went on regularly 126 History of the Fabian Society until 1900, when Ruskin College, Oxford, organised similar classes on a larger scale, and our services were no longer required. In August, 1896, the triennial International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress was held in London, at which the Society was represented by a numerous delegation. The chief business proved to be the expulsion of the Anarchists, who at this period attended these conferences and had to be got rid of before the appointed business could be carried on. The Society prepared an important " Report " for circulation at the Congress, one part of it advocating various reforms, no longer of any special interest, and the other part consisting of a summary of the principles and policy of the Society, drafted by Bernard Shaw in a series of epigrammatic paragraphs. This document, still circulated as Tract 70, is interesting both as a brief and vivid exposition of Fabianism and because it gave rise to another of the long series of fights on the policy of pohtical toleration. The passage chiefly objected to, written, of course, for foreigners, and therefore more detailed than otherwise would be necessary, is as follows : — " Fabian Electoral Tactics. " The Fabian Society does not claim to be the people of England, or even the Socialist party, and therefore does not seek direct political representation by putting forward Fabian candidates at elections. But it loses no opportunity of influencing elections, and inducing constituencies to select Socialists as their candidates. No person, however, can obtain the support of the Fabian Society or escape its opposi- tion, merely by calling himself a Socialist or Social-Democrat. As there is no Second Ballot in England, frivolous candidatures give great offence and discredit the party in whose name they " Fabianism and the Empire " 127 axe undertaken, because any third candidate who is not well supported will not only be beaten himself but may also involve in his defeat the better of the two candidates competing with him. Under such circumstances the Fabian Society throws its weight against the third candidate, whether he calls himself a Socialist or not, in order to secure the victory to the better of the two candidates between whom the contest really lies. But when the third candidate is not only a serious representa- tive of Socialism, but can organise his party well and is likely to poll sufi&cient votes to make even his defeat a respectable demonstration of the strength and growth of Socialism in the constituency, the Fabian Society supports him resolutely under all circumstances and against all other parties." This was an extreme statement of our position, because the Society has never, so far as I am aware, taken any action which could be described as " throw- ing its weight against " a third candidate in a parlia- mentary election. But it represented our policy as it might have been, if occasion had arisen to carry it to its logical conclusion. It was opposed, not because it was an inaccurate statement of fact, but because a minority of the Society desired to change the policy it described ; and after the Congress was over an influential requisition was got up by J. Ramsay Macdonald, who had been elected to the Executive Committee in 1894, demanding that the tract be withdrawn from circulation. The battle was joined at Clifford's Inn in October, and the in- surgents were defeated, after an exciting discussion, by 108 to 33. There is Httle to record of the years that followed. Graham Wallas, who had been elected to the London School Board in 1894, resigned his seat on the Execu- tive in 1895 ; Bernard Shaw became a St. Pancras Vestryman without a contest in 1897, an event rather 128 History of the Fabian Society of literary^ than political significance, and in 1898 he had a serious illness which kept him out of the move- ment for nearly two years ; whilst at the end of 1899 Sydney Olivier was appointed Colonial Secretary of Jamaica, and spent most of the next foiuteen years in the West Indies, latterly as Governor of Jamaica, until 1913, when he was recalled to London to be the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture. External events put an end to this period of quiescence, and the Society, which was often de- risively regarded as expert in the politics of the parish pump, an exponent of "gas and water SociaUsm," was forced to consider its attitude towards the problems of Imperialism. War was declared by President Kruger for the South African Repubhc on October nth, 1899. Up to this point the whole of the Society, with very few exceptions, had scouted the idea of war. " The grievances alleged, though some of them were real enough, were ludicrously unimportant in comparison with our cognate home grievances. Nobody in his senses would have contemplated a war on their account."* But when war had come the situation was entirely altered. The majority of the Society re- cognised that the British Empire had to win the war, and that no other conclusion to it was possible. Some of us had joined in the protest against the threat of 1 Shaw has " vehemently protested " against this phrase, saying that he " put in six years of hard cotnniittee work to the astonish- ment of the vestrymen who had not expected (him) to be a man of business and a sticker at it." But I am still of opinion that the secondary effects of those six years on his knowledge of affairs and the lessons he has drawn from them in his writings and speeches have been of greater value to his innumerable readers and hearers than was his administrative diligence to the Parish of St. Fancras. ' " Fabianism and the Empire," p. 26. " Fabianism and the Empire " 129 war : but when that protest was fruitless we declined to contest the inevitable. A large section of the Liberal Party and nearly all other Socialists took another view. They appeared to believe, and some of them even hoped, that the Boers might be successful and the British army be driven to the sea. The I.L.P. regarded the war as a typical, case of the then accepted theory of Socialism that war is always instigated by capitalists for the purpose of obtaining profits. They opposed every step in the prosecution of the campaign, and criticised every action of the British authorities. In this matter the left and right wings of the Fabians joined hands in opposition to the centre. Members who came into the movement when Marxism was supreme, like Walter Crane, those who worked largely with the I.L.P., such as J. Ramsay Macdonald, S. G. Hobson, and G. N. Barnes (later M.P. and Chairman of the Labour Party), were joined by others who were then associated with the Liberals, such as Dr. F. Lawson Dodd, Will Crooks (later Labour M.P.), Clement Edwards (later Liberal M.P.), and Dr. John Clifford. On the other side were the older leaders of the Society, who took the view that the members had come together for the purpose of promoting Socialism, that the question at issue was one " which Socialism cannot solve and does not touch,"i and that whilst each member was entitled to hold and work for his own opinion, it was not necessary for the Society in its corporate capacity to adopt a formal policy with the result of excluding the large minority which would have objected to whatever decision was arrived at. The first round in the contest was at a business meeting on October 13th, 1899, when on the advice 1 " The Fabian Society and the War : reply by the majority of the Executive Committee to the recent circular." (Circular on the referendum mentioned later.) 130 History of the Fabian Society of the Executive the members present rejected a motion of urgency for the discussion of a resolution expressing sympathy with the Boers. It was however agreed that the matter could not end thus, and a members' meeting was fixed for December 8th, at Clifford's Inn Hall, when S. G. Hob- son moved a long resolution declaring it essential that the attitude of the Society in regard to the war should be clearly asserted, and concluding : " The Fabian Society therefore formally dissociates itself from the Imperialism of CapitaUsm and vainglorious Nationalism and pledges itself to support the expansion of the Empire only in so far as it may be compatible with the expansion of that higher social organisation which this Society was founded to promote." Bernard Shaw, on behalf of the Executive Com- mittee, moved a long reasoned amendment declaring that a parUamentary vote was not worth fighting about, demanding that at the conclusion of the war measures be taken for securing the value of the Transvaal mines for the public, and that the interests of the miners be safeguarded. The amendment was barely relevant to the issue, and notwithstanding influential support it was defeated by 58 to 27. There- upon the " previous question " was moved and carried by 59 to 50. This inconclusive result revealed a great diversity of opinion in the Society, and the Executive Committee, for the first and, so far, the only time, availed itself of the rule which authorised it to submit any question to a postal referendum of all the members. The question submitted in February, 1900, was this : " Are you in favom: of an official pronouncement being made now by the Fabian Society on Imperialism in relation to the War ? " and on the paper published in the " News " were printed four reasons on one side " Fabianism and the Empire " 131 and five on the other, drafted by those members of the Executive who advocated each poUcy. On the one hand it was argued that the Society should resist aggressive capitalism and militarism, thus putting itself into line with international sociaUsm, and that expenditure on the war would postpone social reform. On the other it was contended that the question was outside the province of the Society, that a resolution by the Society would carry no weight, would not stop the war, and might have a serious effect on the solidarity of the Society itself. The vote excited great interest : an appeal to the electorate to vote Yes, worded with much moderation, was issued by Walter Crane, S. G. Hobson, Charles Charrington, F. Lawson Dodd, J. Frederick Green, George N. Barnes, Will Crooks, Henry S. Salt, Dr. John Clifford, Mrs. Mallet, Clement Edwards, Mrs. J. R. Macdonald and others ; to which a reply was sent, signed only by members of the Executive, Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, Hubert Bland, J. F. Oakeshott, H. W. Macrosty and one or two others. Finally a rejoinder by the signatories of the first circular was issued in the course of the poll which extended over nearly a month. The membership at the time was about 800, of whom 50 lived abroad, and in all only 476 votes were cast, 217 in favour of a pronouncement and 259 against. It was said at the time, and has constantly been alleged since, that the Society had voted its approval of the South African War and had supported imperialist aggression and anti-democratic militarism. As will be seen from the foregoing, no such statement is correct. A vote on the policy of the Government woidd have given an overwhelming adverse majority, but it would have destroyed the Society. In early days we had drawn a clear line between Socialism and politics : we had put on one side such problems as Home Rule 132 History of the Fabian Society and Church Disestablishment as of the nature of red herrings, matters of no real importance in comparison with the economic enfranchisement which we advo- cated. In the early eighties Parliament spent futile and fruitless months discussing whether Mr. Bradlaugh should take the oath, and whether an extension of the franchise should or should not be accompanied by redistribution. We wanted to make the working classes pay less attention to these party questions and more attention to their own social conditions. We thought, or at any rate said, that the Liberal and Conservative leaders kept the party ball rolling in order to distract the workers from the iniquity of the distribution of wealth. We insisted that Socialism was an economic doctrine, and had nothing to do with other problems. Later on we realised that the form of government is scarcely less important than its content : that the imit of administration, whether imperial, national, or local, is germane to the question of the services to be administered ; that if the govern- mental machine is to be used for industry, that machine must be modem and efficient : and that in fact no clear line of distinction can be drawn between the problems of constitutional structure which concern Socialism and those, if any, which do not concern it. In the case of the South African war it was mainly the instinct of self-preservation that actuated us ; it is certain that any other decision would have de- stroyed the Society. The passions of that period were extraordinarily bitter, llie Pro-Boers were mobbed and howled down, their actions were .misrepresented, and their motives disparaged : they retaliated by accusing the British troops of incredible atrocities, by rejoicing over every disaster which befell our arms, and by prophesying all sorts of calamities however the war ended. There was never any question of the " Fabianism and the Empire" 133 Society issuing a pronouncement justifying the war. Only a very few of our members went as far as that. But many others, all or nearly all who were now beginning to be called the " old gang," on whom from first to last the initiative and stability of the Society has depended, would have declined to be associated with what they regarded as the anti-patriotic excesses of certain of the Liberals, and would have resigned their membership, or at any rate their ofi&cial positions in the Society, had it adopted at that time the same poUcy as the I.L.P. Happily tolerance prevailed, and although an attempt was made to get up a big seces- sion, only about fifteen members resigned in a group when the result of the poll was declared. These, however, included a few important names, J. Ramsay Macdonald and J. Frederick Green, of the Executive Committee, George N. Barnes and Pete Curran, future Labour Members of Parliament, Walter Crane, H. S. Salt, Mrs. J. R. Macdonald, and Mrs. Pankhurst. At the election of the Executive Committee in April, 1900, the Society by another vote confirmed the pre- vious decision. All the old members were re-elected, and those of the majority party polled the heaviest votes. The two seats vacated by resignation were filled by " Pro-Boers," and the only new candidate who supported the majority was defeated. It was clear, therefore, that the voting was not strictly on party lines — one of the opposition, Charles Charrington, was fourth on the poll — but that the Society as a whole approved of the non-committal policy. The Executive Committee had been elected since 1894 by a postal ballot of the whole Society, and on this occasion 509 members, over 62 per cent of the whole, recorded their votes. The Executive had resolved at the beginning of the war to issue a tract on Imperialism, and at the Annual 134 History of the Fabian Society Meeting in May, 1900, a resolution was passed that it prepare for submission to the members " a constructive criticism from the Socialist standpoint of the actions and programmes of the various political parties." Needless to say, Bernard Shaw undertook the difl&- cult job, for at this period all the official pronounce- ments of the Executive were drafted by him. At the beginning of September it was announced as nearly ready, and later in the month a proof was sent to every member for criticism, and a meeting was called for the 25th to discuss it. This was the extreme example of the practice at that time habitual, of inviting the co-operation of every member in our publications. No less than 134 members returned amended proof? or wrote letters of criticism ; and it is recorded that only one of these was opposed to the whole thing, whilst only nine preferred to have no manifesto at all ; and £inother nine objected to material portions. The great majority were cordial in approval. Bernard Shaw is fond of posing as the most conceited of persons, but those who have had to do with him in literary matters are aware that no pose was ever more preposterous. When he has acted as the literary expert of the Fabian Society he has considered every criticism with unruffled courtesy, and dealt with the many fools who always find their way into extreme parties, not according to their folly, but with the careful consideration properly accorded to eminent wisdom. The business of examining over a hundred marked proofs of a document of 20,000 words, every line of which was more or less controversial, was an inmiense one, but the author gave every criticism its proper weight, and accepted every useful amendment. Then came the meeting. It was held at Clifford's Inn, and between 130 and 140 rtiembers were present, each of whom was entitled to move any amendment on " Fabianism and the Empire" 135 any of the 20,000 words, or any addition to or deletion of them. Nearly three hours were occupied partly in discussing the controversial portion and partly with the general question of publication. Only eighteen voted for omitting the part about Imperialism, and the minority against the publication numbered no more than fourteen. By this time the controversy over the war had reached an intensity which those who cannot recollect it will find difficult to beheve, and nobody but the author could have written an effective document on the war so skilfully as to satisfy the great majority of the supporters of both parties in the Society. Bernard Shaw has accomplished many difficult feats, but none of them, in my opinion, excels that of drafting for the Society and carrying through the manifesto called " Fabianism and the Empire." It was pubHshed as a shilHng volume by Grant Richards, and although it was widely and favourably noticed in the Press the sales were only moderate, just over 2000 copies to the end of the year. Some time later the Society purchased the remainder of 1500 copies at id. and since sold them at prices, rising as the stock declined, up to five shillings a copy ! The theme of the manifesto is the overriding claim of efl&ciency not only in our own government, and in our empire, but throughout the world. The earth belongs to mankind, and the only valid moral right to national as well as individual possession is that the occupier is making adequate use of it for the benefit of the world community. " The problem before us is how the world can be ordered by Great Powers of practically international extent. . . . The partition of the greater part of the globe among such powers is, as a matter of fact that must be faced approvingly or deploringly, now only a question of time" (p. 3). 136 History of the Fabian Society " The notion that a nation has a right to do what it pleases with its own territory, without reference to the interests of the rest of the world is no more tenable from the International SociaUst point of view — ^that is, from the point of view of the twentieth century — ^than the notion that a landlord has a right to do what he hkes with his estate without reference to the interests of his neighbours. ... [In China] we are asserting and enforcing international rights of travel and trade. But the right to trade is a very comprehensive one : it involves a right to insist on a settled government which can keep the peace and enforce agreements. When a native government of this order is impossible, the foreign trading power must set one up " (pp. 44-5). " The value of a State to the world Ues in the quality of its civilisation, not in the magnitude of its arma- ments. . . . There is therefore no question of the steam-rollering of little States because they are little, any more than of their maintenance in deference to romantic nationahsm. The State which obstructs international civilisation will have to go, be it big or little. That which advances it should be defended by all the Western Powers. Thus huge China and little Monaco may share the same fate, little Switzer- land and the vast United States the same fortune " (p. 46). As for South Africa, " however ignorantly [our] politicians may argue about it, revilixig one another from the one side as brigands, and defending them- selves from the other with quibbles about waste-paper treaties and childish slanders against a brave enemy, the fact remains that a Great Power, consciously or unconsciously, must govern in the interests of civilisa- tion as a whole ; and it is not to those interests that such mighty forces as gold-fields, and the formidable armaments that can be built upon them, should be " Fabianism and the Empire " 137 wielded irresponsibly by small communities of frontiers- men. Theoretically they should be internationalised, not British-Imperialised ; but until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations avail- able as a substitute for it " (pp. 23-4). As however the Manifesto was designed for the general election, this theme was only sketched, and the greater part was occupied with matters of a more im- mediately practicable character. The proposed partition of China at that time seemed imminent, and our atten- tion had been called to the efficiency of the German State organisation of foreign trade in comparison with the laissez-faire policy which dominated our Foreign Office. We regarded our overseas trade as a national asset, and urged that the consular service should be revolu- tionised. " Any person who thinks this application of Socialism to foreign trade through the consular system impossible also thinks the survival of his country in the age of the Powers impossible. No German thinks it impossible. If he has not already achieved it, he intends to " (pp. 10, 11). We must " have in every foreign market an organ of commer- cially disinterested industrial intelligence. A developed consulate would be such an organ." " The consulate could itself act as broker, if necessary, and have a revenue from commissions, of which, however, the salaries of its officials should be strictly independent " (pp. 10 and 8). The present army shotdd be replaced " by giving to the whole male population an effective training in the use of arms without removing them from civil life. This can be done without conscription or barrack life " by extending the half-time system to the age of 21 and training the young men in the other half. From the millions of men thus trained " we could obtain by 138 History of the Fabian Society voluntary enlistment a picked professional force of engineers, artillery, and cavalry, and as large a garrison for outlying provinces as we chose to pay for, if we made it attractive by the following reforms " : fuU civil rights, a living wage, adequate superannuation after long service, and salaries for of&cers on the civil scale. Tlie other reforms advocated included a mini- mum wage for labour, grants in aid for housing, free- dom for mtmicipal trading, mimicipal public-houses» and reorganisation of the machinery of education, as explained later. " The moral of it all is that what the British Empire wants most urgently in its govern- ment is not Conservatism, not Liberalism, not Im- perialism, but brains and political science " (p. 93). GRAHAM WALLAS, IN 1891 Face page 139 Chapter VIII Education: 1902-5, and the Labour Party: 1900—15 Housing — " The Education muddle and the way out " — Supporting the Conservatives — ^The Education Acts of- 1902 and 1903 — Feeding School Children — ^The Labour Representation Committee formed — ^The Fabian Election Fund — Will Crooks elected in 1910 — A Fabian Cabinet Minister — Resignation of Graham Wallas — ^The younger generation : H. W. Macrosty, J. F. Oakeshott, John W. Martm— Municipal Drink Trade— Tariff Reform— The Decline of the Birth-rate. THE controversy described in the preceding chapter was not the only business that occupied the Society at the period of the South African War. Amongst minor affairs was a change of premises. The office first taken, in 1891, was at 276 Strand, in the island at that time formed by Holjrwell Street which ran between the churches of St. Clement Danes and St. Martin's in the Fields. At the end of 1899 the London County Coimcil acquired the property for the Kingsway and Aldwych clearance scheme, and we found new quarters in a basement at Clement's Inn, a pleasant couple of rooms, with plenty of light, though sometimes maUciously misdescribed as a cellar. At the end of 1908 we removed into three much more spacious rooms at the same address, also in " a dismal basement," where we remained until in 1914 the Society rented a house at 25 Tothill Street, Westminster. 139 140 History of the Fabian Society Another undertaking was a conference on Housing. Although the first pubhc effort of the Society was its conference at South Place Chapel in 1886, this par- ticular form of propaganda has never commended itself to the Executive, chiefly no doubt because conferences, to which numerous representative persons are invited, are most useful for promoting moderate reforms which have already made themselves accept- able to the members and officials of local governing bodies. Such reforms the Fabian Society does not regard as its special business ; it prefers to pioneer ; it is true that it uses its machinery for spreading a knowledge of local government in all its forms, but that is mainly a matter of oflice routine. However, for once we took up an already popular proposal. The Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890 was an admirable measure, but it was hedged about with obstacles which rendered it very difficult to work in urban areas and virtually useless in rural districts. We had drafted an amending Bill for rural districts in 1895, which was read a first time in the House of Commons on the day of the vote on the supply of cordite, when the defeat of the Liberal Government led to the dissolution of ParUament. The Act of 1890- was singular in one respect. Part in was headed " Working-Class Lodging Houses," and was drafted accordingly, but the definition of lodging-houses was made to include cottages with not more than half an acre of garden, thus enabling houses to be provided by local authorities in town and country, apart from clearances of insanitary areas. For years this definition was overlooked, and very few people were aware that cottages could be built in rural dis- tricts by the Guardians, and later by Rural District Councils. Our Leaflet No. 63, " Parish Council Cottages," issued in 1895, was almost the first Education and the Labour Party 141 publication drawing attention to the subject, and with one exception no use was made of these powers of the Act in rural districts before that year. Our Tract 76, " Houses for the People," published in 1897, explained the Act in simple language, and was widely circulated. In 1900 an amending Act, chiefly to simplify pro- cedure in rural districts, was promised by the Govern- ment ; and the conference we caUed was intended to agitate for widening its scope and strengthening its provisions. The papers, read by Clement Edwards (afterwards M.P.), Miss Constance Cochrane, Alderman Thompson, and others, were first discussed at a pre- liminary private meeting in December, and then submitted to the Conference, which was held on March 1st, the day following the Conference at which the Labour Party was established. By choosing this date we secured a large number of delegates from Trade Unions, and these were reinforced by numerous delegates from Vestries and other local authorities, altogether numbering about 400. At the close of the proceedings a National Committee was formed with headquarters at the Fabian Office, which had however only a short career. The Conference papers were printed as a bulky penny tract, " The House Famine and How to ReUeve It," which rapidly went through two editions. We also published " Cottage Plans and Common Sense," by Raymond Unwin, which describes how cottages should be built — an anticipation of garden suburbs and town-planning — and a compilation of everything which Parish Councils had done and could do, including housing, prepared by Sidney Webb and called " Five Years' Fruits of the Parish Councils Act," which in 1908 was revised and reissued as " Parish Councils and Village Life." A speech by W. C. Steadman, m.p., who was a member of the Society, was printed under the title " Overcrowding 142 History of the Fabian Society and Its Remedy." Our agitation was not without results. The amending Acts of 1900, 1903, and 1909 have done much to remove the unnecessary adminis- trative complexities of the Act of 1890, but in fact the problem is still unsolved, and. the scandalous character of our housing, both urban and rural, re- mains perhaps the blackest blot in the record of British civilisation. The Society had always been concerned in public education. Its first electoral success was when Mrs. Besant and the Rev. Stewart Headlam were elected to the London School Board in 1888, and except for one interval of three years Mr. Headlam has sat on the School Board and its successor, the London County Cotmcil, ever since. Sidney Webb was Chairman or Vice-Chairman of the L.C.C. Technical Education Board from its foundation in 1893, almost continuously until the Board came to an end in 1904, after the Lon- don Education Act. Graham Wallas was elected to the School Board in 1894, and from 1897 onwards was Chairman of the School Management Committee ; he had been re-elected in 1900, and was therefore filling the most important administrative position on the Board when the Education question was before the Society. The educational scheme of the Society was not, however, the joint production of its experts. It was entirely the work of Sidney Webb. Headlam and Wallas, and the members who took part, contributed their share as critics, but as critics only, and for the most part as hostile critics. It was in part a struggle between the County Councils and the School Boards and in part a controversy over the denominational schools. Wallas opposed our proposals in the main Education and the Labour Party 143 because he regarded them as too favourable to sec- tarian education : Headlam was against them on both issues. They put up a vigorous fight, but they were beaten every time in the Society, as the defenders of School Boards were beaten ultimately in Parliament and in the country. The first step in the controversy was taken in May, 1899, when a Members' Meeting was held to discuss "- The Education Muddle and the Way Out," in the form of sixteen resolutions, six on " General Princi- ples " and the remainder on " Immediate Practicable Proposals." These were introduced by Webb, and the " General Principles," advocating the transfer of education to the local government authority and the abohtion of School Boards, were adopted. Amend- ments by Graham Wallas were defeated by large majorities, and the discussion on the second part, the immediately practicable proposals, was adjourned. At the adjourned meeting in November, 1899, the resolutions were put aside and a draft tract was submitted. Graham Wallas again led the opposition, which was always unsuccessful, though serious short- comings in the proposals were revealed and it was agreed to meet the criticisms wherever possible. Finally it was decided to appoint a Revision Committee, on which Wallas was placed. Thirteen months passed before the scheme came before the Society again ; in December the tract as amended was submitted, and this time the chief critic was Mr. Headlam. On the main question of principle he found only one supporter, and with minor amendments the scheme was adopted. It is unnecessary to describe the Fabian plan, because it is substantiaUy the system of administration, established by the Act of 1902, under which present- day education is organised. The main difference is 144 History of the Fabian Society that we presented a revolutionary proposal in an extremely moderate form and Mr. Arthur Balfour found himself able to carry out our principles more thoroughly than we thought practically possible. Our tract advocated the abolition of all School Boards, but anticipated, incorrectly, that those of the twenty or thirty largest cities would be too strong to be destroyed : and whilst insisting that the public must find all the money required to keep the voluntary schools in full efficiency, we only proposed that this should take the form of a large grant by County Coun- cils and County Boroughs, whilst Mr. Balfour was able to make the Councils shoulder the cost. How far the draughtsmen of the Bill were influenced by the Fabian scheme cannot here be estimated, but the authorities at Whitehall were so anxious to see it that they were supplied with proofs before publication ; and the tract when published was greedily devoured by perplexed M.P.'s. It must be recollected that the whole complex machinery of educational administration was in the melting-pot, and nobody knew what was to come out of it. It had been assumed by nearly everybody that education was a department of local government which demanded for its management a special class of representatives. The Liberal Party was attached to School Boards, because their creation had been one of the great party victories of Mr. Gladstone's greatest Government, because they embodied a triumph over the Church and the virtual establishment of noncon- formity in control of half the elementary schools of the country. Socialists and the vague labour section took the same view partly because they believed theoretic- ally in direct election for all purposes and partly because the cumulative vote, intended to secure representation to minorities, gave them better chances Education and the Labour Party 145 of success at the polls than they then had in any other local election. The Board schools, with ample funds derived from the rates, were far better than the so- called voluntary schools ; but more than half the children of the nation were educated in these schools, under-staffed, ill-equipped, and on the average in all respects inefficient. Every year that passed turned out thus its quota of poorly educated children. Some- thing had to be done at once to provide more money for these inferior schools. It might be better that they should be abolished and State schools everjrwhere supplied, but this was a counsel of perfection, and there was no time to wait for it. Then again the dis- tinction between elementary education for the poor, managed by School Boards and by the voluntary school authorities, and other education controlled and subsidised by Town and County Councils, was disastrous, the more so since a recent legal decision (the Cockerton case) had restricted the limits of School Board education more narrowly than ever. All sorts of projects might have been proposed for solving these complex difficulties, projects drafted in the interests of the Church or the Nonconformists, the voluntary schools or the schools of the local authori- ties : but, in fact, the scheme proposed by Mr. Balfour followed almost precisely the lines laid down in our tract, which was published in January, 1901, and of which 20,000 copies were quickly circulated. At the AnnuEil Meeting in May, 1901, a resolution was adopted, in spite of the vigorous opposition of Mr. Headlam, welcoming the Government Bill and suggesting various amendments to it. This Bill was withdrawn, to be reintroduced a year later as the Education Bill, 1902, which ultimately became law. This measure was considered at a meeting in May, 1902, and a long series of resolutions welcoming the 146 History of the Fabian Society Bill and advocating amendments on eighteen different points was carried in spite of vigorous opposition. Nearly all these amendments, the chief of which was directed to making the Bill compulsory where it was drafted as optional, were embodied in the Act. Our support of the G)nservative Government in their education policy caused much surprise and attracted not a little attention. We had been sus- pected by other Socialists, not without excuse, of intrigues with the Liberals, and our attack on that party in 1893 was made exclusively in the interests of Labour. Now when Liberals and Labour were united in denouncing the Government, when Non- conformists who had deserted Liberalism on the Home Rule issue were returning in thousands to their old party, the Fabians, alone amongst progressives (except of course the Irish, who were keen to save the Roman CathoUc schools), supported the Government in what was popularly regarded as a reactionary policy. Time has vindicated our judgment. The theological squabbles which occupied so much of the energies of the School Boards are now forgotten because the rival sects are no longer represented on the Education Authorities, that is, the town and county councils. Education has been secularised in the sense that it is no longer governed by clerics, and though some Liberals now desire to carry Mr. Balfour's policy still further, the Liberal Party in its ten years of office has never been able to affect any further change. The Act of 1902 did not apply to London, and in the great province ruled by its County Council the case for maintaining the separate existence of the School Board was stronger than anywhere else. The London County Council itself was unwilling to tmder- take elementary education, and the School Board, like all other bodies in such circumstances, vehemently Education and the Labour Party 147 objected to its own dissolution. The Board was effi- cient ; its schools were excellent ; there was no evidence that the already overburdened County Council could properly carry on the work. On the other hand, the Fabian Society was in a stronger position. The Chairman of the Technical Education Board was something more than a self-constituted authority on the organisation of education : and the other members of the Society were engaged on a contest on their home ground. Into the details of the resolutions submitted to the Fabian Society outlining a plan for London education it is needless now to enter, except to say that Graham Wallas on this issue supported, without enthusiasm, the policy of the Society. Mr. Balfour made no fewer than three attempts to solve the problem, each time approaching more nearly to the plan prepared by the Fabian Society. On the third and eventually successful BiU thirteen amend- ments were formulated by the Society, eleven of which were adopted by the House of Commons, and finally, to quote our Annual Report, " the Act only departed from our plan by giving to the Borough Councils the appointment of two-thirds of the managers of provided schools, while we desired the proportion to be one-half, and omitting a proposal that the Education Authority should have compulsory powers to acquire sites for schools other than elementary." On the County Council itself, which was strongly opposed to the Bill, Mr. Webb conducted a skilful and successful campaign to defeat a policy of passive resistance which might have led to endless difficulties. But that is outside the history of the Fabian Society. It shoidd be added that the Society did not content itself with merely passing resolutions. All these documents were printed by thousands and posted to members of Parliament and of education authorities 148 History of the Fabian Society up and down the country : our members incessantly lectured and debated at Liberal Associations and Clubs, and indefatigably worked the London and Provincial presses ; none of the resources of skilful propagandists was neglected which might shake the opposition to the Bills, or convince some of the Liberal and Labour opponents that for once at any rate a good thing might come from the Conservative Party. The transfer of the control of all elementary schools to the local authorities rendered at last possible the public feeding of school children, long before advo- cated by the Social Democratic Federation. This had hitherto been regarded by the Fabian Society as impracticable ; though an eloquent and often quoted passage in Graham Wallas's contribution to " Fabian Essays " describes the schools of the future with " associated meals [served] on tables spread with flowers, in halls surrounded with beautiful pictures, or even, as John Milton proposed, filled with the sound of music." Our contribution towards this ideal was Tract No. 120, " After Bread Education : a Plan for the State Feeding of School Children," pubUshed in 1905, one of the few tracts for which Hubert Bland was largely responsible, which advocated a reform carried into law a year later. In 1893, and even before, the Fabian Society had urged the Trade Unionists to form a Labour Party of their own, and earher in the same year the Independent Labour Party had been founded which was originally intended to achieve the object indicated by its name, but which quickly became a purely Socialist society. It carried on a vigorous and successful propaganda amongst Trade Unionists, with the result that in 1899 the Trade Union Congress passed a resolution directing Education and the Labour Party 149 its Parliamentary Committee, in co-operation with the Socialist Societies, to call a conference in order " to devise ways and means for seciiring an increased number of Labour members in the next Parhament." In accordance with this resolution the Society was invited to appoint two representatives to meet the delegates of the ParUamentary Committee and of the two other Socialist organisations. Bernard Shaw and myself were appointed, and we took part in the business of arranging for the Conference. This was held on the last two days of February, 1900, and I was appointed the one delegate to which the Society was by its numbers entitled. The " Labour Repre- sentation Committee " was duly formed, and it was decided that the Executive Committee of twelve should include one elected by the Fabian Society. This Committee was constituted then and there, and, as " Fabian News " reports, " Edward R. Pease provisionally appointed himself, as the only Fabian delegate, to be on the Executive Committee, and the Executive Committee has since confirmed the appoint- ment." This little comedy was carried on for some years. The Fabian Society was only entitled to send one delegate to the annual conference, but that delegate had the right of electing one member to the Executive Committee, and I was appointed by my Committee to serve in both capacities. But the incident embodies a moral. The Trade Unionists on the Committee represented in the earlier years about 100,000 members each : I then represented some 700. But although it was often proposed to amend the constitution by giving every vote an equal value, the Trade Union leaders always defended the over- representation of the Socialists (the I.L.P. were also over-represented, though their case was not so extreme) partly because the Labour Representation Committee 150 History of the Fabian Society was founded as a federation of Socialists and Trade Unionists, and partly because Socialist Societies, consisting exclusively of persons keenly concerned in politics, were entitled to larger representation per head of membership than Unions which were primarily non-political. But when we remember how attractive to the average man are broad generalisations like " one vote one value," and how plausible a case could be made out against discrimination in favour of Socialist Societies, it, has always seemed to me a re- markable example of the practical common sense of organised labour that the old constitution has been preserved, in fact though not precisely in form, to the present day. By the present constitution the " Socialist Section " elects three members to the Executive from nominations sent in advance ; but as the I.L.P. always makes two nominations, and the Fabian Socjgty one, the alteration of the rule has not in fact made any change, and the over-representation of this section is of course imdiminished. Six months after the Labour Representation Com- mittee was formed the Society adopted a project drafted by Mr. S. G. Hobson for a Labour Members' Guarantee Fund, and circulated it amongst the Unions affiliated to the Committee. The proposal was sub- m itted by its authoron^behalf "f-tb£,.So d ety to the ^^bo ur KepreseivEaH ^IXQnieiEncgrpf IQ^T^ an amendment both approving of thescKeme andTdeclar- ing that the time was not ripe for it was carried. A year later however the Conference unanimously agreed t e establish its Parliamentary .bmid by ^hich salaries fo r their M.P.'s were provided until Parliament itself undertook the Bufiines s. For several years after this the Fabian Society did not greatly concern itself with the Labour Party. I attended the Annual Conferences and took a regular itJ@£ibmriPai\t3^ 151 part in the work of the Executive Committee, but my colleagues of the Fabian Society as a whole showed little interest in the new body. In a sense, it was not in our line. Its object was to promote Labour RepresentaJ:ion in Parliament and the Fabian Society had never run, and. had never intended to run, candi- dates for Parliament or for any local authority. We had made appeals for election funds on a good many occasions and had succeeded once or twice in collecting substantial sums, but this was a very .different matter from accepting responsibihty for a candidate and his election expenses. Therefore, for a good while, we remained in a position of benevolent passivity. The Labour Representation Committee was founded as a Group, not as a Party, and one of the two members elected under its auspices at the General Election of 1900 ran as a Liberal. In 1903 it transformed itself into a Party, and then began the somewhat strange anomaly that the Fabian Society as a whole was affiliated to the Labour Party, whUst some of its members were Liberal Members of Parliament. It is true that the Trade Unions affiliated to the party were in the same position : their members also were sometimes official Liberals and even Liberal M.P.'s. The Labour Party itself never complained of the anomaly in the position of the Society or questioned its collective loyalty. And the Liberals in our Society never took any action hostile to the Labour Party, or indeed, so far as I know, supported any of the pro- posals occasionally made that we should disaffiliate from it. These proposals always came from " Fabian reformers," the younger men who wanted to create a revolution in the Society. And so little was their policy matured that in several cases the same member first tried to get the Society to expel all members who worked with any party other than the Labour Party, 152 History of the Fabian Society and a short time later moved that the Society should leave the Labour Party altogether. Or perhaps it was the other way round. Logical consistency is usually incompatible with political success : compromise runs smooth, whilst principle jams. But the lesser sort of critic, on the look out for a grievance, can always apply a principle to a compromise, point out that it does not fit, and that difficulties may arise. In the case in question they have in fact rarely arisen, and such as have occurred have been easily surmounted. It is not necessary to record here all the proposals put forward from time to time that the Society should disaffiliate from the Labour Party, or on the other hand, that it shoiild expel, directly or indirectly, all members who did not confine their political activities to co-operating with the Labour Party. It may be assumed that one or other of these proposals was made every few years after the Labour Party was consti- tuted, and that in every case it was defeated, as a rule, by a substantial majority. The Labour Party won three remarkable victories in the period between the General Election of 1900 and that of 1906. In 1902 Mr. David Shackleton was returned unopposed for a Liberal seat, the Clitheroe Division of Lancashire ; in 1903 Mr. (now the Right Hon.) Will Crooks, an old member of our Society, captured Woolwich from the Conservatives by a majority of 3229, amidst a scene of enthusiasm which none who were present will ever forget : and five months later Mr. (now the Right Hon.) Arthur Henderson, who later became a member of our Society, beat both Liberal and Tory opponents at the Barnard Castle Division of Durham. When the election campaign of 1906 began the Labour Party put fifty candidates into the field and succeeded in canying no fewer than twenty-nine of Education and the Labour Party 153 them, whilst another joined the party after his election. Four of these were members of the Fabian Society, and in addition three Fabians were successful as Liberals, including Percy Alden, then a member of our Executive Committee. Whilst the election was in progress Mr. H. G. Wells began the Fabian reform movement which is described in the next chapter. At that time he did not bring the Labour Party into his scheme of reconstruction, but some of the members of his Committee were then ardent adherents of that party, and they persuaded his Committee to report in favour Of -the Society's choosing " in harmonious co-operation with other Socialist and Labour bodies. Parliamentary Candidates of its own. Constituencies for such candidates should be selected, a special election fund raised and election campaigns organised." The result was that a resolution proposed by the Executive Committee was carried early in March, 1907, directing the appointment of a Committee to report on " the best means of promoting local Socialist societies of the Fabian type with the object of increas- ing SociaUst representation in ParUament as a party co-operating as far as possible with the Labour Party whilst remaining independent of that and of all other Parties." This, it will be observed, is a different proposition, and one which resulted in a lot of talk and nothing else. Bernard Shaw had the idea that there might be county constituencies in the South of England, where independent middle-class Socialists could win when Labour candidates had no chance. No such constituency has ever been discovered and the Fabian scheme has never even begun to be realised. In January, 1908, the Committee's Report was considered and adopted, the important item being the 154 History of the Fabian Society decision to send a circular to every member inviting promises to an election fund of at least £5,000, con- tributions to be spread over five years. This ultimately resulted in promises amounting to £2637 — a much larger sum than the Society had ever had at its com- mand — and with this substantial fund in prospect the Society was in a position to begin the business of electioneering. A favourable opportunity soon presented itself. A vacancy at the little town of Taunton was not to be fought by the Liberals, while the Conservative candidate, the Hon. W. (now Viscount) Peel, was a London County Councillor, bitterly opposed even to the mild collectivism of the London Progressives. Frank Smith, a member both of the Society and the London County Council, was willing to fight, the Labour Party Executive cordially approved, and the members promptly paid up the first instalment of their promises. The election cost £316, of which the Society paid £275, and although our candidate was beaten by 1976 votes to 1085, the result was not contrary to our anticipations. During 1909 the Executive Committee resolved to run two candidates, both already nominated by the I.L.P., who willingly transferred to us the responsi- bility for their election expenses. W. Stephen Sanders had been third on the poll out of six candidates who fought in 1906 for the two seats at Portsmouth, and as he had polled 8172 votes, more than either Con- servative, it was reasonably hoped that the Liberals would leave one of the seats to him, Harry Snell at Huddersfield was opposing both parties, but had a fair chance of winning. At the General Election of January, 1910, neither of these candidates was success- ful, Sanders, opposed by Lord Charles Beresford with an irresistible shipbuilding programme, only obtaining Education and the Labour Party 1 5 5 3529 votes, whilst at Huddersfield. Snell was second on the poll, but 1472 behind the Liberal. Elsewhere, however, the members of the Society did well, no less than eight securing seats, four for the Labour Party and four as Liberals. In December, 1910, we won our first electoral victory. Will Crooks had lost his seat at Woolwich in January by 295 votes. It was decided to take over his candi- dature from the Coopers' Union, a very small'society which only nominally financed it, and also to support Harry Snell again at Huddersfield. Will Crooks was victorious by 236 votes, but Harry Snell failed to reduce the Liberal majority. Elsewhere members of the Society were very successful. In all eight secured seats for the Labour Party and four for the Liberals, amongst the latter Mr. (now Sir) L. G. Chiozza Money, then a member of the Executive Committee. This brings the electoral record of the Society up to the present time, except that it should be mentioned that Mr. Arthur Henderson, m.p., who became a member of the Society in 1912, was in 1915 both Secretary of the Labour Party Executive and Chair- man of the party in the House of Commons, until he relinquished the latter position on joining the Coalition Cabinet as Minister for Education, being thus actually the first member of a Socialist society to attain Cabinet rank in this country during his membership. During these later years the Fabian Society with its increased numbers was entitled to several delegates at the annual conference of the Labour Party, and it frequently took part in the business by putting motions or amendments on the agenda paper. AH talk of forming a Fabian Socialist Party had died away, and the Executive Committee had shown itself far more appreciative of the importance of the Labour Party than in earlier years. I continued to represent 156 History of the Fabian Society the Society on the Executive Committee until the end of 1913, when I retired, and the new General Secretary, W. Stephen Sanders, took my place. When in December, 1915, he accepted a commission for the period of the war, as a recruiting officer, Sidney Webb was appointed to fill the vacancy. The account of the part taken by the Society in the work of the Labour Party has carried us far beyond the period previously described, and a short space must now be devoted to the years which intervened between the Education episode and the outburst of activity to be described in the next chapter. Social progress advances in waves, and outbursts of energy are always succeeded by depressions. Up to 1899 the Society slowly grew in membership untU this reached 861. Then it slowly declined to 730 in 1904. This was sjrmptomatic of a general lack of interest in Socialism. The lectures and meetings were poorly attended, and the really important debates which decided our educational poUcy were conducted by only a few dozen members. Twenty years had passed since the Society was founded. Of the Essayists Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, Hubert Bland, and when in England, Sydney Olivier were still leaders of the Society, and so until January, 1904, was Graham Wallas, who then resigned his membership on account of his disagreement with the tract on Tariff Reform, but really, as his letter published in " Fabian News " indicated, because in the long controversy over edu- cation pohcy he had foimd himself constantly in the position of a hostile critic. It should be added that his resignation has been followed by none of those personal and political disagreements which so com- monly accompany the severance of old associations. Education and the Labour Party 157 Mr. Wallas has remained a Fabian in all except name. His friendship with his old colleagues has been un- broken, and he has always been willing to assist the Society out of his abundant stores of special knowledge both by lecturing at its meetings and by taking part in conferences and even by attending quite small meetings of special groups. In all these years a large number of younger members had come forward, none of them of quite the same calibre as the Essayists, but many of them contributing much to the sum total of the Society's influence. Of these perhaps the most active was Henry W. Macrosty,^ who sat on the Executive from 1895 till 1907, when he retired on account of the pressure of official duties. During and indeed before his period of office Mr. Macrosty was constantly engaged in research and writing for the Society. He prepared the Eight Hours Bill which approached nearest to practicability (Tract 48, " Eight Hours by Law," 1893) ; in 1898 he wrote for the Society " State Arbitration and the Living Wage " (Tract 83) ; in 1899, Tract 88, " The Growth of Monopoly in Enghsh Industry " ; in 1905 " The Revival of Agriculture, a national policy for Great Britain," the last named an extraordinarily far- sighted anticipation of the chief reforms which were advocated with such vigour by the Liberal Party, and indeed by all parties in the years preceding the great war. In the same year his " State Control of Trusts " was pubUshed as Tract 124. As I have before explained, a great part of the published work of the Society has been prepared co-operatively, and in this process Mr. Macrosty always took an active part. He had a 1 Bom 1865. Clerk in the Exchequer and Audit Dept. 1884, Assistant Director of the Census of Production 1908. Author of " Trusts and the State " (igoi) and " The Trust Movement in British Industry " (1907)- 158 History of the Fabian Society considerable share in drafting the innumerable docu- ments issued in connection with the education con- troversy, and indeed participated in all the activities of the Executive until his retirement. Scarcely less active was Joseph F. Oakeshott, who has been already mentioned in coimection with the Fellowship of the New Life. He joined the Executive when it was first enlarged in 1890, and sat until 1903. A Somerset House official, Uke Macrosty, he was strong on statistics, and for many years he undertook the constant revisions of the figures of national income, in the various editions of our " Facts for Socialists." His " Democratic Budget " (Tract 39) was our first attempt to apply Socialism to taxation : and his " Humanising of the Poor Law " (Tract 54), published in 1894, set out the pohcy which in recent years has been widely adopted by the better Boards of Guardians. John W. Martin sat on the Executive from 1894 to 1899, wrote Tract No. 52, " State Education at Home and Abroad " (1894), and did a lot of valuable lecturing, both here and in America, where he married the leading exponent of Fabianism and editor of a monthly called " The American Fabian," and, settling in New York, has since, under the name of John Martin, played a considerable part in the educational and progressive politics of his adopted city. I will conclude this chapter with a short account of some of the applications of Socialism to particular problems which were studied by the Society in or about this period of its history. In 1897 and 1898 a good deal of time was devoted to working out a scheme for the municipahsation of the Drink Trade. This was before the publication of " The Temperance Problem and Social Reform," by Education and the Labour Party 159 Joseph Rowntree and Arthur Sherwell, in 1899, a volume which was the first to treat the subject scientifi- cally on a large scale. I took the lead on the question, and finally two tracts were pubhshed in 1898, "Liquor Licensing at Home and Abroad " (No. 85), giving a sketch of the facts, and " Municipal Drink Trafi&c " (No. 86), which set out a scheme drafted by me, but substantially modified as the restdt of discussions by the Executive Committee and by meetings of members. This is one of the few causes taken up by the Society which has made but little progress in popular favour in the seventeen years that have elapsed since we adopted it. Old Age Pensions, proposed in 1890 by Sidney Webb in Tract 17, " Reform of the Poor Law," was definitely advocated in Tract No. 73, " The Case for State Pensions in Old Age," written in 1896 by George Turner, one of the cleverest of the younger members. The Society did not make itself responsible for the scheme he proposed, universal pensions for all, and the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908 adopted another plan. In 1899 and 1900 we devoted much time to the work- ing out of further schemes of municipalisation in the form of a series of leaflets, Nos. 90 to 97. We applied the principle to Milk, Pawnshops, Slaughterhouses, Bakeries, Fire Insurance, and Steamboats. These were written by various members, and are all careful little studies of the subject, but they were not issued in a convenient form, and none of the schemes advo- cated has yet been generally carried out. The Tariff Reform agitation could not pass un- noticed, and for a time Bernard Shaw showed a certain inclination to toy with it. , A tract advocating Free i6o History of the Fabian Society Trade was actually set up, but got no further. Finally Shaw drafted " Fabianism and the Fiscal Question : An Alternative Policy " (Tract ii6), which was adopted with practical unanimity, though it was the occasion of the resignation of Graham Wallas. It was perhaps the least successful of the many pronouncements written by Bernard Shaw on behalf of the Society. A subtle and argumentative criticism of Mr. Chamberlain's policy on one side and of the Free Trade rejoinder on the other is neither simple nor decisive enough for the general reader : and the alternatives advocated — reorganisation of the con- sular service in the interests of export trade, free ocean transit for' the purpose of consolidating the Empire, and nationaUsation of railways as a necessary corollary, together with improved technical education — ^were too futurist, and appealed directly to too small and conservative a class, to attract much attention in the heat of a vital controversy. The writer had no antici- pation of the triuimph of Liberalism, then so near, and evidently expected that Mr. Chamberlain would cany the country for his policy. The tract was also issued in a shilUng edition on superior paper with a preface by the author, and it is the only one of his publications which has failed to sell freely. At this period we had a number of Committees appointed to investigate various problems, and one of them, which had for its reference the Birth-rate and Infant Mortality, produced a report of more than temporary significance. When the Society was formed the Malthusian hypothesis held the field imchallenged, and the stock argument against Socialism was that it would lead to universal misery by removing the bene- ficent checks on the growth of population, imposed Education and the Labour Party i6i by starvation and disease upon the lowest stratum of society. Since the year 1876 the birth-rate had declined, and gradually the fear of over-population, which had saddened the lives of such men as John Stuart Mill, began to give way to the much less terri- fying but still substantial fear of under-poptilation, caused either by race degeneracy or race suicide. At that period the former of the two was the accepted explanation,, and only by vague hints did scientific statisticians indicate that there might be or perhaps must be something else than " natural " causes for the decline. To the Society it seemed an all-important question. Was our race to perish by sterility, and if so, was sterility due to wealth and luxury or to poverty and disease ? Or was the cause of the decline a volun- tary limitation of famihes ? We determined, as a first step, to form some sort of statistical estimate of the extent of voluntary restriction. We thought, and, as the event proved, thought rightly, that our members would be willing to assist us in this delicate enquiry. They were a sample of the population, selected in a manner which bore no sort of relation to the question at issue, and if we could get returns from them indicating their personal practice in the matter, we might have some clue to the facts. It turned out that the result was far more startling and far more conclusive than we suspected. In November, 1905, carefully drafted enquiry forms were sent out to all members of the Society except unmarried women, so arranged as to allow exact answers to be given to the questions without disclosure of the name or handwriting of the deponent. Of the 634 posted 460 were returned or accotmted for, and only two members signified objection to the enquiry. After deduction of bachelors and others not relevant, we obtained particulars of 316 marriages. I prepared 1 62 History of the Fabian Society an elaborate statistical report, which showed that in the period 1890-1899 out of 120 marriages only 6 fertile marriages were recorded in which no restriction had been adopted. This was the first and possibly is the only statistical enquiry yet made on the sub- ject, .and although the number of cases was minute in proportion to the population, the evidence afforded by that sample was sufficient to be conclusive, that at any rate a cause, and probably the chief cause, of the fall in the birth-rate was voluntary limitation of families. The method of publication presented some difiiculty, and finally it was decided, in order to secure the most generally impressive publicity, to ask Sidney Webb to collect the other available evidence and to make an article out of the whole, to be published over his name. It appeared as two special articles in " The Times " for October nth and i8th, 1906, and was subsequently reprinted by us as Tract 131, " The Decline of the Birth-rate." Other Committees at this period discussed Agri- culture, Poor Law, Local Government Areas, Public Control of Electricity, and Feeding of School Children. Reports on all these subjects were issued as tracts, some of which have been mentioned already in con- nection with their authors, H. W. Macrosty and Hubert Bland, whilst others will be referred to in a future chapter. Freift a copyright photograph V>y Lambert IVeston and Son, Folkestone H. G. WELLS, IN 1908 At the door of his house at Sandgate Face page 16 j Chapter IX The Episode of Mr. Wells: 1906-8 His lecture on administrative areas — " Faults of the Fabian " — ^The Enquiry Committee — ^The Report, and the Reply — ^The real issue. Wells v. Shaw — ^The women intervene — The Basis altered — ^The new Executive — Mr. Wells withdraws — ^His work for Socialism — ^The writing of Fabian Tracts. THE long controversy introduced by Mr. H. G. Wells attracted much public attention to the Fabian Society, added greatly to its numbers, and for a time made it more of a popular institution than it had been before or has been since. But, in fact, its main permanent interest arises from the persons who played the leading parts. The real question at issue was one neither of Socialist theory nor of Socialist policy. In so far as these entered in, Mr. Wells preached to willing listeners, and the only difference of opinion was as to the relative stress to be laid on particular points. When the episode was over, the chief change made in Fabian policy was one which Mr. Wells did not initiate, and which as soon as it was actually adopted he virtually repudiated. ^ The • The " Wells Report " in October, 1906, recommended cordial co-operation with the Labour Party, including the running of candidates for Parliament, and it " warmly endorsed the conception of Socialists whenever possible, . . . standing as Socialists in Municipal and Parliamentary elections." In January, 1908, a scheme for efiecting this was adopted by the Society. In May, 1908, Mr. Wells, 163 1 64 History of the Fabian Society substance of the controversy was whether the members desired to hand over their Society to be managed by Mr. Wells alone, or whether they preferred to retain their old leaders and only to accept Mr. WeUs as one amongst the rest. Mr. Wells became a member in February, 1903, and in March gave his first lecture to the Society on a very technical subject, "The Question of Scientific Administrative Areas in Relation to Municipal Under- takings," a paper subsequently published as an appen- dix to " Mankind in the Making." It was probably his first appearance on a public platform ; and as a lecture it was by no means a success, because he read his paper in a low monotonous voice, addressed to a comer of the hall. If Mr. Wells had been by nature or practice as effective in speaking as he is in writing the fate of the Fabian Society might have been different. He was severely handicapped in his contest with the skilled debaters of the " Old Gang," and though after a short tiirie he learnt the art up to a point, he was never really at home on a platform, and since the Fabian episode he has confined himself for the most part to controversy in writing. The next contribution of Mr. Wells to Fabian propaganda was on January 12th, 1906. This date had been fixed for his paper next referred to, but in view of the General Election then in progress he read in its place his admirable article entitled " This Misery of Boots," which was subsequently issued as a special Fabian publication. writing to " Fabian News," said he should resign if the Society re- jected his view that " the Fabian Society is a Society for the study, development, and propaganda of the Socialist idea. It extends a friendly support to the Labour Party, but it is not a political society and membership involves no allegiance to any political party." This was written in connection with his support of a Liberal against a Socialist Candidate at North- West Manchester. The Episode of Mr. Wells 165 On February 9th the great controversy began by the paper entitled " Faults of the Fabian," read by Mr. Wells to a members' meeting, and subsequently issued as a private "document to all the members of the Society. It was couched altogether in a friendly tone, expressed cordial appreciation of the record of the Society, but criticised it for lack of imaginative megalomania. It was " still half a drawing-room society," lodged in " an underground apartment," or " cellar," with one secretary and one assistant. " The first of the faults of the Fabian, then, is that it is small, and the second that strikes me is that, even for its smallness, it is needlessly poor." The task undertaken by the Fabians " is nothing less than the alteration of the economic basis of society. Measure with your eye this little meeting, this little hall : look at that little stall of not very powerful tracts : think of the scattered members, one here, one there. . . . Then go out into the Strand. Note the size of the buUdings and business places, note the glare of the advertisements, note the abundance of traffic and the multitude of people. . . . That is the world whose very foundations you are attempting to change. How does this little dribble of activities look then ? " The paper goes on to complain that the Society did not advertise itself, made the election of new members difficult, and maintained a Basis " ill-written and old- fashioned, harsh and bad in tone, assertive and un- wise." The self -elf acive habits and insidious methods of the Society were next criticised, and the writer exclaimed, " Make Socialists and you wiU achieve Socialism ; there is no other plan." The history of the Fabian motto was made use of to enforce the view that victory can only be gained by straight fighters like Scipio, whilst Fabius, however successful at first, ended his career as a stumbling-block to progress. 1 66 History of the Fabian Society To effect the desired expansion the writer proposed to raise an income of £1000 a year, to increase the staff, to prepare Uterature for the conversion of unbeUevers, and to get a number of young men and women, some paid and some unpaid, to carry on the propaganda and the administrative work. " Unless I am the most unsubstantial of dreamers, such a propaganda as I am now putting before you ought to carry our numbers up towards ten thousand within a year or so of its commencement." At the close of the meeting it was unanimously agreed " that the Executive Comnaittee be instructed to appoint a Committee consisting of members and non-members of the Executive to consider what measures should be taken to increase the scope, influence, income, and activity of the Society." Further, a temporary amendment was made to the rules deferring the Annual Meeting and Executive election until after the Committee had reported. " The Executive Committee," says " Fabian News," " was of opinion that a large Conomittee including both the Executive and an equal number of unofficial members should be appointed. But as Mr. Wells, the author of the proposal, was resolutely opposed to this plan, the Executive decided that in the circum- stances it was best to fall in with his wishes, and they accordingly appointed only those members, both Executive and other, whom Mr. Wells nominated and who were willing to serve." The Committee thus appointed consisted of the Rev. Stewart Headlam, Mrs. Bernard Shaw, and G. R. S. Taylor of the Executive ; Dr. Stanton Coit, W. A. Colegate, Dr. Haden Guest, Sydney Olivier, Mrs. Pember Reeves, H. G. Wells, and Mrs. Wells. The Committee held its first sitting on February 28th, but its report was not completed and presented The Episode of Mr. Wells 167 to the Executive until the following October, Mr. Wells having in the interval visited the United States. " Faults of the Fabian," written before the election of 1906, gave little indication that its author antici- pated the sudden outburst of interest in Socialism which followed the astonishing success of the Labour Party at the polls. When Keir Hardie was chosen as leader of the party, it was recognised that Socialism was no longer the creed of a few fanatics, but a political force supported, actively or passively, by the great organisations of Labour throughout the country, able to fight, and sometimes to beat both the older parties. A new era in politics had begun. The Tories had been defeated before by Mr. Gladstone's imrivalled per- sonality. Now they were defeated, as they had not been for three-quarters of a century, by a party none of whose leaders possessed an outstanding personality, and by a programme which contained no item with any popidar appeal. Everybody was thinking and talking politics ; every political conversation began or ended with that tmknown factor, the new Labour Party ; every discussion of the Labour Party involved a discussion of Socialism. Perhaps Mr. Wells with the intuition of genius in fact foresaw what was about to happen : perhaps it was only chance. Anjrway his proposal for an enlarged and invigorated society cariie at the precise moment, when the realisation of his project was in fact possible ; and, of course, his own vigorous and interesting personaUty attracted many to us who might have moved in other directions, or indeed never have moved at all. The inner history of the Wells Committee has never been revealed, but the composition of the Committee indicates the probable truth of the rumours that the meetings were anything but dull, though in the end 1 68 History of the Fabian Society the Committee arrived, at an unanimous report. Sydney Olivier was one of the " old gang," though at that time a vigorous 'supporter of all sorts of changes. Mr. Headlam has always stood at the extreme right of the movement, and in party politics has never abated his loyalty to Liberalism- Mr. G. R. S. Taylor and Dr. Haden Guest were at that time eager adherents of the Labour Party, and Dr. Coit, who had just fought an election for the Party, no doubt took the same line. Mrs. Shaw by habit and Mrs. Reeves by instinct belonged to the government rather than to the opposition : and Mr. Colegate, a judicious person, then quite young, doubtless inclined to the same side. Last but not least, Mr. Wells himself, then as always mercurial in his opinions, but none the less intensely opinionated, and unable to believe that anybody coTold honestly differ from him, was by himself sufficient to disturb the harmony of any committee. Mrs. Wells acted as secretary, and the Committee took evidence from myself and others before the report was drawn up. The Report of the Committee is a much less inspiring document than the irresponsible and entertaining " Faults of the Fabian." It was largely concerned with a number of administrative details. New books and " short readable tracts " were to be written, and the format of our pubUcations was to be changed. Groups were to be revived in all localities (to be called " Wandsworth i, Wandsworth 2, Wandsworth 3," and so on), together with Head-quarters groups, also numbered i, 2, 3, etc. This perhaps is the chief remaining trace of the megalomania of the original scheme, and is hidden away in an appendix : all our efforts never yielded Wandsworth No. i, let alone the others ! A fixed minimum subscription payable on a fixed date and a list of subscriptions to be published The Episode of Mr. Wells 169 annually were further suggestions. The rule of the Society had been and is to the contrary in both particulars. " Fabian News " was to be enlarged into a weekly review addressed to the pubUc, a change which would have required an editorial staff and ex- tensive new offices. A publications editor was to be appointed who would be able to publish", or to arrange for the publication of, such books as Mr. Wells' "A Modem Utopia " and Mr. Money's " Riches and Poverty." The Basis of the Society was to be rewritten, its name changed to the British Socialist Party — a title since adopted by the old Social Democratic Federation — ^the Executive Committee was to be replaced by a Council of twenty-five, which was to appoint three Committees of three members each for Pubhshing, for Propaganda, and General Purposes respectively. The last, to be entitled the Directing Committee, was to meet fre- quently and manage most of the affairs of the Society. Finally, " in harmonious co-operation with other Socialist and Labour bodies," the Society was to run candidates for ParUament and raise a fund for the purpose. It will be seen that some of these proposals were merely speculative. Groups could be organised easily enough when the members in any district numbered hundreds instead of units, or, at best, dozens. New tracts could be published when they were written : a weekly review was possible if the capital was pro- vided. The new Basis and the new name were matters of emphasis and taste rather than anjrthing else. The new machinery of government was in the main a question to be decided by experience. Mr. Wells had none ; it is said that he never sat on a Committee before that under discussion, and certainly while he remained a Fabian he never acquired the Committee habit. On the principle underlying some of these lyo History of the Fabian Society proposals, viz. that the Society should cease to treat membership as a privilege, and shotald aim at in- creasing its numbers, there was no serious controversy. The Executive Committee had already carried through a suggestion made in the discussion on " Faults of the Fabian " for the creation of a class of Associates, entitled to all privileges except control over policy, with a view to provide a means of attracting new adherents. The one constructive proposal, direct collective participation in Pariiamentary Elections, was quite alien to Mr. Wells' original ideas ; it was forced on him, it is said, by other members of his Committee a,nd was described by himself later on as " secondary and subordinate." ^ The Executive Committee transmitted the Special Committee's Report to the members of the Society accompanied by a Report of their own, drafted by Bernard Shaw and incomparably superior to the other as a piece of literature.^ The reply of the Executive Committee began by welcoming criticism from within the Society, of which they complained that in the past they had had too little. An opposition, they said, was a requisite of good government. They were prepared to welcome expansion, but they pointed out that the handsome offices proposed must be produced by the large income and not the income by the handsome offices. A pub- lishing business on the scale suggested could not be undertaken by an unincorporated society ; moreover, • In his election address referred to on p. 179. ^ Private. — Report of the special Committee appointed in February, 1906, to consider measures for incre?isiag the scope, influence, income, and activity of the Society, together with the Executive Committee's Report, and Resolutions thereon. To be submitted to the members at Essex Hall on Fridays the 7th and X4th December, 1906, at 7.30 p.m. The Fabian Society. November, 1906 (pp. 48). The Episode of Mr. Wells 171 at present the Society had not sufficient income to pay its officials at the market rate, or to keep out of debt to its printer. They agreed that the Exeputive Committee should be enlarged, but recommended twenty-one instead of twenty-five members ; and that the three proposed sub-committees be appointed, but of seven members each instead of three. The project of triumvirates they could not endorse, both for other reasons and because all the leading members of the Society refused to serve on them, while the essence of the scheme was that the triumvirs should be the most influential members of the Society. The abolition of the old-fashioned restrictions on admission to membership was approved, but not the proposal for a fixed subscription payable on an appointed date. The Executive Committee did not object to the pro- posed new Basis as a whole (and in fact it is on record that its adoption by the Executive was only lost by 7 votes to 6) ; but considered that passages were open to criticism and that the time and effort necessary for carrying through any new Basis, so worded as to unite practically the whole Society, would be better spent in other ways. A Sociahst weekly would be valuable, but it would not replace " Fabian News," which was required for the internal purposes of the Society, and capable journalists Uke Mr. Wells himself preferred the publicity of the " Fortnightly Review " and " The Times," to the " Clarion " and the " Labour Leader." The Reply goes at great length into the difficulty of forming a Sociahst Party, and into the composition and policy of the Labour Party, all admirably argued, but just a httle unreal ; for Bernard Shaw has never quite understood the Labour Party which he did so much to create, and at the same time he is thoroughly convinced that he sees it as it is, in the white light of his genius. Permeation is described. 172 History of the Fabian Society explained, and defended — the Special Committee had suggested rather than proposed, in scarcely more than a sentence, that the policy be abandoned — and it is announced that as long as the Executive was imchanged there would be no reversal of the political policy of the Society. Finally the Reply asserts that the time had come to attempt the formation of a middle-class Sociahst Party. At the end three resolutions were set out, which the Executive submitted to the Society for discussion. How much of personality, how Uttle of principle there was in the great controversy is indicated by the fact that Mrs. Bernard Shaw signed the Special Committee Report, with the reservation that she also completely agreed with the Reply. Mr. Headlam also was a party to both documents : Mr. G. R. S. Taylor, alone of the three Executive members of the Special Committee, supported the Report and dissociated him- self from the Reply. Of course the Executive Committee had to decide points in their Report by a majority. That majority, in the case of the proposed revision of the Basis, was, as already mentioned, one vote only. I did not concur with the view expressed about the Labour Party, a body scarcely less easy to be under- stood by an outsider than the Fabian Society itself : and at that time I was the only insider on the Fabian Executive. But the real issue was a personal one. The Executive Committee at that time consisted, in addition to the three just named, of Percy Alden (Liberal M.P. for Tottenham), Hubert Bland, Cecil E. Chesterton, Dr. F. Lawson Dodd, F. W. Galton, S. G. Hobson, H. W. Macrosty, W. Stephen Sanders, Bernard Shaw, George Standring, Sidney Webb and myself. Mr. Alden was too busy with his new parUamentary duties to take much part in the affair. All the rest, except The Episode of Mr. Wells 173 of course Mr. Taylor, stood together on the real issue — Was the Society to be controlled by those who had made it or was it to be handed over to Mr. Wells ? We knew by this time that he was a masterful person, very fond of his own way, very uncertain what that way was, and quite unaware whither it necessarily led. In any position except that of leader Mr. Wells was invaluable, as long as he kept it ! As leader we felt he would be impossible, and if he had won the fight he would have justly claimed a mandate to manage the Society on the lines he had laid down. As Bernard Shaw ~led for the Executive, the controversy was really narrowed into Wells versus Shaw. The Report was sent to the members with " Fabian News " for December, 1906, and it was the occasion of much excitement. The Society had grown enor- mously during the year. The names of no less than ninety applicants for membership are printed in that month's issue alone. In March, 1907, the membership was 1267, an increase of nearly 500 in two years. The discussion was carried on at a series of meetings held at Essex Hall, Strand, under the chairmanship of Mr. H. Bond Holding, on December 7th and 14th, 1906, and January nth and i8th, February ist and March 8th, and also at the Annual Meeting for 1905-6, held on February 22nd, 1907. The series was interrupted for the London County Council Election on March 2nd, in which many of the members were concerned. With a view to a " Second Reading " debate the Executive Committee had put down a general resolu- tion that their report be received, but Mr. Wells did not fall in with this plan, and the resolution on the motion of Bernard Shaw was adopted without dis- cussion. On the first clause of the next resolution, instructing the Executive to submit amendments to the Rules for increasing their number to twenty-five. 174 History of the Fabian Society Mr. Wells, acting for himself, moved an amendment " approving the spirit of the report of the Committee of Enquiry, and desiring the outgoing Executive to make the earhest possible arrangements for the election of a new Executive to give effect to that report." His speech, which occupied an hour and a quarter and covered the whole field, would have been great if Mr. Wells had been a good speaker. Written out from notes, it was printed in full by himself for circulation amongst the members, and it is vigorous, picturesque, entertaining, and imaginative, as his work always is. But it delivered him into the hands of his more ex- perienced opponents by virtually challenging the Society to discard them and enter on a regenerated career tmder his guidance. It was a heroic issue to force ; and it was perhaps the real one ; but it could have only one result. The discussion was adjourned to the 14th, and at 9 o'clock on that evening Bernard Shaw replied on the whole debate. His main proposi- tion was that, as the amendment had been converted by Mr. Wells' printed and circulated speech into a motion of want of confidence, the leaders of the Society must and would retire if it were adopted. They were willing to discuss every point on its merits, and to abide by the decision of the Society, but they would not accept a general approval of the Committee's Report as against their own when it implied an accusa- tion of misconduct. In the course of the speech Mr. Wells pledged himself not to retire from the Society if he was defeated ; and at the end of it he consented to withdraw his amendment. Bernard Shaw's speech, probably the most impressive he has ever made in the Society, was delivered to a large and keenly appre- ciative audience in a state of extreme excitement. A long report pacifically toned down by Shaw him- self, appears in " Fabian News " (January, 1907). The Episode of Mr. Wells 175 It succeeded in its object. The Executive Com- mittee welcomed the co-operation of Mr. Wells ; the last thing they desired was to drive him out of the Society, and whilst they could not accept his report as a whole, they were willing to adopt any particular item after full (fiscussion. There is no doubt that they would have won if the amendment had gone to a division, but they were only too glad not to inflict a defeat on their opponents. The next episode in the debate requires a few words of introduction. The Society had always been in favour of votes for women. A proposition in the Manifesto, Tract No. 2, published as early as 1884, states that " men no longer need special political privileges to protect them against women," and in all our publications relating to the franchise or local government the claims of women to equal citizenship were prominently put forward. But we had published no tract specially on the subject of the Parliamentary Vote for Women. This was not mere neglect. In 1893 a committee was appointed " to draw up a tract advocating the claims of women to all civil and poUtical rights at present enjoyed by men," and in March, 1894, it reported that " a tract had been prepared which the Committee itself did not consider suitable for publica- tion." Later the Committee was discharged, and in face of this fiasco nothing further was done. Mr. Wells took a strong view on the importance of doing something in relation to women and chUdren, though exactly what he proposed was never clear. He offered to the Society his little book on " Socialism and the Family," subsequently pubUshed by Mr. Fifield, but the Executive Committee declined it precisely because of its vagueness : they were not 176 History of the Fabian Society disposed to accept responsibility for criticisms on the existing system, unless some definite line of reform was proposed which they could ask the Society to discuss and approve, or at any rate to issue as a weU-considered scheme suitable for presentation to the public. The new Basis proposed by the Special Committee declared that the Society sought to bring about " a reconstruction of the social organisation " by (a) promoting transfer of land and capital to the State, (b) " enforcing equal citizenship of men and women, (c) " substituting public for private authority in the education and support of the young." Precisely what the last clause meant has never been disclosed. Mr. Wells in his speech did nothing to elucidate it. Mr. Shaw in his reply criticised its vague- ness and protested against possible interpretations of it. Mr. Wells stated some time later that he had resigned from the Society because we refused to adopt it. I do not think that any of his colleagues attached much importance to it, and none of them has attempted to raise the issue since. ^ 1 See his " New Worlds for Old," Chapter III, The First Main GeneraJisation of Socialism, which according to Mr. Wells is as follows : — " The ideas of private individual rights of the parent and of his isolated responsibility for his children are harmfully exaggerated in the contemporary world. We do not suflSciently protect children from negligent, incontpetent, selfish, or wicked parents. . . . The Socialist holds that the community should be responsible ... it is not simply the right but the duty of the State ... to intervene in any default for the child's welfare. Parentage rightly under- taken is a service as well as a duty to the world ... in any com- pletely civilised state it must be sustained, rewarded, and con- trolled. . . ." Except for the last three words all this is neither new nor con- troversial amongst not merely Socialists but the mildest of social reformers, always excepting the Charity Organisation Society. The leist word is not, I think, further explained. The Episode of Mr. Wells 177 Clause (6) was another matter. Nobody objected to the principle of this, but many demurred to in- serting it in the Basis. We regarded the Basis as a statement of the minimum of Socialism, without which no man had the right to call himself a Socialist. But there are a few SociaUsts, such as Mr. Belfort Bax, who are opposed to women's suffrage, and moreover, however important it be, some of us regard it as a question of Democracy rather than Socialism. Cer- tainly no one would contend that approval of women's suffrage was acceptance of a part of the creed of Socialism. It is a belief compatible with the most thoroughgoing individualism. But many of the women members had made up their minds that this clause must appear in the Basis, and under the leadership of Mrs. Pember Reeves, they had indicated they would vote for the Special Committee Report unless they got their way. Those who, like myself, regarded this amendment of the Basis as inexpedient, recognised also that the adoption of the Wells report was far more inexpedient, and the Executive consequently decided to support a proposal that they be instructed to submit an addition to the Basis declaring for equal citizenship for men and women. On January nth, 1907, Mrs. Pember Reeves obtained precedence for a resolution to this effect, and she was seconded by Mrs. Sidney Webb, who, after fourteen years of membership, was now beginning to take a part in the business of the Society. TTie opposition was led by Dr. Mary O'Brien Harris, who objected not to the principle but to its inclusion in the Basis, but she was unsuccessful, and the instruction was carried. On January i8th the debate on the Executive resolutions was resumed, and it was resolved to in- crease the Executive Committee to twenty-one, to form three standing Sub-Committees, and to abolish M lyS History of the Fabian Society the old restrictions on membership. On February ist the debate on PoUtical Action began, and largely turned on the question whether we should attempt to found a Socialist Party or should subordinate our political activity to the Independent Labour Party. As the first step towards founding a middle-class Socialist Party was to be the establishment of Fabian Societies throughout the country, those of us who like myself did not believe in the possibility of the proposed new party could none the less support the scheme. Co-operation with the Labour Party was not in ques- tion ; nor was the continuance of our friendly relations with the I.L.P., but the proposal to subordinate our political activity to the latter society met with but little support, and finally on March 2nd the Executive resolution to appoint a Committee for the purpose of drawing up a political policy was adopted against a very small minority. Mr. Wells took very little part in the proceedings after the Second Reading debate, and only one speech of his is mentioned in the repqrt. Meanwhile the controversy was being fought out on another field. The January meetings had settled the number of the new Executive and decided how the Basis should be altered. The Executive therefore was now able to summon the Annual Meeting in order to make the necessary amendments to the Rules. This was held on February 22nd, when the resolutions were adopted without discussion. The meeting then took up some minor items in the Report, and in particular certain other amendments to the Basis proposed by individual members. On these a resolution was carried that the new Executive appoint a Committee to revise the Basis. The Committee was in fact appointed, and consisted of Bernard Shaw, Sidney The Episode of Mr. Wells 179 Webb, H. G. WeUs, and Sidney Ball of Oxford. Mr. Wells resigned from the Society before its labours were completed, and no report was ever presented. The Annual Meeting over, the way was now clear for the election of the new Executive. The ballot papers, sent out with the March " News," contained the names of 37 candidates, 13 out of the 15 of the retiring Committee and 24 others. In normal years the practice of issuing election addresses is strictly discouraged, because of the advantage they give to those rich enough to afford the expense. Therefore the record of new candidates, severely concrete statements of past achievements, is published in " Fabian News." On this occasion the usual distinc- tion between old and new candidates was not made, and the Executive undertook to send out Election Addresses of candidates subject to necessary limits and on pajnnent by the candidates of the cost of printing. In addition ntimerous other addresses were posted to the electors. The Old Gang made no attempt to monopolise the Executive by running a full ticket. The candidates in effect formed three groups, 15 supporters of the outgoing Executive, including 10 retiring members who issued a joint address ; 13 can- didates selected by a temporary Reform Committee whose names were sent out by Mr. Wells and his chief adherents ; 7 independents, some of them supporters of the Executive and the others of the Reformers ; and finally myself. As I was paid secretary and returning officer I did not formally associate myself with any party, though my general sympathy with my old colleagues was well known. Nine hundred and fifty-four members cast very nearly 17,000 votes. Sidney Webb headed the poll with 819 votes ; I followed with 809. Bernard Shaw received 781, and Mr. Wells came fourth with 717. i8o History of the Fabian Society All the retiring members were re-elected except Cecil Chesterton, and including G. R. S. Taylor, who had vehemently opposed his colleagues. Eleven of the Executive list, nine of the Reformers, and myself constituted the new Committee. In fact it was an able and effective body. The Old Gang brought in Mr. Granville Barker ; the Reformers included Mr. Wells, Mrs. Pember Reeves, Aylmer Maude, R. C. K. Ensor, Dr. Haden Guest, Sidney Ball, F. W. Pethick Lawrence, and Miss B. L. Hutchins — ^most, if not all, of whom received support from the friends of the Old Gang. Scarcely anything less like revolutionists can be imagined than this list. Mr. Pethick Lawrence, it is true, has since then done some hard fighting in another cause, but he has always acted with seriousness and deliberation. Most of the others might as well have figured on one ticket as the other. The Old Gang including myself had 12 votes and all the experience, against 9 on the other side. But the two sides did not survive the first meeting of the new Committee. There was, as I have already said, no differences of principle between the two parties. The expansion of the parent Society had come about, local Societies were growing up all over the country ; Mr. Wells said no more about public authority over the young— indeed his election address made no reference to it — and Mr. Shaw did nothing to establish his Middle-Class Socialist Party. The new Committee quickly settled down to work, but Mr. Wells was already wearying of his role as political organiser. He was appointed both to the General Purposes and the Propaganda Sub-Committees, but after attending two meetings of the former, and none of the latter, he resigned from both in October, and of the seventeen meetings of the Executive Committee during its year of ofiice he attended only seven. The Episode of Mr. Wells 1 8 1 In April, 1908, he was re-elected to the Executive, again fourth on the poU, and Mrs. Wells who had not been a candidate before was also successful. But in the following September he resigned his membership of the Society, assigning as reasons " disagreement with the Basis which forms the Confession of Faith of the Society and discontent with the general form of its activities," together with a desire " to concen- trate on the writing of novels." He explained that " a scheme which proposes to leave mother and child economically dependent on the father is not to me Socialism at all, but a miserable perversion of Socialism." The letter, printed in " Fabian News," goes on to refer to his objection to the " no compensa- tion " clause in the Basis (the real weakness of which is that it refers hypothetically to a complete change of system and is never applied to any particular case^), and added that the opportunity for a propaganda to the British middle classes was now over. Mrs. Wells retained her seat on the Executive Committee till March, 1910, and soon after that date the connection of both of them with the Society altogether ceased. I have now traced the main stream of the subject of this chapter, though a good deal remains to be said 1 A Tramway or a Gasworks consists of two things : the actual plant, and the nominal capital which represents its value. When the plant is municipalised, its control is vested in the community, and the shareholders are " compensated " with municipal securities or cash obtained by loans from other investors in these securities. The capital value of the tramway still virtually belongs to the private holders of the municipal loan. But no second such step is possible. Holders of municipal stock cannot be " compensated," if it is taken from them. They can be paid ofi ; or their property can be confiscated either by taxation or by repudiation of the debt : there is no middle course. The whole problem therefore arises from confusion of thought. See Fabian Tract 147 " Capital and Compensation." 1 82 History of the Fabian Society on other effects of the agitation. I have indicated that the actual proposals made by the Special Com- mittee under the inspiration of Mr. Wells, in so far at any rate as they were controversial or controverted, were futile or impossible, and neither led, nor in my opinion could have led, to any benefit to the Society or to its objects. But it must not be inferred from this that the intervention of Mr. Wells, viewed as a whole, was of this character. He is a man of outstanding genius, and in so far as he used his powers appro- priately, his work was of enormous value to Socialism ; and his energy and attractive personality added radiance to the Society only equalled in the early days when the seven Essayists were all in the field and all fighting at their bravest. The new life in the Society during those brilliant years was due to other factors as well as Mr. Wells. Other Socialist Societies, in which he took no part, also increased their numbers and launched out into fresh activities. But for us Mr. Wells was the spur which goaded us on, and though at the time we were often forced to resent his want of tact, his difficult public manners, and his constant shiftings of policy, we recognised then, and we re- member still, how much of permanent value he achieved. Of this the chiefest is his books, and as the Society as such had no part in them, anything more than a reference to them is outside the scope of this volume. But it must be said that his " New Worlds for Old," published in 1908, whilst he was a member of the Fabian Executive, is perhaps the best recent book on English Socialism. In this connection Mr. Wells displayed unexpected modesty and at the same time inexperience of the ways of the world. His first criticism of the Society, his first project of reform, related to our tracts. To this The Episode of Mr. Wells 183 point he directed an unpublished preface to his paper " This Misery of Boots," when he read it to the Society before the controversy had actually started. He justly observed that very few of our publications were addressed to the unconverted, were emotional appeals to join our movement, or effective explanations of our general principles. He said that these ought to be written, and the odd thing is that he appeared to imagine that anybody, or at any rate a considerable number of people, coidd just sit down and write them. He was aware that he could do it himself, and he innocently imagined that plenty of other people could do it too. He blamed the Executive for failing to make use of the members in this respect, and per- suaded them to invite any member to send in manu- scripts. In fact of course something like genius, or, at any rate, very rare ability, is required for this sort of work. Any competent writer can collect the facts about Municipal Drink Trade, or Afforestation, or Poor Law Reform : many can explain an Act of Parliament in simple language : but only one here and there can write what others care to read on the principles of Socialism and the broad aspects of its propaganda. If our list of tracts be examined it wiU be found that the great majority of the " general " tracts have been written by Sidney Webb and Bernard Shaw. A few other writers have contributed general tracts from a special standpoint, such as those on Christian Socialism. When we have mentioned reprinted papers by William Morris and Sir Oliver Lodge, and a tract by Sidney Ball, the Ust is virtually complete. Mr. Wells himself only contributed to us his paper "This Misery of Boots," and his appeal to the rank and file yielded nothing at all. Of course there are plenty of people as innocent in this respect as Mr. Wells was at that 1 84 History of the Fabian Society period referred to. Hardly a month has passed in the last twenty years without somebody, usually from the remote provinces, sending up a paper on Socialism, which he is willing to allow the Society to publish on reasonable terms. But only once have we thus found an unknown author whose work, on a special subject, we could publish, and he resigned a year or two later because we were compelled to reject a second tract which he wrote for us. The history of the intervention of Mr. Wells is now complete. Some account of the expansion of the Society at this period will be given in the next chapter. From a clrawins\ ' [»)■ 7"Si' HolUday SIDNEY WEBB, IN 1909 Face page 185 Chapter X The Policy of Expansion: 1907—12 statistics of growth — ^The psychology of the Recruit — Famous Fabians — The Arts Group — The Nursery — ^The Women's Group — Provincial Fabian Societies — University Fabian Societies — ^London Groups revived — Annual Conferences — The Summer School — The story of " Socialist Unity " — The Local Government Information Bureau — ^The Joint Standing Committee — Intervention of the International Socialist Bureau. THE episode described in the last chapter, which took place during the years 1906 to 1908, was accompanied by many other developments in the activities of the Society which must now be described. In the first place the membership grew at an un- precedented rate. In the year ended March, 1905, 67 members were elected. Next year the number was 167, to March, 1907, it was 455, to March, 1908, 817, and to March, 1909, 665. This was an enormous accession of new blood to a society which in 1904 had only 730 members in all. In 1909 the Society con- sisted of 1674 men and 788 women, a total of 2462 ; of these 1277 were ordinary members residing in or near London, 343 scattered elsewhere in the United Kingdom, 89 abroad ; 414 were members of provincial Societies and 339 of University Societies. There were in addition about 500 members of local Fabian Societies who were not also members of the London Society, and the Associates numbered 217. The income from subscriptions of all sorts was £473 in 1904 and £1608 i8s 1 86 History of the Fabian Society in 1908, the high-water mark in the history of the Society for contributions to the ordinary funds. Of course there is all the difference in the world between a new member and an old. The freshly elected candidate attends every meeting and reads every word of " Fabian News." He begins, naturally, as a whole-hearted admirer and is profoundly impressed with the brilliance of the speakers, the efficiency of the organisation, the ability of the tracts. A year or two later, if he has any restlessness of intellect, he usually becomes a critic : he wants to know why there are not more brightly written tracts, explanatory of Socialism and suitable for the unconverted : he complains that the lectures are far less interesting than they used to be, that the debates are footling, the publications unattractive in appearance and too duU to read. A few years later he either settles down into a steady- going member, satisfied to do what little he can to improve this unsatisfactory world ; or else, like Mr. Wells, he announces that the Society is no longer any good : once (when he joined) it was really important and effective : its methods were all right : it was proclaiming a fresh political gospel. But times have changed, whilst the Society has only grown old : it has done its work, and missed its opportunity for more. It is no longer worthy of his support. In 1907 and 1908 the Society consisted largely of new members ; consequently the meetings were crowded and we were driven "out from one hall after another. Moreover the propagandist enthusiasm of Mr. Wells and the glamour of his name helped to attract a large number of distinguished persons into our ranks. Mr. Granville Barker was one of the most active of these. He served on the Executive from 1907 to 1912 and took a large share in the detailed work of the Committees, besides giving many lectures and The Policy of Expansion 187 assisting in social functions. The Rev. R. J. Campbell, who addressed large meetings on several occasions, was also elected to the Executive for the year 1908-9, but did not attend a single meeting. Mr. Aylmer Maude joined the Executive in 1907, held office to 1912, and is still a working member of the Society. Arnold Bennett, Laurence Irving, Edgar Jepson, Reginald Bray, l.c.c. (member of the Executive 1911-12), Sir Leo (then Mr.) Chiozza Money, m.p. (who sat on the Executive from 1908 to 1911), Dr. Stanton Coit, H. Hamilton Fyfe, A. R. Orage, G. M. Trevelyan, Edward Gamett, Dr. G. B. Clark (for many years M.P.), Miss Constance Smedley, Philip Snowden, M.P., Mrs. Snowden (Executive 1908-9), George Lansbury, Herbert Trench, Jerome K. Jerome, Edwin Pugh, Spencer Pryse, and A. Clutton Brock are amongst the people known in politics, literature, or the arts who joined the Society about this period. Some of these took little or no part in our pro- ceedings, beyond paying the necessary subscription, but others lectured or wrote for the Society or par- ticipated in discussions and social meetings. These were at this time immensely successful. In the autumn of 1907, for example, Mrs. Bernard Shaw arranged for the Society a series of crowded meetings of members and subscribers at Essex Hall on " The Faith I Hold." Mrs. Sidney Webb led off and was followed by the Rev. R. J. Campbell, S. G. Hobson, Dr. Stanton Coit, H. G. Wells, and Hubert Bland : with an additional discourse later in the spring by Sir Sydney Olivier. Mr. Wells' paper, which proved to be far too long for a lecture, was the first draft of his book " First and Last Things " ; but he had tired of the Society when it was published, and the preface conceals its origin in something of a mystery. Sir John Gorst, Mrs. Annie Besant, Dr. Siidekum (German M.P.), Sir John 1 88 History of the Fabian Society Cockbum, K.C.M.G., the Hon. W. P. Reeves, Raymond Unwin, and Sir Leo Chiozza Money were amongst the other lecturers of that year. In 1906 and succeeding years a new form of organisa- tion was estabUshed. Members spontaneously asso- ciated themselves into groups, " The Nursery " for the young, the Women's Group, the Arts Group, and Groups for Education, Biology, and Local Government. The careers of these bodies were various. The Arts Group included philosophy, and, to tell the truth, almost excluded Socialism. But all of us in our youth are anxiously concerned about philosophy and art, and many who are no longer young are in the same case. Moreover artists and philosophers are always attractive. Mr. Holbrook Jackson and Mr. A. R. Orage, at that time associated in " The New Age," founded the group early in 1907, and soon obtained lecturers as distinguished, and audiences scarcely less niunerous than the Society itself. But in eighteen months " Art and Philosophy in Relation to Socialism " seems to have been exhausted, and after the summer of 1908 the Group disappears from the calendar. Biology and Local Government had a somewhat longer but far less glorioixs career. The meetings were small and more of the nature of classes. Education is the life-work of a large class, which provides a sensible proportion of Fabian membership, . and teachers are always eager to discuss and explain the difficult problems of their pro- fession and the complex law which regulates it. The Education Group has led a diligent and usefiil life ; it prepared a tract (No. 156), " What an Education Com- mittee can do (Elementary Schools)," and besides its private meetings it arranges occasional lectures open to the public, which sometimes attract large audiences. The Policy of Expansion 189 The Niirsery belongs to another class. When a Society, formed as many societies are, of quite young people, has existed over twenty years, the second generation begins to be adult, and wants to be quit of its parents. Moreover the young desire, naturally, to hear themselves tcdk, whilst the others usually prefer the older and more famous personages. So a number of younger members eagerly took up a plan which originated in the circle of the Bland family, for forming a group confined to the young in years or in membership in order to escape the overmastering presence of the elderly and experienced. Sometimes they invite a senior to talk to them and to be heckled at leisure. More often they provide their own fare from amongst themselves. Naturally the Nursery is not exclusively devoted to economics and politics : picnics and dances also have their place. Some of the members eventually marry each other, and there is no better security for prolonged happiness in marriage than sympathy in regard to the larger issues of life. The Nursery has produced one tract. No. 132, " A Guide to Books for Socialists," described in the " WeUs Report " as intended " to supplement or even replace that arid and indiscriminating catalogue. What to Read." Last in date, but by no means least in importance of the Groups of this period, was the Women's Group, founded by Mrs. C. M. Wilson, who after nearly twenty years of nominal membership had resumed her active interest in the Society. The vigorous part taken by the women of the Society under the leadership of Mrs. Reeves in obtaining the only alteration yet made in the Basis has been already described. The Group was not formed till a year later, and at that time the Women's Suffrage movement, and espetially the party led by Mrs. Pankhurst, had attracted universal I go History of the Fabian Society attention. The early Suffrage movement was mainly Socialist in origin : most of the first leaders of the Women's Social and Political Union were or had been members either of the Fabian Society or of the I.L.P., and it may almost be said that all the women of the Society joined one or more of the Suffrage Societies which for the next seven years played so large a part in national poHtics, But besides the question of the vote, which is not peculiar to Socialism, there is a very large group of subjects of special interest to Socialist women, either practical problems of immediate politics, relating to the wages and conditions of women's labour, and the treatment of women by Education Acts, National Insurance Acts, and Factory Acts ; or re- moter and more theoretical problems, especially those connected with the question whether the wife in the ideal state is to be an independent wage-earner or the mistress and manager of an isolated home, dependent on her husband as breadwinner. Efficiently organised by Mrs. C. M, Wilson, until ill-health required her resignation of the secretaryship in 1914 ; by Mrs. Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Pember Reeves, Miss Murby, Miss Emma Brooke, and many others, including in later years Dr. Letitia Fairfield, the Group has had many of the characteristics of an independent society. It has its own office, latterly at 25 Tothill Street, rented from the parent Society, with its own paid assistant secretary, and it has issued for private circulation its own publications. In 1913 it prepared a volume of essays on " Women Workers in Seven Professions," which was edited by Professor Edith Morley and published by George Routledge and Sons. It has prepared five tracts for the Society, published in the general list, under a sub-title, " The Women's Group Series," and it has taken an active part, both independently and in co-operation with other bodies. The Policy of Expansion 191 in the political movements specially affecting women, which have been so numerous in recent years. It will be recollected that the only direct result of the Special Enquiry Committee, apart from the changes made in the organisation of the Society itself, was the decision to promote local Socialist Societies of the Fabian type with a view to increasing Socialist representation in Parliament. I have recounted in a previous chapter how this scheme worked out in relation to the Labour Party and the running of candidates for Parliament. It remains to describe here its measure of success in the formation of local societies. The summer of 1905 was about the low-water mark of provincial Fabianism. Nine societies are named in the report, but four of these appeared to have no more than a nominal existence. The Oxford University Society had but 6 members ; Glasgow had 30 in its University Society and 50 in its town Society ; Liver- pool was reduced to 63, Leeds and County to 15, and that was all. A year later the Cambridge University Society had been formed, Oxford had more than doubled its fcaembership to 13, but only five other societies were in existence. By the following year a revival had set in. W. Stephen Sanders, at that time an Alderman of the London County Council, who had been a member of the Society since 1890 and of the Executive Committee since 1904, was appointed Organising Secretary with the special object of building up the provincial organisation. By 1910 there were forty-six local societies, and in 1912 the maximum of fifty was reached. Since then the number has declined. These societies were scattered over the country, some of them in the great cities, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield, and so on : others within hail of London, 192 History of the Fabian Society at Croydon, Letchworth, Ilford : others again in small towns, Canterbury, Chelmsford, Carnarvon : another was at Bedales School, Petersfield, run by my son and his schoolfellows. The local societies formed at this period, apart from the University Societies, were in the main pallid reflections of the parent Society in its earlier days ; none of them had the good fortune to find a member, so far as we yet know, of even second- class rank as a thinker or speaker. One or two pro- duced praiseworthy local tracts on housing conditions and similar subjects. They usually displayed less tolerance than the London Society, a greater inclination to insist that there was but one way of political salvation, usually the Labour Party way, and that all who would not walk in it should be treated as alien enemies. If Socialism is only to be achieved by the making of Socialists, as Mr. Wells announced with all the emphasis of a rediscovery, no doubt the local societies achieved some Socialism, since they made some members. If Socialism is to be attained by the making of Socialist measures, doubtless they accom- plished a little by their influence on local administra- tion. Organisation for political work is always educative to those who take part in it, and it has some effect on the infinitely complex parallelogram of forces which determines the direction of progress. Possibly I underestimate the importance of local Fabian Societies ; there is a school of thought, often repre- sented in the Society, which regards the provinces with reverent awe — omne ignotum pro magnifico — ^as the true source of political wisdom, which Londoners should endeavour to discover and obey. Londoners no doubt see little of organised labour, and even less of industrial co-operation : the agricultural labourer is to them almost a foreigner : the Welsh miner belongs to another race. But the business men, the The Policy of Expansion 193 professional class, and the political organisers of Manchester and Glasgow have, in my opinion, no better intuitions, and usually less knowledge than their equivalents in London, and they have the disadvantage of comparative isolation. London, the brain of the Empire, where reside the leaders in politics and in commerce, in literature, in journalism and in art, -and which consequently attracts the young men who aspire to be the next generation of leaders, where too are stationed all the higher ranks of Civil Service, is different in kind, as well as in size, from other cities. New thought on social subjects is almost always the product of association. Only those who live in a crowd of other thinkers know where there is room for new ideas ; for it takes years for the top layer of political thought to find expression in books. Therefore the provincial thinker on social problems is always a little out of date. Except for one or two University men (e.g. Sidney Ball and Sir Oliver Lodge) practically all Fabian tract-writers have been Londoners. The local Fabian Societies have so far achieved nothing towards the making of a middle-class Socialist party, and they have achieved but little else. They have been fully justified because every association for mutual instruction adds something to the mass of political intelligence, does something to disseminate ideas, but that is all that can be said for them. The University Societies belong to a different type. Nothing is more importajit than the education of young men and women in politics, and the older Universities have always recognised this. Socialist Societies accordingly grew up naturally alongside Liberal and Tory Clubs, and under the shadow of the " Unions." Oxford, as we have seen, had a University Fabian Society from early days. Cambridge followed at a much later date. For years Glasgow University 194 History of the Fabian Society and University College, Aberystwyth, maintained flourishing societies. The newer Universities, de- pendent largely on the bounty of wealthy capitalist founders and supporters, and assisted by, or in close touch with, town councils and local industries, have been much less willing to sanction political free-thought amongst their undergraduates, and the pernicious in- fluence of wealth, or rathe r the feaF"o f alarming the jy ealthy T has at times m"duced t he ai rEHonties to inte rfere withlEe "freedom of the" {mdCTgraciuates To ^ m^ne lor the study and propaqfanda of Socialism. Undergraduate societies are composed of a con- stantly shifting population, and we arranged from the first that all their members should also be elected direct to the parent Society in order that they might remain automatically in membership when they " go down." In fact of course the percentage which retains its membership is very small. " Men " and women at Universities join any organisation whose leaders at the moment are influential and popular. They are sampling life to discover what suits them, and a few years later some of them are scattered over the globe, others immersed in science or art, or wholly occupied in law and medicine, in the church and the army, in the civil service and in journalism. Most of them no doubt have ceased to pretend to take interest in social and political reform. A few remain, and these are amongst the most valuable of our members. At times, when an imdergraduate of force of character and high social position, the heir to a peerage for example, is for the moment an ardent Socialist, the Fabian Society becomes, in a certain set or college, the fashion- able organisation. On the whole it is true that Socialists are bom and not made, and very few of the hundreds who join at such periods stay for more than a couple of years. The maximum University membership — on The Policy of Expansion 195 paper — was in 1914, when it reached 541 members, of whom loi were at Oxford and 70 at Cambridge. But the weakness of undergraduate Sociahsm is indi- cated by the extraordinary difficulty found in paying to the parent Society the very moderate fee of a shifting a head per annum, and the effect of attempting to enforce this in 1915, combined with the propaganda of Guild Sociahsm, especially at Oxford, was for the moment to break up the apparently imposing array of University Fabianism. In 1912 Qifford Allen of Cambridge formed the University Socialist Federation, which was in fact a Federation of Fabian Societies though not nominally confined to them. Mr. AUen, an eloquent speaker and admirable organiser, with most of the virtues and some of the defects of the successful propagandist, planned the foundations of the Federation on broad lines. It started a sumptuous quarterly, " The University Socialist," the contents of which by no means equalled the excellence of the print and paper. It did not survive the second number. The Federation has held several conferences, mostly at Barrow House — of which later — and issued various documents. Its object is to encourage University Socialism and to found organisa- tions in every University. It stiU exists, but whether it will survive the period of depression which has coincided with the war remains to be seen. Lastly, amongst the organs of Fabian activity come the London Groups. In the years of rapid growth that followed the publication of " Fabian Essays " the London Groups maintained a fairly genuine existence. London was teeming with political lectures, and in the decade 1889-1899 its Government was revolu- tionised by the County Councils Act of 1888, the Local Government Act of 1894, and the London Government Act of 1899 which established the Metropolitan 196 History of the Fabian Society Boroughs. Socialism, too, was a novelty, and the few who knew about it were in request. Anyway even with the small membership of those days, the London Groups managed to persist, and " Fabian News " is full of reports of conferences of Group Secretaries and accounts of Group activities. In the trough of depression between the South African War and the Liberal victory of 1906 all this disappeared and the Group system scarcely existed even on paper. With the expansion which began in 1906 the Groups revived. New members were hungry for lectures : many of them desired more opportunities to talk than the Society meetings afforded. All believed in or hoped for Mr. Wells' myriad membership. He himself was glad to address drawing-room meetings, and the other leaders did the same. Moreover the Society was conducting a series of " Suburban Lectures " by paid lecturers, in more or less middle-class residential areas of the Home Counties. Lectures to the Leisured Classes, a polite term for the idle rich, were arranged with considerable success in the West End, and other lectures, meetings, and social gatherings were incessant. For co-ordinating these various bodies the Fabian Society has created its own form of organisation fitted to its peculiar circumstances, and more like that of the British Empire than anything else known to me. As is the United Kingdom in the British Empire, so in the Fabian movement the parent Society is larger, richer, and more powerful, and in all respects more important than all the others put together. Any form of federal organisation is impossible, because federation assimies some approach to equality amongst con- stituents. Our local societies, like the British self- governing Dominions, are practically independent, especially in the very important department of finance. The Groups, on the other hand, are like The Policy of Expansion 197 County Councils, local organisations within special areas for particular purposes, with their own finances for those purposes only. But the parent Society is not made up of Groups, any more than the British Government is composed of County Councils. The local Groups consist of members of the Society quahfied for the group by residence in the group area ; the " Subject Groups " of those associated for some particular purpose. The problem of the Society (as it is of the Empire) was to give the local societies and the groups some real func- tion which should emphasise and sustain the solidarity of the whole ; and at the same time leave unimpaired the control of the parent Society over its own affairs. The Second Annual Conference of Fabian Societies •and Groups was held on July 6th, 1907, under the chairmanship of Hubert Bland, who opened the proceedings with an account of the first Conference held in 1892 and described in an eariier chapter. Fifteen delegates from 9 local and University Societies, 16 from 8 London Groups, 8 from Subject Groups, and 9 members of the Executive Committee were present. The business consisted of the sanction of rules for the Pan-Fabian Organisation. The Conference of 1908 was a much bigger affair. A dozen members of the Executive, including Mr. H. G. Wells and (as he then was) Mr. L. G. Chiozza Money, m.p., and 61 delegates representing 36 Groups and Societies met for a whole-day conference at University Hall, Gordon Square. Miss Murby was chairman, and addressed the delegates on the impor- tance of tolerance, an apposite subject in view of the discussion to follow on the proposed parliamentary action, especially the delicate issue between co- operation with the Labour Party and the promotion of a purely Socialist party. A resolution favouring exclusive support of independent Socialist candidatures 198 History of the Fabian Society moved by Mr. J. A. Allan of Glasgow received only 10 votes, but another advocating preference for such candidates was only defeated by 26 to 21. The resolution adopted left the question to be settled in each case by the constituency concerned. Another resolution directed towards condemnation of members who worked with the Liberal or Tory Party failed by 3 votes only, 17 to 20. In the afternoon Mr. Money gave an address on the Sources of Socialist Revenue, and a number of administrative matters were discussed. The 1909 Conference was attended by 29 delegates of local and University Societies, and by 46 delegates from London Groups and from the parent Society. On this occasion a Constitution was adopted giving the Conference a regular status, the chief provisions of which required the submission to the Conference of any alteration of the Basis, and " any union affilia- tion or formal alliance with any other society or with any political party whereby the freedom of action of any society ... is in any way limited . . . " ; and of any change in the constitution itself. These are all matters which concern the local organisations, as they are required to adopt the Basis, or some approved equivalent, and are affiliated to the Labour Party through the parent Society. No contentious topic was on this occasion seriously discussed. The Conference of 1910 was smaller, sixty-one dele- gates in all. Resolutions against promoting parUa- mentary candidatures and favouring the by this time VEinishing project for an independent Socialist party obtained but little support, and the chief controversy was over an abstract resolution on the " economic independence of women," which was in the end settled by a compromise drafted by Sidney Webb. Sixty delegates were present at the 191 1 Conference, held at Clifford's Inn, who, after rejecting by a seven The Policy of Expansion 199 to one majority a resolution to confine Fabian member- ship to Labour Party adherents, devoted themselves mainly to opposition to the National Insurance Bill then before Parhament. In 1912 the Conference was still large and still concerned in the position of the Society in relation to Labour and Liberalism. Both in 1913 and in 1914 the Conference was well attended and prolonged, but in 1915, partly on account of the war and partly because of the defection of several University Societies, few were present, and the business done was inconsiderable. The Summer School was another enterprise started at the period. It was begun independently of the Society in this sense, that half a dozen members agreed to put up the necessary capital and to accept the financial responsibility, leaving to the Society the arrangement of lectures and the management of business. It was opened at the end of July, 1907, at Pen-yr- allt, a large house, previously used as a school, looking out over the sea, near Llanbedr, a little village on the Welsh coast between Barmouth and Harlech. The house was taken for three years partly furnished, and the committee provided the beds, cutlery, etc., needed. One or two other houses near by were usually rented for the summer months. The value of the plan for a propagandist society is largely this, that experience shows that people can only work together efficiently when they know each other. Therefore in practice political and many other organisations find it necessary to arrange garden parties, fetes, picnics, teas, and functions of all sorts in order to bring together their numbers under such conditions as enable them to become personally 200 History of the Fabian Society acquainted with each other. In times of expansion the Fabian Society has held dinners and soirees in London, many of which have been successful and even briUiant occasions, because the new members come in crowds and the old attend as a duty. When new members are few these entertainments cease, for nothing is so dreary as a social function that is half failure, and a hint of it brings the series to an end. But a Summer School where members pass weeks together is far more valuable in enabling the leaders and officials to find out who there is who is good as a speaker or thinker, or who is a specialist on some subject of value to the movement. Moreover, gather- ings of this class attract those on the fringe of the movement, and many of our members have come to us through attendance at the school. Apart from the direct interests of the Society, a School of this character is valued by many solitary people, solitary both socially, such as teachers and civil servants, who are often lonely in the world, and soUtary intellectually because they Hve in remote places where people of their way of thinking are scarce. It is not necessary to describe the arrangements of the School, for these institutions have in the last few years become familiar to everybody. We do not, however, as a rule make quite such a business of the schooling as is usual where the term is short, and study is the sole object. One regular lecture a day for four days a week is the rule, but impromptu lectures or debates in the evenings, got up amongst the guests, are customary. Moreover, frequent conferences on special subjects are held, either by allied bodies, such as the Committee for the Prevention of Destitution, or by a Group, such as the Education Group or the Research Department. On these occasions the pro- portion of work to play is higher. The School-house The Policy of Expansion 201 belongs to the Society for the whole year, and parties are arranged for Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide whenever possible. After four years at Llanbedr the lease was terminated and the original Committee wound up. The capital borrowed had all been repaid, and there remained, after a sale by auction, a lot of property and nearly £100 in cash. This the Committee transferred to the Society, and thereupon the quasi-independence of the Summer School came to an end. In 1911 a new experiment was tried. A small hotel at Saas Grund, off the Rhone Valley, was secured, and during six weeks three large parties of Fabians occupied it for periods of a fortnight each. The summer was one of the finest of recent years, and the high mountains were exceptionally attractive. On account of the remoteness of the place, and the desire to make the most of a short time, lectures were as a rule confined to the evening, and distinguished visitors were few, but an address by Dr. Hertz of Paris, one of the few French Fabians, may be mentioned, partly because in the summer of 1915 his promising career was cut short in the trenches which protected his country from the German invaders. In 1912 Barrow House, Derwentwater, was taken for three years, a beautiful place with the Barrow Falls in the garden on one side, and grounds sloping down to the lake on the other, with its own boating pier and bathing-place. A camp of tents for men was set up, and as many as fifty or sixty guests could be accommodated at a time. Much of the success of the School has throughout been due to Miss Mary Hankin- son, who from nearly the beginning has been a most popular and efficient manager. A director is selected by the Committee to act as nominal head, and holds office usually for a week or a fortnight ; but the chief of staff is a permanent institution, and is not only business 202 History of the Fabian Society manager, but also organiser and leader of excursions and a principal figure in all social undertakings. A great part in arranging for the School from the first has been taken by Dr. Lawson Dodd, to whose ex- perience and energy much of its success has been due. The year 1911 saw the formation of the Joint Standing Committee with the I.L.P., and this is a convenient place to describe the series of attempts at Socialist Unity which began a long way back in the history of the Society. For the first eight years or so of the Socialist movement the problem of unity did not arise. Until the publication of " Fabian Essays " the Fabian Society was small, and the S.D.F., firm in its Marxian faith, and confident that the only way of salvation was its particular way, had no more idea of uniting with the other societies than the Roman CathoHc Church has of union with Lutherans or Methodists. The Socialist League was the outcome of an internal dispute, and, if my memory is correct, the S.D.F. expected, not without reason, that the seceders wotdd ultimately return to the fold. The League ceased to count when at the end of 1890 Wilham Morris left it and reconstituted as the Hammer- smith Socialist Society the branch which met in the little hall constructed out of the stable attached to Kelmscott House. In January, 1893, seven delegates from this Society held a conference with Fabian delegates, and at a second meeting at which S.D.F. delegates were present a scheme for promoting unity was approved. A Joint Committee of five from each body assembled on February 23rd, when William Morris was appointed Chairman, with Sydney Olivier as Treasurer, and it was decided that the Chairman with H. M. Hyndman The Policy of Expansion 203 and Bernard Shaw should draft a Joint Manifesto. The " Manifesto of English Socialists," pubHshed on May 1st, 1893, as a penny pamphlet with the customary red cover, was signed by the three Secretaries, H. W. Lee of the S.D.F., Emery Walker of the H.S.S., and myself, and by fifteen delegates, including Sydney Olivier and Sidney Webb of the F.S., Harry Quelch of the S.D.F., and the three authors. Like most joint productions of clever men, it is by no means an inspiring document. The less said, the less to dispute about, and so it only runs to eight pages of large print, four devoted to the evils of capitalism, unemployment, the decline of agriculture, and the ill-nurture of children, and the rest to remedies, a queer list, consisting of : — An eight hours law. Prohibition of child labour for wages. Free Maintenance for all necessitous children (a compromise in which Fabian influence may be traced by the insertion of the word " necessi- tous "). Equal payment of men and women for equal work. (A principle which, whether good or bad, belongs rather to individualism than to Socialism : Socialism according to Bernard Shaw — and most of us agree with him — demands as an ideal equal maintenance irrespec- tive of work ; and in the meantime payment according to need, each to receive that share of the national pro- duct which he requires in order to do his work and maintain his dependents, if any, appropriately.) To resume the programme : — An adequate minimum wage for all adults em- ployed in Government and Municipal services or in any monopoUes such as railways enjoying State privileges. 204 History of the Fabian Society Suppression of all sub-contracting and sweating (an ignorant confusion between a harmless industrial method and its occasional abuse). Universal suffrage for all adults, men and women alike. Public payment for all public service. These of course were only means tending towards the ideal, " to wit, the supplanting of the present state by a society of equaUty of condition," and then follows a sentence paraphrased from the Fabian Basis embodying a last trace of that Utopian idealism which imagines that society can be constituted so as to enable men to live in freedom without eternal vigilance, namely, " When this great change is completely carried out, the genuine Uberty of all will be secured by the free play of social forces with much less coercive interference than the present system entails." From these extracts it will be seen that the Mani- festo, drafted by WiUiam Morris, but mutilated and patched up by the other two, bears the imprint neither of his style, nor that of Shaw, but reminds one rather of mid- Victorian dining-room furniture, solid, re- spectable, heavily ornate, and quite uninteresting. Happily there is not much of it ! Unity was attained by the total avoidance of the contentious question of political policy. But fifteen active Socialists sitting together at a period when parties were so evenly divided that a General Election was always imminent could not refrain from immediate politics, and the S.D.F., like many other bodies, always cherished the illusion that the defeat of a minority at a joint conference on a question of principle would put that minority out of action. Accordingly, as soon as the Manifesto had been published resolutions were tabled pledging the con- stituent societies to concentrate their efforts on The Policy of Expansion 205 Socialist candidates accepted as suitable by the Joint Qjmmittee. On this point the Fabian Society was in a hopeless minority, and an endless vista of futile and acrimonious discussions was opened out which would lead to unrest in our own society — for there has always been a minority opposed to its dominant policy — and a waste of time and temper to the delegates from our Executive. It was therefore resolved at the end of July that our delegates be withdrawn, and that put an end to the Joint Committee. The decision was challenged at a members' meeting by E. E. Williams, one of the signatories of the Joint Manifesto, subsequently well known as the author of " Made in Germany," and in some sense the real founder of the Tariff Reform movement ; but the members by a decisive vote upheld the action of their Executive. Four years later, early in 1897, another effort after Unity was made. By this time Morris, whose out- standing personality had given him a commanding and in some respects a moderating influence in the movement, was dead ; and the Hammersmith Socialist Society had disappeared. Instead there was the new and vigorous Independent Labour Party, already the premier Socialist body in point of public influence. This body took the first step, and a meeting was held in April at the Fabian office, attended by Hubert Bland, Bernard Shaw, and myself as delegates from our Society. The proposal before the Conference was " the formation of a court of appeal to adjudicate between rival Socialist candidates standing for the same seat at any contested election," an occurrence which has in fact been rare in local and virtually unknown in Parliamentary elections. As the Fabian Society did not at that time officially run candidates, and has always allowed to its members 2o6 History of the Fabian Society liberty of action in party politics, it was impossible for us to undertake that our members would obey any such tribunal. The difficulty was however solved by the S.D.F., whose delegates to the second meetings held in July, announced that they were instructed to withdraw from the Committee if the Fabian dele- gates remained. The I.L.P. naturally preferred the S.D.F. to ourselves, because their actual rivalry was always with that body, and we were only too glad to accept from others the dismissal which we desired. So our delegates walked out, leaving the other two parties in temporary possession of our office, and Socialist Unity so far as we were concerned again vanished. I do not think that the court of appeal was ever constituted, and certainly the relations between the other two Societies continued to be difficult. The next move was one of a practical character. The Fabian Society had always taken special interest in Local Government, as a method of obtaining piece- meal Socialism, and had long acted as an informal Information Bureau on the law and practice of local government administration. The success of the I.L.P. in getting its members elected to local authori- ties suggested a conference of such persons, which was held at Easter, 1899, on the days preceding the I.L.P. Annual Conference at Leeds. Sidney Webb was in- vited to be President, and gave an address on " The Sphere of Municipal Statesmanship " ; Will Crooks was Chairman of the Poor Law Section. At this Conference it was resolved to form a Local Government Information Bureau, to be jointly managed by the I.L.P. and the Fabian Society ; it was intended for Labour members of local authorities, but anybody could join on payment of the annual subscription of 2S. 6d. For this sum the subscriber obtained the right to have questions answered free of charge, and The Policy of Expansion 207 to receive both " Fabian News " and the of&cial publications of the I.L.P., other than their weekly newspaper. The Bureau also published annual Reports, at j5rst on Bills before Parliament, and latterly abstracts of such Acts passed by Parliament as were of interest to its members. It pursued an uneventful but useful career, managed virtually by the secretaries of the two societies, which divided the funds annually in proportion to the Uterature supplied. Several Easter Conferences of Elected Persons were held with varying success. Later on the nominal control was handed over to the Joint Committee, next to be described. The problem of Socialist Unity seemed to be approaching a settlement when the three organisations, in 1900, joined hands with the Trade Unions in the formation of the Labour Representation Committee, later renamed the Labour Party. But in 1901, eighteen months after the Committee was constituted, the S.D.F. withdrew, and thereafter unity became more difficult than ever, since two societies were united for collective political action with the numerically and financially powerful trade imions, whilst the third took up the position of hostile isolation. But between the Fabian Society and the I.L.P. friendly relations became closer than ever. The divergent political policies of the two, the only matter over which they had differed, had been largely settled by change of circumstances. The Fabian Society had rightly held that the plan of building up an effective political party out of individual adherents to any one society was impracticable, and the I.L.P. had in fact adopted another method, the permeation of existing organisa- tions, the Trade Unions. On the other hand the Fabian Society, which at first confined its permeation almost entirely to the Liberal Party, because this was 2o8 History of the Fabian Society the only existing organisation accessible — we could not work through the Trade Unions, because we were not eligible to join them — was perfectly willing to place its views before the Labour Party, from which it was assured of sympathetic attention. Neither the Fabian Society nor the I.L.P. desired to lose its identity, or to abandon its special methods. But half or two-thirds of the Fabians belonged also to the I.L.P. , and nearly all the I.L.P. leaders were or had been members of the Fabian Society. The suggestion was made in March, 1911, by Henry H. Slesser, then one of the younger memljers of the Executive, that the friendly relations of the two bodies should be further cemented by the formation of a Joint Standing Committee. Four members of each Executive together with the secretaries were appointed, and W. C. Anderson, later M.P. for the Attercliffe Division of Sheffield, and at that time Chairman of the I.L.P., was elected Chairman, a post which he has ever since retained. The Joint Committee has wisely confined its activities to matters about which there was no disagreement, and its proceedings have always been harmonious to the verge of dullness. The Committee began by arranging a short series of lectures, replacing for the time the ordinary Fabian meetings, and it proposed to the Labour Party a demonstration in favour of Adult Suffrage, which was successfully held at the Royal Albert Hall. In the winter of 1912-13 the Joint Committee co-operated with the National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution (of which later) in a big War against Poverty Campaign, to demand a minimum standard of civilised life for all. A demonstration at the Albert Hall, a Conference at the Memorial Hall, twenty-nine other Conferences throughout Great Britain, all attended by numerous delegates from Trade The Policy of Expansion 209 Unions and other organisations, and innumerable separate meetings were among the activities of the Committee. In 1913 a large number of educational classes were arranged. In the winter of 1913-14 the I.L.P. desired to concentrate its attention on its own " Coming of Age Campaign," an internal affair, in which co-operation with another body was inappro- priate. A few months later the War began and, for reasons explained later, joint action remains for the time in abeyance. It will be convenient to complete the history of the movements for Socialist Unity, though it extends beyond the period assigned to this chapter, and we must now turn back to the beginning of another line of action. The International Socialist and Trade Union Con- gresses held at intervals of three or four years since 1889 were at first no more than isolated Congresses, arranged by local organisations constituted for the purpose in the preceding year. Each nation voted as one, or at most, as two units, and therefore no limit was placed on the number of its delegates : the one delegate from Argentina or Japan consequently held equal voting power to the scores or even hundreds from France or Germany. But gradually the organisa- tion 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. More- over 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 Govern- ment 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 2IO History of the Fabian Society- 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 Inter- national 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 opposi- tion in electoral campaigns. In Great Britain the rivalry of different societies has consisted for the most part in separate schemes of propaganda, in occasional bickerings in their publications, in squabbles over local elections, and sometimes over the selection but not the election of parUamentary candidates. On the other hand co-operation on particular problems and exchange of courtesies have been common. The International Socialist Bureau, under instruc- tions from the Copenhagen Conference had made a successful attempt to tmite the warring elements of French Socialism, and in the autumn of 1912 the three British Sociahst Societies were approached with a view to a conference with the Bureau on the subject of Socialist tmity in Great Britain. Convenient dates could not be fixed, and the matter was dropped, but in July, 1913, M. Vandervelde, the Chairman, and M. Camille Huysmans, the Secretary of the Bureau, came over from Brussels and a hurried meeting of delegates assembled in the Fabian office to discuss their proposals. The Bureau had the good sense to recognise that the way to unity led through the Labour The Policy of Expansion 211 Party ; and it was agreed that the three Sociahst bodies should form a United Socialist Council, subject to the condition that the British Sociahst Party should affihate to the Labour Party. In December, 1913, a formal conference was held in London, attended on this occasion by all the mem- bers of the International Sociahst Bureau, representing the Socialist parties of twenty different countries. The crux of the question was to find a form of words which satisfied all susceptibilities ; and Sidney Webb, who was chosen chairman of a part of the proceedings when the British delegates met by themselves to formulate the terms of agreement, was here in his element ; for it would be hard to find anybody in England more skilful in solving the difficulties that arise in determining the expression of a proposition of which the substance is not in dispute. An agreement was arrived at that the Joint Socialist Coimcil should be formed as soon as the British Socialist Party was affiliated to the Labour Party. The B.S.P. confirmed the decision of its delegates, but the Labour Party referred the acceptance of affiliation to the Annual Conference of 1915.^ Then came the War. The Labour Party Conference of 1915 did not take place, and a sudden new divergence of opinion arose in the Sociahst movement. The Labour Party, the Fabian Society, and the leaders of the B.S.P. gave general support to the Government in entering into the war. The I.L.P. adopted an atti- tude of critical hostility. Amidst this somewhat unexpected regrouping of parties, any attempt to inaugurate a United Socialist Council was foredoomed to failure. The project for Socialist Unity therefore awaits the happy time when war shall have ceased. * The Labour Party Conference held in January, 1916, unani- mously accepted the affiliation of the British Socialist Paxty. Chapter XI The Minority Report, Syndicalism and Research : 1909—15 The emergence of Mrs. Sidney Webb — The Poor Law Com- mission — The Minority Report — Unemployment — The National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution — " Vote against the House of Lords " — Bernard Shaw- retires — ^Death of Hubert Bland — Opposition to the National Insurance Bill — The Fabian Refoirm Committee — The " New Statesman " — ^The Research Department — " The Rural Problem "— " The Control of Industry "— S3mdicalism — ^The Guildsmen — Final Statistics — ^The War. A FORMER chapter was entitled " The Episode of Mr. Wells." The present might have been called " The Intervention of Mrs. Sidney Webb," save for the fact that it would suggest a comparison which might be misleading. I have insisted with some iteration that the success of the Society, both in its early days and afterwards, must be mainly attributed to the exceptional force and ability of the Essayists. Later in its history only two persons have come forward who are in my opinion entitled in their Fabian work to rank with the original leaders, to wit, Mr. Wells and Mrs. Webb. Of the former I have said enough already. The present chapter will be largely devoted to the influence of the latter. It must however be observed that in all their achievements it is impossible to make a clear dis- tinction between Mrs. Webb and her husband. For example, the Minority Report of the Poor Law Com- mission, shortly to be dealt with, purported to be the MRS. SIDNEY WEBB, IN 1909 Face page 212 The Minority Report 213 work of Mrs. Webb and her three co-signatories. In fact the investigation, the invention, and the con- clusions were in the fullest sense joint, although the draft which went to the typist was in the handwriting of Mr. Webb. On some occasions at any rate Mrs. Webb lectures from notes in her husband's eminently legible handwriting : her own — oddly unlike her character — is indecipherable without prolonged scru- tiny even by herself. Sometimes, on the other hand, it is possible to separate the work of the two. Mrs. Webb, although elected a member in 1893, took practically no part in the Fabian Society until 1906. It may be said, with substantial if not literal accuracy, that her only contributions to the Society for the first dozen years of her membership were a couple of lectures and Tract No. 67, " Women and the Factory Acts." The Suffrage movement and the Wells episode brought her to our meetings, and her lecture in " The Faith I Hold " series, a description of her upbringing amongst the captains of industry who built some of the world's great railways, was amongst the most memorable in the long Fabian series. Still she neither held nor sought any official position ; and the main work of a Society is necessarily done by the few who sit at its Committees often twice or thrice a week. The transformation of Mrs. Webb from a student and writer, a typical " socialist of the chair," into an active leader and propagandist originated in December, 1905, when she was appointed a member of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law. The Fabian Society had nothing to do with the Commission during its four years of enquiry, though as usual not a few Fabians took part in the work, both officially and unofficially. But when in the spring of 1909 the Minority Report was issued, signed by Mrs. Webb and George Lansbury, both members of the Society, as well as by the Rev. 214 History of the Fabian Society Russell Wakefield (now the Bishop of Birmingham) and Mr. F. Chandler, Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, the Society took it up. Mr. and Mrs. Webb reprinted the Minority Report with an introduction and notes in two octavo vokimes, and they lent the Society the plates for a paper edition in two parts at a shilling and two shillings, one dealing with Unemployment and the other with the reconstruction of the Poor Law, some 6000 copies of which were sold at a substantial profit. The Treasury Solicitor was rash enough to threaten us with an injunction on the ground of infringement of the Crown copyright and to demand an instant withdrawal of our edition. But Government Depart- ments which try conclusions with the Fabian Society generally find the Society better informed than them- selves ; and we were able triumphantly to refer the Treasmy Solicitor to a pubUshed declaration of his own employers, the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, a score of years before, in which they ex- pressly disclaimed their privilege of copyright monopoly so far as ordinary blue books were concerned,, and actually encouraged the reprinting of them for the public advantage. And, with characteristic impudence, we intimated also that, if the Government wished to try the issue, it might find that the legal copyright was not in the Crown at all, as the actual writer of the Report, to whom alone the law gives copjmght, had never ceded his copyright and was not a member of the Royal Commission at all ! At the same time we prepared to get the utmost advertisement out of the attempt to suppress the popular circulation of the Report, and we made this fact known to the Prime Minister. In the end the Treasury Solicitor had to climb down and withdraw his objection. What the Government did was to undercut us by publishing a The Minority Report 215 still cheaper edition, which did not stop our sales, and thus the public benefited by our enterprise, and an enormous circulation was obtained for the Report. The Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission — although never, from first to last, mentioning Socialism — ^was a notable and whoUy original addition to Socialist theory, entirely of Fabian origin. Hitherto all Socialist writings on the organisation of society, whether contemporary or Utopian, had visualised a world composed exclusively of healthy, sane, and effective citizens, mostly adults. No Socialist had stopped to think out how, in a densely populated and highly industrialised Socialist community, we should provide systematically for the orphans, the sick, the physically or mentally defective and the aged on the one hand, and for the adults for whom at any time no immediate employment could be found. The Minority Report, whilst making immediately practic- able proposals for the reform of all the evils of the Poor Law, worked out the lines along which the necessary organisation must proceed, even in the fully socialised State. We had, in the Fabian Society, made attempts to deal with both sides of this problem ; but our publications, both on the Poor Law and on the Un- employed, had lacked the foundation of solid fact and the discovery of new principles, which the four years' work of the Fabians connected with the Poor Law Commission now supplied. EngUsh Socialists have always paid great and perhaps excessive attention to the problem of un- employment. Partly this is due to the fact that Socialism came to the front in Great Britain at a period when unemployment was exceptionally rife, and when for the first time in the nineteenth century the com- munity had become acutely aware of it. In our early days it was commonly believed to be a rapidly growing 2 1 6 History of the Fabian Society evil. Machinery was replacing men : the capitalists would employ a few hands to turn the machines on and off : wealth would be produced for the rich, and most of the present manual working class would become superfluous. The only reply, so far as I know, to this line of argumentative forecast is that it does not happen. The world is at present so avid of wealth, so eager for more things to use or consume, that however quickly iron and copper replace flesh and blood, the demand for men keeps pace with it. Any- way, unemployment in the twentieth century has so far been less prevalent than it was in the nineteenth, and nobody now suggests, as did Mrs. Besant in 1889, that the increasing army of the unemployed, provided with work by the State, would ultimately oust the employees of private capitalism. Unemployment in fact is at least as old as the days of Queen Elizabeth, when the great Poor Law of 1601 was passed to cope with it. Whilst labour was scattered and the artisan still frequently his own master, unemplojnment was indefinite and relatively imperceptible. When masses of men and women came to be employed in factories, the closing of the factory made unemployment obvious to those on the spot. But two generations ago Lan- cashire and Yorkshire were far away from London, and the nation as a whole knew Uttle and cared less about hard times amongst cotton operatives or iron- workers in the remote north. It may be said with fair accuracy that Unemploy- ment was scarcely recognised as a social problem before the last quarter of the nineteenth century, though in fact it had existed for centuries, and had been prevalent for fifty years. Mill in his " Political Economy," which treats so sympathetically of the state of labour under capitalism, has no reference to it in the elaborate table of contents. Indeed the word unemplo3anent The Minority Report 217 is so recent as to have actually been unknown before the early nineties. ^ But the Trade Unionists had always been aware of unemployment, since, after strike pay, it is " out- of-work benefit " which they have found the best protection for the standard rate of wages, and nothing in the program of Socialism appealed to them more directly than its claim to aboUsh unemployment. Finally it may be said that unemployment is on the whole more prevalent in Great Britain than elsewhere ; the system of casual or intermittent employment is more widespread ; throughout the Continent the working classes in towns are nearly ever3nvhere connected with the rural peasant landowners or occupiers, so that the town labourer can often go back to the land at any rate for his keep; whilst all America, still predominantly agricultural, is in something like a similar case. The Fabian Society had since its earliest days been conscious of the problem of unemployment ; but it had done little to solve it. The " Report on the Govern- ment Organisation of Unemployed Labour," printed " for the information of members " in 1886, had been long forgotten, and an attempt to revise it made some time in the nineties had come to nothing. In " Fabian Essays " unemployment is rightly recognised as the Achilles heel of the proletarian system, but the prac- tical problem is not solved or even thoroughly under- stood ; the plausible error of supposing that the un- employed baker and bootmaker can be set to make bread and boots for one another still persists. In 1893 we reprinted from the " Nineteenth Century " as Tract No. 47 a paper on " The Unemployed " by John Bums, and we had published nothing else., 1 The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary kindly inform me that the earliest quotation they have yet found is dated December, 1894. I cannot discover it in any Fabian publication before Tract No. 65, which was published in July, 1895. 2 1 8 History of the Fabian Society In fact we found the subject too difficult. There were plenty of palliatives familiar to every social enquirer ; Socialism, the organisation of industry by the community for the community, we regarded as the real and final remedy. But between the former, such as labour bureaux, farm colonies, afforestation, the eight hours day, which admittedly were at best only partial and temporary, and Socialism, which was obviously far off, there was a great gulf fixed, and how to bridge it we knew not. At last the Minority Report provided an answer. It was a comprehensive and practicable scheme for preventing unemployment under existing conditions, and for coping with the mass of incompetent destitution which for generations had been the disgrace of our civilisation. Into the details of this scheme I must not enter because it is, properly speaking, outside the scope of this book. The propaganda for carrying the Report into effect was undertaken by the National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution, established by Mrs. Webb as a separate organisation. The necessity for this step was significant of the extent to which Socialism, as it crystallises into practical measures, invades the common body of British thought. People who would not dream of calling themselves SociaUsts, much less contributing to the funds of a Socialist Society, become enthusiastically interested in separate parts of its program as soon as it has a program, provided these parts are presented on their own merits and not as approaches to Socialism. Indeed many who regard Socialism as a menace to society are so anxious to find and support alternatives to it, that they will endow expensive Socialistic investigations and subscribe to elaborate Socialistic schemes of reform under the impression that nothing that is thoughtful, practical, well informed, and constitutional can The Minority Report 219 possibly have any connection with the Red Spectre which stands in their imagination for Socialism. To such people the Minority Report, a document obviously the work of highly skUled and disinterested political thinkers and experts, would recommend itself as the constitutional basis of a Society for the Prevention of Destitution : that is, of the condition which not only smites the conscientious rich with a compunction that no special pleading by arm-chair economists can allay, but which offers a hotbed to the sowers of Socialism. Add to these the considerable number of convinced or half-convinced Socialists who for various reasons are not in a position to make a definite pro- fession of Socialism without great inconvenience, real or imaginary, to themselves, and it will be plain that Mrs. Webb would have been throwing away much of her available resources if she had not used the device of a new organisation to agitate for the Minority Report ad hoc. Many Fabians served on the Committee — ^indeed a large proportion of our members must have taken part in its incessant activities — ^and the relations between the two bodies were close ; but most of the subscribers to the Committee and many of its most active members came from outside the Society, and were in no way committed to its general principles. For two whole years Mrs. Webb managed her Com- mittee with great vigour and dash. She collected for it a considerable income and a large number of workers : she lectured and organised all over the country ; she discovered that she was an excellent propagandist, and that what she could do with success she also did with zest. In the summer of 1911 Mr. and Mrs. Webb left England for a tour round the world, and Mrs. Webb 220 History of the Fabian Society had mentioned before she left that she was wiUing to be nominated for the Executive. At the election in April, 1912, whilst still abroad, she was returned second on the poll, with 778 votes, only a dozen behind her husband. From this point onwards Mrs. Webb has been on the whole the dominant personality in the Society. This does not necessarily mean that she is abler or stronger than her husband or Bernard Shaw. But the latter had withdrawn from the Executive Com- mittee, and the former, with the rest of the Old Gang, had made the Society what it already was. Mrs. Webb brought a fresh and fertile mind to its councils. Her twenty years of membership and intimate private acquaintance with its leaders made her familiar with its possibiHties, but she was free from the influence of past failures — in such matters for example as Socialist Unity — and she was eager to start out on new lines which the almost unconscious traditions of the Society had hitherto barred. The story of the Society has been traced to the conclusion of the intervention of Mr. Wells, and I then turned aside to describe the numerous new activi- ties of the booming years which followed the Labour Party triumph of 1906. I must now complete the history of the internal affairs of the Society. As a political body, the Society has usually, though not invariably, issued some sort of pronouncement on the eve of a General Election. In January, 1910, the Executive Committee published in " Fabian News " a brief manifesto addressed to the members urging them to " Vote against the House of Lords." It will be recollected that the Lords had rejected the Budget, and the sole issue before the cotmtry was the right of The Minority Report 221 the House of Commons to control finance. Members were urged to support any duly accredited Labour or Socialist candidate ; elsewhere they were, in effect, advised to vote for the Liberal candidates. In April their action in publishing this " Special advice to members " without the consent of a members' meeting was challenged, but the Executive Committee's contention that it was entitled to advise the members, and that the advice given was sound, was endorsed by a very large majority. At the Annual Meeting the Executive Committee, with a view to setting forth once more their reasoned view on a subject of perennial trouble to new members, accepted a resolution instructing them to consider and report on the advisability of limiting the liberty of members to support political parties other than Labour or Socialist, and on November 4th R. C. K. Ensor on behalf of the Executive gave an admirable address on Fabian Policy. He explained that the Society had never set out to become a political party, and that in this respect it differed in the most marked manner from most Socialist bodies. Its collective support of the Labour Party combined with toleration of Liberals suited a world of real men who can seldom be arranged on tidy and geometrical lines. This report was accepted by general consent, and in December, when Parliament was again dissolved, this time on the question of the Veto of the Lords, the Executive repeated their " Advice to Members " to vote for Liberals whenever no properly accredited Labour or Socialist candidate was in the field. But the dissatisfaction with the old pohcy, and with its old exponents, was not yet dispelled. A new genera- tion was knocking at the door, and some of the old 222 History of the Fabian Society leaders thought that the time had come to make room for them. Hubert Bland was suffering from uncertain health, and he made up his mind to retire from the official positions he had held since the formation of the Society. Bernard Shaw determined to join him, and then suggested the same course to the rest of his contemporaries. Some of them concurred, and in addition to the two already named R. C. K. Ensor (who returned a year later), Stewart Headlam, and George Standring withdrew from the Executive in order to make room for younger members. Twenty- two new candidates came forward at the election of April, 1911 ; but on the whole the Society showed no particular eagerness for change. The retiring members were re-elected ahead of all the new ones, with Sidney Webb at the top of the poll, and the five additions to the Executive, Emil Davies, Mrs. C. M. Wilson, Reginald Bray, l.c.c, Mrs. F. Cavendish Bentinck, and Henry D. Harben, were none of them exactly youthful or ardent innovators. By this time it was apparent that the self-denying ordinance of the veterans was not really necessary, and the Executive, loath to lose the stimulation of Shaw's constant presence, devised a scheme to authorise the elected members to co-opt as consultative members persons who had already held office for ten years and had retired. The Executive itself was by no means tmanimous on this policy, and at the Annual Meeting one of them, Henry H. Slesser, led the oppo- sition to any departure from " the principles of pure democracy." On a show of hands the proposal appeared to be defeated by a small majority, and in the face of the opposition was withdrawn. This is almost the only occasion on which the Executive Committee have failed to carry their policy through the Society, and they might have succeeded even in this instance, either The Minority Report 223 at the meeting or on a referendum, if they had chosen to insist on an alteration in the constitution against the wishes of a substantial fraction of the membership. Here then it may be said that the rule of the Essayists as a body came to an end. Sidney Webb alone remained in office. Hubert Bland was in rapidly declining health. Only once again he addressed the Society, on July i6th, 1912, when he examined the history of " Fabian Policy," and indicated the changes which he thought should be made to adapt it to new conditions. Soon after this his sight completely failed, and in April, 1914, he died suddenly of long-standing heart disease. Bernard Shaw happily for the Society has not ceased to concern himself in its activities, although he is no longer officially responsible for their management. His freedom from office does not always make the task of his successors easier. The loyalest of colleagues, he had always defended their poUcy, whether or not it was exactly of his own choice ; but in his capacity of private member his unrivalled influence is occa- sionally something of a difficulty. If he does not happen to approve of what the Executive proposes he can generally persuade a Business Meeting to vote for something else 1 At this same period, the spring of 1911, the National Insurance Bill was introduced. This was a subject to which the Society had given but little attention and on which it had not formulated a policy. It had opposed the contributory system as proposed to be applied to Old Age Pensions, and a paper on " Paupers and Old Age Pensions," published by Sidney Webb in the " Albany Review " in August, 1907, and re- printed by the Society as Tract No. 135, had probably 224 History of the Fabian Society much influence in deciding the Government to abandon its original plan of excluding paupers permanently from the scheme by showing what difficulties and anomalies would follow from any such course. The National Insurance Bill when first introduced was severely criticised by Sidney Webb in documents circulated amongst Trade Unionists and published in various forms ; but a few weeks later he started on his tour round the world and could take no further part in the affair. At the Annual Conference of Fabian Societies in July, 1911, an amendment proposed by H. D. Harben to a resolution dealing with the Bill was carried against a small minority. The amendment declared that the Bill should be opposed, and in furtherance of the policy thus casually suggested and irregularly adopted, the Executive Committee joined with a section of the I.L.P. in a vigorous campaign to defeat the Bill. This was a new role for the Society. Usually it has adopted the principle of accepting and making the best of what has already happened ; and in politics a Bill introduced by a strong Government is a fait accompli ; it is too late to say that something else would have been preferable. It may be amended : it may possibly be withdrawn : it cannot be exchanged for another scheme. I shall not however dwell on this episode in Fabian history because for once I was in complete disagreement with all my colleagues, except Sir Leo Chiozza Money, and perhaps I cannot yet view the matter with entire detachment. The Labour Party decided to meet the Bill with friendly criticism, to recognise it as a great measure of social reform, and to advocate amendments which they deemed improvements. The Fabian Society attacked the Bill with hostile amend- ments, prophesied all sorts of calamities as certain to result from it : magnified its administrative difiiculties, The Minority Report 225 and generally encouraged the duchesses and farmers who passively resisted it ; but their endeavour to defeat the BiU was a failure. It may be too soon to be confident that the policy of the Society in this matter was wrong. But the Trade Unions are stronger than ever : the Friendly Societies are not bankrupt : the working people are insured against sickness : and anybody who now proposed to repeal the Act would be regarded as a lunatic. Meanwhile the withdrawal of some of the older had by no means satisfied the younger generation, and during the autumn of 1911 a Fabian Reform Com- mittee was constituted, with Henry H. Slesser as Chairman, Dr. Marion Phillips as Vice-Chairman, Clifford Allen as Secretary, and fifteen other members, including Dr. Ethel Bentham, who, Uke Mr. Slesser, was a member of the Executive. Their programme, like that of Mr. Wells, included a number of reforms of procedure, none of them of much consequence ; and a political policy, which was to insist " that if Fabians do take part in politics, they should do so only as supporters of the Labour Party." ^ The campaign of the Committee lasted a year, and as usual in such cases led to a good deal of somewhat heated contro- versy over matters which now appear to be very trivial. It is therefore not worth while to recount the details of the proceedings, which can be found by any enquirer in the pages of " Fabian News." Two of the leaders. Dr. Marion Phillips and Chfford Allen, were elected to the Executive at the election of 1912, and some of the administrative reforms proposed by the Committee were carried into effect. The Reformers 1 Manifesto on Fabian Policy issued by the Fabian Reform Committee, 4 pp., 4to, November 28th, igii. 226 History of the Fabian Society elected to fight the battle of political policy on points of detail, until in Jtily, 1912, the Executive Committee resolved to bring the matter to an issue, and to that end moved at a members' meeting : " That this meeting endorses the constitutional practice of the Society which accords complete toleration to its members ; and whilst reaffirming its loyalty to the Labour Party, to which party alone it as a society has given support, it declines to interfere . . . with the right of each member to decide on the manner in which he can best work for Socialism in accordance with his individual opportunities and circumstances." (The phrase omitted refers to the rule about expulsion of members, a safeguard which in fact has never been resorted to.) An amendment of the Reformers embodpng their policy was defeated by 122 to 27, and after the holiday season the Reform Committee announced that their mission was accomplished and their organisation had been disbanded. ^ " Fabian Reform " embodied no new principle : all through the history of the Society there had been a conflict between the " constitutional practice " of political toleration, and the desire of a militant minority to set up a standard of party orthodoxy, and to penalise or expel the dissenters from it. The next storm which disturbed Fabian equanimity involved an altogether new principle, and was therefore a refreshing change to the veterans, who were growing weary of winning battles fought over the same ground. In order to explain this movement it is necessary to describe a new development in the work of the Society. In the autumn of 1912 Mrs. Webb came to the con- clusion that the work of the National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution could not be carried on • " Fabian News," November, 1912. The Minority Report 227 indefinitely on a large scale. Reform of the Poor Law was not coming as a big scheme. It was true that the Majority Report was almost forgotten, but there appeared to be no longer any hope that the Govern- ment would take up as a whole the scheme of the Minority Report. It would come about in due time, but not as the result of an agitation. The National Committee had a monthly paper, " The Crusade," edited by Clifford Sharp, a member of the Society who came to the front at the time of the Wells agitation, had been one of the founders of the Nursery, and a member of the Executive from 1909 to 1914. In March, 1913. Bernard Shaw, H. P. T TarbPin, i^^^ *ttp Webbs, wit h a fe\v_ other friends, established the "" NevT- Stafesman," ^itir"aS5oiH " Shajg^as "editor. TfflrwSSMyTievietr1^'TOt--flir-^^ and is not in any formal way connected with it, but none the less it does in fact express the policy which has moulded the Society, and it has been a useful vehicle for pubUshing the results of Fabian Research. Fabian Research, the other outgrowth of the Committee for the Prevention of Destitution, was organised by Mrs. Webb in the autumn of 1912. Investigation of social problems was one of the original objects of the Society and had always been a recog^iised part of its work. As a general rule, members had taken it up individually, but at various periods Committees had been appointed to investigate particular subjects. The important work of one of these Committees, on the Decline of the Birth-rate, has been described in an earher chapter. Mrs. Webb's plan was to systematise research, to enlist the co-operation of social enquirers not necessarily committed to the principles of the Society, and to obtain funds for this special purpose from those who would not contribute to the political side of the Society's operations. 2 2 8 History of the Fabian Society The " Conunittees of Inquiry " then formed took up two subjects, the " Control of Industry " and " Land Problems and Rural Development." llxe latter was organised by H. D. Harben and was carried on independently. After a large amount of information had been collected, partly in writing and partly from the oral evidence of specialists, a Report was drafted by Mr. Harben and published first as a Supplement to the " New Statesman " on August 4th, 1913, and some months later by Messrs. Constable for the Fabian Society as a half-a-crown volume entitled " The Rural Problem." In fact there is a consensus of opinion throughout all parties on this group of questions. Socialists, Liberals, and a large section of Conservatives advocate Wages Boards for providing a statutory minimum wage for farm labourers. State aid for building of cottages, and a resolute speeding up in the provision of land for small holdings. The Fabian presentment of the case did not substantially differ from that of the Land Report published a few months later under Liberal auspices, and our Report, though useful, cannot be said to have been epoch-making. Meanwhile the Enquiry into the Control of Industry was developing on wider lines. The Research Depart- ment set up its own office and staff, and began to collect information about all the methods of control of industry at present existing as alternatives to the normal capitaUst system. Co-operation in aU its forms, the resistances of Trade Unionism, the effects of profes- sional organisations, such as those of the Teachers and of the Engineers, and all varieties of State and Mimi- cipal enterprise were investigated in turn ; several reports have been published as " New Statesman " Supplements, and a volume or series of volumes will in due time appear. The Minority Report 229 The problem of the Control of Industry had bjecome important because of the rise of a new school of thought amongst Socialists, especially in France, where the rapid growth of Trade Unionism since 1884, combined with profound distrust of the group system of party politics, had led to a revival of old-fashioned anarchism in a new form. Syndicalism, which is the French word for Trade Unionism, proposes that the future State should be organised on the basis of Trade Unions ; it regards a man's occupation as more vitally important to him than his place of residence, and therefore advocates representation by trades in place of localities : it lays stress on his desire, his right, to control his own working life directly through his own elected representatives of his trade : it criticises the " servile state " proposed by coUectivists, wherein the workman, it is said, would be a wage-slave to officials of the State, as he is now to officials of the capitaUsts. Thus it proposes that the control of industry should be in the hands of the producers, and not, as at present, in the hands of consumers through capitalists catering for their custom, or through co-operative societies of consvimers, or through the State acting on behalf of citizens who are consumers. A quite extraordinary diversity of streams of opinion converged to give volume to this new trend of thought. There was the literary criticism of Mr. Hilaire Belloc, whose ideal is the peasant proprietor of France, freed from governmental control, a self-sufficient producer of all his requirements. His attack was directed against the Servile State, supposed to be foreshadowed by the Minority Report, which proposed drastic collective control over the derelicts of our present social anarchy. Then Mr. Tom Mann came back from Australia as the prophet of the new proletarian gospel, and for a few months attracted working-class attention by his energy 230 History of the Fabian Society and eloquence. The South Wales miners, after many years of acquiescence in the rule of successful and highly respected but somewhat old-fashioned leaders, were awakening to a sense of power, and demanding from their Unions a more aggressive policy. The parliamentary Labour Party since 1910 had resolved to support the Liberal Government in its contest with ' the House of Lords and in its demand for Irish Home Rule, and as Labour support was essential to the continuance of the Liberals in power, they were debarred from pushing their own proposals regardless of consequences. Although therefore the party was pledged to the demand for Women's Franchise, they refused to wreck the Government on its behalf. Hence impatient Socialists and extreme Suffragists united in proclaiming that the Labour Party was no longer of any use, and that " direct action " by Suffragettes and Trade Unionists was the only method of progress. The " Daily Herald," a newspaper started by a group of compositors in London, was acquired by partisans of this policy, and as long as it lived incessantly derided the Labour Party and advocated Women's Franchise and some sort of Syndicalism as the social panacea. Moreover a variant on Syndicalism, of a more reasoned and less revolutionary character, called " Guild Socialism," was proposed by Mr. A. R. Orage in the pages of his weekly, " The New Age," and gained a following especially in Oxford, where Mr. G. D. H. Cole was leader of the University Fabian Society, is book on Trade Unionism, entitled " The World of Labour," pubUshed at the end of 1913, attracted much attention, and he threw himself with great energy into the Trade Union enquiry of the Research Depart- ment, of which his friend and ally, Mr. W. Mellor, was the Secretary. Mr. Cole was elected to the Executive Committee in April, 1914, and soon afterwards began The Minority Report 231 a new " Reform " movement. He had become a prophet of the " Guild Socialism " school, and was at that time extremely hostile to the Labour Party. Indeed a year before, when dissatisfaction with the party was prevalent, he had proposed at a business meeting that the Fabian Society should disaffiliate, but he had failed to carry his resolution by 92 votes against 48. In the summer of 1914 however he arrived at an understanding with Mr. Clifford Allen, also a member of the Executive, and with other out and out supporters of the Labour Party, by which they agreed to combine their altogether inconsistent policies into a single new program for the Fabian Society. The program of the " several schools of thought," pubUshed in " Fabian News " for April, 1915, laid down that the object of the Society shotdd be to carry out research, that the Basis should be replaced merely by the phrase, " The Fabian Society consists of Socialists and forms part of the national and international movement for the emancipation of the community from the capitalist system " ; and that a new rule should be adopted forbidding members to belong to, or publicly to asso- ciate with, any organisation opposed to that movement of which this Society had declared itself a part. The Executive Committee pubUshed a lengthy rejoinder, and at the election of the Executive Committee a few weeks later the members by their votes clearly indicated their disapproval of the new scheme. At the Annual Meeting in May, 1915, only small minorities supported the plan of reconstruction, and Mr. Cole then and there resigned his membership of the Society, and was subsequently followed by a few other members. A little while later the Oxford University Fabian Society severed its connection with the parent Society, and Mr. Cole adopted the wise course of founding a society of his own for the advocacy of Guild Socialism. 2 32 History of the Fabian Society This episode brings the history of the Society down to the present date, and I shall conclude this chapter with a brief accoisnt of its organisation at the time of writing, the summer of 1915. At the end of 1913 my own long term of service as chief of&cer of the Society came to an end, and my colleague for several previous years, W. Stephen Sanders, was appointed my successor. The Executive Committee requested me to take the new office of Honorary Secretary, and to retain a share in the management of the Society. This position I still hold. The tide of Socialist progress which began to rise in 1905 had turned before 1914, and the period of depression was intensified by the war, which is still the dominant fact in the world. The membership of the Society reached its maximum in 1913, 2804 in the parent Society and about 500 others in local societies. In 1915 the members were 2588 and 250. The removal to new premises in the autumn of 1914 was more than a mere change of offices, since it provided the Society with a shop for the sale of its publications, a hall sufficiently large for minor meetings, and accommo- dation in the same house for the Research Department and the Women's Group. Moreover a couple of rooms were furnished as a " Common Room " for members, in which light refreshments can be obtained and Socialist publications consulted. The finances of the Society have of course been adversely affected by the war, but not, so far, to a very material extent. The chief new departure of recent years has been the organisation of courses of lectures in London for the general public by Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, and Mrs. Webb, which have not only been of value as a means of propaganda, but have also yielded a substantial profit for the purposes of the Society. The Minority Report 233 The plan originated with a debate between Bernard Shaw and G. K. Chesterton in 1911, which attracted a crowded audience and much popular interest. Next year Mr. Shaw debated with Mr. Hilaire Belloc : in 1913 Mr. and Mrs. Webb gave six lectures at King's Hall on " Socialism Restated " : in IQ14 Bernard Shaw ga,ve another course of six at Ki ngsway Ha ll on tne ••' Ke(^ tnbution ot incoril'fe," m which Jhe^ife-^ ^e loped tlie t^sig'ffia't'^fe"^diiafmc'go3rof Socialism, is ecjuality oi income lor al l. Lastly, m iqi'; a course of six lectures at King's Hall by the three already named on " The World after the War " proved to be unexpectedly successful. The lecturing to clubs and other societies carried on by new generations of mem- bers still continues, but it forms by no means so prominent a part of the Society's work as in earlier years. Local Fabian organisation, as is always the case in time of depression, is on the down grade. The London groups scarcely exist, and but few local societies, besides that of Liverpool, show signs of life. The Research Department, the Women's Group, and the Nursery are still active. The Society has an old-established tradition and a settled policy, but in fact it is not now controlled by an3rthing like an Old Gang. The Executive Committee numbers twenty-one : two only of these, Sidney Webb and myself, have sat upon it from its early days : only two others. Dr. Lawson Dodd (the Treasurer) and W. Stephen Sanders (the General Secretary) were on the Executive during the great contest with Mr. Wells ten years ago. AU the rest have joined it within the last few years, and if they support the old tradition, it is because they accept it, and not because they created it. Moreover the majority of the members are young people, most of them bom since the Society 234 History of the Fabian Society- was founded. The Society is old, but it does not consist, in the main, of old people. What its future may be I shall consider in the next, and concluding, chapter. I must add a final paragraph to my history. At the time I write, in the first days of 1916, the war is with us and the end is not in sight. In accordance with the rule which forbids it to speak, unless it has something of value to say, the Society has made no pronounce- ment and adopted no policy. A resolution registering the opinion of the majority of a few hundred members assembled in a hall is not worth recording when the subject is one in which millions are as concerned and virtually as competent as themselves. Naturally there is diversity of opinion amongst the members. On the one hand Mr. Clifford AUen, a member of the Executive, has played a leading part in organising opposition to conscription and opposing the policy of the Government. On the other hand two other members of the Executive Committee, Mr. H. J. Gillespie and Mr. C. M. Lloyd, have, since the beginning of the war, resigned their seats in order to take commissions in the Army. Another member, the General Secretary, after months of vigorous service as one of the Labour Party delegates to Lord Derby's Recruiting Committee, accepted a commission in the Army in November, 1915, in order to devote his whole time to this work, and has been granted leave of absence for the period of the war, whilst I have under- taken my old work in his place. Many members of the Society joined the Army in the early months of the war, and already a number, amongst whom may be named Rupert Brooke, have given their lives for their country. EDWARD R. PEASE, IN 1913 Face page 235 Chapter XII The Lessons of Thirty Years Breaking the spell of Marxism — A French verdict — Origin of Revisionism in Germany — The British School of Socialism — ^Mr. Ernest Barker's summary — Mill versus Marx — The Fabian Method — Making Socialists or making Socialism — The life of propagandist societies — The prospects of Socialist Unity— The future of Fabian ideas— The test of Fabian success. TV K-V ^ '' I ^HE Fabian Society was founded for tno p «fpe se- X -^ §*~ reconstructing aociety in accordance with the higSest moral pnssihilitips This ig stillTFip' most accurate and compendious description of its object and the nature of its work. But the stage of idealism at which more than a very modest instalment of this cosmic process seemed possible within the lifetime of a single institution had passed before the chief Essayists became members, and indeed I cannot recollect that the founders themselves ever imagined that it lay within their own power to reconstruct Society ; none of them was really so sanguine or so self-confident as to anticipate so great a result from their efforts, and it wiU be remembered that the^.o5igffl«d»-phc|se was altered by the insertion of the wojraS" to help on "" when the constitution was actualijr — formtdated. Society has not yet been reconstructed, but the Fabians have done something towards its reconstruc- tion, and my history will be incomplete without an attempt to indicate what the Society has already 23S 236 History of the Fabian Society accomplished and what may be the future of its work. Its first achievement, as already mentioned, was to break the spell of Marxism in England. Public opinion aitogetner tailed to recognise the greatness of Marx I during his Ufetime, but every year that passes adds strength to the conviction that Jthe broad principles J^. proniulpfated v yjH gniflp t)ip y'vp TOtion 01' society the demand for thecommmarownership"aJi37)f^^^ tion o findustry ; an d it is hardly possiBIeloexaggerate i'jj tie vaTueorthjFservice to numamty ! But no man is I great enough to be made into a god ; no man, however 'wise, can see far into the future. Neither Marx himself nor his immediate followers recognised the real basis of his future fame ; they thought he was a brilliant and original economist, and a profound student of history. His Theory of Value, his Economic Inter- pretation of History, seemed to them the incontestible premises which necessarily led to his political con- clusions. This misapprehension would not have much mattered had they allowed themselves freedom of thought. SociaUsm, as first preached to the English people by the Social Democrats, was as narrow, as bigoted, as exclusive as the strictest of Scotch re- ligious sects. " Das Kapital," Vol. I, was its bible ; and the thoughts and schemes of English Socialists were to be approved or condemned according as they could or could not be justified by a quoted text. The Fabian Society freed English Socialism from ty^itifenectiiEOond.a.gg^S'^^^^^e^rsobnef and more completely than "Revisio^l^''^^have succeeded in domg any^foe else. "^ »-<—- "'Ac cepting tK great principle that the reconstruction of^^ciet y tQ..bfi- WQi3ced.fQris.the ownership arid control The Lessons of Thirty Years 237 Qf indu s t i y bv the community . the Fabians re fused to regard as articles of faith either the economic and mstoric'^ ffl Aiyges' /xy hiC lr ^Majx "i^^ "or the political e volution which h e predicted. "'Socialiim in iinglari'd rraiaMedThe fantastic creed of a group of fanatics until " Fabian Essays " and the Lancashire Campaign taught the working classes of England, or at any rate their Readers, that So cia lism was a liviP ff ppnriplp wTiich-cmrlAhft appHpd ff] CT^iTpg social and political co nditions without, a cataclysm either insurrectionary or even political. Revolutionary phraseology, the language of violence, survived, and still survives, just as in ordinary politics we use the metaphors of warfare and pretend that the peaceful polling booth is a battlefield and that our political opponents are hostile armies. But we only wave the red flag in our songs, and we recognise n owadavs that the real battles of Socia lism -aia-foiiglxLin xom^tee rooms atWestaiinster and in, the council chambers of Town Halls. It was perhaps fortunate that none of the Fabian leaders came within the influence of the extraordinary personality of Karl Marx. Had he lived a few years longer he might have dominated them as he dominated his German followers, and one or two of his English adherents. Then years would have been wasted in the struggle to escape. It was fortunate also that the Fabian Society has never possessed one single out- standing leader, and has always refrained from electing a president or permanent chairman. jLhe re ne Yfil . has., been a_ JEabiaji. orthodoxy, Jb§fi3.JiS«i. no . one was m,^ "position to assert what i^e^rae faith Wj^s. ~ Freedom of, thoughf^^'witliout doubt obtained for Enrfish^Socialists by the" Fabians. "'How far the •worl3-wide revolt " against TStaf xian orthodoxy liad its origin in England is another Mid more difficult q^iiestion. 238 History of the Fabian Society In his study of the Fabian Society^ M. fidouard Pfeiffer states in the preface that the Society makes this claim, quotes Bernard Shaw as saying to him, " The world has been thoroughly Fabianised in the last twenty-five years," and adds that he is going to examine the accuracy of it. Later he says : — " Les premiers de tous les SociaUstes, les Fabiens ont inaugur^ le mouvement de critique antimarxiste : a une epoque ou les dogmes du maitre 6taient consid6r6s comme intangibles, les Fabiens ont pretendu que I'on pouvait se dire socialiste sans jamais avoir lu le Capital ou en en d6sapprouvant la teneur ; par opposition a Marx ils ont ressuscite I'esprit de Stuart Mill et sur tous les points ils se sont attaques a Marx, guerre des classes et materialisme historique, catastrophisme et avant tout la question de la valeur-travail."* This is a French view. Germany is naturally the stronghold of Marxism, and the country where it has proved, up to a point, an unqualified success. Although the Social Democratic Party was founded as an alliance between the followers of Marx and of Lassalle, on terms to which Marx himself violently objected, none the less the leadership of the party fell to those who accepted the teaching of Marx, and on that basis by 1 " La Soci6t6 Fabienne et le Mouvement socialiste anglais contemporain." By Edouard Pfeiffer, Paris, F. Giard and E. Bridre, igii ; an excellent volume but full of errors. ' " The Fabians were the first amongst Socialists to start the movement of anti-Marxist criticism. At a period when the dogmas of the Master were regarded as sacred, the Fabians ventured to assert that it was possible to call oneself a Socialist without ever having read ' Das Kapital,' or without accepting its doctrine. In opposition to Marx, they have revived the spirit of J. S. Mill, and they have attacked Marx all along the line — the class war, the economic interpretation of history, the catastrophic method, and above aU the theory of value." The Lessons of Thirty Years 239 far the greatest Socialist Party of the world has been built up. Nowhere else did the ideas of Marx hold such unquestioned supremacy : nowhere else had they such a body of loyal adherents, such a host of teachers and interpreters. Only on the question of agricultural land in the freer pohtical atmosphere of South Germany was there even a breath of dissent. The revolt came from England in the person of Edward Bernstein, who, exiled by Bismarck, took refuge in London, and was for years intimately acquainted with the Fabian Society and its leaders. Soon after his return to Ger- many he pubhshed in 1899 a volume criticising Marxism,^ and thence grew up the Revisionist move- ment for free thought in Socialism which has attracted all the younger men, and before the war had virtually, if not actually, obtained control over the Social Demo- cratic Party. In England, and in Germany through Bernstein, I think the Fabian Society may claim to have led the revolt. Elsewhere the revolt has come rather in deeds than in words. In France, in Italy, and in Belgium and in other European countries, a Socialist Party has grown up which amid greater political opportuni- ties has had to face the actual problems of modem politics. These could not be solved by quotations from a German philosopher, and Uberty has been gained by force of circumstances. ff,^ fi;^hdess in many countries, such as Russia and the IM^ c TSEate s, feven now, or at any rate mitil very receiit ' ye^T^Ke freedom of action of Socialist p arties has been impeded "by excessive respect foTlEeopinions of the Tounder, ^V^ j'lMMfili^iSt thl^i^^^'^'i''' ^^^"-^^ft^^p^V^ b it w as assumed that Marx had completed the philo sophy of !30Cia iism^ and th e Bu^ess of ^cialisfe was not ^ Published in English by the Independent Labour Party in ipog as " Evolutionary Socialism." 240 History of the Fabian Society to think fnr tTipmgfilvpg, Vint merely to work for the realisation of his ideas. But mere freedom was not enough. Something must be put in the place of Marx. His English followers did not notice that he had indicated no method, and devised no political machinery for the transition ; or if they noticed it they passed over the omission as a negligible detail. If German Socialism would not suit, EngUsh Socialism had to be formulated to take its place. This has been the life-wo rk of the Fabian Society, the WOllillllJ UUt uf-t fag"SDBlic ationof]O i e broad pnriciples of Sociq ijpm Ta Thp. indiiRtr^^ TancTpoliti'ca f environment of Engl and-, I say England a,dv^dly, "because ttie industrial^jid .5ipK5BM^'7c QP,ditions of '^ ""anH"are in some degree different, a. nd the applica- 01 tne DnncipiesToEga^IisEalQi^elafld has been seri ously attempted. But for Eiglajid Fabian Essays " and the Fabian Tracts are by general consent the best expositions of the meaning and work- ing of Socialism in the English language. Marxian Socialism regarded itself as a thing apart. Marx had discovered a panacea for the ills of society : the old was to be cleared away and all things were to become new. In Marx's own thought evolution and revolution were tangled and alternated. The evolu- tionary side was essential to it ; the idea of revolutionary catastrophe is almost an excrescence. But to the Marxians ( of whom Marx onr e absery ed that he yas not one; t his excrescence became the whole thing. People were divided into those who advocated the revolution and those who did not. The business of propaganda was to increase the number of adherents of the new at the expense of the supporters of the old. The Fabians regarded Socialism^as. a ^Eriaci^le The Lessons of Thirty Years 241 alreadym part embodied injthe constitution of society, graduany ex teMiiig lHmBxiencTEe^se17^ with the needs aha desires oi mefTin countries where E^ — Fabian Socialism is in fact an interpretation of the spirit of the times. I have pointed out already that the municipalisation of monopolies, a typically Fabian process, h^4 if^s nr}gi^ decaffes l^fiforft" the "Society was founded,, and all that the Fabian Society did was to e xplain its social in^ni^jEK ms' and advocate its wider eytensio n.^^.JLne same'T!s *'true of the whole Fabian f oirtical poli^^ 7~SociSEsm in EngIisE'^Rattte5~gTew-ttp' ecause of the necessity for State intervention in the complex industrial and social organisation of a Great State. Almost before the evil results of Laissez Faire had culminated Robert Owen was pointing the way to factory legislation, popular education, and the communal care of children. J lig Ten H ours Act of 1847 was described by M arx himselt as""''^tEe victory of a pnnciple." tKaFl^or^' tTie' political economy of the working class." ^ ^ That victory was frequently fepeale3*'in the next' thirty years, and collective protection of Labour in the form of Factory Acts, Sanitary Acts, Truck Acts, Employers' Liability Acts, and Trade Board Acts became a recognised part of the policy of both political parties. Fabian teaching has had more direct influence in promoting the administrative protection of Labour. The Fair Wages policy, now everjrwhere prevalent in State and Municipal employment, was, as has been already described, if not actually invented, at any rate largely popularised by the Society. It was a working- class demand, and it has been everywhere put forward by organised labour, but its success would have been 1 Address to the International, 1862, quoted from Spargo's " Karl Marx," p. 266. 242 History of the Fabian Society- slower had the manual workers been left to fight their own battle. I have said that the work of the Society was the interpretation of an existing movement, the explana- tion and justification of tendencies which originated in Society at large, and not in societies, Fabian* or other. That work is only less valuable than the formulation of new ideas. None of the Fabians would claim to rank beside the great promulgators of new ideas, such as Owen and Marx. But the interpretation of tendencies is necessary if progress is to be sustained and if it is to be unbroken by casual reaction. In an old country like ours, with vast forces of inertia built up by ages of precedents, by a class system which forms a part of the life of the natiofi,, by a distribution of wealth which even yet scarcely yields to the pressure of graduated taxation, legislation is always in arrear of the needs of the times ; the social structure is always old-fashioned and out of date, and reform always tends to be late, and even too late, imless there are agitators with the ability to attract pubUc attention calling on the men in power to take action. But this victory of a principle is not a complete victory of the principles of Socialism. It is a limitation of the power of the capitalist to use his capital as he pleases, and Socialism is much more than a series of social safeguards to the private ownership of capital. Mimicipal ownership is a further step, but even this will not carry us far because the capital suitable for municipal mahagement on existing lines is but a small fraction of the whole, and because municipal control does not directly affect the amount of capital in the hands of the capitaUsts who are always expropriated with ample compensation. The Lessons of Thirty Years 243 We have made some progress along another line. Supert ax, death duties," attd taxes on unearned iiicre- .£Jgllt,„9Qla. EHK? toI^GmffiiE'jtlie^ wealth of the few : j)ld age pensions, national insurance, ancl wo rkmen's QompensafiQnI3Q_somethm^ towards ' ijiitigaEng the poverty o| th e poor. But it must be confessed that we have made but little progress along the main road of Socialism. Private ownership of capital and land flourishes almost as vigorously as it did thirty years ago. Its grosser cruelties have been checked, but the thing itself has barely been touched. . Jime alone will show whether progress is to be along existing hnes. whether the power ^t tne owners of capital over th e wealth it helps to Hgate«a».d-i3S£tJJae.iix§&,.QfI^^^ enslaves will grad uall y f ade away, .as , the ppwef'ti|_ o^!ES§;^^31E;^^^^ni3Si£PWtry hal faded, the form remaining when the substance has vanished, 6r~wheteer'the cOTnnm'hi^^ •will „ at last" coiisciouslv accept the teaching of SociaHsm, setting - -^ , N I I I , .. irii jM i y. i ^ . — ^ . ' ■! ■ 1 ni. i itselt aenmtely to put an end tcnarge^cale private gapitalism^l ahdf'ui^dert^ ymaii^TV. the intellectual outlook, is, bright ; the principles of Socialism .arfe_ak£adv. accegt&d by a seigibl e proportion ,of J^jS^mSQ-. and women in jiS classes who;takgJ:J!a,e troiible to think, aitid' ffwe must admit t hat^ut l ittle Tias'yet been done/ we may~wen I 'Befieve that"lir*the fiillness of time our ideas will .prevail. Th e present^af is givingJthe_;^old_world_a, ^at sSake," aim an "era ^precipitated reconstructrmi may ensue if the opportunity be wisely handled. The influence of the Fabian Society on political thought is already the theme of doctoral theses by graduates, especially in American universities, but 244 History of the Fabian Society it has not yet found much place in weightier compila- tion. Indeed so far as I know the only serious attempts in this country to describe its character and estimate its proportions is to be found in an admirable little book by Mr. Ernest Barker of New College, Oxford, entitled " Political Thought in England from Herbert Spencer to the Present Day."^ The author, dealing with the early Fabians, points out that " Mill rather than Marx was their starting point," but he infers from this that " they start along the line suggested by Mill with an attack on rent as the " unearned increment ' of land," a curious inaccuracy since our earliest contribution to the theory of Socialism, Tract No. 7, " Capital and Land," was expressly directed to emphasising the comparative unimportance of Land Nationalisation, and nothing in the later work of the Society has been inconsistent with this attitude. Then Mr. Barker goes on : " Fabianism began after 1884 to supply a new philosophy in place of Benthamite Individualism. Of the new gospel of collectivism a German writer^ has said Webb was the Bentham and Shaw the Mill.' Without assigning roles we may fairly say there is some resemblance between the influence of Benthamism on legislation after 1830 and the influence of Fabianism on legislation since, at any rate, 1906.^ In either case we have a small circle of ' Home University Library, Williams and Norgate, 1915, is. * M. Beer, " Geschichte des Socialismus in England " (Stuttgart, 1913), p. 462. Mr. Beer devotes seven pages to the Society, which he describes with accuracy, and interprets much as Mr. Barker has done. The book was written at the request of the German Social Democratic Party. ' I quote, but do not endorse the opinion that G. B. S. markedly resembles James Mill (Mr. Barker confuses the two Mills). Beer ft adds " Webb was the thinker, Shaw the fighter." This antithesis ll is scarcely happy. The collaboration of the two is much too com- li plicated to be summed up in a phrase. " * But see chapter VIII for its influence before 1906 ; and see Appendix I.A. for a much fuller discussion of this subject. The Lessons of Thirty Years 245 thinkers and investigators in quiet touch with poli- ticians : in either case we have a ' permeation ' of general opinion by the ideas of these thinkers and in- vestigators. . . . It is probable that the historian of the future will emphasise Fabianism in much the same way as the historian of to-day emphasises Benthamism." ^ Mr. Barker next explains that " Fabianism has its own pohtical creed, if it is a political creed conse- quential upon an economic doctrine. That economic doctrine advocates the socialisation of rent. But the rents which the Fabians would socialise are not only rents from land. Rent in the sense of imearned increments may be drawn, and is drawn, from other sources. The successful entrepreneur for instance draws a rent of ability from his superior equipment and education. The socialisation of every kind of rent will necessarily arm the State with great funds which it must use. . . . Shaw can define the two inter- connected aims of Fabianism as ' the gradual extension of the franchise and the transfer of rent and interest to the State.' " As Mr. Barker may not be alone in a slight mis- interpretation of Fabian doctrine it may be well to take this opportunity of refuting the error. He says that Fabianism advocates the sociaUsation of rent, and in confirmation quotes Shaw's words " rent and, interest " ! That makes all the difference. If the term rent is widened to include all differential unearned incomes, from land, from ability, from opportunity (i.e. special profits), interest includes all non-differential 1 The same idea is expressed by a Canadian Professor : — " It is necessary to go back to the Philosophical Radicals to find a small group of men who have exercised such a profound influence over English political thought as the little band of social investi- gators who organised the Fabian Society." " Socialism : a critical analysis." By O. D. Skelton, Ph.D., Professor of Economic Science, Kingston, Canada. (Constable, 1911.) p. 288. 246 History of the Fabian Society unearned incomes, and thus the State is to be en- dowed, not with rents alone, but with all unearned incomes.^ It is true that the Fabians, throwing over Marx's inaccurate term "surplus value," base their Socialism on the Law of Rent, because, as they allege, this law negatives both equality of income and earnings in proportion to labour, so long as private ownership of land prevails. It is also true that they have directed special attention to the unearned incomes of the " idle " landlord and shareholder, because these are the typical feature of the modem system of distribu- tion, which indeed has come to the front since the time of Marx, and because they furnish the answer to those who contend that wealth is at present distributed approximately in accordance with personal capacity or merit, and tacitly assume that "the rich" are all of them great captains of industry who by enter- prise and ability have actually created their vast fortunes.2^Jtodsai.K§JaifiM^say Ihatjye 4a,M.£^4 conceding to^oig_oppjQjaenta.aElhA,w.ealth/r4a£Si§d_'' '^y'superior" Brains, if thev will let us deal with the imeamed mcomes whigg. §1^ received mdependent of tGryassessfon'oTanv b rains, or jay; service s at 'pTT " ^ jbut "aHKoughwe regard the case of the "Spitatist employer as relatively negligible, and although we prefer to concentrate our attack on the least defensible side of the capitalist system — and already the State recognises that unearned i ncomes. sho uld pay a larger proportion in mcome-tax, that property which passes "Sfem^neEe^m^tolKosTw^irE^ sEoa3''^n!riBS!g'X^ejuo!r"tTT:10^ anTffiSlimSmeTliicremenr'ohnM^ ; 1 Mr. Barker erroneously uses the word " increment " for " income " in several places. Unearned increment is quite another thing. " See " Socialism and Superior Brains : a reply to Mr. Mallock," by G. B. Shaw. Fabian Tract 146. The Lessons of Thirty Years 247 belong to the public- -that does not mean that^e "Him we entrepreneur. propose to deal with by the favounte Fabian method of mmiicipaJisation and na.t^oi] [^a lisation. We take- over lixs','. enterprise." -h is gasworks" ancT'waterworks hSjdocks an d trams. M ^^ I Srt ^^State .1^t£,Ig:Qfij;s.Ql manageinent aja^jjjg. future unearned increment, and we ■Comp ens; ^.t(^ him for hjs q apital with interest-bearing securities. W e force lum i n j act to bejc ome the"igE reapient of unearned moo^^l^^SiMSGS^m and. upl^i^ him' and T|[xnim heavily precisely because his income is un- I31».there is any^ special tenderness 'm this treatment, I sKoutgrpre fer harshness. To me it seeins fb"resemwel'he poliw'oftKe^wolf towards'the lamb.^ ""^ wiTl proceed with quotations from KtrT "Barker, because the view of a historian of thought is weightier than anything I could say. " But collectivism also demands in the second place expert government. It demands the ' aristocracy of talent ' of which Carlyle wrote. The control of a State with powers so vast will obviously need an ex- ceptional and exceptionally large aristocracy. Those opponents of Fabianism who desire something more revolutionary than its political ' meliorism ' and ' paUiatives ' accuse it of alliance with bureaucracy. TTaey urge that it relies on bureaucracy to administer social reforms from above ; and they conclude that, since any governing class is anti-democratic, the Fabians who believe in such a class are really anti- democratic. The charge seems, as a matter of fact, difficult to sustain. Fabians from the first felt and urged that the decentralisation of the State was a * Mr. Barker emphasises the " discrimination advocated by the Fabians " in favour of profits in a later passage (p. 224) not here quoted. 248 History of the Fabian Society necessary condition of the realisation of their aim. The municipality and other local units were the natural bodies for administering the new funds and discharging the new duties which the realisation of that aim would create. ' A democratic State,' Shaw wrote, ' cannot become a Social Democratic State unless it has in every centre of population a local governing body as thoroughly democratic in its constitution as the central Parliament.' The House of Commons he felt must develop ' into the central government which will be the organ of federating the municipalities.' Fabianism thus implied no central bureaucracy ; what it demanded was partly, indeed, a more efficient and expert central government (and there is plenty of room for that), but primarily an expert locd civil service in close touch with and under the control of a really democratic municipal govern- ment. It is difficult to say that this is bureaucracy or that it is not desirable. Many men who are not Fabians or Socialists of any kind feel strongly that the breathing of more vigour and interest into local politics, and the creation of a proper local civil service, are the great problems of the future. " The policy of Fabianism has thus been somewhat as follows. ^An intellectual circle has sought to per- meate all classes, trom the, ton jg +hp TT^ttmT[),jnttl,.a common opmion in favour of social control of socially createa values, kesolved to permeate all classes^ it has not preached class-consciousness ; it has worked as much with and through Liberal ' capitalists ' as with and through Labour representatives. Resolved gradually to permeate, it has not been revolutionary : it has relied on the slow growth of opinion. Refc rather than revolutiQa ar3L...itJias-exp1a.i;yg^ the im- possiDikv of the.siid.H pJi -'rpynl^i^ioTi ' of t he worCnfiL classes against capital : it has urged the necessity The Lessons of Thirty Years 249 oLa „ praduaL. anidini:ai ioii..nL ^mal r.n; ij4 itinns- bv a gradual a,gsertiQn „C)f_social contmL Q y£r...imga rned .i^£!;^i3aetttA Hence Fabianism has not adopted the somewhat cold attitude of the pure Socialist Party to Trade Unions, but has rather found in their gradual conquest of better wages and better conditions for the workers the line of social advance congenial with its own principles. Again, it has preached that„,;^ie, society., wMchiP to ctpjI: wT\t.iQLi8MJa^Jismi£;^i&i if the control is to be, as it must b e . sel f-control : it has tauglit~tEal 'sucK' 'iSenaocratiT" sS^-ooSi^^ primarily be exerted i n democratic local selfre;oYern- ment : it has emphasised 'ike ne'e^' of' reconciling" democratic control with expert guidance. While it has never advocated ' direct action ' or the avoidance of political activity, while on the contrary, it has advocated the conquest of social reforms on the fields of parliamentary and municipal government, it has not defended the State as it is, but has rather urged the need for a State which is based on democracy tempered by respect for the ' expert.' In this way Socialism of the Fabian type has made representative democracy its creed. . It ha s ado p ted the sound position „ thaiitiir J ''T^ OT^" r^r'ti AiilhA'ges ' tn! tTtSy ""f mrm^'rif ata j , ^ in which people freely produce, thanks to an equality of educational"aTOortmitvrand'freQly c^^ tE^KsJtg, aryade,and.astos. ^nfftaSSJ^tf o,wn.j:negi: T;)^rs for their guidance, and, since they have freely produced and chosen them, give them freely and fully tTTrTionoT3rofTEEirl^.'~lffidT^ MrT^iSEey^'Webb and Mr. Ramsay Macdonald have not coquetted with primary democracy, which has always had a magnetic attraction for Socialists. The doctrine that the people itself governs directly through obedient agents — the doctrine of mandate and plebis- • This should read " incomes." 250 History of the Fabian Society cite, of referendum and initiative — ^is not the doctrine of the best EngUsh SociaUsm." Mr. Barker next explains that behind these ideas lies " an organic theory of society," that society is regarded as "an organic unity with a real ' general will ' of its own," and after stating that " the development of Liberalism, during the last few years, shows considerable traces of Fabian influence," concludes the subject with the words " Collectivism of the Fabian order was the dominant form of Socialism in England till within the last three of four years." Of the movement of Guild SociaUsts and others which he deems to have replaced it I shall speak later. I have ventured to quote from Mr. Barker at some length because his summary of Fabian doctrine seems to me (with the exception noted) to be both correct and excellent, and it is safer to borrow from a writer quite unconnected with the Society an estimate of its place in the history of EngUsh political thought, rather than to offer my own necessarily^ prejudiced opinion of its achievements. But I must revert again to the Fabian " method." " Make SociaUsts," said Mr. WeUs in " Faults of the Fabian," " and you wiU achieve Socialism. There is no other way " ; and Mr. Wells in his enthusiasm anticipated a society of ten thousand Fabians as the result of a year's propaganda. Will Socialism come through the making of Socialists ? If so, SociaUsm has made but little progress in England, since the number who profess and caU themselves Socialist is still insignificant. The foregoing pages have shown in the words of a student of political thought how Socialism has been made in England in quite another way. The Lessons of Thirty Years 251 We did not at the time repudiate Mr. Wells' dictum : indeed we adopted his policy, and attempted the making of Socialism on a large scale. No doubt there is a certain ambiguity in the word " Socialists." It may mean members of Socialist societies, or at any rate " unattached Socialists," all those in fact who use the name to describe their political opinions. Or it may merely be another way of stating that the existing form of society can only be altered by the wills of living people, and change will only be in the direction of Socialism, when the wills which are effec- tive for the purpose choose that direction in preference to another. Mr. Wells himself described as a " fantastic idea " the notion that " the world may be manoeuvred into Socialism without knowing it " : that " society is to keep like it is . . . and yet SociaUsm will be soaking through it all, changing without a sign,"^ and he at any rate meant by his phrase, " make members of Socialist societies." The older and better Fabian doctrine is set out in the opening paragraphs of Tract 70, the " Report on Fabian Pohcy " (1896). "The Mission of the Fabians The object of the Fabian Society is to persuade the English people to make their poUtical constitution thoroughly democratic an d so_ to soc ialise their indus- iujss..asJ;aJIials&jthe^Hve^S^2ItE^ independent of private capital ism. ^ 'liie l* a bian Society '"ericllSvours to pursue its Socialist and Democratic objects with complete singleness of aim. For example : — It has no distinctive opinions on the Marriage • " Faults of the Fabian," p. 9. 252 History of the Fabian Society Question, Religion, Art, abstract Economics, historic Evolution, Currency, or any other subject than its own special business of practical Democracy and SociaHsm. It brings all the pressure and persuasion in its power to bear on existing forces, caring nothing by what name any party calls itself or what principles, Socialist or other, it professes, but having regard solely to the tendency of its actions, supporting those which make for Socialism and Democracy and opposing those which are reactionary. It does not propose that the practical steps towards Social Democracy should be carried out by itself or by any other specially organised society or party. It does not ask the English people to join the Fabian Society." In old days acting on this view of our " mission " we dehberately allowed the Society to remain small. Latterly we tried to expand, and in the main our attempt was an expensive failure. The other Socialist bodies have always used their propaganda primarily for recruiting ; and they have sought to enlist the rank and file of the British people. In this they too have substantially failed, and the forty or fifty thousand members of the I.L.P. and B.S.P. are roughly no larger a proportion of the working class than the three thousand Fabians are of the middle class. If the advance of Socialism in England is to be measured by the " making of Socialists," if we are to count member- ship, to enumerate meetings, to sum up subscriptions, the outlook is gloomy. Thirty-four years ago a group of strong men led by Mr. H. M. Hyudman founded the Democratic Federation, which survives as the British Socialist Party, with Mr. Hyndman still to the fore ; the rest have more or less dropped out, and no one has arisen to take their places. Twenty-two years ago The Lessons of Thirty Years 253 Keir Hardie founded the Independent Labour Party : he has died since the first draft of this passage was written, and no one is left who commands such uni- versal affection and respect amongst the members of the Society he created. Of the seven Essayists who virtually founded the Fabian Society <^^^^r nn^ ]^ i^fm fully in harness, and his working life must necessarily be nearing its term. It may be doubted whether a society for the propagation of ideas has the power to long outlive the inspiration of its founder, unless indeed he is a man of such outstanding personality that his followers treat him as a god. The religions of the world have been maintained by worshippers, and even in our own day the followers of Marx have held together partly because they regard his teachings with the uncritical reverence usually accorded to the prophets of new faiths. But Marxism has survived in Germany chiefly because it has created and inspired a political party, and political parties are of a different order from propagandist societies. Socialism in England has not yet created a political party ; for the Labour Party, though entirely SociaUst in policy, is not so in name or in creed, and in this matter the form counts rather than the fact. Europe, as I write in the early days of 1916, is in the melting-pot, and it would be foolish to prophesy either the fate of the nations now at war or, in par- ticular, the future of political parties in Great Britain, and especially of the Labour Party. But so far as concerns the Fabian Society and the two other Socialist Societies, this much may be said : three factors in the past have kept them apart : differences of temperament ; differences of policy ; differences of leadership. In fact perhaps the last was the strongest. I do not mean that the founders of the three societies 254 History of the Fabian Society entertained mutual antipathies or personal jealousies to the detriment of the movement. I do mean that each group preferred to go its own way, and saw no sufficient advantage in a common path to compensate for the difficulties of selecting it. In a former chapter I have explained how a move- ment for a form of Socialist Unity had at last almost achieved success, when a new factor, the Eiu-opean War, interposed. After the war these negotiations will doubtless be resumed, and the tluree Socialist Societies will find themselves more closely aUied than ever before. The differences of policy which have divided them will then be a matter of past history. The differences of temperament matter less and less as the general policy becomes fixed, and in a few years the old leaders from whose disputes the general policy emerged must all have left the stage. The younger men inherit an established platform and know nothing of the old-time quarrels and distrusts. They will come together more easily. If the organised pro- paganda of SociaUsm continues — ^and that perhaps is not a matter of certainty — ^it seems to me improbable that it wiU be carried on for long by three separate societies. In some way or other, in England as in so many other countries, a United Socialist organisation will be constituted. But what of the future of Fabian ideas ? In a passage already quoted Mr. Barker indicates that the dominance of " Collectivism of the Fabian order" ceased three or fotu: years ago, and he goes on to indicate that it has been replaced by an anti-state propaganda, taking various forms, S3mdicaUsm, Guild Socialism, and the Distributivism of Mr. Belloc. It is true that Fabianism of the old type is not the last event in the The Lessons of Thirty Years 255 history of political thought, but it is still, I venture to think, the dominant principle in political progress. Guild Socialism, whatever its worth, is a later stage. If our railways are to be managed by the Railwajmien's Union, they must first be acquired for the community by Collectivism. This is not the place to discuss the possibilities of Guild Socialism. After all it is but a form of Socialism, and a first principle of Fabianism has always been free thought. The leading Guild Socialists resigned from the Society : they were not expelled : they attempted to coerce the rest, but no attempt was made to coerce them. Guild Socialism as a scheme for placing production under the management of the producers seems to me to be on the wrong lines. The consumer as a citizen must necessarily decide what is to be produced for his needs. But I do not belong to the generation which will have to settle the matter. The elderly are incompetent judges of new ideas. Fabian doctrine is not stereotyped : the Society consists in the main of young people. The Essayists and their contemporaries have said their say : it remains for the younger people to accept what they choose, and to add whatever is necessary. Those who repudiated the infallibility of Marx will be the last to claim infallibility for themselves. I can only express the hope that as long as the Fabian Society lasts it will be ever open to new ideas, ever conscious that nothing is final, ever aware that the world is enormously complex, and that no single formtila will summarise or circumscribe its infinite variety. '^ The work of the Fabian Society has been not to make Socialists, but to make Sociahsm. I think it may be 1 See Appendix I. B. 256 History of the Fabian Society said that the dominant opinion in the Society — at any rate it is my opinion — ^is that great soci fji] rha-n^p^ r^-^ jmlv come by consents The CapitaUst system cannot be overthrown by a revolution or by a parHamentary majority. Wage slavery will disappear, as serfdom disappeared, not indeed imperceptibly, for the world is now self-conscious, not even so gradually, for the pace of progress is faster than it was in the Middle Ages, but b y a change of heart of the community, bv a general recogriSfon. aJreaSyligd Y realised, t ha.t w hatever maKeT forthTmore'eqmtaHelEstributiQn of weaTEE lTgQ od ; that whatever benefits the vvorkmg class benefits the nation ; that the rich exist only on sufferance, and d eserve no more thjin painless extinction jjthat^the qa^3Bll§£j£a..sCTant.,oiAlifc4Mibli.c,,a^^^ too oiten oyer: aaid for the services that he ren ders. i Again; §oa£3Km~succeedsbecause it is common sense. The anarchy of individual production is already an anachronism. ITie contro l of the community over itself extends every^|Eyr*We^^|Sr^^|»^W'. "ire g^ilarity , design : the accidents of sickness 'anff ttiisfortune, of old age and bereavement, must he ipnnciple the public is already convinced : it is merely f oretno ugHt is wanted for industry as^wella^s for human life. Competition is bad, and in most respec ts priv ate [iiiono£oIyj.s worse, ^p one now senously defends the system of rival tr^^s with theircrowdsorcommercial t rave llers : J^ rivilTtradesmen wTffi'tEelF'inhum^^ delivCTies" in ^acK "street;' and yet no one advocates the capitalist alternative, the great trust, often con- Qgaled and insidious, whic^jnonopQlises oil or tpba.cco Q£ diamonds, and makes hugje profits for a fort unat e f^ put of the helplessness of the unorganised con- sumers. The Lessons of Thirty Years 257 But...n.eith er the idle jigh^^sjipr the anarchy of competition^is so^outstajiding;.,^^ evU^as the ppyerty Mffie'pbofr^We'ai m at making the rich poorer chiefly in order to make" the poor richer^ Qw. first t raet. " Why are the Man y "Poor" ? j^struck the keynote. In a century pt aPoimding wealth England still has i n its midst a hideous^lnass of poverty which is too ^^iOo;;^^3ZISiat, poverty,, ^e sa£.js preventible. TTiat poygrtv was the background of our thoughts when t he Societvwas^ founded. PerKaps 5LM;s£i^&XSS11o,mitigatrrf : ^we beheve we have do ne somethin g to make clear the way by which it may ultim ately; ba^bplished. We do not constantly talk of it. Wewrite of the advaiita^s of Municipal Electricity . of the powers of Pan sh Councils, of the objections to the Re ferendum.; but all the whi^it is that great ev irwtiTcK~cEiefly moves us, and by pur success or our Jiiluxa in helping on the reconstruction of society fpr the purpose of abolishing poverty, the work of the Fabian Society must ultimately be judged. Appendix I Memoranda by Bernard Shaw BERNARD SHAW has been good enough to write the following memoranda on Chapter XII. For various reasons I prefer to leave that chapter as it stands ; but the memoranda have an interest of their own and I therefore print them here. A On the History of Fabian Economics Mr. Barker's guesses greatly underrate the number of tributaries which enlarged the trickle of Socialist thought into a mighty river. They also shew how quicMy waves of thought are forgotten. Far from being the economic apostle of Socialism, Mill, in the days when the Fabian Society took the field, was regarded as the standard authority for solving the social problem by a combination of peasant pro- prietorship with neo-Malthusianism. The Dialectical Society, which was a centre of the most advanced thought in London until the Fabian Society supplanted it, was founded to advocate the principles of Mill's Essay on Liberty, which was much more, the Bible of English IndividuaHsm than Das Kapital ever was of English SociaUsm. As late as 1888 Henry Sidgwick, a follower of Mill, rose indignantly at the meeting of the British Association in Bath, to which I had just read the paper on The Transition to Social-Democracy, which was subsequently published 258 Appendix I 259 as one of the Fabian Essays, and declared that I had advocated nationaUsatioii of land ; that nationalisation of land was a crime ; and that he would not take part in a discussion of a criminal proposal. With that he left the platform, all the more im- pressively as his apparently mild and judicial tempera- ment made the incident so unexpected that his friends who had not actually witnessed it were with difficulty persuaded that it had reaUy happened. It illustrates the entire failure of Mill up to that date to undo the individualistic teaching of the earlier volumes of his Political Economy by the Socialist conclusions to which his work on the treatise led him at the end. Sidney Webb astonished and confounded our Indir vidualist opponents by citing Mill against them ; and it is probably due to Webb more than to any other disciple that it is now generally known that Mill died a Socialist. Webb read Mill and mastered Mill as he seemed to have read and mastered everybody else ; but the only other prominent Socialist who can be claimed by Mill as a convert was, rather unex- pectedly, William Morris, who said that when he read the passage in which Mill, after admitting that the worst evils of Communism are, compared to the evils of our Oimmercialism, as dust in the balance, nevertheless condemned Communism, he immediately became a Communist, as Mill had clearly given Ids verdict ap^ainst Jl^g .,, e3ac[enc er*"ExcSr m"''^ stances we heard nothing of Mill in the Fabian Society. Caimes's denunciation of the idle consumers of rent and interest was frequently quoted ; and Marshall's Economics of Industry was put into our book boxes ' as a textbook ; but the taste for abstract economics was no more general in the Fabian Society than elsewhere. I had in my boyhood read some of Mill's detached essays, including those on 26o History of the Fabian Society constitutional government and on the Irish land question, as well as the inevitable one on Liberty ; but none of these pointed to Socialism ; and my attention was first drawn to political economy as the science of social salvation by Henry George's eloquence, and by his Progress and Poverty, which had an enormous circulation in the early eighties, and beyond all question had more to do with the Socialist revival of that period in England than any other book. Before the Fabian Society existed I pressed George's propaganda of Land Nationalisation on a meeting of the Democratic Federation, but was told to read Karl Marx. I was so complete a novice in economics at that time that when I wrote a letter to Justice pointing out a flaw in Marx's reasoning, I regarded my letter merely as a joke, and fully expected that some more expert Socialist economist would refute me easily. Even when the refutation did not arrive I remfiined so impressed with the literary power and overwhelming documentation of Marx's indictment of nineteenth- century Commercialism and the capitalist system, that I defended him against all comers in and out of season until PhiUp Wicksteed. the well-known Dante commentator, "tE^ a poptjg U nitamTlmmster: brought m e to a standsfili by a^cnticism oF Marx ^gEigEnrgigrjKo r u ^e b ^^ w ajh u w m s t app ^ran ce in Socialist conlrOT?f§^"tltn3lB""vaItie tmofy' of Jevons, puM§Hetr-ffi'-i87Tr"--Tf6fessor E°dgeworth ajiff'TKr^Wieksteedr tb"-^j(?hom Jevons appealed as a mathematician, were at that time trying to convince the academic world of the importance of Jevons's theory ; but I, not being a mathema- tician, was not easily accessible to their methods of demonstration. I consented to reply to Mr. Wick- steed on the express condition that the editor of Appendix I 261 To-day, in which my reply appeared, should find space for a rejoinder by Mr. Wicksteed. My reply, which was not bad for a fake, and,e233iamfid_t]ie.^fiim at the economic arp^umentJoreQuahtv of income which 1 .put forward twenty -five years lat£r. elicited"onlv a brief rejoinder ; but the upshot was that I put myself into Mr. Wicksteed's hands and became a convinced Jevonian, fascinated by the subtlety of Jevons's theory and the exquisiteness with which it adapted itself to all the cases which had driven previous econotoists, including Marx, to take refuge in clumsy distinctions between use value, exchange value, labour value, supply and demand value, and the rest of the muddlements of that time. Accordingly, the abstract economics of the Fabian Essays are, as regards value, the economics of Jevons. As regards rent they are the economics of Ricardo, which I, having thrown myself into the study of abstract economics, had learnt from Ricardo's own works and from De Quincey's Logic of Political Economy. I maintained, as I still do, that the older economists, writing before Socialism had arisen as a possible alternative to Commercialism and a menace to its vested interests, were far more candid in their statements and thorough in their reasoning than their successors, and was fond of citing the references in De Quincey and Austin's Lectures on Jurisprudence to the country gentleman system and the evils of capital- ism, as instances of frankness upon which no modem professor dare venture. The economical and moral identity of capital and interest with land and rent was popularly demonstrated by Olivier in Tract 7 on Capital and Land, and put into strict academic form by Sidney Webb. The point was of importance at a time when the distinction was still so strongly maintained that, the Fabian Society 262 History of the Fabian Society was compelled to exclude Land Nationalizers, both before and after their development into Single Taxers, because they held that though land and rent should be socialized, capital and interest must remain private property. This really exhausts the history of the Fabian Society as far as abstract economic theory is concerned. Activity in that department was confined to Webb and myself. Later on. Pease's interest in banking and currency led him to contribute some criticism of the schemes of the currency cranks who infest all advanced movements, flourishing the paper money of the Guern- sey Market, and to give the Society some positive guidance as to the rapid integration of modern banking. But this was an essay in applied economics. It may be impossible to draw a line between the old abstract deductive economics and the modem historical con- crete economics ; but the fact remains that though the water may be the same, the tide has turned. A comparison of my exposition of the law of rent in my first Fabian Essay and in my Impossibihties of Anarchism with the Webbs' great Histories of Trade Unionism and of Industrial Democracy will illustrate the difference between the two schools. The departure was made by Graham Wallas, who, abandoning the deductive construction of intellectual theorems, made an exhaustive study of the Chartist movement. It is greatly to be regretted that these lectures were not effectively pubUshed. Their deUvery wrought a tremendous disillusion as to the novelty of our ideas and methods of propaganda ; much new gospel suddenly appeared to us as stale failure ; and we recognized that there had been weak men before Agamemnon, even as far back as in Cromwell's army. The necessity for mastering the history of our own movement and falling into our ordered place in it Appendix I 263 became apparent ; and it was in this new frame of mind that the monumental series of works by the Webbs came into existence. Wallas's Life of Francis Place shows his power of reconstructing a popular agitation with a realism which leaves the conventional imaginary version of it punctured and flaccid ; and it was by doing the same for the Chartist movement that he left his mark on us. Of the other Essayists, Olivier had wrestled with the huge Positive Philosophy of Comte, who thus comes in as a Fabian influence. William Clarke was a disciple of Mazzini, and found Emerson, Thoreau, and the Brook Farm enthusiasts congenial to him. Bland, who at last became a professed Catholic, was something of a Coleridgian transcendentalist, though he treated a copy of Bakunin's God and the State to a handsome binding. Mrs. Besant's spiritual history has been written by herself. Wallas brought to bear a wide scholastic culture of the classic type, in which modem writers, though interesting, were not funda- mental. The general effect, it will be perceived, is very much wider and more various than that suggested by Mr. Ernest Barker's remark that Mill was our starting point. It is a curious fact that of the three great propa- gandist amateurs of political economy, Henry George, Marx, and Ruskin, Ruskin alone seems to have had no effect on the Fabians. Here and there in the SociaUst movement workmen turned up who had read Fors Clavigera or Unto This Last ; and some of the more well-to-do no doubt had read the first chapter of Munera Pulveris. But Ruskin's name was hardly mentioned in the Fabian Society. My explanation is that, barring Olivier, the Fabians were inveterate Philistines. My efforts to induce them to pubUsh Richard Wagner's Art and Revolution, 264 History of the Fabian Society and, later on, Oscar Wilde's The Soul of Man under Socialism, or even to do justice to Morris's News From Nowhere, fell so fiat that I doubt whether my colleagues were even conscious of them. Our best excuse must be that as a matter of practical experience English political societies .do good work and present a dignified appearance whilst they attend seriously to their proper poHtical business ; but, to put it bluntly, they make themselves ridiculous and attract undesirables when they affect art and philo- sophy. The Arts and Crafts exhibitions, the Anti- Scrape (Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings) , and the Art Workers' Guild, under Morris and Crane, kept up a very intimate connection between Art and SociaUsm ; but the maintenance of Fabian friendly relations with them was left mostly to me and Stewart Headlam. The rest kept aloof and consoled themselves with the reflection — ^if they thought about it at all — that the Utilitarians, though even more Philistine than the Fabians, were astonishingly effective for their numbers. It must be added that though the tradition that Socialism excludes the established creeds was over- thrown by the Fabians, and the claim of the Christian Socialists to rank with the best of us was insisted on faithfully by them, the Fabian leaders did not break the tradition in their own practice. The contention of the Anti-Socialist Union that all Socialists are atheists is no doubt ridiculous in the face of the fact that the intellectual opposition to Socialism has been led exclusively by avowed atheists Hke Charles Brad- laugh or agnostics like Herbert Spencer, whilst Com- munism claims Jesus as an exponent ; still, if the ques- tion be raised as to whether any of the Fabian Essayists attended an established place of worship, regularly, the reply must be in the negative. Indeed, they were Appendix I 265 generally preaching themselves on Sundays. To de- scribe them as irreligious in view of their work would be silly ; but until Hubert Bland towards the end of his life took refuge in the Catholic Church, and Mrs. Besant devoted herself to Theosophy, no leading Fabian found a refuge for his soul in the temples of any established denomination. I may go further and admit that the first problems the Fabians had to solve were so completely on the materialist plane that the atmosphere inevitably became uncongenial to those whose capacity was wasted and whose sympathies were starved on that plane. Even psychical research, with which Pease and Podmore varied their Fabian activities, tended fatally towards the exposure of alleged psychical phenomena as physical tricks. The work that came to our hands in our first two decades was materialistic work ; and it was not until the turn of the century brought us the Suffrage movement and the WeUs raid, that the materialistic atmosphere gave way, and the Society began to retain recruits of a kind that it always lost in the earlier years as it lost Mrs. Besant and (virtually) WiUiam Clarke. It is certainly perceptibly less hard-headed than it was in its first period. B On Guild Socialism Here I venture to say, with some confidence, that Mr. Barker is mistaken. That storm has burst on the Fabian Society and has left it just where it was. Guild Socialism, championed by the ablest and most industrious insurgents of the rising generation in the Society, raised its issue with Collectivism only to discover, when the matter, after a long agitation. 266 History of the Fabian Society- was finally thrashed out at a conference at Barrow House, that the issue was an imaginary one, and that Collectivism lost nothing by the fullest tenable concessions to the Guild Socialists. A very brief consideration will shew that this was inevitable. Guild Socialism, in spite of its engaging medieval name, means nothing more picturesque than a claim that under Socialism each industry shall be controlled by its own operators, as the professions are to-day. This by itself would not imply Socialism at all : it would be merely a revival of the medieval guild, or a fresh attempt at the now exploded self-govemiing workshop of the primitive co-operators. Guild SociaUsm, with the emphasis on the SociaUsm, implies that the industries, however completely they may be controlled by their separate staffs, must pool their products. All the Guild Socialists admit this. The Socialist State must therefore include an organ for receiving and distributing the pooled products ; and such an organ, representing the citizen not as producer but as consumer, reintroduces the whole machinery of Collectivism. Thus the alleged antithesis between Guild Socialism and Collectivism, imder cover of which the one was presented as an alternative to the other, vanished at the first touch of the skilled criticism the Fabians brought to bear on it ; and now Mrs. Sidney Webb, who was singled out for attack by the Guild Sociahsts as the arch CoUectivist, is herself con- ducting an investigation into the existing control of industry by professional organizations, whilst the quondam Guild Sociahsts are strugghng with the difficult question of the proper spheres of the old form of Trade Union now called the craft union, and the new form called the industrial union, in which workers of all crafts and occupations, from clerks and railway porters to locomotive drivers and Appendix I 267 fitters, are organized in a single union of the entire industry. There is work enough for many years to come of the old Fabian kind in these directions ; and this work will irresistibly reunite the disputants instead of perpetuating a quarrel in which, like most of the quarrels which the Society has survived, there was nothing fundamental at issue. There is work, too, to be done in the old abstract deductive department. It can be seen, throughout the history of the Society, how any attempt to discard the old economic basis of the law of rent immediately produced a recrudescence of Anarchism in one form or another, the latest being SyndicaUsm and that form of Guild Socialism which was all Guild and no Socialism. But there is still much to be settled by the deductive method. The fundamental question of the proportions in which the national income, when socialized, shall be distributed, was not grappled with until 1914, when I, lecturing on behalf of the Society, delivered my final conclusion that equal distribution is the only solution that will realize the ideals of Socialism, and that it is in fact the economic goal of Socialism. This is not fully accepted as yet in the movement, in which there is still a strong leaven of the old craving for an easy-going system which, beginning with " the sociali- zation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange," will then work out automatically without interference with the citizen's private affairs. Another subject which has hardly yet been touched, and which also must begin with deductive treatment, is what may be called the democratization of democ- racy, and its extension from a mere negative and very uncertain check on tyranny to a positive organizing force. No experienced Fabian believes that society can be reconstructed (or rather constructed ; for the difficulty is that society is as yet only half rescued from 268 History of the Fabian Society chaos) by men of the type produced by popular election under existing circumstances, or indeed under any circumstances likely to be achieved before the reconstruction. The fact that a hawker cannot ply his trade without a Ucence whilst a man may sit in Parliament without any relevant qualifications is a typical and significant anomaly which will certainly not be removed by allowing everybody to be a hawker at will. Sooner or later, unless democracy is to be discarded in a reaction of disgust such as killed it in ancient Athens, democracy itself will demand that only such men should be presented to its choice as have proved themselves qualified for more serious and disinterested work than " stoking up " election meet- ings to momentary and fooUsh excitement. Without qualified rulers a Socialist State is impossible ; and it must not be forgotten (though the reminder is as old as Plato) that the qualified men may be very reluctant men instead of very ambitious ones. Here, then, are two very large jobs already in sight to occupy future Fabians. Whether they will call themselves Fabians and begin by joining the Fabian Society is a question which will not be settled by the generation to which I belong. G. B. S. Appendix II The Basis of the Fabian Society THE Fabian Society consists of Socialists. It therefore aims at the reorganisation of Society by the emancipation of Land and Industrial Capital from individual and class ownership, and the vesting of them in the community for the general benefit. In this way only can the natural and acquired advantages of the country be equitably shared by the whole people. The Society accordingly works for the extinction of private property in Land and of the consequent individual appro- priation, in the form of Rent, of the price paid for permission to use the earth, as well as for the advantages of superior soils and sites. The Society, further, works for the transfer to the com- munity of the administration of such industrial Capital as can conveniently be managed socially. For, owing to the monopoly of the means of production in the past, industrial inventions and the transformation of surplus income into Capital have mainly enriched the proprietary class, the worker being now dependent on that class for leave to earn a living. If these measures be carried out, without compensation (though not without such relief to expropriated individuals as may seem fit to the community). Rent and Interest will be added to the reward of labour, the idle class now living on the labour of others will necessarily disappear, and practical equality of opportunity will be maintained by the spontaneous action of economic forces with much less interference with personal liberty than the present system entails. For the attainment of these ends the Fabian Society looks to the spread of Socialist opinions, and the social and political changes consequent thereon, including the establishment of equal citizenship for men and women. ^ It seeks to achieve these ends by the general dissemination of knowledge as to the relation between the individual and Society in its economic, ethical, and political aspects. ' The words in italics were added in 1907. See page 177. 269 Appendix III List of the names and the years of office of the ninety-six members of the Executive Committee, 1884-I915 THE full term of of&ce is from April to March, and such an entry as 1901-2 usually means one year's office. Membership has been terminated in many cases by resigna- tion, in the great majority by refusal to stand for re-election, in perhaps a dozen cases by defeat, and never by death. Alden, Percy, M.P., 1903-7. Allen, Clifford, 1912 to date. Anderson, R. Wherry, 1 898-1 903. Atkinson, Miss Mabel, 1909 to date. BaU, Sidney, 1907-8. Banner, Robert, 1892. Barker, Granville, 1907-12. Bentham, Dr. Ethel, 1909-14. Bentinck, Mrs. R. Cavendish, 1911-13. Besant, Mrs. Annie, 1886-90. Bland, Hubert, 1884-1911. Honorary Treasurer 1884-1911. Blatch, Mrs. Stanton, 1894-5, Bray, Reginald A., 1911-12. Brooke, Miss Emma, 1893-6. Cameron, Miss Mary, 1893—4. Campbell, Rev. R. J., 1908-9. Charrington, Charles, 1899-1904. Chesterton, Cecil E., 1904-7. Clarke, WUliam, 1888-91. Cole, G. D. H., 1914-15. Davies, Emil, 191 1 to date. Dearmer, Rev. Percy, 1895-8. Dell, Robert E., 1890-3 ; 1898-9. De Mattos, W. S., 1890-4. Dodd, F. Lawson, 1900 to date. Honorary Treasurer 191 1 to date. 270 Appendix III 271 Ensor, R. C. K., 1907-11 ; 1912 to date. Ervine, St. John G., 1913 to date. Fairfield, Dr. Letitia, 1915 to date. Galton, F. W., 1901-7. Gamett, Mrs. Constance, 1894-5. Gillespie, H. J., 1914. Green, J. F., 1899-1900. Griffith, N. L., 1892-3. Grover, Miss Mary, 1890-2. Guest, L. Haden, 1907-11. Hammill, Fred, 1892-5. Harben, Henry D., 1911 to date. Harris, Mrs. O'Brien (Miss Mary O'Brien), 1898-1901. Headlam, Rev. Stewart D., i8go-i ; 1901-11. Hoatson, Miss Alice, 1890-2. Assistant Hon. Secretary 1885-6. Hobson, Samuel G., 1900-9. Holding, H. Bond, 1894-6. Hutchins, Miss B. L., 1907-12. Keddell, Frederick, 1884-5. Honorary Secretary 1884-5. Lawrence, F. W. Pethick, 1907-8. Lawrence, Miss Susan (L.C.C.), 1912 to date. Lloyd, C. M., 1912-15. Lowerison, Harry (Bellerby), 1891-2. Macdonald, J. Ramsay (M.P.), 1894-1900. Macpherson, Mrs. Fenton, 1900-1. Macrosty, Henry W., 1895-1907. MaUet, Mrs. L. T., 1890-2. Mann, Tom, 1896. Martin, John W., 1894-9. Massingham, H. W., 1891-3. Matthews, John E. (L.C.C.), 1901-2. Maude, Aylmer, 1907-12. Money, (Sir) Leo Chiozza (M.P.), 1908-11. Morley, Professor Edith, 1914 to date. Morris, Miss May, i8g6-8. Morten, Miss Honor, 1895-8. Muggeridge, H. T., 1903-5. Murby, Miss M. B., 1907-13. 272 History of the Fabian Society Oakeshott, Joseph F., 1890-1902. Olivier (Sir), Sydney (K.C.M.G.), 1887-1899. Honorary Secretary 1886-9. Pease, Edward R., 1885-6 ; 1890 to date. Honorary Secretary 1886, and 1914 to date. Secretary 1890-1913. Phillips, Dr. Marion, 1913-14. PhilUps, W. L., 1887-8. Podmore, Frank, 1884 ; 1886-8. Priestley, Miss (Mrs. Bart Kennedy), 1896-8. Assistant Secretary, 1892-5. Reeves, Mrs. Pember, 1907 to date. Sanders, W. Stephen, 1904 to date. Organising Secretary 1907—13. General Secretary 1914 to date. Sandham, Mrs., 1891-3. Sharp, Clifiord D., 1909-14. Shaw, G. Bernard, 1 885-1911. Shaw, Mrs. Bernard (Miss Payne Townshend), 1898-1915. Slesser, Henry H., 1910-14. Smith, Miss EUen, 1915 to date. Snell, Harry, 1912 to date. Snowden, Mrs. Philip, 1908-9. Sparling, H. HaUiday, 1892-4. Squire, J. C, 1914 to date. Standring, George, 1893-1908 ; 1909-11. Taylor, G. R. S., 1905-8. Townshend, Mrs. Emily C, 1915. Utley, W. H., 1892-4. Wallas, Graham, 1888-1895. Webb, Sidney, 1886 to date. Webb, Mrs. Sidney, 1912 to date. Wells, H. G., 1907-8. Wells, Mrs. H. G., 1908-10. West, Julius, 1915 to date. Secretary of Research Depart- ment, etc., 1908-12. Whelen, Frederick, 1896-1901 ; 1902-4. WUliams, Ernest E., 1893-4. Wilson, Mrs. C. M., 1885-7; I9"-I5- Wood, Mrs. Esther, 1902-3. Appendix IV Complete List of Fabian Publications, 1884-I915, with names of authors Fabian Tracts THE printing of the author's name in italics signifies that the tract was adopted and probably amended by the Society and that it was issued without the author's name. In the other cases the author's name is given in the tract, and as a rule the tract was approved for pubUcation as a whole : a star to the author's name signifies " not a member of the Society." No. 1884. 1. Why are the Many Poor ? 4 pp. W. L. Phillips. 2. A Manifesto. 4 pp. G. Bernard Shaw. 1885. 3. To Provident Landlords and Capitalists : A Suggestion and a Warning. 4 pp. G. Bernard Shaw. 1886. 4. What Socialism Is. 12 pp. Mrs. C. M. Wilson and others. 1887. 5. Facts for Socialists. 16 pp. Sidney Webb. 6. The True Radical Programme (Fabian Parliamentary League), iz pp. G. Bernard Shaw. 1888. 7. Capital and Land. 16 pp. {Sir) Sydney Olivier. 1889. 8. Facts for Londoners. 56 pp. Sidney Webb. 9. An Eight Hours Bill. 16 pp. Do. 10. Figures for Londoners. 4 pp. Do. s 273 274 History of the Fabian Society 1890. 1 1 . The Workers' Political Programme. 20 pp. Sidney Webb. 12. Practical Land Nationalisation. 4 pp. Do. 13. AAThat Socialism Is. 4 pp. Bernard Shaw. 14. The New Reform Bill. 20 pp. /. F. Oakeshoti and others. 15. English Progress towards Social Democracy. i5 pp. Sidney Webb. 16. A Plea for an Eight Hours Bill. 4 pp. SidneyWebb. 17. Reform of the Poor Law. 20 pp. Sidney Webb. 18. Facts for Bristol. 20 pp. {Sir) Hartmann W. Just. ig. What the Farm Labourer Wants. 4 pp. Sidney Webb. 20. Questions for Poor Law Guardians. 4 pp. S. W. Group, 21. Questions for London Vestrymen. 4 pp. /. C. Foulger. 22. The Truth about Leasehold Enfranchisement. 4 pp. Sidney Webb. 1 891. 23. The Case for an Eight Hours Bill. 16 pp. Sidney Webb. 24. Questions for Parliamentary Candidates. 4 pp. Do. 25. Questions for School Board Candidates. 4 pp. Do. 26. Questions for London County Councillors. 4 pp. Do. 27. Questions for Town Councillors. 4 pp. Rev. C. Peach. 28. Questions for County Council Candidates (Rural). 4 pp. F. Hudson. 29. What to Read. 48 pp. Graham Wallas (ist edition). (Fifth edition, 1910, not included in the series.) 30. The Unearned Increment. 4 pp. Sidney Webb. 31. London's Heritage in the City Guilds. 4 pp. SidneyWebb. 32. The Municipalisation of the Gas Supply. 4 pp. Do. 33. Municipal Tramways. 4 pp. Do. 34. London's Water Tribute. 4 pp. Do. 35. The Municipalisation of the London Docks. 4 pp. Do. 36. The Scandal of London's Markets. 4 pp. Do. 37. A Labour Policy for Public Authorities. 4 pp. Do. 38. Welsh Translation of No. i. 1892. 39. A Democratic Budget. 16 pp. /. F. Oakeshott. 40. Fabian Election Manifesto. 16 pp. Bernard Shaw. 41. The Fabian Society : What it has done and how it has done it. 32 pp. G. Bernard Shaw. 42. Christian Socialism. 16 pp. Rev. Stewart D. Headlam. 43. Vote ! Vote I Vote I 2 pp. Bernard Shaw. Appendix IV 275 1893- 44. A Plea for Poor Law Reform. 4 pp. Frederick Whelen. 45. Impossibilities of Anarchism. 28 pp. G. Bernard Shaw. 46. Socialism and Sailors. 16 pp. B. T. Hall. 47. The Unemployed. (Rt. Hon.) John Bums. 48. Eight Hours by Law. Henry W. Macrosty. 1894. 49. A Plan of Campaign for Labour. 28 pp. G. Bernard Shaw. 50. Sweating: Its Cause and Remedy. 16 pp. H. W. Macrosty. 51. Socialism : True and False. 20 pp. Sidney Webb. 52. State Education at Home and Abroad. 16 pp. J. W. Martin. 53. The Parish Councils Act : What it is and how to work it. 20 pp. (Rt. Hon.) Herbert Samtiel.* 54. Humanising of the Poor Law. 24 pp. J. F. Oakeshott. 55. The Workers' School Board Programme. 20 pp. /. W. Martin. 56. Questions for Parish Council Candidates. 4 pp. (Rt. Hon.) Herbert Sarmtel.* 57. Questions for Rural District Council Candidates. 4 pp. (Rt. Hon.) Herbert Samuel.* 58. Allotments and How to Get Them. 4 pp. (Rt. Hon.) Herbert Samuel.* 59. Questions for Candidates for Urban District Councils. 4 pp. 60. The London Vestries : What they are and what they do. 20 pp. Sidney Webb. 1895. 61. The London County Council: What it is and what it does. 16 pp. /. F. Oakeshott. 62. Parish and District Councils : What they are and what they can do. 16 pp. (No. 53 re-written.) 63. Parish Council Cottages and how to get them. 4 pp. Edw. R. Pease. 64. How to Lose and how to Win an Election. 2 pp. /. Ramsay Macdonald. 65. Trade Unionists and Politics. 2 pp. F. W. Gallon. 66. A Program for Workers. 2 pp. Edw. R. Pease. 276 History of the Fabian Society 1896. 67. Women and the Factory Acts. 16 pp. Mrs. Sidney Webb. 68. The Tenant's Sanitary Catechism. 4 pp. Arthur Hickmott. 69. The Difficulties of Individualism. 20 pp. Sidney Webb. 70. Report on Fabian Policy. 16 pp. Bernard Shaw. 71. The (London) Tenant's Sanitary Catechism. 4 pp. Miss Grove. 72. The Moral Aspects of Socialism. 24 pp. Sidney Ball. 73. The Case for State Pensions in Old Age. 16 pp. George Turner. 74. The State and Its Functions in New Zealand. 16 pp. The Hon. W. P. Reeves.* 1897. 75. Labour in the Longest Reign. 20 pp. Sidney Webb. 76. Houses for the People. 20 pp. Arthur Hickmott. 77. The Municipalisation of Tramways. 16 pp. F. T. H. Henl6. 78. Socialism and the Teaching of Christ. 16 pp. Rev. John Clifford, d.d. 79. A Word of Remembrance and Caution to the Rich. 16 pp. John Woolman.* 80. Shop Life and its Reform. 16 pp. William Johnson. 81. Municipal Water. 4 pp. C. M. Knowles.* 82. The Workmen's Compensation Act. 20 pp. C. R. Allen, junr. 83. State Arbitration and the Living Wage. 16 pp. H. W. Macrosty. 84. The Economics of Direct Employment. 16 pp. Sidney Webb. 85. Liquor Licensing at Home and Abroad. 16 pp. Edw. R. Pease. 86. Municipal Drink Traffic. 20 pp. Edw. R. Pease. 1899. 87. A Welsh Translation of No. 78. 16 pp. 88. The Growth of Monopoly in English Industry. 16 pp. Henry W. Macrosty. 89. Old Age Pensions at Work. 4 pp. /. Bullock. 90. The Municipalisation of the Milk Supply. 4 pp. Dr. G. F, McCleary. 91. Municipal Pawnshops. 4 pp. Charles Charrington. 92. Municipal Slaughterhouses. 4 pp. George Standring, Appendix IV 277 1900. 93. Women as Councillors. 4 pp. Bernard Shaw. 94- Municipal Bakeries. 4 pp. Dr. G. F. McCleary. 95. Municipal Hospitals. 4 pp. Do. 96. Municipal Fire Insurance. 4 pp. (1901). Mrs. Fenton Macpherson. 97- Municipal Steamboats. 4 pp. (1901). 5. D. Shallard. 98. State Railways for Ireland. 16 pp. Clement Edwards (M.P.). 99. Local Government in Ireland. C. R. Allen, junr. 100. Metropolitan Borough Councils : Their Powers and Duties. 20 pp. Henry W. Macrosty. 101. The House Famine and How to ReUeve it. 52 pp. Various. 102. Questions for Candidates : Metropolitan Borough Coun- cils. 4 pp. H. W. Macrosty. 103. Overcrowding in London and its Remedy. 16 pp. W. C. Steadman, m.p. 104. How Trade Unions Benefit Workmen. 4 pp. Edw. R. Pease. 1901. 105. Five Years' Fruit of the Parish Councils Act. 24 pp Sidney Webb. 106. The Education Muddle and the Way Out. 20 pp. Sidney Webb. 107. Socialism for Millionaires. 16 pp. Bernard Shaw. 108. Twentieth Century Politics : A Policy of National Ef&ciency. 16 pp. Sidney Webb. 1902. 109. Cottage Plans and Common Sense. 16 pp. Raymond Unwin. no. Problems of Indian Poverty. 16 pp. S. S. Thorburn.* 111. Reform of Reformatories and Industrial Schools. 16 pp. H. T. Holmes. 112. Life in the Laundry. 16 pp. Dr. G. F. McCleary. 1903. 113. Communism. 16 pp. William Morris.* Preface by Bernard Shaw. 114. The Education Act, 1902. How to make the best of it. 20 pp. Sidney Webb. 115. State Aid to Agriculture. 16 pp. T. S. Dymond.* 278 History of the Fabian Society 1904. 1 16. Fabianism and the Fiscal Question : An Alternative Policy. 28 pp. Bernard Shaw. 117. The London Education Act, 1903 : How to make the best of it. 20 pp. Sidney Webb. 118. The Secret of Rural Depopulation. 20 pp. Lieut.-Col. D. C. Pedder.* 1905. 119. Public Control of Electric Power and Transit. 16 pp. S. G. Hobson. 120. After Bread, Education. 16 pp. Hubert Bland. 121. Public Service versus Private Expenditure. 12 pp. Sir Oliver Lodge.* 122. Municipal Milk and Public Health. 20 pp. F. Lawson. Dodd. 123. The Revival of Agriculture : A National Policy for Great Britain. 24 pp. Henry W. Macrosty. 124. State Control of Trusts. 16 pp. Henry W. Macrosty. 125. Municipalisation by Provinces. 16 pp. W. Stephen Sanders. igo6. 126. The Abolition of Poor Law Guardians. 24 pp. Edw. R. Pease. 127. Socialism and Labour Policy. 16 pp. Hubert Bland {Editor). 128. The Case for a Legal Minimum Wage. 20 pp. W. Stephen Sanders. 129. More Books to Read. 20 pp. Edw. R. Pease. 1907. 130. Home Work and Sweating : The Causes and Remedies. 20 pp. Miss B. L. Hutchins. 131. The Decline in the Birth-rate. 20 pp. Sidney Webb. 132. A Guide to Books for Socialists. 12 pp. " The Nursery." 133. Socialism and Christianity. 24 pp. Rev. Percy Dear- mer, d.d. 134. Small Holdings, Allotments, and Common Pastures. 4 pp. Revised edition of No. 58. 135. Paupers and Old Age Pensions. 16 pp. Sidney Webb. 136. The Village and the Landlord. 12 pp. Edward Carpen- ter. Appendix IV 279 1908. 137- Parish Councils and Village Life. 28 pp. Revised version of No. 105. 138. Municipal Trading. 20 pp. AylmeY Maude, 139- Socialism and the Churches. 16 pp. Rev. John Clif- ford, D.D. 140. Child Labour Under Capitalism. 20 pp. Mrs. Hylton Dale. 1909. 141. (Welsh Translation of No. 139). 142. Rent and Value. 12 pp. Adapted by Mrs. Bernard Shaw from Fabian Essays, The Economic Basis. 143. Sosialaeth Yng Ngoleuni'R Beibl (Welsh). J. R. Jones. 144. Machinery : Its Masters and its Servants. 20 pp. H. H. Schloesser (Slesser) and Clement Game. 145. The Case for School Nurseries. 20 pp. Mrs. Townshend. 146. Socialism and Superior Brains. A Reply to Mr. Mallock. 24 pp. Bernard Shaw. 147. Capital and Compensation. 16 pp. Edward R. Pease. 148. What a Health Committee can do. 16 pp. Miss B. L. Hutchins. 1910. 149. The Endowment of Motherhood. 24 pp. Henry D. Harben. 150. State Purchase of Railways : A Practicable Scheme. 24 pp. Emil Davies. 151. The Point of Honour. A Correspondence on Aristocracy and Socialism. 16 pp. Mrs. Ruth Cavendish Bentinck. 1911. 152. Our Taxes as they are and as they ought to be. 20 pp. Robert Jones. 153. The Twentieth Century Reform Bill. 20 pp. Henry H. Schloesser (Slesser). 154. The Case for School Clinics. 16 pp. L. Haden Guest. 155. The Case against the Referendum. 20 pp. Clifiord D. Sharp. 156. What an Education Committee can do (Elementary Schools). 36 pp. The Education Group. 157. The Working Life of Women. 16 pp. Miss B. L. Hutchins. 158. The Case Against the Charity Organisation Society. 20 pp. Mrs. Townshend. 28o History of the Fabian Society 159. The Necessary Basis of Society. 12 pp. Sidney Webb. 160. A National Medical Service. 20 pp. F. Lawson Dodd. igi2. 161. Afforestation and Unemployment. 16 pp. Arthur P. GrenfeU. 162. Family Life on a Pound a Week. 24 pp. Mrs. Pember Reeves. 163. Women and Prisons. 28 pp. Helen Blagg and Charlotte Wilson. 164. Gold and State Banking. A Study in the Economics of Monopoly. 20 pp. Edward R. Pease. 165. Francis Place : The Tailor of Charing Cross. 28 pp. St. John G. Ervine. 166. Robert Owen : Social Reformer. 24 pp. Miss B. L. Hutchins. 167. William Morris and the Communist Ideal. 24 pp. Mrs. Townshend. 1913- 168. John Stuart Mill. 24 pp. Julius West. 169. The Socialist Movement in Germany. 28 pp. W. Stephen Sanders. 170. Profit-Sharing and Co-partnership : A fraud and a failure ? 16 pp. Edward R. Pease. 171. The Nationalisation of Mines and Minerals Bill. 16 pp. Henry H. Schloesser (Slesser). 172. What about the Rates, or Municipal Finance and Muni- cipal Autonomy. 12 pp. Sidney Webb. 173. PubUc versus Private Electricity Supply. 20 pp. C. Ashmore Baker.* 1914- 174. Charles Kingsley and Christian Socialism. 28 pp. Colwyn E. VuUiamy. 175. The Economic Foundations of the Women's Movement. 24 pp. M. A. (Mabel Atkinson). 176. War and the Workers. Handbook of some immediate measures to prevent Unemployment and relieve distress. 24 pp. Sidney Webb. 1915- 177. Sociahsm and the Arts of Use. 16 pp. A. Clutton Brock. 178. The War ; Women ; and Unemployment. 28 pp. The Women's Group Executive. Appendix IV 281 Books and Special Pamphlets. Those without any publisher's name were published by the Society. The Government Organisation of Unemployed Labour. Report made by a Committee to the Fabian Society and ordered to be printed for the information of members. 1886. pp. 24. N.P. Sidney Webb and Frank Podmore. Fabian Essays in Socialism. Edited by Bernard Shaw. 1889. ist edition, 6s. Subsequent editions published bv Walter Scott. Report on Municipal Tramways, presented to the Richmond (Surrey) Town Council by Aid. Thompson.* Reprinted for the Society by special permission. 4to. pp. 20. 1898. 6d. Labour in the Longest Reign: 1837-1897. By Sidney Webb. A reprint of Tract No. 75. Grant Richards, pp. 62. 1897. IS. Fabianism and the Empire. A Manifesto by the Fabian Society. Edited by Bernard Shaw. pp. loi. Grant Richards. 1900. is. Fabianism and the Fiscal Question : An Alternative Policy. Special edition of Tract 116 ; with a preface by Bernard Shaw. pp. 39. 1904. IS. This Misery of Boots. By H. G. Wells. Cover designed by A. G. Watts, pp. 48. 1907. 3d. Tract Index and Catalogue Raisonn6 of Tracts Nos. i to 139. pp. 35. 1908. 3d. Those Wretched Rates, a dialogue. By F. W. Hayes, pp. 16. 1908. id. Ballads and Lyrics of Socialism, 1883-1908. By E. Nesbit (Mrs. Hubert Bland), pp. 80. A. C. Fifield. 1908. 6d. and is. Break Up the Poor Law and Abolish the Workhouse. Being Part I of the Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission 1909. pp. 601. 2S. By Sidney and Beatrice Webb. The Remedy for Unemployment- Being Part II. 1909. pp. 345. IS. By Sidney and Beatrice Webb. A Summary of Six Papers and Discussions upon the Dis- abilities of Women as Workers. The writers of the papers : Miss Emma Brooke, Dr. Con- stance Long,* Mrs. Ernestine Mills, Mrs. Gallichan (G. Gasquoine Hartley), Miss MUlicent Murby, Dr. Ethel Bentham. Issued for private circulation only by the Fabian Women's Group, pp. 24. 1909. 282 History of the Fabian Society Summsiry of Eight Papers and Discussions upon the Dis- abilities of Mothers as Workers. • The writers of the papers : Mrs. Pember Reeves, Dr. Ethel Vaughan Sawyer,* Mrs. Spence Weiss,* Mrs. Bartrick Baker, Mrs. Stanbury, Mrs. S. K. Ratcliffe, Miss B. L. Hutchins, Mrs. O'Brien Harris. Issued for private circulation only by the Fabian Women's Group, pp. 32. 1910. What to Read on Social and Economic Subjects. 5th edition. Earlier editions published as Tract No. 29. pp. 52. P. S. King and Son. I9IO. IS. Songs for Socialists, compiled by the Fabian Society. A. C. Fifield. 1912. 34,. The Rural Problem. By Henry D. Harben. pp. 169. Con- stable and Co. 1913. 2S. 6d. net. Women Workers in Seven Professions. A survey of their economic conditions and prospects. Edited for the Studies Committee of the Fabian Women's Group. By Edith J. Morley. pp. xxii-l-318. G. Routledge and Sons. 1914. 6s. Wage-Earning Women and their Dependents. By Ellen Smith on behalf of the Executive Committee of the Women's Group, pp. 36. 1915. is. net. Bound Tracts. The whole of the numbered tracts at any time in print are sold as a bound volume with a title-page. As the complete set is in demand and as every few months a new tract is pubUshed, or an old one is sold out, the sets are usually bound a dozen at a time, and each dozen differs as a rule from all the rest. Price now 5s. net. Fabian Socialist Series. Published for the Society by A. C. Fifield at 6d. and is. net each. I. Socialism and Religion. Reprint of Tracts, Nos. 42, 78, 133, and 79. pp. 87. 1908. II. Socialism and Agriculture. Reprint of Tracts, Nos. 136, 118, 115, and 123. pp. 94. X908. III. Socialism and Individualism. Reprint of Tracts, Nos. 69, 45, 72, and 121. pp. 102. 1908. IV. The Basis and Policy of Socialism. Reprint of Tracts, Nos. 5, 7, 51, and 108. pp. 95. 1908. Appendix IV 283 V. The Common Sense of Mtmicipal Trading. By Bernard Shaw* Reprint with a new preface, pp. 120. 1908. VI. Socialism and National Minimum. Papers by Mrs. Sidney Webb and Miss B. L. Hutchins, and reprint of Tract No. 128. pp. 91. 1909. VII. Wastage of Child Life, as exemplified by Conditions in Lancashire. By J. Johnston, m.d.* A reprint, pp. 95- 1909- VIII. Socialism and Superior Brains. Reprint of Tract, No. 146. pp. 59- 1910. IX. The Theory and Practice of Trade Unionism. By J. H. Greenwood. Preface by Sidney Webb, pp.70. 1911. Research Department Publications. New Statesman Supplements : Industrial Organisation in Germany. Report. By W. S. Sanders. 1913. 8 pp. folio. National Insurance Act. First Draft Report of the Insur- ance Committee. March 14, 1914. 32 pp. folio, is. Co-operative Production and Profit-Sharing. February 14, 1914. 32 pp. folio. 2S. 6d. Co-operative Movement. Drafts of the first two parts of the Report on the Control of Industry. By Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb. May 30, 1914. 36 pp. folio, is. Industrial Insurance. March 13, 1915. 32 pp. folio, is. State and Municipal Enterprise. Draft Report. By Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb. May 8, 1915. 32 pp. folio, is. Suggestions for the Prevention of War. Part I. By L. S. Woolf. July 10, 1915. 24 pp. folio, is. Part II. By the International Agreements Committee. July 17, 1915. 8 pp. folio. IS. English Teachers and their Professional Organisation. Monograph by Mrs. Sidney Webb. Part I. September 25, 191 5. 24 pp. folio. 6d. Part II. October 2, 1915. 24 pp. folio. 6d. Labour Year Book, 191 5-1 6, issued under the auspices of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trade Union Con- gress, the Executive Committee of the Labour Party, and the Fabian Research Department. 1915- 704 PP- IS., and 2S. 6d. Index Of the principal references to people and subjects Agriculture, 15, 47, 157, 228 Alden, Percy, 153, 172, 231 Allen, ClifEord, 195, 225, 234 Anarchism, 49, 53, 66 Arts Group, The, 188 Balfour, Rt. Hon. Arthur J., 45, 142 Ball, Sidney, 103, 180, 183 Barker, Ernest, 244, 258 Barker, Granville, 180, 186 Bamett, Canon, 16 Basis, The Fabian, 71, i6g, 177, 178. 231, 269 Bax, Belfort, 66 Beale, Mr., 112 Bentham, Jeremy, 244 Bernstein, Edward, 239 Besant, Mrs. Annie, joins, 47 ; her position, 64 ; Fabian Essay, 92 ; resigns, 98 ; lec- ture, 187 Birth-rate, 160 Bland, Hubert, 31, 35, 222, 223, 265 Book-boxes, 121 Brooke, Miss Emma, 190 Brooke, Rupert, 234 Brooke, Rev. Stopford, 69 Bums, Rt. Hon. John, 67, 83, no, 217 Butler, Samuel, 105 Campbell, Rev. R. J., 187 Carpenter, Edward, 36 Champion, H. H., 25, 31, 69, 75 Charrington, Charles, 131, 133 Christian Socialism, 25, 83 Chubb, Percival, 29, 69 Clarke, William, 31, 33 ; joins, 47 ; position, 64, 123 Clifford, Dr. John, 129 Cole, G. D. H., 230 Comte, Auguste, 14, 18, 263 Conference, of 1886, 55 ; of 1892, 106 ; of later years, 197 Conscription, 137 Co-operation, 44, 92, 114, 228 Cox, Harold, 46 Crane, Walter, 66, 71, 75, 88, 129, 131, 133, 264 Crooks, Rt. Hon. WiU, 129, 152, 155 D Darwin, Charles, 15 Davidson, Thomas, 26, 28 Decline of birth-rate, 160 De Mattos, W. S., 93, 105, 123 Democratic Federation, 24, 38, 49 Dock Strike, 75, 83, 114 Dodd, F. Lawson, 129, 131, 172, 202 Drink Trade, Municipal, 159 E Edgeworth, Professor, 260 Education, 142 Education Group, 185 Eight Hours Bill, 84, 203 Elections, of 1892, 108, 112 ; of 1906, 152 ; of 1910, 220 2 86 Index Ellis, Havelock, ag, 36 Ensor, R. C. K., i8o, 221 Evolution, 15, 17 " Facts for ]U>ndoners," 80 " Facts for Socialists," 69 " Fair Wages," log, 114, 241 " Family, The," 15, 69, 175, 181 Feeding school children, 148, 203 Fellowship of the New Life, 28, 32. 35 Finance, 1884, 35 ; 1886, 60 ; 1891, 99; 1893, 100; 1908, 185 G George, Henry, 16, 19, 25, 28, 38, 45. 260 " Government Organisation of Unemployed Labour," 57 Green, J. Frederick, 131, 133 Groups, Fabian, 104, 193 Guild Socialism, 230, 254 H Haldane, Lord, 74, iii Hampstead Historic, The, 65 Harben, Henry D., 222, 224, 227, 228 Hardie, J. Keir, 113, 167, 253 Headlam, Rev. Stewart D., 25, 57. 75. 94. 142, 166, 168, 172 Henderson, Rt. Hon. Arthur, 152, 155 Hobson, S. G., 130, 150, 172 Housing, 140 Huddersfield Election, 155 Hutchinson, Henry H., 95, 123 Hutchinson, Miss, 123 Huxley, T. H., 18 Hjfndman, H. M., 24, 38, 51, 202, 252 Ibsen, 94 Imperialism, 135 Independent Labour Party, 63, 97, loi, 129, 202 Industrial Remuneration Con- ference, 44 " Intercepted Letter, An," 118 International Socialist Congress, 126, 2og Jevons, Stanley, 260 Joint Standing Committee, 202 K " Kapital, Das," 24, 64, 236, 258 Keddell, Frederick, 31, 52 Kropotkin, Prince, 49, 66 Labour Party, The, 97, 116, 148, 167, 171 Lancashire Campaign, 95 Land, 47, 244, 260 Land taxation, 21, 25, 73 Lavelaye, Emile de, i6, 19 Leasehold Enfranchisement, 94, no, 113 Lecturing, 77, 105, 108, 124 Library, 120 Local Fabian Societies, 99, 102, 191 Local Government Information Bureau, 206 London County Council, 79, 92, 109 London School Board, 109 London School of Economics, 123 M Macdonald, J. Ramsay, 35, 125, 127, 129, 133, 249 Macrosty, Henry S., 131, 157, 172 Martin, J. W., 158 Marx, I^rl, 23, 45, 61, 89, 236, 260 Index 287 Massingham, H. W., 109, 116, 117 Maude, Aylmer, 180 Middle Class Socialist Party, 153. 172, 178, 180 Mill, John Stuart, 18, 21, 216, , 244, 259 Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission, 215 Money, Sir Leo Chiozza, 169, 224 Morris, Miss May, 88 Morris, William, 23, 57, 66, 90, 183, 204, 259, 264 Motto, Fabian, 39, 165 Mmiicipalisation, 81, 159, 242, 247 N National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution, 219 National Insurance, 223 Newcastle Program, 112 Nursery, The Fabian, 189 O Oakeshott, J. F., 36, 131, 158 Old Age Pensions, 159, 223 Olivier, Sir Sydney, 25 ; joins, 46 ; secretary, 65 ; " Capital and Land," 73 ; Governor of Jamaica, 128 ; Wells' Com- mittee, 166 ; opinions, 263, 264 Owen, Miss Dale, 30, 31 Owen, Robert, 23, 241 Pankhurst, Mrs., 57, 133 Parish Councils, 121, 141 Parliamentary League, Fabian, 68,73 Pease, Edward R., 29, 59, 80, 93- 149, 159. 232 Phillips, W. L., 39, 73 Podmore, Frank, 28, 39, 48, 53, 57. 73. 80 Poor Law, 14, 46, 213 Portsmouth Election, 155 Positivism, 14, 18 R Reeves, Mrs. Pember, 166, 177, 180 Reform Committee, Fabian, 225 Research Department, 227 Ritchie, Professor D. G., 75, 116 Ruskin, John, 27, 263 Salt, Henry S., 36, 131, 133 Sanders, W. Stephen, 125, 155, 156, 172, 191, 232 School Boards, 142 Shaw, G. Bernard, 25 ; joins, 40 ; first tract, 40 ; on Burg- lars, 45 ; Fabian Essays, 87 ; " Quintessence of Ibsenism," 94 ; on Newcastle Program, 112 ; on Fabian policy, 126 ; Vestryman, 127 ; " Fabian- ism and the Empire," 134 ; Tariff Reform, 159 ; versus Wells, 173 ; retires from Exe- cutive, 223 ; on Economics, 258 ; on Guild Socialism, 265 Shaw, Mrs. Bernard, 123, 166, 172, 187, 190 Sidgwick, Henry, 258 Slesser, Henry H., 208, 222, 225 Small holdings, 47, 228 Smith, Samuel, 15, 24 Snell, Harry, 153 Social Democratic Federation, 49, 61, 89, 106, 203 Socialist League, 66, 89 South African War, 128 " Spectator," The, 14 Spencer, Herbert, 18 Standiing, George, 74, 172 Stepniak, Sergius, 94 Summer School, 199 Syndicalism, 229, 254 288 Index Tariff Reform, 159 Taunton Election, 154 Tchaykovsky, Nicholas, 66 Tillett, Ben, 113 Tobacco, State cultivation of, 59 " Tory Gold," 50, 63 Trade Unionism, 44, 91, 112, 114, 228 Turner, George, 159 U Unemployment, 52, 57, 69, 215 Unity, Socialist, 202, 253 University Fabian Societies, 103, 191, 193 University Socialist Federation, 193 W Wallas, Graham, joins, 47 ; lectures, 65 ; London School Board, 127 ; resigns, 156 ; ideas, 262 War of 1914, The, 233, 234 Webb, Sidney, joins, 46 ; Exe- cutive, 52 ; " Facts for Social- ists," 69 ; " Facts for Lon- doners," 83; elected to L.C.C., 109 ; Education Acts, 142 ; co-operation with Mrs. Webb, 212 ; on Mill, 259 Webb, Mrs. Sidney, 114, 177, 187, Chapter XI Wells, H. G., 39, 153, Chapter IX, 250 Wicksteed, Philip, 260 WilUams, E. E., 205 Wilson, Mrs. C. M., joins, 48 ; Tract 4, 54 ; Women's Group, 189; Executive, 222 Woolwich Election, 155 Women's Group, The, 189 Women's Suffrage, 175, 204 Workmen's Compensation, 122 THE END NEW YIRK STATE sefillL INIUSTRIAL ANI LAIill RELATIINS CORNELL UNIVERSITY 3 J) ^ 3 It, ,„ !;'■■■■-