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.