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The History of the

Fabian Society


By


Edward R. Pease

Secretary for Twenty-five Years


With Twelve Illustrations


NEW YORK
E.P. 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 amplifications 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 particularly
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, 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 permission to reproduce the
interesting sketch which forms the frontispiece.

E.R.P.
THE PENDICLE,
LIMPSFIELD,
SURREY,

_January_, 1916.




Contents


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 Democratic Federation--"The Christian
    Socialist"--Thomas Davidson


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


Chapter III

The Early Days: 1884-6

    The use of the word Socialism--Approval of the Democratic
    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
    Government Organisation of Unemployed Labour"


Chapter IV

The Formation of Fabian Policy: 1886-9

    The factors of success; priority of date; the men who made it--The
    controversy over policy--The Fabian Parliamentary League--"Facts for
    Socialists"--The adoption of the Basis--The seven Essayists in
    command--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"


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 Campaign--Mrs. Besant withdraws--"Fabian
    News"


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


Chapter VII

"Fabianism and the Empire": 1900-1

    The Library and Book Boxes--Parish Councils--The Workmen's
    Compensation Act--The Hutchinson Trust--The London School of
    Economics--Educational Lectures--Electoral Policy--The controversy
    over the South African War--The publication of "Fabianism and the
    Empire"


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. Martin--Municipal Drink
    Trade--Tariff Reform--The Decline of the Birth-rate


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


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


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 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


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


Appendix I

A. On the History of Fabian Economics. By Bernard Shaw

B. On Guild Socialism. By Bernard Shaw


Appendix II

The Basis of the Fabian Society


Appendix III

List of the names and the years of office of the ninety-six
members of the Executive Committee, 1884-1915


Appendix IV

Complete List of Fabian publications, 1884-1915, with
names of authors

Index




Illustrations

_Frontispiece, from a drawing by Miss Bertha Newcombe in 1895_

The Seven Essayists


Mrs. Annie Besant,     _From a photograph_

Hubert Bland,          _From a photograph_

William Clarke         _From a photograph_

(Sir) Sydney Olivier,  _From a photograph_

G. Bernard Shaw,       _From a photograph_

Graham Wallas,         _From a photograph_

Sidney Webb,           _From a drawing_

       *       *       *       *       *

Edward R. Pease,       _From a photograph_

Frank Podmore,         _From a photograph_

Mrs. Sidney Webb,      _From a photograph_

H.G. Wells,            _From a photograph_




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 Democratic Federation--"The Christian
   Socialist"--Thomas Davidson.


"Britain as a whole never was more tranquil 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 Parnell 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 political parties: the Channel tunnel
is no nearer completion: and then as now, when other topics are
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 little
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 religion invented by Auguste Comte. Of
this however more must be said on a later page.

But perhaps the most significant feature in the periodical literature of
the time is what it omits. April, 1882, is memorable for the death of
Charles 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 unnoticed. 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 Verney'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 Agriculture" ("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 still comparatively free from
Communism 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 movements: all the great continental countries are full of
this explosive material. Can we depend on our country keeping free from
the infection 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) Barnett in the same review a month earlier
advocated Free Libraries and graduated taxation to pay for free
education, under the title of "Practicable Socialism." 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 selling 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 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 understand them. Lord
Salisbury was an aristocrat and thought as an aristocrat. John Bright
viewed industrial 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 Parnell and the protagonist of
coercion in Ireland. Joseph Chamberlain alone seemed to realise 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 universities, 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," published 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 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
religion, 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 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 subjects 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 Sunday evenings the Newton Hall lectures of Frederic
Harrison.

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 unattractive 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
regulations which were all 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 moralising 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
publication 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 Francisco 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 existed at that time in
English-speaking countries, but the early advocates of land taxation
were not then, as they usually are now, uncompromising individualists.
"Progress and Poverty" gave an extraordinary impetus to the political
thought of the time. It proposed 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 destitution of the unfortunate and
downtrodden individuals. It did not merely propose, like 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 misfortune of themselves or their
relations. It suggested a method by which wealth would correspond
approximately 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 modern industry would be distributed with
something like fairness and even equality, amongst those who contributed
to its production. Above all, this tremendous revolution was to be
accomplished by a political 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 political; 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. Indeed even now that domination and control, dangerous
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 community as a whole. From Henry George I think it may
be taken that the early Fabians learned to associate 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 of English land would only affect a
small fraction of 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 Mill 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[1] with 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
consequence that the produce of labour should be apportioned 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."[2] 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 mitigation, the remedies he anticipated had made no
substantial 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 readers, at any rate, it suggested that
there was an alternative to the capitalistic system, and that Socialism
or Communism was worthy of examination.[3]

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 disappeared 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 socialism
fell on deaf ears, and it may be said to have made no lasting impression
on the leaders of English working-class thought. Though he was resident
in England for thirty-four years, Marx remained a German to the last.
His writings were not translated into English at this period, and Mr.
Hyndman's "England for All," published in 1881, which was the first
presentation of his ideas in English, 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 education, compulsory construction of working-class
dwellings, and cheap "transport" for working-class passengers. It was
the unauthorised 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 document. It deals with
the distribution 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 the 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 founders 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 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 Socialist"[4] 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 constructively was merely Co-operative
Production by voluntary associations of workmen. Under the guidance of
the Rev. Stewart D. Headlam[5] its policy of the revived movement was
Land Reform, particularly on the lines 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 Federation. 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
sympathetic review of the "Historic Basis of Socialism." In April, 1885,
appears a long and full report of a lecture by Bernard Shaw to the
Liberal and Social Union. The greater part of the paper is filled with
Land Nationalisation, 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, 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[6] 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 descendant of
the Utopians of Brook Farm and the Phalanstery, and what he yearned for
was something in the 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 life 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 condition." There is nothing new in this: it is the common
basis of all religions and ethical systems. But it needs to be
re-stated for each generation, and so stated as to suit each
environment. At the time that I am describing 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 mediævalism, 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 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.

[2] "Political Economy," Book II, Chap. i, Sec. 3.

[3] William Morris attributed to Mill his conversion to Socialism. See
J.W. Mackail's "Life," Vol. II, p. 79.

[4] No. 1, June, 1883, monthly, 1d.; continued until 1891.

[5] 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.

[6] 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 personality 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.




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.


In the autumn of 1883 Thomas Davidson paid a short visit to London and
held several little meetings 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,[7] 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 watching 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 perceive something abnormal--that he first discussed with
me the teachings of Henry George in "Progress and Poverty," and we found
a common interest in social as well as psychical progress.

[Illustration: _From a copyright photograph by Fredk. Hollyer, W_.

FRANK PODMORE, ABOUT 1895]

The English organiser or secretary of the still unformed Davidsonian
Fellowship was Percival Chubb, then a young clerk in the Local
Government Board, and subsequently a lecturer and head of an Ethical
Church in New York and St. Louis. Thomas Davidson was about to leave
London; and the company he had gathered round him, desirous of further
discussing his suggestions, decided to hold another meeting at my rooms.
I was at that time a member of the Stock Exchange and lived in lodgings
furnished by myself.

Here then on October 24th, 1883, was held the first of the fortnightly
meetings, which have been continued with scarcely a break, through nine
months of every year, up to the present time. The company that assembled
consisted in part of the Davidsonian circle and in part of friends of my
own.

The proceedings at this meeting, recorded in the first minute book of
the Society in the handwriting of Percival Chubb, were as follows:--

   "THE NEW LIFE"

   "The first general meeting of persons interested in this movement was
   held at Mr. Pease's rooms, 17 Osnaburgh Street, Regent's Park, on
   Wednesday the 24th October, 1883. There were present: Miss Ford, Miss
   Isabella Ford [of Leeds], Mrs. Hinton [widow of James Hinton], Miss
   Haddon [her sister], Mr., Mrs., and Miss Robins, Maurice Adams, H.H.
   Champion, Percival A. Chubb, H. Havelock Ellis, J.L. Joynes, Edward
   R. Pease, Frank Podmore, R.B.P. Frost, and Hamilton Pullen.

   "The proceedings were begun by the reading of Mr. Thomas Davidson's
   paper 'The New Life,' read by him at a former assemblage, and after
   it of the Draft of a proposed constitution (Sketch No. 2). [This has
   not been preserved.]

   "A general discussion followed on the question as to what was
   possible of achievement in the way of founding a communistic society
   whose members should lead the new higher life foreshadowed in the
   paper just read. The idea of founding a community abroad was
   generally discredited, and it was generally recognised that it would
   not be possible to establish here in England any independent
   community. What could be done perhaps would be for a number of
   persons in sympathy with the main idea to unite for the purpose of
   common living as far as possible on a communistic basis, realising
   amongst themselves the higher life and making it a primary care to
   provide a worthy education for the young. The members would pursue
   their present callings in the world, but they would always aim to
   make the community as far as practicable self-contained and
   self-supporting, combining perhaps to carry on some common business
   or businesses.

   "It was eventually arranged to further discuss the matter at another
   meeting which was fixed for a fortnight hence (Wednesday, 7th
   November). Mr. Podmore consented to ask Miss Owen [afterwards Mrs.
   Laurence Oliphant] to attend then and narrate the experiences of the
   New Harmony Community founded by [her grandfather] Robert Owen.

   "It was suggested--and the suggestion was approvingly received--that
   undoubtedly the first thing to be done was for those present to
   become thoroughly acquainted with each other. A general introduction
   of each person to the rest of the company was made and the business
   of the meeting being concluded conversation followed,"

On November 7th, the second meeting was held, when a number of new
people attended, including Hubert Bland, who, I think, had been one of
the original Davidson group. Miss Owen was unable to be present, and a
draft constitution was discussed.

   "A question was then raised as to the method of conducting the
   proceedings. The appointment of a chairman was proposed, and Mr.
   Pease was appointed. It was suggested that resolutions should be
   passed constituting a society, and, as far as those present were
   concerned, designating its objects. Some exception was taken to this
   course as being an undesirable formality not in harmony with the free
   spirit of the undertaking, but meeting with general approval it was
   followed.

   "After some discussion ... the following resolution was proposed and
   agreed to:--

   "That an association be formed whose ultimate aim shall be the
   reconstruction of Society in accordance with the highest moral
   possibilities"

A Committee consisting of Messrs. Champion (who was not present), Ellis,
Jupp, Podmore, and Chubb, and, failing Champion, Pease was appointed to
draw up and submit proposals, and it was resolved for the future to meet
on Fridays, a practice which the Society has maintained ever since.

The meeting on November 23rd was attended by thirty-one people, and
included Miss Dale Owen, William Clarke, and Frederick Keddell, the
first Secretary of the Fabian Society.

H.H. Champion[8] introduced the proposals of the Committee, including
the following resolution, which was carried apparently with unanimity:--

   "The members of the Society assert that the Competitive system
   assures the happiness and comfort of the few at the expense of the
   suffering of the many and that Society must be reconstituted in such
   a manner as to secure the general welfare and happiness,"

Then the minutes go on, indicating already a rift in the Society: "As
the resolution referred rather to the material or economic aims of the
Society and not to its primary spiritual aim, it was agreed that it
should stand as No. 3, and that another resolution setting forth the
spiritual basis of the Fellowship shall be passed which shall stand as
No. 2."

It proved impossible to formulate then and there the spiritual basis of
the Society, and after several suggestions had been made a new committee
was appointed. Resolution No. 1 had already been deferred.

The next meeting was held on December 7th, when only fifteen were
present. Hubert Bland occupied the chair, and Dr. Burns-Gibson
introduced a definite plan as follows:--

   "THE FELLOWSHIP OF NEW LIFE

   _Object_.--The cultivation of a perfect character in each and all.

   _Principle_.--The subordination of material things to spiritual.

   _Fellowship_.--The sole and essential condition of fellowship
   shall be a single-minded, sincere, and strenuous devotion to the
   object and principle."

Further articles touched on the formation of a community, the
supplanting of the spirit of competition, the highest education of the
young, simplicity of living, the importance of manual labour and
religious communion. Nine names were attached to this project, including
those of Percival Chubb, Havelock Ellis, and William Clarke, and it was
announced that a Fellowship would be formed on this basis, whether it
was accepted or rejected by the majority. These propositions were
discussed and no decision was arrived at.

Up to this point the minutes are recorded in the writing of Percival
Chubb. The next entry was made by Frank Podmore, and those after that by
Frederick Keddell.

We now arrive at the birthday of the Fabian Society, and the minutes of
that meeting must be copied in full:--

   "Meeting held at 17 Osnaburgh Street, on Friday, 4th January, 1884.

   "Present: Mrs. Robins, Miss Robins, Miss Haddon, Miss C. Haddon,
   Messrs. J. Hunter Watts, Hughes, Bland, Keddell, Pease, Stapleton,
   Chubb, Burns-Gibson, Swan, Podmore, Estcourt, etc.

   "Mr. Bland took the chair at 8.10 p.m.

   "After the minutes of the previous meeting had been read and
   confirmed Dr. Gibson moved the series of resolutions which had been
   read to the Society at the previous meeting.

   "Mr. Podmore moved as an amendment the series of resolutions, copies
   of which had been circulated amongst the members a few days
   previously.

   "The amendment was carried by 10 votes to 4.

   [Presumably the 4 included Burns-Gibson, Chubb, and Estcourt, who
   signed the defeated resolutions.]

   "Mr. Podmore's proposals were then put forward as substantive
   resolutions and considered seriatim.

   "Resolution I.--That the Society be called the Fabian Society (as Mr.
   Podmore explained in allusion to the victorious policy of Fabius
   Cunctator) was carried by 9 votes to 2.

   "Resolution II.--That the Society shall not at present pledge its
   members to any more definite basis of agreement than that contained
   in the resolution of 23rd November, 1883.

   "Carried unanimously.

   "Resolution III.--In place of Mr. Podmore's first proposal it was
   eventually decided to modify the resolution of 7th November, 1883, by
   inserting the words 'to help on' between the words 'shall be' and the
   words 'the reconstruction.'

   "Resolution IV with certain omissions was agreed to unanimously,
   viz.: That with the view of learning what practical measures to take
   in this direction the Society should:

   "_(a)_ Hold meetings for discussion, the reading of papers,
   hearing of reports, etc.

   "_(b)_ Delegate some of its members to attend meetings held on
   social subjects, debates at Workmen's Clubs, etc., in order that such
   members may in the first place report to the Society on the
   proceedings, and in the second place put forward, as occasion serves,
   the views of the Society.

   "_(c)_ Take measures in other ways, as, for example, by the
   collection of articles from current literature, to obtain information
   on all contemporary social movements and social needs.

   "Mr. Bland, Mr. Keddell, and Mr. Podmore were provisionally appointed
   as an Executive Committee, to serve for three months, on the motion
   of Mr. Pease. A collection was made to provide funds for past
   expenses: the sum collected amounting to 13s. 9d."

It appears that Mr. Bland on this occasion acted as treasurer, though
there is no record of the fact. He was annually re-elected treasurer and
a member of the Executive Committee until he retired from both positions
in 1911.

Thus the Society was founded. Although it appeared to be the outcome of
a division of opinion, this was scarcely in fact the case. All those
present became members, and the relations between the Fabian Society and
the Fellowship of the New Life were always of a friendly character,
though in fact the two bodies had but little in common, and seldom came
into contact.

       *       *       *       *       *

A few words may be devoted to the Fellowship of the New Life, which
continued to exist for fifteen years. Its chief achievement was the
publication of a quarterly paper called "Seedtime,"[9] issued from July,
1889, to February, 1898. The paper contains articles on Ethical
Socialism, the Simple Life, Humanitarianism, the Education of Children,
and similar subjects. The Society was conducted much on the same lines
as the Fabian Society: fortnightly lectures were given in London and
reported in "Seedtime."

In 1893 we find in "Seedtime" an Annual Report recording 12 public
meetings, 4 social gatherings, a membership of 95, and receipts £73.
During this year, 1892-3, J. Ramsay Macdonald, subsequently M.P. and
Secretary and Chairman of the Labour Party, was Honorary Secretary, and
for some years he was on the Executive. In 1896 the membership was 115
and the income £48.

The most persistent of the organisers of the New Fellowship was J.F.
Oakeshott, who was also for many years a member of the Fabian Executive.
Corrie Grant, later a well-known Liberal M.P., H.S. Salt of the
Humanitarian League, Edward Carpenter, and his brother Captain
Carpenter, Herbert Rix, assistant secretary of the Royal Society,
Havelock Ellis, and, both before and after her marriage, Mrs. Havelock
Ellis (who was Honorary Secretary for some years), are amongst the names
which appear in the pages of "Seedtime,"

Mild attempts were made to carry out the Community idea by means of
associated colonies (e.g. the members residing near each other) and a
co-operative residence at 49 Doughty Street, Bloomsbury; but close
association, especially of persons with the strong and independent
opinions of the average socialist, promotes discord, and against this
the high ideals of the New Fellowship proved no protection. Indeed it is
a common experience that the higher the ideal the fiercer the
hostilities of the idealists.

At Thornton Heath, near Croydon, the Fellowship conducted for some time
a small printing business, and its concern for the right education for
the young found expression in a Kindergarten. Later on an Ethical Church
and a Boys' Guild were established at Croydon.

Soon afterwards the Fellowship came to the conclusion that its work was
done, the last number of "Seedtime" was published, and in 1898 the
Society was dissolved.

[Illustration: _From a photograph by G.C. Baresford, S.W._

HUBERT BLAND, IN 1902]

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Frank Podmore, M.A.--b. 1856, ed. Pembroke College, Oxford, 1st
class in Science, 1st class clerk, G.P.O. Author of "Apparitions and
Thought Transference," 1894, "Modern Spiritualism," 1902, "The Life of
Robert Owen," 1906, etc. D. 1910.

[8] Mr. Champion took no further part in the Fabian movement, so far as
I am aware. His activities in connection with the Social Democratic
Federation, the "Labour Elector," etc., are not germane to the present
subject. He has for twenty years resided in Melbourne.

[9] See complete set in the British Library of Political Science, London
School of Economics.




Chapter III

The Early Days: 1884-6

   The use of the word Socialism--Approval of the Democratic
   Federation--Tract No. 1--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 Government
   Organisation of Unemployed Labour."


The Fabian Society was founded for the purpose of "reconstructing
society," based on the competitive system, "in such manner as to secure
the general welfare and happiness." It is worth noting that the word
"Socialism" had not yet appeared in its records, and it is not until the
sixth meeting, held on 21st March, 1884, that the word first appears in
the minutes, as the title of a paper by Miss Caroline Haddon: "The Two
Socialisms"; to which is appended a note in the handwriting of Sydney
Olivier: "This paper is stated to have been devoted to a comparison
between the Socialism of the Fabian Society and that of the S.D.F." The
Society, in fact, began its career with that disregard of mere names
which has always distinguished it. The resolutions already recorded,
advocating the reconstruction of society on a non-competitive basis with
the object of remedying the evils of poverty, embody the essence of
Socialism, and our first publication, Tract No. 1, was so thorough-going
a statement of Socialism that it has been kept in print ever since. But
neither in Tract No. 1 nor in Tract No. 2 does the word Socialism occur,
and it is not till Tract No. 3, published in June, 1885, that we find
the words "the Fabian Society having in view the advance of Socialism in
England." At this stage it is clear that the Society was socialist
without recognising itself as part of a world-wide movement, and it was
only subsequently that it adopted the word which alone adequately
expressed its ideas.

At the second meeting, on 25th January, 1884, reports were presented on
a lecture by Henry George and a Conference of the Democratic Federation
(later the Social Democratic Federation); the rules were adopted, and
Mr. J.G. Stapleton read a paper on "Social conditions in England with a
view to social reconstruction or development." This was the first of the
long series of Fabian fortnightly lectures which have been continued
ever since. On February 29th, after a paper on the Democratic
Federation, Mr. Bland moved: "That whilst not entirely agreeing with the
statements and phrases used in the pamphlets of the Democratic
Federation, and in the speeches of Mr. Hyndman, this Society considers
that the Democratic Federation is doing good and useful work and is
worthy of sympathy and support." This was carried nem. con. On March 7th
a pamphlet committee was nominated, and on March 21st the Executive was
reappointed. On April 4th the Pamphlet Committee reported, and 2000
copies of "Fabian Tract No. 1" were ordered to be printed.

This four-page leaflet has now remained in print for over thirty years,
and there is no reason to suppose that the demand for it will soon
cease. According to tradition, it was drafted by W.L. Phillips, a
house-painter, at that time the only "genuine working man" in our ranks.
He had been introduced to me by a Positivist friend, and was in his way
a remarkable man, ready at any time to talk of his experiences of
liberating slaves by the "Underground Railway" in the United States. He
worked with us cordially for several years and then gradually dropped
out. The original edition of "Why are the many poor?" differs very
little from that now in circulation. It was revised some years later by
Bernard Shaw, who cut down the rhetoric and sharpened the phraseology,
but the substance has not been changed. It is remarkable as containing a
sneer at Christianity, the only one to be found in the publications of
the Society. Perhaps this was a rebound from excess of "subordination of
material things to spiritual things" insisted on by the Fellowship of
the New Life!

The tract had on its title page two mottoes, the second of which has
played some part in the Society's history. They were produced, again
according to tradition, by Frank Podmore, and, though printed as
quotations, are not to be discovered in any history:--

   "Wherefore it may not be gainsaid that the fruit of this man's long
   taking of counsel--and (by the many so deemed) untimeous delays--was
   the safe-holding for all men, his fellow-citizens, of the Common
   Weal."

   "For the right moment you must wait, as Fabius did most patiently,
   when warring against Hannibal, though many censured his delays; but
   when the time comes you must strike hard, as Fabius did, or your
   waiting will be in vain, and fruitless."

It has been pointed out by Mr. H.G. Wells, and by others before him,
that Fabius never did strike hard; and many have enquired when the
right time for the Fabians to strike would come. In fact, we recognised
at that time that we did not know what were the remedies for the evils
of society as we saw them and that the right time for striking would not
come until we knew where to strike. Taken together as the two mottoes
were first printed, this meaning is obvious. The delay was to be for the
purpose of "taking counsel."

Tract No. 1, excellent as it is, shows a sense of the evil, but gives no
indication of the remedy. Its contents are commonplace, and in no sense
characteristic of the Society. The men who were to make its reputation
had not yet found it out, and at this stage our chief characteristic was
a lack of self-confidence unusual amongst revolutionaries. We had with
considerable courage set out to reconstruct society, and we frankly
confessed that we did not know how to go about it.

The next meeting to which we need refer took place on May 16th. The
minutes merely record that Mr. Rowland Estcourt read a paper on "The
Figures of Mr. Mallock," but a pencil note in the well-known handwriting
of Bernard Shaw has been subsequently added: "This meeting was made
memorable by the first appearance of Bernard Shaw."

On September 5th Bernard Shaw was elected a member, and at the following
meeting on September 19th his first contribution to the literature of
the Society, Pamphlet No. 2, was read. The influence of his intellectual
outlook was immediate, and already the era of "highest moral
possibilities" seems remote. Tract No. 2 was never reprinted and the
number of copies in existence outside public libraries is small: it is
therefore worth reproducing in full.

      THE FABIAN SOCIETY

   17 Osnaburgh Street, Regent's Park
   Fabian Tract No. 2

   A MANIFESTO

   "For always in thine eyes, O liberty,
   Shines that high light whereby the world is saved;
   And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee."

   London:
   George Standring, 8 & 9 Finsbury Street, E.C. 1884.

   A MANIFESTO

   THE FABIANS are associated for spreading the following opinions held
   by them and discussing their practical consequences.

   That under existing circumstances wealth cannot be enjoyed without
   dishonour or foregone without misery.

   That it is the duty of each member of the State to provide for his or
   her wants by his or her own Labour.

   That a life interest in the Land and Capital of the nation is the
   birthright of every individual born within its confines and that
   access to this birthright should not depend upon the will of any
   private person other than the person seeking it.

   That the most striking result of our present system of farming out
   the national Land and Capital to private persons has been the
   division of Society into hostile classes, with large appetites and no
   dinners at one extreme and large dinners and no appetites at the
   other.

   That the practice of entrusting the Land of the nation to private
   persons in the hope that they will make the best of it has been
   discredited by the consistency with which they have made the worst of
   it; and that Nationalisation of the Land in some form is a public
   duty.

   That the pretensions of Capitalism to encourage Invention and to
   distribute its benefits in the fairest way attainable, have been
   discredited by the experience of the nineteenth century.

   That, under the existing system of leaving the National Industry to
   organise itself Competition has the effect of rendering adulteration,
   dishonest dealing and inhumanity compulsory.

   That since Competition amongst producers admittedly secures to the
   public the most satisfactory products, the State should compete with
   all its might in every department of production.

   That such restraints upon Free Competition as the penalties for
   infringing the Postal monopoly, and the withdrawal of workhouse and
   prison labour from the markets, should be abolished.

   That no branch of Industry should be carried on at a profit by the
   central administration.

   That the Public Revenue should be levied by a direct Tax; and that
   the central administration should have no legal power to hold back
   for the replenishment of the Public Treasury any portion of the
   proceeds of Industries administered by them.

   That the State should compete with private individuals--especially
   with parents--in providing happy homes for children, so that every
   child may have a refuge from the tyranny or neglect of its natural
   custodians.

   That Men no longer need special political privileges to protect them
   against Women, and that the sexes should henceforth enjoy equal
   political rights.

   That no individual should enjoy any Privilege in consideration of
   services rendered to the State by his or her parents or other
   relations.

   That the State should secure a liberal education and an equal share
   in the National Industry to each of its units.

   That the established Government has no more right to call itself the
   State than the smoke of London has to call itself the weather.

   That we had rather face a Civil War than such another century of
   suffering as the present one has been.

It would be easy in the light of thirty years' experience to write at
much length on these propositions. They are, of course, unqualified
"Shaw." The minutes state that each was discussed and separately
adopted. Three propositions, the nature of which is not recorded, were
at a second meeting rejected, while the proposition on heredity was
drafted and inserted by order of the meeting. I recollect demurring to
the last proposition, and being assured by the author that it was all
right since in fact no such alternative would ever be offered!

The persistency of Mr. Shaw's social philosophy is remarkable. His
latest volume[10] deals with parents and children, the theme he touched
on in 1884; his social ideal is still a birthright life interest in
national wealth, and "an equal share in national industry," the latter a
phrase more suggestive than lucid. On the other hand, he, like the rest
of us, was then by no means clear as to the distinction between
Anarchism and Socialism. The old Radical prejudice in favour of direct
taxation, so that the State may never handle a penny not wrung from the
reluctant and acutely conscious taxpayer, the doctrinaire objection to
State monopolies, and the modern view that municipal enterprises had
better be carried on at cost price, are somewhat inconsistently
commingled with the advocacy of universal State competition in industry.
It may further be noticed that we were as yet unconscious of the claims
and aims of the working people. Our Manifesto covered a wide field, but
it nowhere touches Co-operation or Trade Unionism, wages or hours of
labour. We were still playing with abstractions, Land and Capital,
Industry and Competition, the Individual and the State.

In connection with the first tracts another point may be mentioned. The
Society has stuck to the format adopted in these early days, and with a
few special exceptions all its publications have been issued in the same
style, and with numbers running on consecutively. For all sorts of
purposes the advantage of this continuity has been great.

       *       *       *       *       *

On January 2nd, 1885, Bernard Shaw was elected to the Executive
Committee, and about the same time references to the Industrial
Remuneration Conference appear in the minutes. This remarkable
gathering, made possible by a gift of £1000 from Mr. Miller of
Edinburgh, was summoned to spend three days in discussing the question,
"Has the increase of products of industry within the last hundred years
tended most to the benefit of capitalists and employers or to that of
the working classes, whether artisans, labourers or others? And in what
relative proportions in any given period?"

The second day was devoted to "Remedies," and the third to the
question, "Would the more general distribution of capital or land or the
State management of capital or land promote or impair the production of
wealth and the welfare of the community?" The Fabian Society appointed
two delegates, J.G. Stapleton and Hubert Bland, but Bernard Shaw
apparently took the place of the latter.

It met on January 28th, at the Prince's Hall, Piccadilly. Mr. Arthur J.
Balfour read a paper in which he made an observation worth recording:
"As will be readily believed, I am no Socialist, but to compare the work
of such men as Mr. (Henry) George with that of such men, for instance,
as Karl Marx, either in respect of its intellectual force, its
consistency, its command of reasoning in general, or of economic
reasoning in particular, seems to me absurd."

The Conference was the first occasion in which the Fabian Society
emerged from its drawing-room obscurity, and the speech of Bernard Shaw
on the third day was probably the first he delivered before an audience
of more than local importance. One passage made an impression on his
friends and probably on the public. "It was," he said, "the desire of
the President that nothing should be said that might give pain to
particular classes. He was about to refer to a modern class, the
burglars, but if there was a burglar present he begged him to believe
that he cast no reflection upon his profession, and that he was not
unmindful of his great skill and enterprise: his risks--so much greater
than those of the most speculative capitalist, extending as they did to
risk of liberty and life--his abstinence; or finally of the great number
of people to whom he gave employment, including criminal attorneys,
policemen, turnkeys, builders of gaols, and it might be the hangman. He
did not wish to hurt the feelings of shareholders ... or of landlords
... any more than he wished to pain burglars. He would merely point out
that all three inflicted on the community an injury of precisely the
same nature."[11]

It may be added that Mr. Shaw was patted on the back by a subsequent
speaker, Mr. John Wilson, of the Durham Miners, for many years M.P. for
Mid-Durham, and by no means an habitual supporter of Socialists.

The stout volume in which the proceedings are published is now but
seldom referred to, but it is a somewhat significant record of the
intellectual unrest of the period, an indication that the governing
classes even at this early date in the history of English Socialism,
were prepared to consider its claims, and to give its proposals a
respectful hearing.

       *       *       *       *       *

The early debates in the Society were in the main on things abstract or
Utopian. Social Reconstruction was a constant theme, Hubert Bland
outlined "Revolutionary Prospects" in January, 1885, and Bernard Shaw in
February combated "The proposed Abolition of the Currency."

On March 6th a new departure began: a Committee was appointed to collect
"facts concerning the working of the Poor Law," with special reference
to alleged official attempts to disprove "great distress amongst the
workers." It does not appear that the Report was ever completed.

On March 20th Sidney Webb read a paper on "The Way Out," and on the 1st
May he was elected a member along with his Colonial Office colleague
Sydney Olivier. On May 15th is recorded the election of Harold Cox,
subsequently M.P., and now editor of the "Edinburgh Review."

The Society was now finding its feet. On April 17th it had been
resolved to send a delegate "to examine into and report upon the South
Yorkshire Miners"! And on the same day it was determined to get up a
Soirée. This gathering, held in Gower Street, was memorable because it
was attended by Mrs. Annie Besant, then notorious as an advocate of
Atheism and Malthusianism, the heroine of several famous law cases, and
a friend and colleague of Charles Bradlaugh. Mrs. Besant was elected a
member a few weeks later, and she completed the list of the seven who
subsequently wrote "Fabian Essays," with the exception of Graham Wallas,
who did not join the Society until April, 1886.[12]

But although Sidney Webb had become a Fabian the scientific spirit was
not yet predominant. Bernard Shaw had, then as now, a strong objection
to the peasant agriculture of his native land, and he submitted to the
Society a characteristic leaflet addressed: "To provident Landlords and
Capitalists, a suggestion and a warning." "The Fabian Society," it says,
"having in view the advance of Socialism and the threatened subversion
of the powers hitherto exercised by private proprietors of the national
land and capital ventures plainly to warn all such proprietors that the
establishment of Socialism in England means nothing less than the
compulsion of all members of the upper class, without regard to sex or
condition, to work for their own living." The tract, which is a very
brief one, goes on to recommend the proprietary classes to "support all
undertakings having for their object the parcelling out of waste or
inferior lands amongst the labouring class" for sundry plausible
reasons. At the foot of the title page, in the smallest of type, is the
following: "Note.--Great care should be taken to keep this tract out of
the hands of radical workmen, Socialist demagogues and the like, as they
are but too apt to conclude that schemes favourable to landlords cannot
be permanently advantageous to the working class." This elaborate joke
was, except for one amendment, adopted as drafted on June 5th, 1885, and
there is a tradition that it was favourably reviewed by a Conservative
newspaper!

The Society still met as a rule at 17 Osnaburgh Street, or in the rooms
of Frank Podmore at 14 Dean's Yard, Westminster, but it was steadily
growing and new members were elected at every meeting. Although most of
the members were young men of university education, the Society included
people of various ages. To us at any rate Mrs. James Hinton, widow of
Dr. Hinton, and her sisters, Miss Haddon and Miss Caroline Haddon,
seemed to be at least elderly. Mrs. Robins, her husband (a successful
architect), and her daughter, who acted as "assistant" honorary
secretary for the first eighteen months, lent an air of prosperous
respectability to our earliest meetings. Mr. and Mrs. J. Glode
Stapleton, who were prominent members for some years, were remarkable
amongst us because they drove to our meetings in their own brougham! The
working classes, as before mentioned, had but a single representative.
Another prominent member at this period was Mrs. Charlotte M. Wilson,
wife of a stock-broker living in Hampstead, who a short time later
"simplified" into a cottage at the end of the Heath, called Wildwood
Farm, now a part of the Garden Suburb Estate, where Fabians for many
years held the most delightful of their social gatherings. Mrs. Wilson
was elected to the Executive of five in December, 1884 (Mrs. Wilson, H.
Bland, E.R. Pease, G. Bernard Shaw and F. Keddell), but after some time
devoted herself entirely to the Anarchist movement, led by Prince
Kropotkin, and for some years edited their paper, "Freedom." But she
remained throughout a member of the Fabian Society, and twenty years
later she resumed her Fabian activity, as will be related in a later
chapter.

All this time the Socialist movement in England was coming into public
notice with startling rapidity. In January, 1884, "Justice, the organ of
the Democratic Federation," was founded, and in August of that year the
Federation made the first of its many changes of name, and became the
Social Democratic Federation or S.D.F. The public then believed, as the
Socialists also necessarily believed, that Socialism would be so
attractive to working-class electors that they would follow its banner
as soon as it was raised, and the candidatures undertaken by the S.D.F.
at the General Election in November, 1885, produced widespread alarm
amongst politicians of both parties. The following account of this
episode from Fabian Tract 41, "The Early History of the Fabian Society,"
was written by Bernard Shaw in 1892, and describes the events and our
attitude at the time far more freshly and graphically than anything I
can write nearly thirty years later.

After explaining why he preferred joining the Fabian Society rather than
the S.D.F., Mr. Shaw goes on (pp. 4-7):--

   "However, as I have said, in 1885 our differences [from other
   Socialists] were latent or instinctive; and we denounced the
   capitalists as thieves at the Industrial Remuneration Conference,
   and, among ourselves, talked revolution, anarchism, labour notes
   _versus_ pass-books, and all the rest of it, on the tacit assumption
   that the object of our campaign, with its watchwords, 'EDUCATE,
   AGITATE, ORGANIZE,' was to bring about a tremendous smash-up of
   existing society, to be succeeded by complete Socialism. And this
   meant that we had no true practical understanding either of existing
   society or Socialism. Without being quite definitely aware of this,
   we yet felt it to a certain extent all along; for it was at this
   period that we contracted the invaluable habit of freely laughing at
   ourselves which has always distinguished us, and which has saved us
   from becoming hampered by the gushing enthusiasts who mistake their
   own emotions for public movements. From the first, such people fled
   after one glance at us, declaring that we were not serious. Our
   preference for practical suggestions and criticisms, and our
   impatience of all general expressions of sympathy with working-class
   aspirations, not to mention our way of chaffing our opponents in
   preference to denouncing them as enemies of the human race, repelled
   from us some warm-hearted and eloquent Socialists, to whom it seemed
   callous and cynical to be even commonly self-possessed in the
   presence of the sufferings upon which Socialists make war. But there
   was far too much equality and personal intimacy among the Fabians to
   allow of any member presuming to get up and preach at the rest in the
   fashion which the working-classes still tolerate submissively from
   their leaders. We knew that a certain sort of oratory was useful for
   'stoking up' public meetings; but we needed no stoking up, and, when
   any orator tried the process on us, soon made him understand that he
   was wasting his time and ours. I, for one, should be very sorry to
   lower the intellectual standard of the Fabian by making the
   atmosphere of its public discussions the least bit more congenial to
   stale declamation than it is at present. If our debates are to be
   kept wholesome, they cannot be too irreverent or too critical. And
   the irreverence, which has become traditional with us, comes down
   from those early days when we often talked such nonsense that we
   could not help laughing at ourselves.

   "TORY GOLD AT THE 1885 ELECTION.

   "When I add that in 1885 we had only 40 members, you will be able to
   form a sufficient notion of the Fabian Society in its nonage. In that
   year there occurred an event which developed the latent differences
   between ourselves and the Social-Democratic Federation. The
   Federation said then, as it still says, that its policy is founded on
   a recognition of the existence of a Class War. How far the fact of
   the working classes being at war with the proprietary classes
   justifies them in suspending the observance of the ordinary social
   obligations in dealing with them was never settled; but at that time
   we were decidedly less scrupulous than we are now in our ideas on the
   subject; and we all said freely that as gunpowder destroyed the
   feudal system, so the capitalist system could not long survive the
   invention of dynamite. Not that we are dynamitards: indeed the
   absurdity of the inference shows how innocent we were of any
   practical acquaintance with explosives; but we thought that the
   statement about gunpowder and feudalism was historically true, and
   that it would do the capitalists good to remind them of it. Suddenly,
   however, the Federation made a very startling practical application
   of the Class War doctrine. They did not blow anybody up; but in the
   general election of 1885 they ran two candidates in London--Mr.
   Williams, in Hampstead, who got 27 votes, and Mr. Fielding, in
   Kennington, who got 32 votes. And they made no secret of the fact
   that the expenses of these elections had been paid by one of the
   established political parties in order to split the vote of the
   other. From the point of view of the abstract moralist there was
   nothing to be said against the transaction; since it was evident that
   Socialist statesmanship must for a long time to come consist largely
   of taking advantage of the party dissensions between the
   Unsocialists. It may easily happen to-morrow that the Liberal party
   may offer to contribute to the expenses of a Fabian candidate in a
   hopelessly Tory stronghold, in order to substantiate its pretensions
   to encourage Labour representation. Under such circumstances it is
   quite possible that we may say to the Fabian in question, Accept by
   all means; and deliver propagandist addresses all over the place.
   Suppose that the Liberal party offers to bear part of Mr. Sidney
   Webb's expenses at the forthcoming County Council election at
   Deptford, as they undoubtedly will, by means of the usual National
   Liberal Club subscription, in the case of the poorer Labour
   candidates. Mr. Webb, as a matter of personal preference for an
   independence which he is fortunately able to afford, will refuse. But
   suppose Mr. Webb were not in that fortunate position, as some Labour
   candidates will not be! It is quite certain that not the smallest
   odium would attach to the acceptance of a Liberal grant-in-aid. Now
   the idea that taking Tory money is worse than taking Liberal money is
   clearly a Liberal party idea and not a Social-Democratic one. In 1885
   there was not the slightest excuse for regarding the Tory party as
   any more hostile to Socialism than the Liberal party; and Mr.
   Hyndman's classical quotation, _'Non olet'_--'It does not smell,'
   meaning that there is no difference in the flavour of Tory and Whig
   gold once it comes into the Socialist treasury, was a sufficient
   retort to the accusations of moral corruption which were levelled at
   him. But the Tory money job, as it was called, was none the less a
   huge mistake in tactics. Before it took place, the Federation loomed
   large in the imagination of the public and the political parties.
   This is conclusively proved by the fact that the Tories thought that
   the Socialists could take enough votes from the Liberals to make it
   worth while to pay the expenses of two Socialist candidates in
   London. The day after the election everyone knew that the Socialists
   were an absolutely negligeable quantity there as far as voting power
   was concerned. They had presented the Tory party with 57 votes, at a
   cost of about £8 apiece. What was worse, they had shocked London
   Radicalism, to which Tory money was an utter abomination. It is hard
   to say which cut the more foolish figure, the Tories who had spent
   their money for nothing, or the Socialists who had sacrificed their
   reputation for worse than nothing.

   "The disaster was so obvious that there was an immediate falling off
   from the Federation, on the one hand of the sane tacticians of the
   movement, and on the other of those out-and-out Insurrectionists who
   repudiated political action altogether, and were only too glad to be
   able to point to a discreditable instance of it. Two resolutions were
   passed, one by the Socialist League and the other by the Fabian
   Society. Here is the Fabian resolution:

   "'That the conduct of the Council of the Social-Democratic Federation
   in accepting money from the Tory party in payment of the election
   expenses of Socialist candidates is calculated to disgrace the
   Socialist movement in England,'--4th Dec., 1885."

The result of this resolution, passed by 15 votes to 4, was the first of
the very few splits which are recorded in the history of the Society.
Frederick Keddell, the first honorary secretary, resigned and I took his
place, whilst a few weeks later Sidney Webb was elected to the vacancy
on the Executive.

In 1886 Socialism was prominently before the public. Unemployment
reached a height which has never since been touched. Messrs. Hyndman,
Champion, Burns, and Williams were actually tried for sedition, but
happily acquitted; and public opinion was justified in regarding
Socialism rather as destructive and disorderly than as constructive,
and, as is now often said, even too favourable to repressive
legislation. In these commotions the Society as a whole took no part,
and its public activities were limited to a meeting at South Place
Chapel, on December 18th, 1885, addressed by Mrs. Besant.

In March, 1886, the Executive Committee was increased to seven by the
addition of Mrs. Besant and Frank Podmore, and in April Tract No. 4,
"What Socialism Is," was approved for publication. It begins with a
historical preface, touching on the Wars of the Roses, Tudor
confiscation of land, the enclosure of commons, the Industrial
Revolution, and so on. Surplus value and the tendency of wages to a
minimum are mentioned, and the valuable work of Trade
Unionism--sometimes regarded by Guild Socialists and others nowadays as
a recent discovery--is alluded to: indeed the modern syndicalist
doctrine was anticipated: the workman, it is said, "has been forced to
sell himself for a mess of pottage and is consequently deprived of the
guidance of his own life and the direction of his own labour." Socialist
opinion abroad, it says, "has taken shape in two distinct schools,
Collectivist and Anarchist. English Socialism is not yet Anarchist or
Collectivist, not yet definite enough in point of policy to be
classified. There is a mass of Socialist feeling not yet conscious of
itself as Socialism. But when the conscious Socialists of England
discover their position they also will probably fall into two parties: a
Collectivist party supporting a strong central administration, and a
counterbalancing Anarchist party defending individual initiative against
that administration. In some such fashion progress and stability will
probably be secured under Socialism by the conflict of the uneradicable
Tory and Whig instincts in human nature."

It will be noticed that even in this period of turmoil the Society was
altogether constitutional in its outlook; political parties of
Socialists and Anarchists combining progress with stability were the
features of the future we foresaw.

By this time the Society was thoroughly aware of its relation to
international socialism, and the remaining six pages of the tract are
occupied by expositions of the alternatives above alluded to.
"Collectivism" is summarised from Bebel's "Woman in the Past, Present,
and Future," and is a somewhat mechanical scheme of executive committees
in each local commune or district representing each branch of industry,
elected by universal suffrage for brief periods of office and paid at
the rate of ordinary workmen; and of a central Executive Committee
chosen in like manner or else directly appointed by the local Communal
Councils. The second part consists of "Anarchism, drawn up by C.M.
Wilson on behalf of the London Anarchists." This is a statement of
abstract principles which frankly admits that "Anarchists have no fears
that in discarding the Collectivist dream of the scientific regulation
of industry and inventing no formulas for social conditions as yet
unrealised, they are neglecting the essential for the visionary,"

This tract was never reprinted, and, of course, it attracted no
attention. It was however the first of the long series of Fabian tracts
that aimed at supplying information and thus carrying out the original
object of the Society, the education of its members and the systematic
study of the reconstruction of the social system.

The spring of 1886 was occupied with arrangements for the Conference,
which was held at South Place Chapel on June 9th, 10th, and 11th.

Here again a quotation from Bernard Shaw's "Early History of the Fabian
Society" is the best description available:--

   "THE FABIAN CONFERENCE OF 1886.

   "You will now ask to be told what the Fabians had been doing all this
   time. Well, I think it must be admitted that we were overlooked in
   the excitements of the unemployed agitation, which had, moreover,
   caused the Tory money affair to be forgotten. The Fabians were
   disgracefully backward in open-air speaking. Up to quite a recent
   date, Graham Wallas, myself, and Mrs. Besant were the only
   representative open-air speakers in the Society, whereas the
   Federation speakers, Burns, Hyndman, Andrew Hall, Tom Mann, Champion,
   Burrows, with the Socialist Leaguers, were at it constantly. On the
   whole, the Church Parades and the rest were not in our line; and we
   were not wanted by the men who were organizing them. Our only
   contribution to the agitation was a report which we printed in 1886,
   which recommended experiments in tobacco culture, and even hinted at
   compulsory military service, as means of absorbing some of the
   unskilled unemployed, but which went carefully into the practical
   conditions of relief works. Indeed, we are at present trying to
   produce a new tract on the subject without finding ourselves able to
   improve very materially on the old one in this respect. It was drawn
   up by Bland, Hughes, Podmore, Stapleton, and Webb, and was the first
   of our publications that contained any solid information. Its tone,
   however, was moderate and its style somewhat conventional; and the
   Society was still in so hot a temper on the social question that we
   refused to adopt it as a regular Fabian tract, and only issued it as
   a report printed for the information of members. Nevertheless we were
   coming to our senses rapidly by this time. We signalized our
   repudiation of political sectarianism in June, 1886, by inviting the
   Radicals, the Secularists, and anyone else who would come, to a great
   conference, modelled upon the Industrial Remuneration Conference, and
   dealing with the Nationalization of Land and Capital. It fully
   established the fact that we had nothing immediately practical to
   impart to the Radicals and that they had nothing to impart to us.
   The proceedings were fully reported for us; but we never had the
   courage even to read the shorthand writer's report, which still
   remains in MS. Before I refreshed my memory on the subject the other
   day, I had a vague notion that the Conference cost a great deal of
   money; that it did no good whatever; that Mr. Bradlaugh made a
   speech; that Mrs. Fenwick Miller, who had nothing on earth to do with
   us, was in the chair during part of the proceedings; and that the
   most successful paper was by a strange gentleman whom we had taken on
   trust as a Socialist, but who turned out to be an enthusiast on the
   subject of building more harbours. I find, however, on looking up the
   facts, that no less than fifty-three societies sent delegates; that
   the guarantee fund for expenses was £100; and that the discussions
   were kept going for three afternoons and three evenings. The
   Federation boycotted us; but the 'Times' reported us.[13] Eighteen
   papers were read, two of them by members of Parliament, and most of
   the rest by well-known people. William Morris and Dr. Aveling read
   papers as delegates from the Socialist League; the National Secular
   Society sent Mr. Foote and Mr. [John M.] Robertson,[14] the latter
   contributing a 'Scheme of Taxation' in which he anticipated much of
   what was subsequently adopted as the Fabian program; Wordsworth
   Donisthorpe took the field for Anarchism of the type advocated by the
   authors of 'A Plea for Liberty'; Stewart Headlam spoke for Christian
   Socialism and the Guild of St. Matthew; Dr. Pankhurst dealt with the
   situation from the earlier Radical point of view; and various
   Socialist papers were read by Mrs. Besant, Sidney Webb, and Edward
   Carpenter, besides one by Stuart Glennie, who subsequently left us
   because we fought shy of the Marriage Question when revising our
   'Basis.' I mention all this in order to show you how much more
   important this abortive Conference looked than the present one. Yet
   all that can be said for it is that it made us known to the Radical
   clubs and proved that we were able to manage a conference in a
   businesslike way. It also, by the way, showed off our pretty
   prospectus with the design by Crane at the top, our stylish-looking
   blood-red invitation cards, and the other little smartnesses on which
   we then prided ourselves. We used to be plentifully sneered at as
   fops and arm-chair Socialists for our attention to these details; but
   I think it was by no means the least of our merits that we always, as
   far as our means permitted, tried to make our printed documents as
   handsome as possible, and did our best to destroy the association
   between revolutionary literature and slovenly printing on paper that
   is nasty without being cheap. One effect of this was that we were
   supposed to be much richer than we really were, because we generally
   got better value and a finer show for our money than the other
   Socialist societies."[15]

Three members of Parliament, Charles Bradlaugh, William Saunders, and
Dr. G.B. Clark, took part. The Dr. Pankhurst mentioned was the husband
of Mrs. Pankhurst, later the leader of the Women's Social and Political
Union.

The reference in the foregoing passage to the report on "The Government
Organisation of Unemployed Labour," prepared concurrently with the
organisation of the Conference, is by no means adequate. The Report
attracted but little attention at the time, even in the Society itself,
but it is in fact the first typically Fabian publication, and the first
in which Sidney Webb took part. Much subsequent experience has convinced
me that whenever Webb is on a committee it may be assumed in default of
positive evidence to the contrary that its report is his work. Webb
however maintains that to the best of his recollection the work was
shared between Podmore and himself, the simple arrangement being that
Podmore wrote the first half and Webb the second. The tract is an
attempt to deal with a pressing social problem on constructive lines. It
surveys the field, analyses the phenomena presented, and suggests
practicable remedies. It is however a very cautious document. Webb was
then old as an economist, and very young as a Socialist; none of the
rest of the Committee had the knowledge, if they had the will, to stand
up to him. Therefore we find snippets from the theory of economic
"balance" which was universally regarded as valid in those days.

"In practice the government obtains its technical skill by attracting
men from other employers, and its capital in a mobile form by attracting
it from other possessors. It gets loans on the money market, which is
thereby rendered more stringent; the rate of interest rises and the
loans made to other borrowers are diminished,"

But the particular interest of the Report at the present day is the fact
that it contains the germs of many ideas which more than twenty years
later formed the leading features of the Minority Report of the Poor Law
Commission.

At that time it was universally believed that the slum dwellers of
London were mainly recruited by rural immigrants, and this
error--disproved several years later by the painstaking statistical
investigations of Mr. (now Sir) H. Llewelyn Smith--vitiates much of the
reasoning of the Report.

After analysing the causes of unemployment on lines now familiar to all,
and denouncing private charity with vehemence worthy of the Charity
Organisation Society, it recommends the revival of social life in our
villages in order to keep the country people from crowding into the
slums. The Dock Companies are urged to organise their casual labour into
permanently employed brigades: and it is suggested, as in the "Minority
Report," that "the most really 'remunerative' form of 'relief' works for
the unemployed would often be a course of instruction in some new trade
or handicraft" Technical education is strongly recommended; Labour
Bureaux are advocated; State cultivation of tobacco is suggested as a
means of employing labour on the land (private cultivation of tobacco
was until recently prohibited by law), as well as municipal drink
supply, State railways, and "universal military (home) service" as a
means of promoting "the growth of social consciousness,"

The Report is unequal. An eloquent but irrelevant passage on the social
effects of bringing the railway contractor's navvies to a rural village
was possibly contributed by Hubert Bland, whilst the conclusion, a
magniloquent eulogy of the moral value of Government service, written,
according to Webb's recollection, by Frank Podmore, is evidently the
work of a civil servant who has not got over the untamed enthusiasms of
youth!

The Report shows immature judgment, but also in parts remarkable
foresight, and a complete realisation of the right scientific method.
With State tobacco farms and the public organisation of a corps of
peripatetic State navvies, the childhood stage of the Fabian Society
may be said to conclude.

My own connection with the Society also changed. In the spring of 1886 I
gave up my business on the Stock Exchange and in the summer went to
Newcastle-on-Tyne, where I lived till the autumn of 1890. My account of
the Society for the next three years is therefore in the main derived
from its records. Sydney Olivier succeeded me as "Acting Secretary," but
for some months I was still nominally the secretary, a fact of much
significance to my future, since it enabled me if I liked to deal with
correspondence, and it was through a letter to the secretary of the
Society, answered by me from Newcastle, that I made the acquaintance of
the lady who three years later became my wife.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] "Misalliance: with a treatise on parents and children," 1914.

[11] Industrial Remuneration Conference. The Report, etc. Cassell, 1885,
p. 400.

[12] William Clarke had attended some early meetings but dropped out and
was actually elected to the Society in February, 1886.

[13] Presumably a "Times" reporter was present; but his report was not
published.

[14] Later M.P. for Tyneside and a member of Mr. Asquith's Government.

[15] Contemporary accounts of the conference can be found in the July
numbers of "To-day" and "The Republican," the former by Mrs. Besant, and
the latter, a descriptive criticism, by the Editor and Printer, George
Standring.




Chapter IV

The Formation of Fabian Policy: 1886-9

   The factors of success; priority of date; the men who made it--The
   controversy over policy--The Fabian Parliamentary League--"Facts for
   Socialists"--The adoption of the Basis--The seven Essayists in
   command--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"


The Society was now fully constituted, and for the next three years its
destiny was controlled by the seven who subsequently wrote "Fabian
Essays." But it was still a very small and quite obscure body. Mrs.
Besant, alone of its leaders, was known beyond its circle, and at that
period few outside the working classes regarded her with respect. The
Society still met, as a rule, at the house of one or other of the
members, and to the founders, who numbered about 20, only about 67
members had been added by June, 1886. The receipts for the year to
March, 1886, were no More than £35 19s., but as the expenditure only
amounted to £27 6s. 6d., the Society had already adopted its lifelong
habit of paying its way punctually, though it must be confessed that a
complaisant printer and a series of lucky windfalls have contributed to
that result.

[Illustration: _From a photograph by Elliott and Fry, W._

SYDNEY OLIVIER, IN 1903]

The future success of the Society was dependent in the main on two
factors then already in existence. The first was its foundation before
there was any other definitely Socialist body in England. The Social
Democratic Federation did not adopt that name until August, 1884; the
Fabian Society can therefore claim technical priority, and consequently
it has never had to seek acceptance by the rest of the Socialist
movement. At any later date it would have been impossible for a
relatively small middle-class society to obtain recognition as an
acknowledged member of the Socialist confraternity. We were thus in a
position to welcome the formation of working-class Socialist societies,
but it is certain that in the early days they would never have welcomed
us.

Regret has been sometimes expressed, chiefly by foreign observers, that
the Society has maintained its separate identity. Why, it has been
asked, did not the middle-class leaders of the Society devote their
abilities directly to aiding the popular organisations, instead of
"keeping themselves to themselves" like ultra-respectable suburbans?

If this had been possible I am convinced that the loss would have
exceeded the gain, but in the early years it was not possible. The
Social Democrats of those days asserted that unquestioning belief in
every dogma attributed to Marx was essential to social salvation, and
that its only way was revolution, by which they meant, not the complete
transformation of society, but its transformation by means of rifles and
barricades; they were convinced that a successful repetition of the
Commune of Paris was the only method by which their policy could
prevail. The Fabians realised from the first that no such revolution was
likely to take place, and that constant talk about it was the worst
possible way to commend Socialism to the British working class. And
indeed a few years later it was necessary to establish a new
working-class Socialist Society, the Independent Labour Party, in order
to get clear both of the tradition of revolutionary violence and of the
vain repetition of Marxian formulas. If the smaller society had merged
itself in the popular movement, its criticism, necessary, as it proved
to be, to the success of Socialism in England, would have been voted
down, and its critics either silenced or expelled. Of this criticism I
shall have more to say in another place.[16]

But there was another reason why this course would have been
impracticable. The Fabians were not suited either by ability,
temperament, or conditions to be leaders of a popular revolutionary
party. Mrs. Besant with her gift of splendid oratory and her long
experience of agitation was an exception, but her connection with the
movement lasted no more than five years. Of the others Shaw did not and
does not now possess that unquestioning faith in recognised principles
which is the stock-in-trade of political leadership:[17] and whilst Webb
might have been a first-class minister at the head of a department, his
abilities would have been wasted as a leader in a minority. But there
was a more practical bar. The Fabians were mostly civil servants or
clerks in private employ. The methods of agitation congenial to them
were compatible with their occupations: those of the Social Democrats
were not. Indeed in those days no question of amalgamation was ever
mooted.

But it must be remembered by critics that so far as concerns the Fabian
Society, the absence of identity in organisation has never led to such
hostility as has been common amongst Continental Socialists. Since the
vote of censure in relation to the "Tory Gold," the Fabian Society has
never interfered with the doings of its friendly rivals. The two
Societies have occasionally co-operated, but as a rule they have
severally carried on their own work, each recognising the value of many
of the activities of the other, and on the whole confining mutual
criticism within reasonable limits.

The second and chief reason for the success of the Society was its good
fortune in attaching to its service a group of young men, then
altogether unknown, whose reputation has gradually spread, in two or
three cases, all over the world, and who have always been in the main
identified with Fabianism. Very rarely in the history of voluntary
organisations has a group of such exceptional people come together
almost accidentally and worked unitedly together for so many years for
the furtherance of the principles in which they believed. Others have
assisted according to their abilities and opportunities, but to the
Fabian Essayists belongs the credit of creating the Fabian Society.

For several years, and those perhaps the most important in the history
of the Society, the period, in fact, of adolescence, the Society was
governed by the seven Essayists, and chiefly by four or five of them.
Mrs. Besant had made her reputation in other fields, and belonged, in a
sense, to an earlier generation; she was unrivalled as an expositor and
an agitator, and naturally preferred the work that she did best. William
Clarke, also, was just a little of an outsider: he attended committees
irregularly, and although he did what he was persuaded to do with
remarkable force--he was an admirable lecturer and an efficient
journalist--he had no initiative. He was solitary in his habits, and in
his latter years, overshadowed by ill-health, he became almost morose.
Hubert Bland, again, was always something of a critic. He was a Tory by
instinct wherever he was not a Socialist, and whilst thoroughly united
with the others for all purposes of the Society, he lived the rest of
his life apart. But the other four Essayists, Sidney Webb, Bernard Shaw,
Graham Wallas, and Sydney Olivier, then and for many years afterwards
may be said to have worked and thought together in an intellectual
partnership.[18] Webb and Olivier were colleagues in the Colonial
Office, and it is said that for some time the Fabian records--they were
not very bulky--were stored on a table in Downing Street. For many years
there were probably few evenings of the week and few holidays which two
or more of them did not spend together.

In 1885 or early in 1886 a group which included those four and many
others formed a reading society for the discussion of Marx's "Capital."
The meetings--I attended them until I left London--were held in
Hampstead, sometimes at the house of Mrs. Gilchrist, widow of the
biographer of Blake, sometimes at that of Mrs. C.M. Wilson, and finally
at the Hampstead Public Library. Later on the Society was called "The
Hampstead Historic," and its discussions, which continued for several
years, had much to do with settling the Fabian attitude towards Marxian
economics and historical theory.[19]

It was this exceptional group of leaders, all intimate friends, all
loyal to each other, and to the cause they were associated to advocate,
and all far above the average in vigour and ability, that in a few years
turned an obscure drawing-room society into a factor in national
politics.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the meeting on June 19th, 1886, at 94 Cornwall Gardens, Sydney
Olivier assumed the duties of Secretary, and the minutes began to be
written with less formality than before. It is recorded that "Graham
Wallas read a paper on Personal Duty under the present system. A number
of questions from Fabians more or less in trouble about their souls were
answered _ex cathedra_ by Mr. Wallas, after which the Society was given
to understand by G.B. Shaw that Joseph the Fifth Monarchy Man could show
them a more excellent way. Joseph addressed the meeting for five
minutes, on the subject of a community about to be established in
British North America under the presidency of the Son of God. Sidney
Webb, G. Bernard Shaw, Annie Besant, [the Rev.] C.L. Marson and Adolph
Smith discussed the subject of the paper with especial reference to the
question of buying cheap goods and of the employment of the surplus
income of pensioners, after which Graham Wallas replied and the meeting
dispersed,"

William Morris lectured on "The Aims of Art" on July 2nd, at a public
meeting at South Place Chapel, with Walter Crane in the chair; and
Belfort Bax was the lecturer on July 17th.

The first meeting after the holidays was a memorable one, and a few
words of introduction are necessary.

In normal times it may be taken for granted that in addition to the
Government and the Opposition there is at least one party of Rebels.
Generally there are more, since each section has its own rebels, down to
the tiniest. In the eighties the rebels were Communist Anarchists, and
to us at any rate they seemed more portentous than the mixed crowd of
suffragettes and gentlemen from Oxford who before the war seemed to be
leading the syndicalist rebels. Anarchist Communism was at any rate a
consistent and almost sublime doctrine. Its leaders, such as Prince
Kropotkin and Nicholas Tchaykovsky, were men of outstanding ability and
unimpeachable character, and the rank and file, mostly refugees from
European oppression, had direct relations with similar parties abroad,
the exact extent and significance of which we could not calculate.

The Socialist League, founded in 1885 by William Morris, Dr. Edward
Aveling, and others, as the result of a quarrel, mainly personal, with
the leaders of the Social Democrats, soon developed its own doctrine,
and whilst never until near its dissolution definitely anarchist, it was
always dominated by the artistic and anti-political temperament of
Morris. Politically the Fabians were closer to the Social Democrats, but
their hard dogmatism was repellent, whilst Morris had perhaps the most
sympathetic and attractive personality of his day.

The crisis of the Society's policy is described in the following
passage from Shaw's "Early History,":--

   "By 1886 we had already found that we were of one mind as to the
   advisability of setting to work by the ordinary political methods and
   having done with Anarchism and vague exhortations to Emancipate the
   Workers. We had several hot debates on the subject with a section of
   the Socialist League which called itself Anti-State Communist, a name
   invented by Mr. Joseph Lane of that body. William Morris, who was
   really a free democrat of the Kropotkin type, backed up Lane, and
   went for us tooth and nail. Records of our warfare may be found in
   the volumes of the extinct magazine called 'To-day,' which was then
   edited by Hubert Bland; and they are by no means bad reading. We soon
   began to see that at the debates the opposition to us came from
   members of the Socialist League, who were present only as visitors.
   The question was, how many followers had our one ascertained
   Anarchist, Mrs. Wilson, among the silent Fabians. Bland and Mrs.
   Besant brought this question to an issue on the 17th September, 1886,
   at a meeting in Anderton's Hotel, by respectively seconding and
   moving the following resolution:

      "'That it is advisable that Socialists should organize themselves as
      a political party for the purpose of transferring into the hands of
      the whole working community full control over the soil and the means
      of production, as well as over the production and distribution of
      wealth.'

      "To this a rider was moved by William Morris as follows:

      "'But whereas the first duty of Socialists is to educate the people
      to understand what their present position is and what their future
      might be, and to keep the principle of Socialism steadily before
      them; and whereas no Parliamentary party can exist without compromise
      and concession, which would hinder that education and obscure those
      principles, it would be a false step for Socialists to attempt to
      take part in the Parliamentary contest.'

   "I shall not attempt to describe the debate, in which Morris, Mrs.
   Wilson, Davis, and Tochatti did battle with Burns, Mrs. Besant, Bland,
   Shaw, Donald, and Rossiter: that is, with Fabian and S.D.F. combined.
   Suffice it to say that the minutes of the meeting close with the
   following significant note by the secretary:

      "'Subsequently to the meeting, the secretary received notice from
      the manager of Anderton's Hotel that the Society could not be
      accommodated there for any further meetings.'

   Everybody voted, whether Fabian or not; and Mrs. Besant and Bland
   carried their resolution by 47 to 19, Morris's rider being subsequently
   rejected by 40 to 27."

A short contemporary report written by Mrs. Besant was published in
"To-day" for October, 1886, from which it appears that "Invitations were
sent out to all Socialist bodies in London," and that the irregularity
of the proceedings alluded to by Shaw was intentional. The minutes of
the proceedings treat the meeting as in ordinary course, but it is plain
from Mrs. Besant's report that it was an informal attempt to clear the
air in the Socialist movement as well as in the Society itself.

In order to avoid a breach with Mrs. Wilson and her Fabian sympathisers,
it was resolved to form a Fabian Parliamentary League, which Fabians
could join or not as they pleased; its constitution, dated February,
1887, is given in full in Tract No. 41; here it is only necessary to
quote one passage which describes the policy of the League and of the
Society, a policy of deliberate possibilism:--

   "The League will take active part in all general and local elections.
   Until a fitting opportunity arises for putting forward Socialist
   candidates to form the nucleus of a Socialist party in Parliament, it
   will confine itself to supporting those candidates who will go
   furthest in the direction of Socialism. It will not ally itself
   absolutely with any political party; it will jealously avoid being
   made use of for party purposes; and it will be guided in its action
   by the character, record, and pledges of the candidates before the
   constituencies. In Municipal, School Board, Vestry, and other local
   elections, the League will, as it finds itself strong enough, run
   candidates of its own, and by placing trustworthy Socialists on
   local representative bodies it will endeavour to secure the
   recognition of the Socialist principle in all the details of local
   government."

Its history is narrated in the same Tract:--

   "Here you have the first sketch of the Fabian policy of to-day. The
   Parliamentary League, however, was a short-lived affair. Mrs.
   Wilson's followers faded away, either by getting converted or leaving
   us. Indeed, it is a question with us to this day whether they did not
   owe their existence solely to our own imaginations. Anyhow, it soon
   became plain that the Society was solidly with the Executive on the
   subject of political action, and that there was no need for any
   separate organization at all. The League first faded into a Political
   Committee of the Society, and then merged silently and painlessly
   into the general body."

Amongst the lecturers of the autumn of 1886 were H.H. Champion on the
Unemployed, Mrs. Besant on the Economic Position of Women, Percival
Chubb, Bernard Shaw on "Socialism and the Family"--a pencil note in the
minute book in the lecturer's handwriting says, "This was one of Shaw's
most outrageous performances"--and, in the absence of the Rev. Stopford
Brooke, another by Shaw on "Why we do not act up to our principles,"

A new Tract was adopted in January, 1887. No. 5, "Facts for Socialists,"
perhaps the most effective Socialist tract ever published in England. It
has sold steadily ever since it was issued: every few years it has been
revised and the figures brought up to date; the edition now on sale,
published in 1915, is the eleventh. The idea was not new. Statistics of
the distribution of our national income had been given, as previously
mentioned, in one of the earliest manifestoes of the Democratic
Federation. But in Tract 5 the exact facts were rubbed in with copious
quotations from recognised authorities and illustrated by simple
diagrams. The full title of the tract was "Facts for Socialists from the
Political Economists and Statisticians," and the theme of it was to
prove that every charge made by Socialism against the capitalist system
could be justified by the writings of the foremost professors of
economic science. It embodied another Fabian characteristic of
considerable importance. Other Socialists then, and many Socialists now,
endeavoured by all means to accentuate their differences from other
people. Not content with forming societies to advocate their policy,
they insisted that it was based on a science peculiar to themselves, the
Marxian analysis of value, and the economic interpretation of history:
they strove too to dissociate themselves from others by the adoption of
peculiar modes of address--such as the use of the words "comrade" and
"fraternal"--and they were so convinced that no good thing could come
out of the Galilee of capitalism that any countenance of capitalist
parties or of the capitalist press was deemed an act of treachery.

The Fabians, on the other hand, tended to the view that "we are all
Socialists now." They held that the pronouncements of economic science
must be either right or wrong, and in any case science was not a matter
of party; they endeavoured to show that on their opponents' own
principles they were logically compelled to be Socialists and must
necessarily adopt Fabian solutions of social problems.

"Facts for Socialists" was the work of Sidney Webb. No other member
possessed anything like his knowledge of economics and statistics. It
is, as its title implies, simply a mass of quotations from standard
works on Political Economy, strung together in order to prove that the
bulk of the wealth annually produced goes to a small fraction of the
community in return either for small services or for none at all, and
that the poverty of the masses results, not as the individualists argue,
from deficiencies of individual character, but, as John Stuart Mill had
declared, from the excessive share of the national dividend that falls
to the owners of land and capital.

       *       *       *       *       *

After the settlement, by a compromise in structure, of the conflict
between the anarchists and the collectivists, the Society entered a
period of calm, and the Executive issued a circular complaining of the
apathy of the members. Probably this is the first of the innumerable
occasions on which it has been said that the Society had passed its
prime. Moreover, the Executive Committee were blamed for "some habits"
which had "a discouraging effect" on the rest of the Society, and it was
resolved, for the first, but not the last time, to appoint a Committee
to revise the Basis. The Committee consisted of the Executive and eight
added members, amongst whom may be mentioned Walter Crane, the Rev. S.D.
Headlam, and Graham Wallas. It is said that after many hours of
discussion they arrived by compromise at an unanimous report, and that
their draft was accepted by the Society without amendment. The report
was presented to a meeting on June 3rd, 1887, of which I, on a visit to
London, was chairman. It is unfortunate that the record of this meeting,
at which the existing Basis of the Society was adopted, is the only one,
in the whole history of the Society, which is incomplete. Possibly the
colonial policy of the empire was disturbed, and the secretary occupied
with exceptional official duties. Anyway the minutes were left
unfinished in June, were continued in October, and were never completed
or recorded as confirmed. The proceedings relating to the Basis were
apparently never written. There is no doubt, however, that the Basis was
adopted on this occasion, it is said, at an adjourned meeting, and in
spite of many projects of revision it has with one addition--the phrase
about "equal citizenship of women"--remained the Basis of the Society to
the present time.[20]

The purpose of the Basis has been often misunderstood. It is not a
confession of faith, or a statement of the whole content and meaning of
Socialism. It is merely a test of admission, a minimum basis of
agreement, acceptance of which is required from those who aspire to
share in the control of a Society which had set out to reconstruct our
social system. The most memorable part of the discussion was the
proposal of Mr. Stuart Glennie to add a clause relating to marriage and
the family. This was opposed by Mrs. Besant, then regarded as an
extremist on that subject, and was defeated. In view of the large amount
of business transacted before the discussion of the Basis began, the
debate cannot have been prolonged.

It is easy enough, nearly thirty years later, to criticise this
document, to point out that it is purely economic, and unnecessarily
rigid: that the phrase about compensation, which has been more discussed
than any other, is badly worded, and for practical purposes always
disregarded in the constructive proposals of the Society.[21] The best
testimony to the merits of the Basis is its survival--its acceptance by
the continuous stream of new members who have joined the Society--and it
has survived not because its upholders deemed it perfect, but because
it has always been found impracticable to put on paper any alternative
on which even a few could agree. In fact, proposals to re-write the
Basis have on several occasions been referred to Committees, but none of
the Committees has ever succeeded in presenting a report.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the end of the year the sole fruit of the Parliamentary League was
published. It is Tract No. 6, entitled "The True Radical Programme" and
consists of a declamatory criticism of the official Liberal-Radical
Programme announced at Nottingham in October, 1887, and a demand to
replace it by the True Radical Programme, namely, adult (in place of
manhood) suffrage, payment of Members of Parliament and election
expenses, taxation of unearned incomes, nationalisation of railways, the
eight hours day, and a few other items. "The above programme," it says,
"is sufficient for the present to fill the hands of the True Radical
Party--the New Labour Party--in a word, the Practical Socialist Party,"
It is by no means so able and careful a production as the Report on the
Government Organisation of Unemployed Labour.

In April, 1888, the seven Essayists were elected as the Executive
Committee, Graham Wallas and William Clarke taking the places of Frank
Podmore and W.L. Phillips, who retired, and at the same meeting the
Parliamentary League was turned into the Political Committee of the
Society; and Tract 7, "Capital and Land," was approved. This tract, the
work of Sydney Olivier, is a reasoned attack on Single Tax as a panacea,
and in addition contains an estimate of the total realised wealth of the
country, just as "Facts for Socialists" does of its income. This, too,
has been regularly revised and reprinted ever since and commands a
steady sale. It is now in its seventh edition.

Meanwhile the series of meetings, variously described as Public,
Ordinary, and Private, was kept on regularly twice a month, with a break
only of two months from the middle of July. Most of the meetings were
still held in the houses of members, but as early as November, 1886, an
ordinary meeting was held at Willis's Rooms, King Street, St. James's,
at that time an ultra-respectable rendezvous for societies of the most
select character, keeping up an old-fashioned ceremonial of crimson
tablecloths, elaborate silver candlesticks, and impressively liveried
footmen. Having been turned out of Anderton's Hotel, the Society, on the
application of Olivier, was accepted solemnly at Willis's, probably
because the managers regarded the mere fact of our venturing to approach
them as a certificate of high rank in the world of learned societies.

One meeting of this period is perhaps worthy of record. On 16th March,
1888, Mr. R.B. Haldane, M.P., subsequently Secretary of State for War
and Lord Chancellor, addressed the Society on "Radical Remedies for
Economic Evils." In the pages of the "Radical," Vol. II, No. 8, for
March, 1888, can be found a vivid contemporary account of the
proceedings from the pen of Mr. George Standring, entitled "Butchered to
Make a Fabian Holiday." After describing the criticism of the lecture by
Sidney Webb, Mrs. Besant, and Bernard Shaw the report proceeds:--

"The massacre was concluded by two other members of the Society and then
the chairman called on Mr. Haldane to reply. Hideous mockery! The
chairman knew that Haldane was _dead_! He had seen him torn and tossed
and trampled under foot. Perhaps he expected the ghost of the M.P. to
rise and conclude the debate with frightful jabberings of fleshless
jaws and gestures of bony hands. Indeed I heard a rustling of papers as
if one gathered his notes for a speech; but I felt unable to face the
grisly horror of a phantom replying to his assassins; so I fled."

It should be added that Mr. Standring did net become a member of the
Society until five years later.

By the summer of 1888 the leaders of the Society realised that they had
a message for the world, and they decided that the autumn should be
devoted to a connected series of lectures on the "Basis and Prospects of
Socialism" which should subsequently be published.

There is no evidence, however, that the Essayists supposed that they
were about to make an epoch in the history of Socialism. The meetings in
the summer had been occupied with lectures by Professor D.G. Ritchie on
the "Evolution of Society," subsequently published as his well-known
volume "Darwinism and Politics." Walter Crane on "The Prospects of Art
under Socialism," Graham Wallas on "The Co-operative Movement," and Miss
Clementina Black on "Female Labour." At the last-named meeting, on June
15th, a resolution was moved by H.H. Champion and seconded by Herbert
Burrows (neither of them members) calling on the public to boycott
Bryant and May's matches on account of the low wages paid. This marks
the beginning of the period of Labour Unrest, which culminated in the
Dock Strike of the following year.

The first meeting of the autumn was held at Willis's Rooms on September
21st, with the Rev. S.D. Headlam in the chair. The Secretary read a
statement indicating the scope of the course of the seven lectures
arranged for the Society's meetings during the autumn, after which the
first paper, written by Sidney Webb on "The Historical Aspect of the
Basis of Socialism," was read by Hubert Bland. Webb had at that time
started for a three months' visit to the United States, in which I
accompanied him. Mr. Headlam was the chairman throughout the course,
except on one occasion, and the lectures continued fortnightly to the
21st December. It does not appear that any special effort was made to
advertise them. Each lecture was discussed by members of the Society and
of the S.D.F., and with the exception of the Rev. Philip Wicksteed there
is no evidence of the presence of any persons outside the movement then
or subsequently known to fame.

       *       *       *       *       *

The preparation of "Fabian Essays" for publication occupied nearly a
year, and before dealing with it we must follow the history of the
Society during that period.

The first lecture in 1889 was by Edward Carpenter, whose paper,
"Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure," gives the title to perhaps his best
known volume of essays. Another interesting lecture was by William
Morris, entitled "How Shall We Live Then?" and at the Annual Meeting in
April Sydney Olivier became the first historian of the Society with an
address on "The Origin and Early History of the Fabian Society," for
which he made the pencil notes on the minute book already mentioned.

The seven Essayists were re-elected to the Executive, and in the record
of proceedings at the meeting there is no mention of the proposed volume
of essays.

It is, however, possible to give some account of the organisation and
activities for the year ending in March, 1889, since the first printed
Annual Report covers that period. It is a four-page quarto document,
only a few copies of which are preserved. Of the Society itself but
little is recorded--a list of lectures and the bare statement that the
autumn series were to be published: the fact that 6500 Fabian Tracts had
been distributed and a second edition of 5000 "Facts for Socialists"
printed: that 32 members had been elected and 6 had withdrawn--the total
is not given--and that the deficit in the Society's funds had been
reduced.

A favourite saying of Sidney Webb's is that the activity of the Fabian
Society is the sum of the activities of its members. His report as
Secretary of the work of the "Lecture Committee" states that a lecture
list with 33 names had been printed, and returns made by 31 lecturers
recorded 721 lectures during the year. Six courses of lectures on
Economics accounted for 52 of these. The "Essays" series of lectures was
redelivered by special request in a room lent by King's College,
Cambridge, and also at Leicester. Most of the other lectures were given
at London Radical Working Men's Clubs, then and for some years later a
much bigger factor in politics than they have been in the twentieth
century.

But an almost contemporary account of the life of Bernard Shaw, probably
the most active of the leaders, because the least fettered by his
occupation, is given in Tract 41 under the heading:

   "HOW TO TRAIN FOR PUBLIC LIFE.

   "We had to study where we could and how we could. I need not repeat
   the story of the Hampstead Historic Club, founded by a handful of us
   to read Marx and Proudhon, and afterwards turned into a systematic
   history class in which each student took his turn at being professor.
   My own experience may be taken as typical. For some years I attended
   the Hampstead Historic Club once a fortnight, and spent a night in
   the alternate weeks at a private circle of economists which has since
   blossomed into the British Economic Association--a circle where the
   social question was left out, and the work kept on abstract
   scientific lines. I made all my acquaintances think me madder than
   usual by the pertinacity with which I attended debating societies and
   haunted all sorts of hole-and-corner debates and public meetings and
   made speeches at them. I was President of the Local Government Board
   at an amateur Parliament where a Fabian ministry had to put its
   proposals into black and white in the shape of Parliamentary Bills.
   Every Sunday I lectured on some subject which I wanted to teach to
   myself; and it was not until I had come to the point of being able to
   deliver separate lectures, without notes, on Rent, Interest, Profits,
   Wages, Toryism, Liberalism, Socialism, Communism, Anarchism,
   Trade-Unionism, Co-operation, Democracy, the Division of Society into
   Classes, and the Suitability of Human Nature to Systems of Just
   Distribution, that I was able to handle Social-Democracy as it must
   be handled before it can be preached in such a way as to present it
   to every sort of man from his own particular point of view. In old
   lecture lists of the Society you will find my name down for twelve
   different lectures or so. Nowadays I have only one, for which the
   secretary is good enough to invent four or five different names.
   Sometimes I am asked for one of the old ones, to my great dismay, as
   I forget all about them; but I get out of the difficulty by
   delivering the new one under the old name, which does as well. I do
   not hesitate to say that all our best lecturers have two or three old
   lectures at the back of every single point in their best new
   speeches; and this means that they have spent a certain number of
   years plodding away at footling little meetings and dull discussions,
   doggedly placing these before all private engagements, however
   tempting. A man's Socialistic acquisitiveness must be keen enough to
   make him actually prefer spending two or three nights a week in
   speaking and debating, or in picking up social information even in
   the most dingy and scrappy way, to going to the theatre, or dancing
   or drinking, or even sweethearting, if he is to become a really
   competent propagandist--unless, of course, his daily work is of such
   a nature as to be in itself a training for political life; and that,
   we know, is the case with very few of us indeed. It is at such
   lecturing and debating work, and on squalid little committees and
   ridiculous little delegations to conferences of the three tailors of
   Tooley Street, with perhaps a deputation to the Mayor thrown in once
   in a blue moon or so, that the ordinary Fabian workman or clerk must
   qualify for his future seat on the Town Council, the School Board,
   or perhaps in the Cabinet. It was in that way that Bradlaugh, for
   instance, graduated from being a boy evangelist to being one of the
   most formidable debaters in the House of Commons. And the only
   opponents who have ever held their own against the Fabians in debate
   have been men like Mr. Levy or Mr. Foote, who learnt in the same
   school."

But lecturing was not the only activity of the Fabians. There were at
that time local Groups, each comprising one or a dozen constituencies in
London and its suburbs. The Groups in a corporate capacity did little:
but the members are reported as taking part in local elections, County
Council, School Board, and Vestry, in the meetings of the London Liberal
and Radical Union, the National Liberal Federation, the Metropolitan
Radical Federation, the Women's Liberal Federation, and so on. This was
the year of the first London County Council Election, when the
Progressive Party, as it was subsequently named, won an unexpected
victory, which proved to be both lasting and momentous for the future of
the Metropolis. The only overt part taken by the Fabian Society was its
"Questions for Candidates," printed and widely circulated before the
election, which gave definiteness and point to the vague ideas of
Progressivism then in the air. A large majority of the successful
candidates had concurred with this programme. A pamphlet by Sidney Webb,
entitled "Wanted a Programme," not published but printed privately, was
widely circulated in time for the meeting of the National Liberal
Federation at Birmingham, and another by the same author, "The Progress
of Socialism," stated to be published by "the Hampstead Society for the
Study of Socialism," is reported as in its second edition. This pamphlet
was later republished by the Fabian Society as Tract No. 15, "English
Progress Towards Social Democracy."

Mrs. Besant and the Rev. Stewart Headlam, standing as Progressives,
were elected to the School Board in November, 1888, when Hubert Bland
was an unsuccessful candidate.

Finally it may be mentioned that a Universities Committee, with Frank
Podmore as Secretary for Oxford and G.W. Johnson for Cambridge, had
begun the "permeation" of the Universities, which has always been an
important part of the propaganda of the Society.

At the Annual Meeting in April, 1889, the Essayists were re-elected as
the Executive Committee and Sydney Olivier as Honorary Secretary, but he
only retained the post till the end of the year. I returned to London in
October, was promptly invited to resume the work, and took it over in
January, 1890.

In July another important tract was approved for publication. "Facts for
Londoners," No. 8 in the series, 55 pages of packed statistics sold for
6d., was the largest publication the Society had yet attempted. It is,
as its sub-title states: "an exhaustive collection of statistical and
other facts relating to the Metropolis, with suggestions for reform on
Socialist principles." The latter were in no sense concealed: the
Society still waved the red flag in season and out. "The Socialist
Programme of immediately practicable reforms for London cannot be wholly
dissociated from the corresponding Programme for the kingdom." This is
the opening sentence, and it is followed by a page of explanation of the
oppression of the workers by the private appropriation of rent and
interest, and an outline of the proposed reforms, graduated and
differentiated income tax, increased death duties, extension of the
Factory Acts, reform of the Poor Law, payment of all public
representatives, adult suffrage, and several others.

Then the tract settles down to business. London with its County Council
only a few months old was at length waking to self-consciousness: Mr.
Charles Booth's "Life and Labour in East London"--subsequently issued as
the first part of his monumental work--had just been published; it was
the subject of a Fabian lecture by Sidney Webb on May 17th; and interest
in the political, economic, and social institutions of the city was
general. The statistical facts were at that time practically unknown.
They had to be dug out, one by one, from obscure and often unpublished
sources, and the work thus done by the Fabian Society led up in later
years to the admirable and far more voluminous statistical publications
of the London County Council.

The tract deals with area and population; with rating, land values, and
housing, with water, trams, and docks, all at that time in the hands of
private companies, with gas, markets, City Companies, libraries,
public-houses, cemeteries; and with the local government of London, Poor
Law Guardians and the poor, the School Board and the schools, the
Vestries, District Boards, the County Council, and the City Corporation.
It was the raw material of Municipal Socialism, and from this time forth
the Society recognised that the municipalisation of monopolies was a
genuine part of the Socialist programme, that the transfer from private
exploiters to public management at the start, and ultimately by the
amortisation of the loans to public ownership, actually was _pro tanto_
the transfer from private to public ownership of land and capital, as
demanded by Socialists.

Here, in passing, we may remark that there is a legend, current chiefly
in the United States, that the wide extension of municipal ownership in
Great Britain is due to the advocacy of the Fabian Society. This is very
far from the truth. The great provincial municipalities took over the
management of their water and gas because they found municipal control
alike convenient, beneficial to the citizens, and financially
profitable: Birmingham in the seventies was the Mecca of
Municipalisation, and in 1882 the Electric Lighting Act passed by Mr.
Joseph Chamberlain was so careful of the interests of the public, so
strict in the limitations it put upon the possible profits to the
investor, that electric lighting was blocked in England for some years,
and the Act had to be modified in order that capital might be
attracted.[22]

What the Fabian Society did was to point out that Socialism did not
necessarily mean the control of all industry by a centralised State;
that to introduce Socialism did not necessarily require a revolution
because much of it could be brought about piecemeal by the votes of the
local electors. And secondly the Society complained that London was
singularly backward in municipal management: that the wealthiest city in
the world was handed over to the control of exploiters, who made profits
from its gas, its water, its docks, and its tramways, whilst elsewhere
these monopolies were owned and worked by public authorities who
obtained all the advantages for the people of the localities concerned.
Moreover, it may be questioned whether the Fabian advocacy of
municipalisation hastened or retarded that process in London. In
provincial towns municipalisation--the word of course was unknown--had
been regarded as of no social or political significance. It was a
business matter, a local affair, a question of convenience. In London,
partly owing to Fabian advocacy and partly because London had at last a
single representative authority with a recognised party system, it
became the battle ground of the parties: the claim of the Socialists
awakened the Individualists to opposition: and the tramways of London
were held as a trench in the world-wide conflict between Socialism and
its enemies, whose capture was hailed as an omen of progress by one
side, and by the other deplored as the presage of defeat.

"Facts for Londoners" was the work of Sidney Webb, but there is nothing
in the tract to indicate this. The publications of the Society were
collective works, in that every member was expected to assist in them by
criticism and suggestion. Although several of the tracts were lectures
or papers written by members for other purposes, and are so described,
it was not until the issue in November, 1892, of Tract 42, "Christian
Socialism," by the Rev. S.D. Headlam, that the author's name is printed
on the title page. The reason for the innovation is obvious: this tract
was written by a Churchman for Christians, and whilst the Society as a
whole approved the conclusions, the premises commended themselves to but
a few. It was therefore necessary that the responsibility of the author
should be made clear.

The autumn of 1889 is memorable for the great strike of the London
Dockers, which broke out on August 14th, was led by John Burns, and was
settled mainly by Cardinal Manning on September 14th. The Fabian Society
held no meeting between July 19th and September 20th, and there is
nothing in the minutes or the Annual Report to show that the Society as
such took any part in the historic conflict. But many of the members as
individuals lent their aid to the Dockers in their great struggle, which
once for all put an end to the belief that hopeless disorganisation is a
necessary characteristic of unskilled labour.[23]

Arising out of the Dock Strike, the special demand of the Socialist
section of trade unionists for the next four or five years was a legal
eight hours day, and the Fabian Society now for the first time
recognised that it could render substantial assistance to the labour
movement by putting into a practicable shape any reform which was the
current demand of the day.

At the members' meeting on September 20 a committee was appointed to
prepare an Eight Hours Bill for introduction into Parliament, and in
November this was published as Tract No. 9. It consists of a Bill for
Parliament, drawn up in proper form, with explanatory notes. It provided
that eight hours should be the maximum working day for Government
servants, for railway men, and for miners, and that other trades should
be brought in when a Secretary of State was satisfied that a majority of
the workers desired it. The tract had a large sale--20,000 had been
printed in six months--and it was specially useful because, in fact, it
showed the inherent difficulty of any scheme for universal limitation of
the hours of labour.

The Eight Hours Day agitation attained larger proportions than any other
working-class agitation in England since the middle of the nineteenth
century. For a number of years it was the subject of great annual
demonstrations in Hyde Park. It commended itself both to the practical
trade unionists, who had always aimed at a reduction in the hours of
labour, and to the theoretical socialists, who held that the exploiter's
profits came from the final hours of the day's work. The Fabian plan of
"Trade Option" was regarded as too moderate, and demands were made for a
"Trade Exemption" Bill, that is, a Bill enacting a universal Eight Hours
Day, with power to any trade to vote its own exclusion. But the more
the subject was discussed, the more obvious the difficulties became,
and at last it was recognised that each trade must be dealt with
separately. Considerable reductions of hours were meantime effected in
particular industries; an eight-hour day became the rule in the
Government factories and dockyards; the Board of Trade was empowered to
insist on the reduction of unduly long hours of duty on railways;
finally in 1908 the Miners' Eight Hours Act became law; and the demand
for any general Bill faded away.

The autumn meetings were occupied by a course of lectures at Willis's
Rooms on "A Century of Social Movements," by Frank Podmore, William
Clarke, Graham Wallas, Hubert Bland, and Mrs. Besant, and with the
beginning of the year 1890 we come to the publication of "Fabian
Essays," and a new chapter in the History of the Society.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] On this passage Shaw has written the following criticism, which I
have not adopted because on the whole I do not agree with it: "I think
this is wrong, because the Fabians were at first as bellicose as the
others, and Marx had been under no delusion as to the Commune and did
not bequeath a tradition of its repetition. Bakunin was as popular a
prophet as Marx. Many of us--Bland and Keddell among others--were
members of the S.D.F., and I was constantly speaking for the S.D.F. and
the League. We did not keep ourselves to ourselves; we aided the working
class organisations in every possible way; and they were jolly glad to
have us. In fact the main difference between us was that we worked for
everybody (permeation) and they worked for their own societies only. The
real reason that we segregated for purposes of thought and study was
that the workers could not go our pace or stand our social habits.
Hyndman and Morris and Helen Taylor and the other bourgeois S.D.F.-ers
and Leaguers were too old for us; they were between forty and fifty when
we were between twenty and thirty."

[17] On this passage Shaw comments, beginning with an expletive, and
proceeding: "I was the only one who had any principles. But surely the
secret of it is that we didn't really want to be demagogues, having
other fish to fry, as our subsequent careers proved. Our decision not to
stand for Parliament in 1892 was the turning point. I was offered some
seats to contest--possibly Labour ones--but I always replied that they
ought to put up a bona fide working man. We lacked ambition."

[18] See "The Great Society," by Graham Wallas (Macmillan, 1914), p.
260.

[19] For a much fuller account of this subject, see Appendix I. A.

[20] See Appendix II.

[21] See Fabian Tract 147, "Capital and Compensation," by Edw. R. Pease.

[22] See "Fabian Essays," p. 51, for the first point, and Fabian Tract
No. 119 for the second.

[23] See "The Story of the Dockers' Strike," by Vaughan Nash and H. (now
Sir Hubert) Llewellyn Smith; Fisher Unwin, 1890.




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 Campaign--Mrs. Besant withdraws--"Fabian News."


Volumes of essays by various writers seldom have any durable place in
the history of thought because as a rule they do not present a connected
body of ideas, but merely the opinions of a number of people who start
from incompatible premises and arrive at inconsistent conclusions. A
book, to be effective, must maintain a thesis, or at any rate must be a
closely integrated series of propositions, and, as a rule, thinkers
strong enough to move the world are too independent to pull together in
a team.

"Fabian Essays," the work of seven writers, all of them far above the
average in ability, some of them possessing individuality now recognised
as exceptional, is a book and not a collection of essays. This resulted
from two causes. The writers had for years known each other intimately
and shared each other's thoughts; they had hammered out together the
policy which they announced; and they had moulded each other's opinions
before they began to write. Secondly the book was planned in advance.
Its scheme was arranged as a whole, and then the parts were allotted
to each author, with an agreement as to the ground to be covered and the
method to be adopted, in view of the harmonious whole which the authors
had designed. It is not often that circumstances permit of a result so
happy. "Fabian Essays" does not cover the whole field of Fabian
doctrine, and in later years schemes were often set on foot for a second
volume dealing with the application of the principles propounded in the
first. But these schemes never even began to be successful. With the
passage of time the seven essayists had drifted apart. Each was working
at the lines of thought most congenial to himself; they were no longer
young and unknown men; some of the seven were no longer available.
Anyway, no second series of Essays ever approached completion.

[Illustration: _From a photograph By Savony of New York_

MRS. ANNE BESANT, IN 1890]

Bernard Shaw was the editor, and those who have worked with him know
that he does not take lightly his editorial duties. He corrects his own
writings elaborately and repeatedly, and he does as much for everything
which comes into his care. The high literary level maintained by the
Fabian tracts is largely the result of constant scrutiny and amendment,
chiefly by Sidney Webb and Bernard Shaw, although the tract so corrected
may be published as the work of some other member.

Although therefore all the authors of "Fabian Essays" were competent,
and some of them practised writers, it may be assumed that every phrase
was considered, and every word weighed, by the editor before the book
went to press.[24]

A circular inviting subscriptions for the book was sent out in the
spring, and three hundred copies were subscribed in advance.
Arrangements with a publisher fortunately broke down because he declined
to have the book printed at a "fair house," and as Mrs. Besant was
familiar with publishing--she then controlled, or perhaps _was_, the
Freethought Publishing Company, of 63 Fleet Street--the Committee
resolved on the bold course of printing and publishing the book
themselves. A frontispiece was designed by Walter Crane, a cover by Miss
May Morris, and just before Christmas, 1889, the book was issued to
subscribers and to the public.

None of us at that time was sufficiently experienced in the business of
authorship to appreciate the astonishing success of the venture. In a
month the whole edition of 1000 copies was exhausted. With the exception
of Mrs. Besant, whose fame was still equivocal, not one of the authors
had published any book of importance, held any public office, or was
known to the public beyond the circles of London political agitators.
The Society they controlled numbered only about 150 members. The subject
of their volume was far less understood by the public than is
Syndicalism at the present day. And yet a six-shilling book, published
at a private dwelling-house and not advertised in the press, or taken
round by travellers to the trade, sold almost as rapidly as if the
authors had been Cabinet Ministers.

A second edition of 1000 copies was issued in March, 1890: in September
Mr. Walter Scott undertook the agency of a new shilling paper edition,
5000 of which were sold before publication and some 20,000 more within a
year. In 1908 a sixpenny paper edition with a new preface by the editor
was issued by Walter Scott, of which 10,000 were disposed of in a few
months, and in all some 46,000 copies of the book have been sold in
English editions alone. It is difficult to trace the number of foreign
editions and translations. The authors made over to the Society all
their rights in the volume, and permission for translation and for
publication in the United States has always been freely given. In that
country we can trace an edition in 1894, published by Charles E. Brown
of Boston, with an Introduction by Edward Bellamy and a Preface of some
length on the Fabian Society and its work by William Clarke: and another
edition in 1909, published by the Ball Publishing Company of Boston,
also with the Introduction on the Fabian Society. A Dutch translation by
F.M. Wibaut was published in 1891; in 1806 the Essays, translated into
Norwegian by Francis Wolff, appeared as a series of small books; and in
1897 a German translation by Dora Lande was issued by G.H. Wigand of
Leipzig.

The effect of "Fabian Essays" arose as much from what it left out as
from what it contained. Only the fast-dwindling band of pioneer
Socialists, who lived through the movement in its earliest days, can
fully realise the environment of ideas from which "Fabian Essays" showed
a way of escape.

The Socialism of the Social Democratic Federation and the Socialist
League, the two societies which had hitherto represented Socialism to
the general public, was altogether revolutionary. Socialism was to be
the result of an outbreak of violence, engineered by a great popular
organisation like that of the Chartists or the Anti-Corn Law League, and
the Commune of Paris in 1871 was regarded as a premature attempt which
pointed the way to future success. The Socialist Government thus
established was to reconstruct the social and industrial life of the
nation according to a plan supposed to be outlined by Karl Marx. "On the
morrow of the revolution" all things would be new, and at a bound the
nation was expected to reach something very like the millennium.

The case for this project was based, strange to say, not on any history
but on the Marxian analysis of the origin of the value of commodities,
and no man who did not understand this analysis, or pretend to
understand it, was fit to be called a "comrade." The economic reasoning
which "proved" this "law" was expressed in obscure and technical
language peculiar to the propagandists of the movement, and every page
of Socialist writings was studded with the then strange words
"proletariat" and "bourgeoisie."

Lastly, the whole world, outside the socialist movement, was regarded as
in a conspiracy of repression. Liberals (all capitalists), Tories (all
landlords), the Churches (all hypocrites), the rich (all idlers), and
the organised workers (all sycophants) were treated as if they fully
understood and admitted the claims of the Socialists, and were
determined for their own selfish ends to reject them at all costs.

Although the Fabian propaganda had no doubt had some effect, especially
amongst the working-class Radicals of London, and although some of the
Socialist writers and speakers, such as William Morris, did not at all
times present to the public the picture of Socialism just outlined, it
will not be denied by anybody whose recollections reach back to this
period that Socialism up to 1890 was generally regarded as
insurrectionary, dogmatic, Utopian, and almost incomprehensible.

"Fabian Essays" presented the case for Socialism in plain language which
everybody could understand. It based Socialism, not on the speculations
of a German philosopher, but on the obvious evolution of society as we
see it around us. It accepted economic science as taught by the
accredited British professors; it built up the edifice of Socialism on
the foundations of our existing political and social institutions: it
proved that Socialism was but the next step in the development of
society, rendered inevitable by the changes which followed from the
industrial revolution of the eighteenth century.

It is interesting after twenty-five years to re-read these essays and to
observe how far the ideas that inspired them are still valid, and how
far the prophecies made have been fulfilled.

Bernard Shaw contributed the first Essay on "The Economic Basis of
Socialism," and also a second, a paper read to the British Association
in September, 1888, on the "Transition to Social Democracy." His
characteristic style retains its charm, although the abstract and purely
deductive economic analysis on which he relied no longer commends itself
to the modern school of thought. Sidney Webb's "Historic Basis" is as
readable as ever, except where he quotes at length political programmes
long forgotten, and recounts the achievements of municipal socialism
with which we are all now familiar.

William Clarke in explaining the "Industrial Basis" assumed that the
industry would be rapidly dominated by trusts--then a new
phenomenon--with results, the crushing out of all other forms of
industrial organisation, which are but little more evident to-day,
though we should no longer think worthy of record that the Standard Oil
Company declared a 10 per cent cash dividend in 1887!

If the Essays had been written in 1890 instead of 1888 the authors would
have acquired from the great Trade Union upheaval of 1889 a fuller
appreciation of the importance of Trade Unionism than they possessed at
the earlier date. Working-class organisation has never been so prominent
in London as in the industrial counties, and the captious comments on
the great Co-operative movement show that the authors of the Essays
were still youthful, and in some matters ignorant.[25]

Sydney Olivier's "Moral Basis" is, in parts, as obscure now as it was at
first, and there are pages which can have conveyed but little to most of
its innumerable readers. Graham Wallas treated of "Property" with
moderation rather than knowledge. Time has dealt hardly with Mrs.
Besant's contribution. She anticipated, as the other Essayists did, that
unemployment caused by labour-saving machinery would constantly
increase; and that State organisation of industries for the unemployed
would gradually supersede private enterprise. She apparently supposed
that the county councils all over England, then newly created, were
similar in character to the London County Council, which had already
inaugurated the Progressive policy destined in the next few years to do
much for the advancement of practical socialism. The final paper on "The
Outlook," by Hubert Bland, is necessarily of the nature of prophecy, and
in view of the difficulty of this art his attempt is perhaps less
unsuccessful than might have been expected. He could foresee the advent
neither of the Labour Party, mainly formed of Trade Unionists, nor of
Mr. Lloyd George and the policy he represents: he assumed that the rich
would grow richer and the poor poorer; that Liberals would unite with
Tories, as they have done in Australia, and would be confronted with a
Socialist Party representing the dispossessed. Possibly the developments
he sketches are still to come, but that is a matter which cannot be
discussed here.

       *       *       *       *       *

I can find no trace in the records of the Society that the first success
of their publication occasioned any elation to the Essayists, and I
cannot recollect any signs of it at the time. The Annual Report mentions
that a substantial profit was realised on the first edition, and states
that the authors had made over the copyright, "valued at about £200," to
the Society; but these details are included in a paragraph headed
"Publications," and the Essays are not mentioned in the general sketch
of the work of the year.

In fact the obvious results of the publication took some months to
materialise, and the number of candidates for election to the Society
showed little increase during the spring. It is true that great changes
were made in the organisation of the Society at the Annual Meeting held
on March 28th, 1890, but these were in part due to other causes. The
Executive Committee was enlarged to fifteen, and as I happened to be
available I was appointed paid secretary, half time, at the modest
salary of £1 a week for the first year. The newly elected Executive
included the seven Essayists, Robert E. Dell, now Paris correspondent
for several journals, W.S. De Mattos, for many years afterwards an
indefatigable organiser for the Society, and now settled in British
Columbia, the Rev. Stewart D. Headlam, Mrs. L.T. Mallet, then a
prominent member of the Women's Liberal Association, J.F. Oakeshott, of
the Fellowship of the New Life, and myself.

The lectures of the early months of 1890 were a somewhat brilliant
series. Sidney Webb on the Eight Hours Bill; James Rowlands, M.P., on
the then favourite Liberal nostrum of Leasehold Enfranchisement (which
the Essayists demolished in a crushing debate); Dr. Bernard Bosanquet on
"The Antithesis between Individualism and Socialism Philosophically
Considered"; Mrs. Besant on "Socialism and the School Board Policy"; Mr.
(now Sir) H. Llewellyn Smith on "The Causes and Effects of Immigration
from Country to Town," in which he disproved the then universal opinion
that the unemployed of East London were immigrants from rural districts;
Sydney Olivier on "Zola"; William Morris on "Gothic Architecture"
(replacing a lecture on Morris himself by Ernest Radford, who was absent
through illness); Sergius Stepniak on "Tolstoi, Tchernytchevsky, and the
Russian School"; Hubert Bland on "Socialist Novels"; and finally on July
18th Bernard Shaw on "Ibsen." This last may perhaps be regarded as the
high-water mark in Fabian lectures. The minutes, which rarely stray
beyond bare facts, record that "the paper was a long one," nearer two
hours than one, if my memory is accurate, and add: "The meeting was a
very large one and the lecture was well received." In fact the lecture
was the bulk of the volume "The Quintessence of Ibsenism," which some
regard as the finest of Bernard Shaw's works, and it is perhaps
unnecessary to say that the effect on the packed audience was
overwhelming. It was "briefly discussed" by a number of speakers, but
they seemed as out of place as a debate after an oratorio.

       *       *       *       *       *

On June 16th Henry H. Hutchinson of Derby was elected a member, an event
of much greater importance than at the time appeared. Mr. Hutchinson had
been clerk to the Justices of Derby, and when we first knew him had
retired, and was with his wife living a somewhat wandering life
accompanied by a daughter, who also joined the Society a few months
later. He was not rich, but he was generous, and on July 29th it is
recorded in the minutes of the Executive that he had offered us £100 or
£200, and approved the suggestion that it should be chiefly used for
lectures in country centres.

A fortnight later the "Lancashire campaign" was planned. It was
thoroughly organised. An advanced agent was sent down, and abstracts of
lectures were prepared and printed to facilitate accurate reports in the
press. Complete lists of the forthcoming lectures--dates, places,
subjects, and lecturers--were printed. All the Essayists except Olivier
took part, and in addition Robert E. Dell, W.S. De Mattos, and the Rev.
Stewart Headlam. An account of the Society written by Bernard Shaw was
reprinted from the "Scottish Leader" for September 4th, 1890, for the
use of the audience and the Press.

A "Report" of the campaign was issued on November 4th, which says:--

"The campaign began on September 20th and ended on October 27th, when
about sixty lectures in all had been delivered ... not only in
Lancashire, at Manchester, Liverpool, Rochdale, Oldham, Preston,
Salford, and the district round Manchester, but also at Barnsley,
Kendal, Carlisle, Sheffield, and Hebden Bridge.

"In thus making our first attack upon the stronghold of the old Unionism
and the new Toryism, we would have been contented with a very small
measure of success, and we are much more than contented with the results
obtained. The lectures, except for a few days during the contest at
Eccles, were extremely well reported, and even the 'Manchester Guardian'
(the 'Daily News' of the manufacturing districts) came out with an
approving leader. The audiences throughout the campaign steadily
increased and followed the lectures with close and intelligent
attention. In particular the members of Liberal working men's clubs
constantly declared that they had never heard 'the thing put so
straight' before, and complained that the ordinary party lecturers were
afraid or unwilling to speak out. Men who frankly confessed that they
had hesitated before voting for the admission of our lecturers to their
clubs were enthusiastic in welcoming our message as soon as they heard
it. The vigorous propaganda in the manufacturing districts of the S.D.F.
branches has been chiefly carried on by means of outdoor meetings. Its
effect upon working-class opinion, especially among unskilled labourers,
has been marked and important, but it has entirely failed to reach the
working-men politicians who form the rank and file of the Liberal
Associations and Clubs, or the 'well-dressed' Liberals who vaguely
desire social reform, but have been encouraged by their leaders to avoid
all exact thought on the subject."

       *       *       *       *       *

The lectures were given chiefly in sets of four in consecutive weeks,
mostly at Liberal and Radical Clubs: others were arranged by
Co-operative Societies, and by branches of the S.D.F. and the Socialist
League. The subjects were "Socialism," "Where Liberalism Fails,"
"Co-operation and Labour," "The Future of Women," "The Eight Hours
Bill," "The Politics of Labour," and so on. Those arranged by
Co-operative Societies were, we are told, the least successful, but it
is hoped "that they will bring about a better feeling between Socialists
and Co-operators," a state of things which on the side of the Socialists
was, as we have previously indicated, badly wanted. It should be noted
that much of the success of the campaign was due to friendly assistance
from the head-quarters of the Co-operative Union and the National Reform
Union.

There is no doubt that this campaign with the series of lectures on the
same lines which were continued for several years was an event of some
importance, not only in the history of the Fabian Society but also in
English politics. Hitherto the Socialism presented to the industrial
districts of England, which are the backbone of Trade Unionism and
Co-operation, to the men who are meant when we speak of the power and
independence of the working classes, was revolutionary and destructive,
ill-tempered and ungenerous. It had perhaps alarmed, but it had failed
to attract them. It had made no real impression on the opinion of the
people. From this point a new movement began. It first took the form of
local Fabian Societies. They were succeeded by and merged into branches
of the Independent Labour Party, which adopted everything Fabian except
its peculiar political tactics. A few years later the Labour Party
followed, more than Fabian in its toleration in the matter of opinions,
and virtually, though not formally, Fabian in its political policy. No
doubt something of the sort would have happened had there never been a
Lancashire campaign, but this campaign may be fairly described as the
first step in an evolution, the end of which is not yet in sight.

       *       *       *       *       *

Her lectures in the Lancashire campaign and the formation of the
branches were Mrs. Besant's last contributions to the Socialist
movement. Early in November she suddenly and completely severed her
connection with the Society. She had become a convert to Theosophy,
which at that time accepted the Buddhist doctrine that spiritual
conditions alone mattered, and that spiritual life would flourish as
well in the slum amidst dirt and starvation as in the comfortable
cottage, and much better than in the luxurious mansion.
Twentieth-century theosophy has receded from that position, and now
advocates social amelioration, but Mrs. Besant thought otherwise in
1890. Some twenty years later she lectured on several occasions to the
Society, and she joined her old friends at the dinner which celebrated
the thirtieth anniversary of its foundation, but in the interval her
connection with it completely ceased.

The Fabian Society and British Socialism owe much to Mrs. Besant for the
assistance she gave it during five important years. Her splendid
eloquence, always at our service, has seldom been matched, and has never
been surpassed by any of the innumerable speakers of the movement. She
had, when she joined us, an assured position amongst the working-class
Radicals in London and throughout the country; and through her Socialism
obtained a sympathetic hearing in places where less trusted speakers
would have been neglected. She was not then either a political thinker
or an effective worker on committees, but she possessed the power of
expressing the ideas of other people far better than their originators,
and she had at her command a certain amount of political machinery--such
as an office at 63 Fleet Street, and a monthly magazine, "Our
Corner"--which was very useful. Her departure was a serious loss, but it
came at a moment of rapid expansion, so rapid that her absence was
scarcely felt.

       *       *       *       *       *

On the Society itself the effect of the Essays and the Lancashire
Campaign was considerable. As the Executive Committee report in April,
1891: "During the past year the Socialist movement has made conspicuous
progress in every respect, and a constantly increasing share of the work
of its organisation and extension has fallen to the Fabian Society." The
membership increased from 173 to 361, and the subscription list--thanks
in part to several large donations--from £126 to £520. Local Fabian
Societies had been formed at Belfast, Birmingham, Bombay, Bristol,
Huddersfield, Hyde, Leeds, Manchester, Oldham, Plymouth, Tyneside, and
Wolverhampton, with a total membership of 350 or 400. The business in
tracts had been enormous. Ten new tracts, four pamphlets and six
leaflets, were published, and new editions of all but one of the old
ones had been printed. In all 335,000 tracts were printed and 98,349
distributed. The new tracts include "The Workers' Political Programme,"
"The New Reform Bill," "English Progress Towards Social Democracy," "The
Reform of Poor Law," and a leaflet, No. 13, "What Socialism Is," which
has been in circulation ever since. It should be added that at this
period our leaflets were given away freely, a form of propaganda which
soon proved too expensive for our resources.

In March, 1891, just before the end of the official year, appeared the
first number of "Fabian News," the monthly organ of the Society, which
has continued ever since. It replaced the printed circulars previously
issued to the members, and was not intended to be anything else than a
means of communicating with the members as to the work of the Society,
and also in later years as to new books on subjects germane to its work.
It has been edited throughout by the Secretary, but everything of a
contentious character relating to the affairs of the Society has been
published by the express authority of the Executive Committee.

It may be mentioned that from this time forward the documents of the
Society are both fuller and more accessible than before. For the period
up to the end of 1889 the only complete record is contained in the two
minute books of the meetings. No regular minutes of Executive Committee
meetings were kept, and the Annual Reports were not printed until 1889.
From 1890 onwards the meetings of every committee were regularly
recorded: the Annual Reports were printed in octavo and can be found in
many public libraries, whilst "Fabian News" contains full information of
the current doings of the Society. It will not therefore be necessary to
treat the later years with such attention to detail as has seemed
appropriate to the earlier. The only "sources" for these are shabby
notebooks and the memories of a few men now rapidly approaching old age.
The later years can be investigated, if any subsequent enquirer desires
to do so, in a dozen libraries in Great Britain and the United States.

[Illustration: _From a photograph by Van der Weyde_

WILLIAM CLARKE, ABOUT 1895]

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Shaw demurs to this passage, and says that he did not revise the
papers verbally, especially those by Mrs. Besant and Graham Wallas, but
that he suggested or made alterations in the others. I am still disposed
to suspect that my statement is not far from the truth.

[25] The opinions of some of the Essayists about co-operation were
apparently modified by some small meetings with leading co-operators on
March 27th, April 17th, and May 22nd, 1889. Bernard Shaw tells me that
he thinks that they were held at Willis's Rooms, that he was in the
chair, and that Mr. Benjamin Jones (whose name I find as a speaker at
Fabian Meetings about this period) played a prominent part on behalf of
the Co-operative Wholesale Society.

The first printed Annual Report presented on 5th April, 1889, mentions
that "the Society is taking part in a 'Round Table Conference' to
ascertain amongst other objects how far the various Co-operative and
Socialist bodies can act together politically," a problem, thirty years
later, still unsolved. It is a pity that the references to Co-operation
in "Fabian Essays" were not modified in the light of the Conference
which was held after the lectures were written but before they were
published. No record of the Conference seems to have been preserved.




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.


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
expenditure, £640 to March, 1891, rose to £1100 for 1892, and £1179 in
1893. In both these years large sums--£350 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 had to secure
a proposer and seconder who could personally vouch for him and had to
attend two meetings as a visitor. We regarded membership as something of
a privilege, 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 retained
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 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 Tunbridge 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 survived
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 political 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 personality and
influence of a few leading members. Their members have always been
elected at once to the parent society in order that the connection may
be unbroken when they leave the University. Needless to say, only a
small proportion become active members of the Society, but a few of the
leading members of the movement 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 members
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 government was in the
melting-pot, or in times of special socialist activity, and in a few
districts, such as Hampstead, 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 outgrew
drawing-rooms, because of the exceptional quality of the men and women
who attended them and the novelty of the doctrines promulgated. These
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.[26]

       *       *       *       *       *

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 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 1100, some four-fifths of the whole.

The Conference was chiefly memorable because it occasioned the
preparation of the paper by Bernard Shaw, entitled "The 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 policy 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 official 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 government was in no way relaxed. The output of
tracts at this period was remarkable. In the year 1890-1, 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.

It is impossible for me to estimate how far the Progressive policy 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 political 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 office
unexpectedly after the confused election in 1889 when the Council was
created, maintained itself in power usually by overwhelming majorities,
obtained at each succeeding triennial elections in the same
constituencies 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,
political 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 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,[27]
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
simultaneously 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 organisations,
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 appointment in the Colonial Office, and
thenceforth was able 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 management 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 County
Council, 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 Burns. 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 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 Leasehold 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 Progressive
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 programme. 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 attributable to our efforts can
hardly now be estimated--was the Newcastle Program, reluctantly blessed
by Mr. Gladstone and adopted by the National Liberal Federation in
1891.[28]

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" unions of unskilled 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 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
backward, 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, only a
few 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 Enfranchisement 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 secured by Mr. John
Burns and Mr. Keir Hardie, who stood as avowed Socialists, and by Mr.
Sydney Buxton, whose views are really scarcely less advanced than
theirs."[29]

I have pointed out that Fabian policy began with State Socialism, and in
quite early days added to it Municipal Socialism; 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 country 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 country": "we have ceased," he said, "to believe in what
are known as competition or starvation wages." That was a satisfactory
promise, but enunciating 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. Permanent officials 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 difficult 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 lines. 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, was
nothing. The "Parish Councils Act" and Sir William 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
unrelieved 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 Trade Unions actually financed precisely fifty candidates and
succeeded in electing thirty of them.

The Manifesto led to the resignation of a few distinguished members,
including Professor D.G. Ritchie, Mrs. Bateson, widow of the Master of
St. John's College, Cambridge, and more important than all 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
little more than a restatement of the case. "The only sound
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 'unfair' houses. Apply all these tests and the
Government unquestionably 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 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 ground for the Labour Party which
was founded so easily and flourished so vigorously 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 still
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 political 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
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 administrative 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 unprecedented 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
opponents. 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 policy 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 differentiated 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, 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] Bernard Shaw has sent me the following note on this paragraph:--

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. Knowing that the group would 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 something 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.

[27] Tract 41. "The Fabian Society," p. 18.

[28] 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 Association 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
impression 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 progressive 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.

[29] "Fabian News," August, 1892.




Chapter VII

"Fabianism and the Empire": 1900-1

   The Library and Book Boxes--Parish Councils--The Workmen's
   Compensation Act--The Hutchinson Trust--The London School of
   Economics--Educational Lectures--Electoral 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 Conservative Party was in power,
Liberalism, which had 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 in 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 Conservatism on similar lines, both because we
were not in touch with their organisation and because Conservatives in
general regarded our proposals with complete aversion. It was a time,
therefore, for educational rather than political activity, and to this
the Society devoted the greater part of its energies. Its work in this
field took various forms, some of which may be briefly described.

[Illustration: _From a photograph by Emery Walker_

G. BERNARD SHAW, IN 1889]

       *       *       *       *       *

We had started a lending library in boxes for our local societies, and
as these died away we offered the 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 educational
rather than directly propagandist, and each box is made up to suit the
taste, expressed or inferred, of the subscriber. Quarterly exchanges are
allowed, but 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 slight organisations as reading classes, and are sent even to
remote mining villages 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 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. Anyway 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
republished 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 this 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 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 providing expert advice on minor legal
matters has been a quiet service to the community constantly rendered by
the Society. The barristers amongst our members have freely given
assistance in the more difficult 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
country lecturing, died, and to our complete surprise it was found that
he had appointed Sidney Webb, whom he hardly knew personally, his
executor, and had left the residue of his estate, between £9000 and
£10,000, to five trustees--Sidney Webb, his daughter, myself, William
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 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 whatever can be known of economics and politics
taught on modern lines. Our old Universities provided lectures 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
founded, 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 volume. 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 Socialism, Trade Unionism,
Co-operation, Poor Law, Economics, and Economic 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 propagandist. 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. Shallard gave
a number of courses of lectures, without any very obvious results. 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 attendance 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 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 political 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 opposition, 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 are 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 representative of Socialism, but can organise his
   party well and is likely to poll sufficient 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 "throwing its weight against" a third candidate in a parliamentary
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
insurgents were defeated, after an exciting discussion, by 108 to 33.

       *       *       *       *       *

There is little 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 Executive in 1895; Bernard Shaw became a St. Pancras Vestryman
without a contest in 1897, an event rather of literary[30] than
political significance, and in 1898 he had a serious illness which kept
him out of the movement for nearly two years; whilst at the end of 1899
Sydney Olivier was appointed Colonial Secretary of Jamaica, and spent
most of the next fourteen 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 derisively regarded as expert in the politics
of the parish pump, an exponent of "gas and water Socialism," was forced
to consider its attitude towards the problems of Imperialism.

War was declared by President Kruger for the South African Republic on
October 11th, 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,"[31] But when war had come the
situation was entirely altered. The majority of the Society recognised
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 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,"[32] 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 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.
Hobson 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 Capitalism 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 Committee, moved a long
reasoned amendment declaring that a parliamentary 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. Thereupon 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 favour
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 and five on the other,
drafted by those members of the Executive who advocated each policy. On
the one hand it was argued that the Society should resist aggressive
capitalism and militarism, thus putting itself into line with
international socialism, 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 would 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 and Church Disestablishment as of the
nature of red herrings, matters of no real importance in comparison with
the economic enfranchisement which we advocated. 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 unit of administration, whether imperial, national, or
local, is germane to the question of the services to be administered;
that if the governmental machine is to be used for industry, that
machine must be modern 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 destroyed the Society. The passions of that
period were extraordinarily bitter. The 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 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 official
positions in the Society, had it adopted at that time the same policy as
the I.L.P. Happily tolerance prevailed, and although an attempt was made
to get up a big secession, 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 previous 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 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 difficult job, for at this
period all the official pronouncements 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 proofs 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 another 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 immense 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 members were present, each of whom was
entitled to move any amendment on 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
believe, 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 published as a shilling 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 1d. 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 efficiency 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). "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 Socialist 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 likes 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
lies in the quality of its civilisation, not in the magnitude of its
armaments.... 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 nationalism. 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 Switzerland and the vast United States the same fortune" (p. 46).

As for South Africa, "however ignorantly [our] politicians may argue
about it, reviling one another from the one side as brigands, and
defending themselves 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 civilisation 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 wielded irresponsibly by small
communities of frontiersmen. 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 available 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 immediately practicable character. The proposed partition of
China at that time seemed imminent, and our attention 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 revolutionised. "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 commercially 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 should 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 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": full civil rights, a living wage, adequate
superannuation after long service, and salaries for officers on the
civil scale. The other reforms advocated included a minimum wage for
labour, grants in aid for housing, freedom for municipal trading,
municipal 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 government is not
Conservatism, not Liberalism, not Imperialism, but brains and political
science" (p. 93).

[Illustration: GRAHAM WALLAS, IN 1891]

FOOTNOTES:

[30] Shaw has "vehemently protested" against this phrase, saying that he
"put in six years of hard committee work to the astonishment 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. Pancras.

[31] "Fabianism and the Empire," p. 26.

[32] "The Fabian Society and the War: reply by the majority of the
Executive Committee to the recent circular." (Circular on the referendum
mentioned later.)




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. Martin--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
Holywell 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 Council
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 maliciously
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.

Another undertaking was a conference on Housing. Although the first
public effort of the Society was its conference at South Place Chapel in
1886, this particular 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 acceptable 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 office
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
Parliament.

The Act of 1890 was singular in one respect. Part III 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 districts by the
Guardians, and later by Rural District Councils. Our Leaflet No. 63,
"Parish Council Cottages," issued in 1895, was almost the first
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 procedure in rural
districts, was promised by the Government; and the conference we called
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 preliminary 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
Relieve 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 and Its Remedy." Our agitation was not
without results. The amending Acts of 1900, 1903, and 1909 have done
much to remove the unnecessary administrative 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, remains 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 Council, 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 London 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 because he regarded them as
too favourable to sectarian 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 Principles"
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
abolition of School Boards, were adopted. Amendments 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 shortcomings
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
substantially the system of administration, established by the Act of
1902, under which present-day education is organised. The main
difference is 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 Councils 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 nonconformity
in control of half the elementary schools of the country. Socialists and
the vague labour section took the same view partly because they believed
theoretically in direct election for all purposes and partly because the
cumulative vote, intended to secure representation to minorities, gave
them better chances 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. Something 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 everywhere supplied, but this was a counsel
of perfection, and there was no time to wait for it. Then again the
distinction 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
authorities: 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 Annual 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 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 Conservative Government in their education policy
caused much surprise and attracted not a little attention. We had been
suspected 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 Nonconformists 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 Catholic 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 undertake elementary education, and the
School Board, like all other bodies in such circumstances, vehemently
objected to its own dissolution. The Board was efficient; 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 Bill thirteen amendments 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 should 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 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 advocated 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," published 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 earlier 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 its
Parliamentary Committee, in co-operation with the Socialist Societies,
to call a conference in order "to devise ways and means for securing an
increased number of Labour members in the next Parliament." In
accordance with this resolution the Society was invited to appoint two
representatives to meet the delegates of the Parliamentary 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 Representation 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
appointment." 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 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 remarkable 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 Society one, the alteration of the
rule has not in fact made any change, and the over-representation of
this section is of course undiminished.

Six months after the Labour Representation Committee 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 submitted by its author on behalf of
the Society to the Labour Representation Conference of 1901, but an
amendment both approving of the scheme and declaring that the time was
not ripe for it was carried. A year later however the Conference
unanimously agreed to establish its Parliamentary Fund by which salaries
for their M.P.'s were provided until Parliament itself undertook the
business.

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 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 Representation in Parliament, and the Fabian Society had
never run, and had never intended to run, candidates 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
responsibility 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, whilst
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 proposals
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, 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 should 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 constituted, 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 carrying no fewer than
twenty-nine of 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 increasing Socialist representation
in Parliament 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 decision to send a circular to every member
inviting promises to an election fund of at least £5,000, contributions
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 command--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
responsibility 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
Conservative, 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 successful, Sanders,
opposed by Lord Charles Beresford with an irresistible shipbuilding
programme, only obtaining 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 candidature 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 Chairman 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. All 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 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 until this reached 861. Then it slowly declined to 730 in
1904. This was symptomatic of a general lack of interest in Socialism.
The lectures and meetings were poorly attended, and the really important
debates which decided our educational policy 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 education policy he had found
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 commonly accompany the severance of
old associations. Mr. Wallas has remained a Fabian in all except name.
His friendship with his old colleagues has been unbroken, 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,[33] 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 English Industry"; in
1905 "The Revival of Agriculture, a national policy for Great Britain,"
the last named an extraordinarily farsighted 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 published 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 considerable share in drafting the
innumerable documents issued in connection with the education
controversy, 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 connection with the Fellowship of the New Life. He joined
the Executive when it was first enlarged in 1890, and sat until 1902. A
Somerset House official, like 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 policy 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 municipalisation of the Drink Trade. This was before the
publication of "The Temperance Problem and Social Reform," by Joseph
Rowntree and Arthur Sherwell, in 1899, a volume which was the first to
treat the subject scientifically on a large scale. I took the lead on
the question, and finally two tracts were published in 1898, "Liquor
Licensing at Home and Abroad" (No. 85), giving a sketch of the facts,
and "Municipal Drink Traffic" (No. 86), which set out a scheme drafted
by me, but substantially modified as the result 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 working 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 advocated
has yet been generally carried out.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Tariff Reform agitation could not pass unnoticed, and for a time
Bernard Shaw showed a certain inclination to toy with it. A tract
advocating Free Trade was actually set up, but got no further. Finally
Shaw drafted "Fabianism and the Fiscal Question An Alternative Policy"
(Tract 116), which we 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
consular service in the interests of export trade, free ocean transit
for the purpose of consolidating the Empire and nationalisation 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 anticipation of the triumph of
Liberalism, then so near, and Evidently expected that Mr. Chamberlain
would carry the country for his policy. The tract was also issued in a
shilling 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 that
temporary significance. When the Society was formed the Malthusian
hypothesis held the field unchallenged and the stock argument against
Socialism was that it would lead to universal misery by removing the
beneficent checks on the growth of population, imposed 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 terrifying but still substantial fear of
under-population, 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 voluntary
limitation of families? 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 accounted 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 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 subject, 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 difficulty, 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 11th and 18th, 1906, and
was subsequently reprinted by us as Tract 131, "The Decline of the
Birth-rate."

Other Committees at this period discussed Agriculture, 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 connection with their authors, H.W.
Macrosty and Hubert Bland, whilst others will be referred to in a future
chapter.

[Illustration: _From a copyright photograph by Lambert Weston and Son,
Folkestone_

H.G. WELLS, IN 1908 At the door of his house at Sandgate]

FOOTNOTES:

[33] Born 1865. Clerk in the Exchequer and Audit Dept. 1884, Assistant
Director of the Census of Production 1908. Author of "Trusts and the
State" (1901) and "The Trust Movement in British Industry" (1907).




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.[34] The
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. Wells 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 Undertakings,"
a paper subsequently published as an appendix 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 corner 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 time 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.

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 buildings 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
unwise." The self-effacive habits and insidious methods of the Society
were next criticised, and the writer exclaimed, "Make Socialists and you
will 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.
To effect the desired expansion the writer proposed to raise an income
of £1000 a year, to increase the staff, to prepare literature for the
conversion of unbelievers, 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 Committee 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 Committee 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 circumstances 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 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 anticipated 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 unrivalled
personality. 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 popular appeal. Everybody was thinking and talking politics;
every political conversation began or ended with that unknown 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. Anyway his proposal for an
enlarged and invigorated society came at the precise moment, when the
realisation of his project was in fact possible; and, of course, his own
vigorous and interesting personality 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 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 could
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 publications
was to be changed. Groups were to be revived in all localities (to be
called "Wandsworth 1, Wandsworth 2, Wandsworth 3," and so on), together
with Head-quarters groups, also numbered 1, 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. 1, let alone the others! A fixed minimum subscription payable on a
fixed date and a list of subscriptions to be published 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 public, a change which would have
required an editorial staff and extensive 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 Modern 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 Publishing, for
Propaganda, and General Purposes respectively. The last, to be entitled
the Directing Committee, was to meet frequently 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
Parliament 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 provided. The new Basis and the new name were matters
of emphasis and taste rather than anything 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
proposals, viz. that the Society should cease to treat membership as a
privilege, and should aim at increasing 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 Parliamentary Elections, was quite alien to Mr. Wells'
original ideas; it was forced on him, it is said, by other members of
his Committee and was described by himself later on as "secondary and
subordinate."[35]

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.[36]

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 publishing business
on the scale suggested could not be undertaken by an unincorporated
society; moreover, 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 Executive 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 proposed 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
Socialist weekly would be valuable, but it would not replace "Fabian
News," which was required for the internal purposes of the Society, and
capable journalists like 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 Socialist Party, and into the composition and policy of the
Labour Party, all admirably argued, but just a little 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, 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
unchanged 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 Socialist Party. At the end three
resolutions were set out, which the Executive submitted to the Society
for discussion.

How much of personality, how little 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 himself 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 understood 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 parliamentary duties to take much part
in the affair. All the rest, except 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
enormously 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 11th and 18th, February 1st 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 resolution 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 discussion. On the first clause of the
next resolution, instructing the Executive to submit amendments to the
Rules for increasing their number to twenty-five, 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
earliest 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 experienced opponents by
virtually challenging the society to discard them and enter on a
regenerated career under 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 proposition 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 accusation 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 appreciative audience in a state of extreme excitement. A long
report pacifically toned down by Shaw himself, appears in "Fabian News"
(January, 1907). It succeeded in its object. The Executive Committee
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 discussion. 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 political 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 publication." 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 children, though exactly what he proposed was
never clear. He offered to the Society his little book on "Socialism and
the Family," subsequently published by Mr. Fifield, but the Executive
Committee declined it precisely because of its vagueness: they were not
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 well-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 vagueness 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.[37]

Clause (b) was another matter. Nobody objected to the principle of
this, but many demurred to inserting 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
Socialists, 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. Certainly 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 11th, 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. The 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 18th the debate on the Executive resolutions was resumed, and
it was resolved to increase the Executive Committee to twenty-one, to
form three standing Sub-Committees, and to abolish the old restrictions
on membership. On February 1st the debate on Political 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
question; 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 report.

       *       *       *       *       *

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 Webb, H.G.
Wells, 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
distinction 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 payment by the candidates of the cost of
printing. In addition numerous 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 candidates 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. 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 rôle 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 office he attended only seven.

In April, 1908, he was re-elected to the Executive, again fourth on the
poll, 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 concentrate
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
compensation" 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[38]), 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 on other effects of the agitation. I
have indicated that the actual proposals made by the Special Committee
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
appropriately, 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 remember 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
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,
could 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 persuaded them to invite any member to send in
manuscripts.

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 will 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 list 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 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.

[Illustration: _From a drawing by Jessie Holliday_

SIDNEY WEBB, IN 1909]

FOOTNOTES:

[34] 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 effecting this
was adopted by the Society. In May, 1908, Mr. Wells, writing to "Fabian
News," said he should resign if the Society rejected 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.

[35] In his election address referred to on p. 179.

[36] Private.--Report of the special Committee appointed in February,
1906, to consider measures for increasing 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 14th December, 1906, at 7.30 p.m. The Fabian
Society. November, 1906 (pp. 48).

[37] See his "New Worlds for Old," Chapter III, The First Main
Generalisation 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 sufficiently protect children from
negligent, incompetent, 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 undertaken is a service as well as a
duty to the world ... in any completely civilised state it must be
sustained, rewarded, and controlled...."

Except for the last three words all this is neither new nor
controversial amongst not merely Socialists but the mildest of social
reformers, always excepting the Charity Organisation Society. The last
word is not, I think, further explained.

[38] 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 off; 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."




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 unprecedented 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 consisted 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 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 dull 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 assisting in social functions. The Rev. R.J.
Campbell, who addressed large meetings on several occasions, as 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 Garnett, 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 proceedings, beyond paying
the necessary subscription, but others lectured or wrote for the Society
or participated 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. Südekum (German M.P.),
Sir John Cockburn, 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 organisation was established.
Members spontaneously associated 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
numerous 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 glorious 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 profession and the complex law which
regulates it. The Education Group has led a diligent and useful life; it
prepared a tract (No. 156), "What an Education Committee can do
(Elementary Schools)," and besides its private meetings it arranges
occasional lectures open to the public, which sometimes attract large
audiences.

The Nursery 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 talk,
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 "Wells 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 especially the party led by Mrs. Pankhurst, had attracted
universal 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 politics. 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 remoter 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,
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; Liverpool 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 membership 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, 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 produced
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 accomplished a
little by their influence on local administration. 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 represented 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 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
important 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 and University College,
Aberystwyth, maintained flourishing societies. The newer Universities,
dependent 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 influence
of wealth, or rather the fear of alarming the wealthy, has at times
induced the authorities to interfere with the freedom of the
undergraduates to combine for the study and propaganda of Socialism.

Undergraduate societies are composed of a constantly 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
undergraduate 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 fashionable
organisation. On the whole it is true that Socialists are born 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
paper--was in 1914, when it reached 541 members, of whom 101 were at
Oxford and 70 at Cambridge. But the weakness of undergraduate Socialism
is indicated by the extraordinary difficulty found in paying to the
parent Society the very moderate fee of a shilling a head per annum, and
the effect of attempting to enforce this in 1915, combined with the
propaganda of Guild Socialism, especially at Oxford, was for the moment
to break up the apparently imposing array of University Fabianism.

In 1912 Clifford Allen of Cambridge formed the University Socialist
Federation, which was in fact a Federation of Fabian Societies though
not nominally confined to them. Mr. Allen, 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 organisations in every University. It
still 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 revolutionised by the County Councils Act of 1888, the
Local Government Act of 1894, and the London Government Act of 1899
which established the Metropolitan 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 assumes some
approach to equality amongst constituents. 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 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 qualified 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 function 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 earlier 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
importance 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 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 affiliation 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 delegates in all.
Resolutions against promoting parliamentary candidatures and favouring
the by this time vanishing 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 1911 Conference, held at Clifford's
Inn, who, after rejecting by a seven to one majority a resolution to
confine Fabian membership to Labour Party adherents, devoted themselves
mainly to opposition to the National Insurance Bill then before
Parliament.

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, fêtes,
picnics, teas, and functions of all sorts in order to bring together
their numbers under such conditions as enable them to become personally
acquainted with each other. In times of expansion the Fabian Society
has held dinners and soirées in London, many of which have been
successful and even brilliant 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, gatherings 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 solitary intellectually because they live
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 proportion of
work to play is higher. The School-house 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 Hankinson,
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 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 experience 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 Catholic 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 would ultimately return to the fold. The League ceased
to count when at the end of 1890 William Morris left it and
reconstituted as the Hammersmith 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 and Bernard Shaw
should draft a Joint Manifesto. The "Manifesto of English Socialists,"
published 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
   "necessitous").

   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 irrespective of
work; and in the meantime payment according to need, each to receive
that share of the national product 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 employed in Government and
   Municipal services or in any monopolies such as railways enjoying
   State privileges.

   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 equality 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 liberty 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 Manifesto, drafted by
William 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, respectable, 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 constituent societies to concentrate their
efforts on Socialist candidates accepted as suitable by the Joint
Committee. 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 outstanding 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 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 meeting, held in July, announced that they
were instructed to withdraw from the Committee if the Fabian delegates
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 piecemeal 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 authorities 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 invited 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 to receive both "Fabian
News" and the official publications of the I.L.P., other than their
weekly newspaper. The Bureau also published annual Reports, at first 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
literature 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 unions, 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
organisations, 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 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 members 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 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
inappropriate. 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 Congresses 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 organisation was tightened up, and in 1907 a scheme was
adopted which gave twenty votes each to the leading nations, and
proportionately fewer to the others. Moreover a permanent Bureau was
established at Brussels, with Emile Vandervelde, the distinguished
leader of the Belgian Socialists, later well known in England as the
Ministerial representative of the Belgian Government during the war, as
Chairman. In England, where the Socialist and Trade Union forces were
divided, it was necessary to constitute a special joint committee in
order to raise the British quota of the cost of the Bureau, and to
elect and instruct the British delegates. It was decided by the Brussels
Bureau that the 20 British votes should be allotted, 10 to the Labour
Party, 4 to the I.L.P., 4 to the British Socialist Party (into which the
old S.D.F. had merged), and 2 to the Fabian Society, and the British
Section of the International Socialist Bureau was, and still remains,
constituted financially and electorally on that basis.

In France and in several other countries the internal differences
between sections of the Socialist Party have been carried to far greater
lengths than have ever been known in England. In France there have been
hostile groups of Socialist representatives in the Chamber of Deputies
and constant internecine opposition in electoral campaigns. 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 parliamentary candidates. On
the other hand co-operation on particular problems and exchange of
courtesies have been common.

The International Socialist Bureau, under instructions from the
Copenhagen Conference had made a successful attempt to unite the warring
elements of French Socialism, and in the autumn of 1912 the three
British Socialist Societies were approached with a view to a conference
with the Bureau on the subject of Socialist unity 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 Party; and it was agreed that the three Socialist
bodies should form a United Socialist Council, subject to the condition
that the British Socialist Party should affiliate to the Labour Party.

In December, 1913, a formal conference was held in London, attended on
this occasion by all the members of the International Socialist 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 Council 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[39].

Then came the War. The Labour Party Conference of 1915 did not take
place, and a sudden new divergence of opinion arose in the Socialist
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 attitude 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] The Labour Party Conference held in January, 1916, unanimously
accepted the affiliation of the British Socialist Party.




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 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.


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.

[Illustration: MRS. SIDNEY WEBB, IN 1909]

It must however be observed that in all their achievements it is
impossible to make a clear distinction between Mrs. Webb and her
husband. For example, the Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission,
shortly to be dealt with, purported to be the work of Mrs. Webb and
her three co-signatories. In fact the investigation, the invention, and
the conclusions 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 scrutiny 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. 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 volumes, 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 Departments which try
conclusions with the Fabian Society generally find the Society better
informed than themselves; and we were able triumphantly to refer the
Treasury Solicitor to a published declaration of his own employers, the
Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, a score of years before, in which
they expressly 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
copyright, 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 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 wholly 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
practicable 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 Unemployed, 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.

English Socialists have always paid great and perhaps excessive
attention to the problem of unemployment. 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 community had become acutely aware of it. In our
early days it was commonly believed to be a rapidly growing 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.
Anyway, 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, unemployment 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 Lancashire and Yorkshire were far
away from London, and the nation as a whole knew little and cared less
about hard times amongst cotton operatives or iron-workers in the remote
north.

It may be said with fair accuracy that Unemployment 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
unemployment is so recent as to have actually been unknown before the
early nineties[40].

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
abolish 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 everywhere 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 Government 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 practical problem is not solved or
even thoroughly understood; the plausible error of supposing that the
unemployed 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 Burns, and
we had published nothing else.

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 Socialists, 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 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 skilled 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 profession 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 Committee 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 had mentioned before she left that she was
willing 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 Committee, 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 possibilities, 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 activities 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 country was the right of 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 policy, and with its old exponents,
was not yet dispelled. A new generation was knocking at the door, and
some of the old 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 unanimous on this policy, and at the Annual Meeting one
of them, Henry H. Slesser, led the opposition 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 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 16th, 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 policy, whether or not it was exactly of his own choice;
but in his capacity of private member his unrivalled influence is
occasionally 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!

       *       *       *       *       *

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 reprinted by the Society as
Tract No. 135, had probably 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 rôle 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 great measure of social reform, and to
advocate amendments which they deemed improvements. The Fabian Society
attacked the Bill with hostile amendments, prophesied all sorts of
calamities as certain to result from it: magnified its administrative
difficulties, and generally encouraged the duchesses and farmers who
passively resisted it; but their endeavour to defeat the Bill 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
Committee 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, like 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."[41] The campaign of the Committee lasted a year,
and as usual in such cases led to a good deal of somewhat heated
controversy 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 Clifford 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 elected to fight the battle of political policy on point of
detail, until in July, 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 embodying their policy was defeated by 122 to 27 and after the
holiday season the Reform Committed announced that their mission was
accomplished and their organisation had been disbanded[42].

"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 conclusion that the work of
the National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution could not be
carried on 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
Government 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.D. Harben, and the Webbs, with a few other
friends, established the "New Statesman," with Clifford Sharp as editor.
This weekly review is not the organ of the Society, 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 publishing 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 recognised 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 earlier 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.

The "Committees of Inquiry" then formed took up two subjects, the
"Control of Industry" and "Land Problems and Rural Development." The
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 Department 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 capitalist
system. Co-operation in all its forms, the resistances of Trade
Unionism, the effects of professional organisations, such as those of
the Teachers and of the Engineers, and all varieties of State and
Municipal 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 problem of the Control of Industry had become 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 collectivists, wherein the
workman, it is said, would be a wage-slave to officials of the State, as
he is now to officials of the capitalists. 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 consumers, 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 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. His book on
Trade Unionism, entitled "The World of Labour," published at the end of
1913, attracted much attention, and he threw himself with great energy
into the Trade Union enquiry of the Research Department, 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 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,"
published in "Fabian News" for April, 1915, laid down that the object of
the Society should 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 associate with, any organisation opposed to that movement of
which this Society had declared itself a part. The Executive Committee
published 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.

This episode brings the history of the Society down to the present
date, and I shall conclude this chapter with a brief account 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 officer 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 accommodation 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 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 1914 Bernard Shaw gave another course
of six at Kingsway Hall on the "Redistribution of Income," in which he
developed the thesis that the economic goal of Socialism is equality of
income for all. Lastly, in 1915 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 members 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 anything 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. All 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 born since the 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 pronouncement 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 Allen, 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
undertaken 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.

[Illustration: EDWARD R. PEASE, IN 1913]

FOOTNOTES:

[40] 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.

[41] Manifesto on Fabian Policy issued by the Fabian Reform Committee, 4
pp., 4to, November 28th, 1911.

[42] "Fabian News," November, 1912.




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.


The Fabian Society was founded for the purpose of reconstructing Society
in accordance with the highest moral possibilities. This is still the
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 will be remembered that the
original phrase was altered by the insertion of the words "to help on"
when the constitution was actually formulated. Society has not yet been
reconstructed, but the Fabians have done something towards its
reconstruction, and my history will be incomplete without an attempt to
indicate what the Society has already 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 altogether failed to recognise the
greatness of Marx during his lifetime, but every year that passes adds
strength to the conviction that the broad principles he promulgated will
guide the evolution of society during the present century. Marx
demonstrated the moral bankruptcy of commercialism and formulated the
demand for the communal ownership and organisation of industry; and it
is hardly possible to exaggerate the value of this service to humanity.
But no man is 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 Interpretation of History,
seemed to them the incontestible premises which necessarily led to his
political conclusions. This misapprehension would not have much mattered
had they allowed themselves freedom of thought. Socialism, as first
preached to the English people by the Social Democrats, was as narrow,
as bigoted, as exclusive as the strictest of Scotch religious 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 this intellectual
bondage, and freed it sooner and more completely than "Revisionists"
have succeeded in doing anywhere else.

Accepting the great principle that the reconstruction of society to be
worked for is the ownership and control of industry by the community,
the Fabians refused to regard as articles of faith either the economic
and historic analyses which Marx made use of or the political evolution
which he predicted.

Socialism in England remained the 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 leaders, that Socialism was a
living principle which could be applied to existing social and political
conditions 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 nowadays that the real battles of
Socialism are fought in committee rooms at Westminster 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 outstanding leader,
and has always refrained from electing a president or permanent
chairman. There never has been a Fabian orthodoxy, because no one was in
a position to assert what the true faith was.

Freedom of thought was without doubt obtained for English Socialists by
the Fabians. How far the world-wide revolt against Marxian orthodoxy had
its origin in England is another and more difficult question. In his
study of the Fabian Society[43] M. Édouard 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 Socialistes, les Fabiens out inauguré le
mouvement de critique antimarxiste: à une époque oû les dogmes du maître
étaient considérés comme intangibles, les Fabiens out prétendu que l'on
pouvait se dire socialiste sans jamais avoir lu le Capital ou en en
désapprouvant la teneur; par opposition à Marx ils out ressuscité
l'esprit de Stuart Mill et sur tous les points ils se sont attaqués à
Marx, guerre des classes et materialisme historique, catastrophisme et
avant tout la question de la valeur-travail."[44]

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
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 political 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 Germany he published in 1899 a volume
criticising Marxism,[45] and thence grew up the Revisionist movement 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 Democratic 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 opportunities has had to face the actual problems of modern
politics. These could not be solved by quotations from a German
philosopher, and liberty has been gained by force of circumstances.
Nevertheless in many countries, such as Russia and the United States,
even now, or at any rate until very recent years, the freedom of action
of Socialist parties has been impeded by excessive respect for the
opinions of the Founder, and Socialist thought has been sterilised,
because it was assumed that Marx had completed the philosophy of
Socialism, and the business of Socialists was not to think for
themselves, but 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, English Socialism had to be formulated
to take its place. This has been the life-work of the Fabian Society,
the working out of the application of the broad principles of Socialism
to the industrial and political environment of England. I say England
advisedly, because the industrial and political conditions of Scotland
are in some degree different, and the application of the principles of
Socialism to Ireland has not yet been seriously attempted. But for
England "Fabian Essays" and the Fabian Tracts are by general consent the
best expositions of the meaning and working 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 evolutionary side was
essential to it; the idea of revolutionary catastrophe is almost an
excrescence. But to the Marxians (of whom Marx once observed that he was
not one) this 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 principle already in part embodied
in the constitution of society, gradually extending its influence
because it harmonised with the needs and desires of men in countries
where the large industry prevails.

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, had its origin decades before
the Society was founded, and all that the Fabian Society did was to
explain its social implications and advocate its wider extension. The
same is true of the whole Fabian political policy. Socialism in English
politics grew up because 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. The Ten Hours Act of 1847 was described by
Marx himself as "the victory of a principle," that is, of "the political
economy of the working class."[46] That victory was frequently repeated
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
everywhere 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 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 explanation 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 nation, 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, unless there are agitators with the ability to
attract public 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.
Municipal ownership is a further step, but even this will not carry us
far because the capital suitable for municipal management 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 capitalists who are always expropriated with ample compensation.

We have made some progress along another line. Supertax, death duties,
and taxes on unearned increment do a little to diminish the wealth of
the few: old age pensions, national insurance, and workmen's
compensation do something towards mitigating the poverty of the 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. Time
alone will show whether progress is to be along existing lines, whether
the power of the owners of capital over the wealth it helps to create
and over the lives of the workers whom it enslaves will gradually fade
away, as the power of our kings over the Government of our country has
faded, the form remaining when the substance has vanished, or whether
the community will at last consciously accept the teaching of Socialism,
setting itself definitely to put an end to large-scale private
capitalism, and undertaking itself the direct control of industry. The
intellectual outlook is bright; the principles of Socialism are already
accepted by a sensible proportion of the men and women in all classes
who take the trouble to think, and if we must admit that but little has
yet been done, we may well believe that in the fullness of time our
ideas will prevail. The present war is giving the old world a great
shake, and an era of precipitated reconstruction 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 it has not yet found much place in weightier
compilation. 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."[47] 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[48] has said Webb was the Bentham and Shaw
the Mill.[49] Without assigning rôles 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.[50] In either case we have a small circle of thinkers and
investigators in quiet touch with politicians: in either case we have a
'permeation' of general opinion by the ideas of these thinkers and
investigators.... 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."[51]

Mr. Barker next explains that "Fabianism has its own political creed, if
it is a political creed consequential 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 unearned 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 interconnected 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 misinterpretation of Fabian
doctrine it may be well to take this opportunity of refuting the error.
He says that Fabianism advocates the socialisation 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 unearned
incomes, and thus the State is to be endowed, not with rents alone, but
with all unearned incomes.[52] 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 modern system
of distribution, 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 enterprise and ability have
actually created their vast fortunes.[53] Indeed we might say that we do
not mind conceding to our opponents all the wealth "created" by superior
brains, if they will let us deal with the unearned incomes which are
received independent of the possession of any brains, or any services at
all!

But although we regard the case of the capitalist 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 incomes should pay a larger proportion in
income-tax, that property which passes at death, necessarily to those
who have not earned it, should contribute a large quota to the public
purse, and that unearned increment on land should in part belong to the
public--that does not mean that we have any tenderness for the
entrepreneur. Him we propose to deal with by the favourite Fabian method
of municipalisation and nationalisation. We take over his "enterprise,"
his gasworks and waterworks, his docks and trams, his railways and
mines. We secure for the State the profits of management and the future
unearned increment, and we compensate him for his capital with
interest-bearing securities. We force him in fact to become the idle
recipient of unearned income, and then we turn round and upbraid him and
tax him heavily precisely because his income is unearned! If there is
any special tenderness in this treatment, I should prefer harshness. To
me it seems to resemble the policy of the wolf towards the lamb.[54]

I will proceed with quotations from Mr. 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 exceptional and
exceptionally large aristocracy. Those opponents of Fabianism who desire
something more revolutionary than its political 'meliorism' and
'palliatives' accuse it of alliance with bureaucracy. They 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
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 local civil service in close touch with and under the control of
a really democratic municipal government. 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 permeate all classes, from the top to
the bottom, with a common opinion in favour of social control of
socially created values. Resolved 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. Reformist rather than
revolutionary, it has explained the impossibility of the sudden
'revolution' of the working classes against capital: it has urged the
necessity of a gradual amelioration of social conditions by a gradual
assertion of social control over unearned increment.[55] 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
the society which is to exert control must be democratic, if the control
is to be, as it must be, self-control: it has taught that such
democratic self-control must primarily be exerted in democratic local
self-government: it has emphasised the need 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 has
adopted the sound position that democracy flourishes in that form of
state in which people freely produce, thanks to an equality of
educational opportunity, and freely choose, thanks to a wide and active
suffrage, their own members for their guidance, and, since they have
freely produced and chosen them, give them freely and fully the honour
of their trust. And thus Socialists like Mr. Sidney 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 plebiscite, of referendum and initiative--is not the doctrine of
the best English Socialism." 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 Socialists 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 English political thought, rather than to offer my own
necessarily prejudiced opinion of its achievements.

       *       *       *       *       *

But I must revert again to the Fabian "method." "Make Socialists," said
Mr. Wells in "Faults of the Fabian," "and you will 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, Socialism has made but little progress in England, since the
number who profess and call 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.

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
effective 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 Socialism will be soaking
through it all, changing without a sign,"[56] 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 Policy" (1896).


"THE MISSION OF THE FABIANS

The object of the Fabian Society is to persuade the English people to
make their political constitution thoroughly democratic and so to
socialise their industries as to make the livelihood of the people
entirely independent of private capitalism.

The Fabian Society endeavours to pursue its Socialist and Democratic
objects with complete singleness of aim. For example:--

It has no distinctive opinions on the Marriage Question, Religion, Art,
abstract Economics, historic Evolution, Currency, or any other subject
than its own special business of practical Democracy and Socialism.

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 deliberately 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 membership, 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. Hyndman 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
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 universal affection and respect amongst the members of the Society
he created. Of the seven Essayists who virtually founded the Fabian
Society only one is still 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
Socialist 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 particular, 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 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 movement for a form of
Socialist Unity had at last almost achieved success, when a new factor,
the European War, interposed. After the war these negotiations will
doubtless be resumed, and the three Socialist Societies will find
themselves more closely allied 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 propaganda of Socialism continues--and that perhaps is not
a matter of certainty--it seems to me improbable that it will 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 four years ago, and he goes on to indicate that
it has been replaced by an anti-state propaganda, taking various forms,
Syndicalism, Guild Socialism, and the Distributivism of Mr. Belloc. It
is true that Fabianism of the old type is not the last event in the
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
Railwaymen'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 formula will summarise or
circumscribe its infinite variety.[57]

       *       *       *       *       *

The work of the Fabian Society has been not to make Socialists, but to
make Socialism. I think it may be said that the dominant opinion in the
Society--at any rate it is my opinion--is that great social changes can
only come by consent. The Capitalist system cannot be overthrown by a
revolution or by a parliamentary 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 by a change of heart of the
community, by a general recognition, already half realised, that
whatever makes for the more equitable distribution of wealth is good;
that whatever benefits the working class benefits the nation; that the
rich exist only on sufferance, and deserve no more than painless
extinction; that the capitalist is a servant of the public, and too
often over-paid for the services that he renders.

Again, Socialism succeeds because it is common sense. The anarchy of
individual production is already an anachronism. The control of the
community over itself extends every day. We demand order, method,
regularity, design; the accidents of sickness and misfortune, of old age
and bereavement, must be prevented if possible, and if not, mitigated.
Of this principle the public is already convinced: it is merely a
question of working out the details. But order and forethought is wanted
for industry as well as for human life. Competition is bad, and in most
respects private monopoly is worse. No one now seriously defends the
system of rival traders with their crowds of commercial travellers: of
rival tradesmen with their innumerable deliveries in each street; and
yet no one advocates the capitalist alternative, the great trust, often
concealed and insidious, which monopolises oil or tobacco or diamonds,
and makes huge profits for a fortunate; few out of the helplessness of
the unorganised consumers.

But neither the idle rich class nor the anarchy of competition is so
outstanding an evil as the poverty of the poor. We aim at making the
rich poorer chiefly in order to make the poor richer. Our first tract,
"Why are the Many Poor?" struck the keynote. In a century of abounding
wealth England still has in its midst a hideous mass of poverty which is
too appalling to think of. That poverty, we say, is preventible. That
poverty was the background of our thoughts when the Society was founded.
Perhaps we have done a little to mitigate it: we believe we have done
something to make clear the way by which it may ultimately be abolished.
We do not constantly talk of it. We write of the advantages of Municipal
Electricity, of the powers of Parish Councils, of the objections to the
Referendum; but all the while it is that great evil which chiefly moves
us, and by our success or our failure in helping on the reconstruction
of society for the purpose of abolishing poverty, the work of the Fabian
Society must ultimately be judged.

FOOTNOTES:

[43] "La Société Fabienne et le Mouvement socialiste anglais
contemporain." By Édouard Pfeiffer, Paris, F. Giard and E. Brière, 1911;
an excellent volume but full of errors.

[44] "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 all the theory of value."

[45] Published in English by the Independent Labour Party in 1909 as
"Evolutionary Socialism."

[46] Address to the International, 1862, quoted from Spargo's "Karl
Marx," p. 266.

[47] Home University Library, Williams and Norgate, 1915, 1s.

[48] 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.

[49] I quote, but do not endorse the opinion that G.B.S. markedly
resembles James Mill (Mr. Barker confuses the two Mills). Beer adds
"Webb was the thinker, Shaw the fighter." This antithesis is scarcely
happy. The collaboration of the two is much too complicated to be summed
up in a phrase.

[50] But see chapter VIII for its influence before 1906; and see
Appendix 1. A. for a much fuller discussion of this subject.

[51] 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 investigators 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.

[52] Mr. Barker erroneously uses the word "increment" for "income" in
several places. Unearned increment is quite another thing.

[53] See "Socialism and Superior Brains: a reply to Mr. Mallock," by
G.B. Shaw. Fabian Tract 146.

[54] Mr. Barker emphasises the "discrimination advocated by the Fabians"
in favour of profits in a later passage (p. 224) not here quoted.

[55] This should read "incomes."

[56] "Faults of the Fabian," p. 9.

[57] See Appendix I. B.




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 quickly 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 proprietorship 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 Individualism than Das Kapital ever
was of English Socialism. 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; as one of the
Fabian Essays, and declared that I had advocated nationalisation 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 impressively as his apparently mild and judicial
temperament made the incident so unexpected that his friends who had not
actually witnessed it were with difficulty persuaded that it had really
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
Individualist 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
unexpectedly, 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 Commercialism, as dust in the balance,
nevertheless condemned Communism, he immediately became a Communist, as
Mill had clearly given his verdict against the evidence. Except in these
instances we heard nothing of Mill in the Fabian Society. Cairnes'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 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 remained 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 Philip Wicksteed, the well-known Dante commentator, then a popular
Unitarian minister, brought me to a standstill by a criticism of Marx
which I did not understand. This was the first appearance in Socialist
controversy of the value theory of Jevons, published in 1871. Professor
Edgeworth and Mr. Wicksteed, to whom 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 mathematician, was not
easily accessible to their methods of demonstration. I consented to
reply to Mr. Wicksteed on the express condition that the editor of
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 contained
the germ of the economic argument for equality of income which I put
forward twenty-five years later, elicited only 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 economists, 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 capitalism, as instances of frankness upon which no
modern 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 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 Guernsey 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 modern historical concrete
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 Impossibilities 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 published. Their delivery 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 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 modern writers, though interesting, were not fundamental. 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 propagandist 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 Socialist
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 publish
Richard Wagner's Art and Revolution, 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 flat 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
political business; but, to put it bluntly, they make themselves
ridiculous and attract undesirables when they affect art and philosophy.
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
Socialism; 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 overthrown 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 like Charles Bradlaugh or agnostics like Herbert
Spencer, whilst Communism claims Jesus as an exponent; still, if the
question 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 generally preaching themselves on Sundays.
To describe 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 Wells
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) William 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, 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-governing workshop of the primitive co-operators. Guild Socialism,
with the emphasis on the Socialism, 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, under 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 Socialists as the arch
Collectivist, is herself conducting an investigation into the existing
control of industry by professional organizations, whilst the quondam
Guild Socialists are struggling 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 fitters, are organized in a single union of the
entire industry. There is work enough for many years to some 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 Syndicalism 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 socialization 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 democracy, 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 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 licence 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 meetings to momentary and foolish
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 appropriation, 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 community 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._[58] 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[58] The words in italics were added in 1907. See page 177.




Appendix III

List of the names and the years of office of the ninety-six members of
the Executive Committee, 1884-1915


The full term of office 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 resignation, 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, 1898-1903.
Atkinson, Miss Mabel, 1909 to date.

Ball, 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, William, 1888-91.
Cole, G.D.H., 1914-15.

Davies, Emil, 1911 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 1911 to date.

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.
Garnett, 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., 1890-1; 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.
Mallet, 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, 1896-8.
Morten, Miss Honor, 1895-8.
Muggeridge, H.T., 1903-5.
Murby, Miss M.B., 1907-13.

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.
Phillips, 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, Clifford D., 1909-14.
Shaw, G. Bernard, 1885-1911.
Shaw, Mrs. Bernard (Miss Payne Townshend), 1898-1915.
Slesser, Henry H., 1910-14.
Smith, Miss Ellen, 1915 to date.
Snell, Harry, 1912 to date.
Snowden, Mrs. Philip, 1908-9.
Sparling, H. Halliday, 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 Department, etc., 1908-12.
Whelen, Frederick, 1896-1901; 1902-4.
Williams, Ernest E., 1893-4.
Wilson, Mrs. C.M., 1885-7; 1911-15.
Wood, Mrs. Esther, 1902-3.




Appendix IV

Complete List of Fabian Publications, 1884-1915, 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 publication 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). 12 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_.


1890.

11. The Workers' Political Programme. 20 pp. _Sidney Webb_.

12. Practical Land Nationalisation. 4 pp. _Do_.

13. What Socialism Is. 4 pp. _Bernard Shaw_.

14. The New Reform Bill. 20 pp. _J.F. Oakeshott and others_.

15. English Progress towards Social Democracy. 16 pp. Sidney Webb.

16. A Plea for an Eight Hours Bill. 4 pp. _Sidney Webb_.

17. Reform of the Poor Law. 20 pp. Sidney Webb.

18. Facts for Bristol. 20 pp. _(Sir) Hartmann W. Just_.

19. 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_.


1891.

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_ (1st 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. _Sidney Webb_.

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. 1.


1892.

39. A Democratic Budget. 16 pp. _J.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! Vote! 2 pp. _Bernard Shaw_.


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 Burns.

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 Samuel_.*

54. Humanising of the Poor Law. 24 pp. J.F. Oakeshott.

55. The Workers' School Board Programme. 20 pp. _J.W. Martin_.

56. Questions for Parish Council Candidates. 4 pp. _(Rt. Hon.) Herbert
Samuel_.*

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.
_J.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. Galton_.

66. A Program for Workers. 2 pp. _Edw. R. Pease_.


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. Henlé.

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_.


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). _S.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 Relieve it. 52 pp. Various.

102. Questions for Candidates: Metropolitan Borough Councils. 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 Efficiency.
16 pp. Sidney Webb.


1902.

109. Cottage Plans and Common Sense. 16 pp. Raymond Unwin.

110. 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.*


1904.

116. 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.


1906.

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 Dearmer, 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 Carpenter.


1908.

137. Parish Councils and Village Life. 28pp. Revised version of No. 105.

138. Municipal Trading. 20 pp. _Aylmer Maude_.

139. Socialism and the Churches. 16 pp. Rev. John Clifford, 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. Clifford 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.

159. The Necessary Basis of Society. 12 pp. Sidney Webb.

160. A National Medical Service. 20 pp. F. Lawson Dodd.


1912.

161. Afforestation and Unemployment. 16 pp. Arthur P. Grenfell.

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 Municipal Autonomy.
12 pp. Sidney Webb.

173. Public versus Private Electricity Supply. 20 pp. C. Ashmore Baker.*


1914.

174. Charles Kingsley and Christian Socialism. 28 pp. Colwyn E. Vulliamy.

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. Socialism and the Arts of Use. 16 pp. A. Clutton Brock.

178. The War; Women; and Unemployment. 28 pp. The Women's Group Executive.




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. 1st edition,
6s. Subsequent editions published by 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. 1s.

Fabianism and the Empire. A Manifesto by the Fabian Society. Edited by
Bernard Shaw. pp. 101. Grant Richards. 1900. 1s.

Fabianism and the Fiscal Question: An Alternative Policy. Special
edition of Tract 116; with a preface by Bernard Shaw. pp. 39. 1904. 1s.

This Misery of Boots. By H.G. Wells. Cover designed by A.G. Watts, pp.
48. 1907. 3d.

Tract Index and Catalogue Raisonné of Tracts Nos. 1 to 139. Pp. 35.
1908. 3d.

Those Wretched Rates, a dialogue. By F.W. Hayes, pp. 16. 1908. 1d.

Ballads and Lyrics of Socialism, 1883-1908. By E. Nesbit (Mrs. Hubert
Bland), pp. 80. A.C. Fifield. 1908. 6d. and 1s.

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. 1s. By
_Sidney_ and _Beatrice Webb_.

A Summary of Six Papers and Discussions upon the Disabilities of Women
as Workers.

The writers of the papers: Miss Emma Brooke, Dr. Constance Long,* Mrs.
Ernestine Mills, Mrs. Gallichan (G. Gasquoine Hartley), Miss Millicent
Murby, Dr. Ethel Bentham.

Issued for private circulation only by the Fabian Women's Group, pp. 24.
1909.

Summary of Eight Papers and Discussions upon the Disabilities 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. 1910. 1s.

Songs for Socialists, compiled by the Fabian Society. A.C. Fifield.
1912. 3d.

The Rural Problem. By Henry D. Harben. pp. 169. Constable 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+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. 1s. 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 published, 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. 1908.

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.

V. The Common Sense of Municipal 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 Insurance
   Committee. March 14, 1914. 32 pp. folio, 1s.

   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, 1s.

   Industrial Insurance. March 13, 1915. 32 pp. folio, 1s.

   State and Municipal Enterprise. Draft Report. By Mr. and Mrs. Sidney
   Webb. May 8, 1915. 32 pp. folio, 1s.

   Suggestions for the Prevention of War.

   Part I. By L.S. Woolf. July 10, 1915. 24 pp. folio, 1s.

   Part II. By the International Agreements Committee July 17, 1915. 8
   pp. folio, 1s.

   English Teachers and their Professional Organisation. Monograph by
   Mrs. Sidney Webb.

   Part I. September 25, 1915. 24 pp. folio. 6d.

   Part II. October 2, 1915. 24 pp. folio. 6d.

Labour Year Book, 1915-16, issued under the auspices of the
Parliamentary Committee of the Trade Union Congress, the Executive
Committee of the Labour Party, and the Fabian Research Department. 1915.
704 pp. 1s., and 2s. 6d.




Index

Of the principal references to people and subjects


A

Agriculture, 15, 47, 157, 228
Alden, Percy, 153, 172, 231
Allen, Clifford, 195, 225, 234
Anarchism, 49, 53, 66
Arts Group, The, 188


B

Balfour, Rt. Hon. Arthur J., 45, 142
Ball, Sidney, 103, 180, 183
Barker, Ernest, 244, 258
Barker, Granville, 180, 186
Barnett, Canon, 16
Basis, The Fabian, 71, 169, 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;
  lecture, 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
Burns, Rt. Hon. John, 67, 83, 110, 217
Butler, Samuel, 105


C

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. Will, 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
Ellis, Havelock, 29, 36
Ensor, R.C.K., 180, 221
Evolution, 15, 17


F

"Facts for Londoners," 80
"Facts for Socialists," 69
"Fair Wages," 109, 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, 195
Guild Socialism, 230, 254


H

Haldane, Lord, 74, 111
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
Hyndman, H.M., 24, 38, 51, 202, 252


I

Ibsen, 94
Imperialism, 135
Independent Labour Party, 63, 97, 101, 129, 202
Industrial Remuneration Conference, 44
"Intercepted Letter, An," 118
International Socialist Congress, 126, 209


J

Jevons, Stanley, 260
Joint Standing Committee, 202


K

"Kapital, Das," 24, 64, 236, 258
Keddell, Frederick, 31, 52
Kropotkin, Prince, 49, 66


L

Labour Party, The, 97, 116, 148, 167, 171
Lancashire Campaign, 95
Land, 47, 244, 260
Land taxation, 21, 25, 73
Lavelaye, Emile de, 16, 19
Leasehold Enfranchisement, 94, 110, 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, Karl, 23, 45, 61, 89, 236, 260
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
Municipalisation, 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' Committee, 166;
  opinions, 263, 264
Owen, Miss Dale, 30, 31
Owen, Robert, 23, 241


P

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


S

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 Burglars, 45;
  Fabian Essays, 87;
  "Quintessence of Ibsenism," 94;
  on Newcastle Program, 112;
  on Fabian policy, 126;
  Vestryman, 127;
  "Fabianism and the Empire," 134;
  Tariff Reform, 159;
  versus Wells, 173;
  retires from Executive, 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, 155
Social Democratic Federation, 49, 61, 89, 106, 203
Socialist League, 66, 89
South African War, 128
"Spectator," The, 14
Spencer, Herbert, 18
Standring, George, 74, 172
Stepniak, Sergius, 94
Summer School, 199
Syndicalism, 229, 254


T

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, 195


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;
  Executive, 52;
  "Facts for Socialists," 69;
  "Facts for Londoners," 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
Williams, 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