"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.