"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.