The suggestion was made in March, 1911, by Henry H. Slesser, then one of the younger members of the Executive, that the friendly relations of the two bodies should be further cemented by the formation of a Joint Standing Committee. Four members of each Executive together with the secretaries were appointed, and W.C. Anderson, later M.P. for the Attercliffe Division of Sheffield, and at that time Chairman of the I.L.P., was elected Chairman, a post which he has ever since retained. The Joint Committee has wisely confined its activities to matters about which there was no disagreement, and its proceedings have always been harmonious to the verge of dullness. The Committee began by arranging a short series of lectures, replacing for the time the ordinary Fabian meetings, and it proposed to the Labour Party a demonstration in favour of Adult Suffrage, which was successfully held at the Royal Albert Hall.

In the winter of 1912-13 the Joint Committee co-operated with the National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution (of which later) in a big War against Poverty Campaign, to demand a minimum standard of civilised life for all. A demonstration at the Albert Hall, a Conference at the Memorial Hall, twenty-nine other Conferences throughout Great Britain, all attended by numerous delegates from Trade Unions and other organisations, and innumerable separate meetings were among the activities of the Committee. In 1913 a large number of educational classes were arranged. In the winter of 1913-14 the I.L.P. desired to concentrate its attention on its own "Coming of Age Campaign," an internal affair, in which co-operation with another body was inappropriate. A few months later the War began and, for reasons explained later, joint action remains for the time in abeyance.

It will be convenient to complete the history of the movements for Socialist Unity, though it extends beyond the period assigned to this chapter, and we must now turn back to the beginning of another line of action.

The International Socialist and Trade Union Congresses held at intervals of three or four years since 1889 were at first no more than isolated Congresses, arranged by local organisations constituted for the purpose in the preceding year. Each nation voted as one, or at most, as two units, and therefore no limit was placed on the number of its delegates: the one delegate from Argentina or Japan consequently held equal voting power to the scores or even hundreds from France or Germany. But gradually the organisation was tightened up, and in 1907 a scheme was adopted which gave twenty votes each to the leading nations, and proportionately fewer to the others. Moreover a permanent Bureau was established at Brussels, with Emile Vandervelde, the distinguished leader of the Belgian Socialists, later well known in England as the Ministerial representative of the Belgian Government during the war, as Chairman. In England, where the Socialist and Trade Union forces were divided, it was necessary to constitute a special joint committee in order to raise the British quota of the cost of the Bureau, and to elect and instruct the British delegates. It was decided by the Brussels Bureau that the 20 British votes should be allotted, 10 to the Labour Party, 4 to the I.L.P., 4 to the British Socialist Party (into which the old S.D.F. had merged), and 2 to the Fabian Society, and the British Section of the International Socialist Bureau was, and still remains, constituted financially and electorally on that basis.

In France and in several other countries the internal differences between sections of the Socialist Party have been carried to far greater lengths than have ever been known in England. In France there have been hostile groups of Socialist representatives in the Chamber of Deputies and constant internecine opposition in electoral campaigns. In Great Britain the rivalry of different societies has consisted for the most part in separate schemes of propaganda, in occasional bickerings in their publications, in squabbles over local elections, and sometimes over the selection but not the election of parliamentary candidates. On the other hand co-operation on particular problems and exchange of courtesies have been common.

The International Socialist Bureau, under instructions from the Copenhagen Conference had made a successful attempt to unite the warring elements of French Socialism, and in the autumn of 1912 the three British Socialist Societies were approached with a view to a conference with the Bureau on the subject of Socialist unity in Great Britain. Convenient dates could not be fixed, and the matter was dropped, but in July, 1913, M. Vandervelde, the Chairman, and M. Camille Huysmans, the Secretary of the Bureau, came over from Brussels and a hurried meeting of delegates assembled in the Fabian office to discuss their proposals. The Bureau had the good sense to recognise that the way to unity led through the Labour Party; and it was agreed that the three Socialist bodies should form a United Socialist Council, subject to the condition that the British Socialist Party should affiliate to the Labour Party.

In December, 1913, a formal conference was held in London, attended on this occasion by all the members of the International Socialist Bureau, representing the Socialist parties of twenty different countries. The crux of the question was to find a form of words which satisfied all susceptibilities; and Sidney Webb, who was chosen chairman of a part of the proceedings when the British delegates met by themselves to formulate the terms of agreement, was here in his element; for it would be hard to find anybody in England more skilful in solving the difficulties that arise in determining the expression of a proposition of which the substance is not in dispute.

An agreement was arrived at that the Joint Socialist Council should be formed as soon as the British Socialist Party was affiliated to the Labour Party. The B.S.P. confirmed the decision of its delegates, but the Labour Party referred the acceptance of affiliation to the Annual Conference of 1915[39].

Then came the War. The Labour Party Conference of 1915 did not take place, and a sudden new divergence of opinion arose in the Socialist movement. The Labour Party, the Fabian Society, and the leaders of the B.S.P. gave general support to the Government in entering into the war. The I.L.P. adopted an attitude of critical hostility. Amidst this somewhat unexpected regrouping of parties, any attempt to inaugurate a United Socialist Council was foredoomed to failure. The project for Socialist Unity therefore awaits the happy time when war shall have ceased.

FOOTNOTES:

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



Chapter XI

The Minority Report, Syndicalism and Research: 1909-15

The emergence of Mrs. Sidney Webb—The Poor Law Commission—The Minority Report—Unemployment—The National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution—"Vote against the House of Lords"—Bernard Shaw retires—Death of Hubert Bland—Opposition to the National Insurance Bill—The Fabian Reform Committee—The "New Statesman"—The Research Department—"The Rural Problem"—"The Control of Industry"—Syndicalism—The Guildsmen—Final Statistics—The War.

A former chapter was entitled "The Episode of Mr. Wells." The present might have been called "The Intervention of Mrs. Sidney Webb," save for the fact that it would suggest a comparison which might be misleading.

I have insisted with some iteration that the success of the Society, both in its early days and afterwards, must be mainly attributed to the exceptional force and ability of the Essayists. Later in its history only two persons have come forward who are in my opinion entitled in their Fabian work to rank with the original leaders, to wit, Mr. Wells and Mrs. Webb. Of the former I have said enough already. The present chapter will be largely devoted to the influence of the latter.



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 role for the Society. Usually it has adopted the principle of accepting and making the best of what has already happened; and in politics a Bill introduced by a strong Government is a fait accompli; it is too late to say that something else would have been preferable. It may be amended: it may possibly be withdrawn: it cannot be exchanged for another scheme.

I shall not however dwell on this episode in Fabian history because for once I was in complete disagreement with all my colleagues, except Sir Leo Chiozza Money, and perhaps I cannot yet view the matter with entire detachment. The Labour Party decided to meet the Bill with friendly criticism, to recognise it as 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.



FOOTNOTES:

[40] The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary kindly inform me that the earliest quotation they have yet found is dated December, 1894. I cannot discover it in any Fabian publication before Tract No. 65, which was published in July, 1895.

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

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



Chapter XII

The Lessons of Thirty Years

Breaking the spell of Marxism—A French verdict—Origin of Revisionism in Germany—The British School of Socialism—Mr. Ernest Barker's summary—Mill versus Marx—The Fabian Method—Making Socialists or making Socialism—The life of propagandist societies—The prospects of Socialist Unity—The future of Fabian ideas—The test of Fabian success.

The Fabian Society was founded for the purpose of reconstructing Society in accordance with the highest moral possibilities. This is still the most accurate and compendious description of its object and the nature of its work. But the stage of idealism at which more than a very modest instalment of this cosmic process seemed possible within the lifetime of a single institution had passed before the chief Essayists became members, and indeed I cannot recollect that the founders themselves ever imagined that it lay within their own power to reconstruct Society; none of them was really so sanguine or so self-confident as to anticipate so great a result from their efforts, and it will be remembered that the original phrase was altered by the insertion of the words "to help on" when the constitution was actually formulated. Society has not yet been reconstructed, but the Fabians have done something towards its reconstruction, and my history will be incomplete without an attempt to indicate what the Society has already accomplished and what may be the future of its work.

Its first achievement, as already mentioned, was to break the spell of Marxism in England. Public opinion altogether failed to recognise the greatness of Marx during his lifetime, but every year that passes adds strength to the conviction that the broad principles he promulgated will guide the evolution of society during the present century. Marx demonstrated the moral bankruptcy of commercialism and formulated the demand for the communal ownership and organisation of industry; and it is hardly possible to exaggerate the value of this service to humanity. But no man is great enough to be made into a god; no man, however wise, can see far into the future. Neither Marx himself nor his immediate followers recognised the real basis of his future fame; they thought he was a brilliant and original economist, and a profound student of history. His Theory of Value, his Economic Interpretation of History, seemed to them the incontestible premises which necessarily led to his political conclusions. This misapprehension would not have much mattered had they allowed themselves freedom of thought. Socialism, as first preached to the English people by the Social Democrats, was as narrow, as bigoted, as exclusive as the strictest of Scotch religious sects. "Das Kapital," Vol. I, was its bible; and the thoughts and schemes of English Socialists were to be approved or condemned according as they could or could not be justified by a quoted text.

The Fabian Society freed English Socialism from this intellectual bondage, and freed it sooner and more completely than "Revisionists" have succeeded in doing anywhere else.

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

Socialism in England remained the fantastic creed of a group of fanatics until "Fabian Essays" and the Lancashire Campaign taught the working classes of England, or at any rate their leaders, that Socialism was a living principle which could be applied to existing social and political conditions without a cataclysm either insurrectionary or even political. Revolutionary phraseology, the language of violence, survived, and still survives, just as in ordinary politics we use the metaphors of warfare and pretend that the peaceful polling booth is a battlefield and that our political opponents are hostile armies. But we only wave the red flag in our songs, and we recognise nowadays that the real battles of Socialism are fought in committee rooms at Westminster and in the council chambers of Town Halls.

It was perhaps fortunate that none of the Fabian leaders came within the influence of the extraordinary personality of Karl Marx. Had he lived a few years longer he might have dominated them as he dominated his German followers, and one or two of his English adherents. Then years would have been wasted in the struggle to escape. It was fortunate also that the Fabian Society has never possessed one single outstanding leader, and has always refrained from electing a president or permanent chairman. There never has been a Fabian orthodoxy, because no one was in a position to assert what the true faith was.

Freedom of thought was without doubt obtained for English Socialists by the Fabians. How far the world-wide revolt against Marxian orthodoxy had its origin in England is another and more difficult question. In his study of the Fabian Society[43] M. Edouard Pfeiffer states in the preface that the Society makes this claim, quotes Bernard Shaw as saying to him, "The world has been thoroughly Fabianised in the last twenty-five years," and adds that he is going to examine the accuracy of it. Later he says:—

"Les premiers de tous les Socialistes, les Fabiens out inaugure le mouvement de critique antimarxiste: a une epoque ou les dogmes du maitre etaient consideres comme intangibles, les Fabiens out pretendu que l'on pouvait se dire socialiste sans jamais avoir lu le Capital ou en en desapprouvant la teneur; par opposition a Marx ils out ressuscite l'esprit de Stuart Mill et sur tous les points ils se sont attaques a Marx, guerre des classes et materialisme historique, catastrophisme et avant tout la question de la valeur-travail."[44]

This is a French view. Germany is naturally the stronghold of Marxism, and the country where it has proved, up to a point, an unqualified success. Although the Social Democratic Party was founded as an alliance between the followers of Marx and of Lassalle, on terms to which Marx himself violently objected, none the less the leadership of the party fell to those who accepted the teaching of Marx, and on that basis by far the greatest Socialist Party of the world has been built up. Nowhere else did the ideas of Marx hold such unquestioned supremacy: nowhere else had they such a body of loyal adherents, such a host of teachers and interpreters. Only on the question of agricultural land in the freer political atmosphere of South Germany was there even a breath of dissent. The revolt came from England in the person of Edward Bernstein, who, exiled by Bismarck, took refuge in London, and was for years intimately acquainted with the Fabian Society and its leaders. Soon after his return to Germany he published in 1899 a volume criticising Marxism,[45] and thence grew up the Revisionist movement for free thought in Socialism which has attracted all the younger men, and before the war had virtually, if not actually, obtained control over the Social Democratic Party.

In England, and in Germany through Bernstein, I think the Fabian Society may claim to have led the revolt. Elsewhere the revolt has come rather in deeds than in words. In France, in Italy, and in Belgium and in other European countries, a Socialist Party has grown up which amid greater political opportunities has had to face the actual problems of modern politics. These could not be solved by quotations from a German philosopher, and liberty has been gained by force of circumstances. Nevertheless in many countries, such as Russia and the United States, even now, or at any rate until very recent years, the freedom of action of Socialist parties has been impeded by excessive respect for the opinions of the Founder, and Socialist thought has been sterilised, because it was assumed that Marx had completed the philosophy of Socialism, and the business of Socialists was not to think for themselves, but merely to work for the realisation of his ideas.

* * * * *

But mere freedom was not enough. Something must be put in the place of Marx. His English followers did not notice that he had indicated no method, and devised no political machinery for the transition; or if they noticed it they passed over the omission as a negligible detail. If German Socialism would not suit, English Socialism had to be formulated to take its place. This has been the life-work of the Fabian Society, the working out of the application of the broad principles of Socialism to the industrial and political environment of England. I say England advisedly, because the industrial and political conditions of Scotland are in some degree different, and the application of the principles of Socialism to Ireland has not yet been seriously attempted. But for England "Fabian Essays" and the Fabian Tracts are by general consent the best expositions of the meaning and working of Socialism in the English language.

Marxian Socialism regarded itself as a thing apart. Marx had discovered a panacea for the ills of society: the old was to be cleared away and all things were to become new. In Marx's own thought evolution and revolution were tangled and alternated. The evolutionary side was essential to it; the idea of revolutionary catastrophe is almost an excrescence. But to the Marxians (of whom Marx once observed that he was not one) this excrescence became the whole thing. People were divided into those who advocated the revolution and those who did not. The business of propaganda was to increase the number of adherents of the new at the expense of the supporters of the old.

The Fabians regarded Socialism as a principle already in part embodied in the constitution of society, gradually extending its influence because it harmonised with the needs and desires of men in countries where the large industry prevails.

Fabian Socialism is in fact an interpretation of the spirit of the times. I have pointed out already that the municipalisation of monopolies, a typically Fabian process, had its origin decades before the Society was founded, and all that the Fabian Society did was to explain its social implications and advocate its wider extension. The same is true of the whole Fabian political policy. Socialism in English politics grew up because of the necessity for State intervention in the complex industrial and social organisation of a Great State. Almost before the evil results of Laissez Faire had culminated Robert Owen was pointing the way to factory legislation, popular education, and the communal care of children. The Ten Hours Act of 1847 was described by Marx himself as "the victory of a principle," that is, of "the political economy of the working class."[46] That victory was frequently repeated in the next thirty years, and collective protection of Labour in the form of Factory Acts, Sanitary Acts, Truck Acts, Employers' Liability Acts, and Trade Board Acts became a recognised part of the policy of both political parties.

Fabian teaching has had more direct influence in promoting the administrative protection of Labour. The Fair Wages policy, now everywhere prevalent in State and Municipal employment, was, as has been already described, if not actually invented, at any rate largely popularised by the Society. It was a working-class demand, and it has been everywhere put forward by organised labour, but its success would have been slower had the manual workers been left to fight their own battle.

I have said that the work of the Society was the interpretation of an existing movement, the explanation and justification of tendencies which originated in Society at large, and not in societies, Fabian or other. That work is only less valuable than the formulation of new ideas. None of the Fabians would claim to rank beside the great promulgators of new ideas, such as Owen and Marx. But the interpretation of tendencies is necessary if progress is to be sustained and if it is to be unbroken by casual reaction. In an old country like ours, with vast forces of inertia built up by ages of precedents, by a class system which forms a part of the life of the nation, by a distribution of wealth which even yet scarcely yields to the pressure of graduated taxation, legislation is always in arrear of the needs of the times; the social structure is always old-fashioned and out of date, and reform always tends to be late, and even too late, unless there are agitators with the ability to attract public attention calling on the men in power to take action.

* * * * *

But this victory of a principle is not a complete victory of the principles of Socialism. It is a limitation of the power of the capitalist to use his capital as he pleases, and Socialism is much more than a series of social safeguards to the private ownership of capital. Municipal ownership is a further step, but even this will not carry us far because the capital suitable for municipal management on existing lines is but a small fraction of the whole, and because municipal control does not directly affect the amount of capital in the hands of the capitalists who are always expropriated with ample compensation.

We have made some progress along another line. Supertax, death duties, and taxes on unearned increment do a little to diminish the wealth of the few: old age pensions, national insurance, and workmen's compensation do something towards mitigating the poverty of the poor.

But it must be confessed that we have made but little progress along the main road of Socialism. Private ownership of capital and land flourishes almost as vigorously as it did thirty years ago. Its grosser cruelties have been checked, but the thing itself has barely been touched. Time alone will show whether progress is to be along existing lines, whether the power of the owners of capital over the wealth it helps to create and over the lives of the workers whom it enslaves will gradually fade away, as the power of our kings over the Government of our country has faded, the form remaining when the substance has vanished, or whether the community will at last consciously accept the teaching of Socialism, setting itself definitely to put an end to large-scale private capitalism, and undertaking itself the direct control of industry. The intellectual outlook is bright; the principles of Socialism are already accepted by a sensible proportion of the men and women in all classes who take the trouble to think, and if we must admit that but little has yet been done, we may well believe that in the fullness of time our ideas will prevail. The present war is giving the old world a great shake, and an era of precipitated reconstruction may ensue if the opportunity be wisely handled.

* * * * *

The influence of the Fabian Society on political thought is already the theme of doctoral theses by graduates, especially in American universities, but it has not yet found much place in weightier compilation. Indeed so far as I know the only serious attempts in this country to describe its character and estimate its proportions is to be found in an admirable little book by Mr. Ernest Barker of New College, Oxford, entitled "Political Thought in England from Herbert Spencer to the Present Day."[47] The author, dealing with the early Fabians, points out that "Mill rather than Marx was their starting point," but he infers from this that "they start along the line suggested by Mill with an attack on rent as the 'unearned increment' of land," a curious inaccuracy since our earliest contribution to the theory of Socialism, Tract No. 7, "Capital and Land," was expressly directed to emphasising the comparative unimportance of Land Nationalisation, and nothing in the later work of the Society has been inconsistent with this attitude. Then Mr. Barker goes on: "Fabianism began after 1884 to supply a new philosophy in place of Benthamite Individualism. Of the new gospel of collectivism a German writer[48] has said Webb was the Bentham and Shaw the Mill.[49] Without assigning roles we may fairly say there is some resemblance between the influence of Benthamism on legislation after 1830 and the influence of Fabianism on legislation since, at any rate, 1906.[50] In either case we have a small circle of thinkers and investigators in quiet touch with politicians: in either case we have a 'permeation' of general opinion by the ideas of these thinkers and investigators.... It is probable that the historian of the future will emphasise Fabianism in much the same way as the historian of to-day emphasises Benthamism."[51]

Mr. Barker next explains that "Fabianism has its own political creed, if it is a political creed consequential upon an economic doctrine. That economic doctrine advocates the socialisation of rent. But the rents which the Fabians would socialise are not only rents from land. Rent in the sense of unearned increments may be drawn, and is drawn, from other sources. The successful entrepreneur for instance draws a rent of ability from his superior equipment and education. The socialisation of every kind of rent will necessarily arm the State with great funds which it must use.... Shaw can define the two interconnected aims of Fabianism as 'the gradual extension of the franchise and the transfer of rent and interest to the State.'"

As Mr. Barker may not be alone in a slight misinterpretation of Fabian doctrine it may be well to take this opportunity of refuting the error. He says that Fabianism advocates the socialisation of rent, and in confirmation quotes Shaw's words "rent and interest"! That makes all the difference. If the term rent is widened to include all differential unearned incomes, from land, from ability, from opportunity (i.e. special profits), interest includes all non-differential unearned incomes, and thus the State is to be endowed, not with rents alone, but with all unearned incomes.[52] It is true that the Fabians, throwing over Marx's inaccurate term "surplus value," base their Socialism on the Law of Rent, because, as they allege, this law negatives both equality of income and earnings in proportion to labour, so long as private ownership of land prevails. It is also true that they have directed special attention to the unearned incomes of the "idle" landlord and shareholder, because these are the typical feature of the modern system of distribution, which indeed has come to the front since the time of Marx, and because they furnish the answer to those who contend that wealth is at present distributed approximately in accordance with personal capacity or merit, and tacitly assume that "the rich" are all of them great captains of industry who by enterprise and ability have actually created their vast fortunes.[53] Indeed we might say that we do not mind conceding to our opponents all the wealth "created" by superior brains, if they will let us deal with the unearned incomes which are received independent of the possession of any brains, or any services at all!

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

I will proceed with quotations from Mr. Barker, because the view of a historian of thought is weightier than anything I could say.

"But collectivism also demands in the second place expert government. It demands the 'aristocracy of talent' of which Carlyle wrote. The control of a State with powers so vast will obviously need an exceptional and exceptionally large aristocracy. Those opponents of Fabianism who desire something more revolutionary than its political 'meliorism' and 'palliatives' accuse it of alliance with bureaucracy. They urge that it relies on bureaucracy to administer social reforms from above; and they conclude that, since any governing class is anti-democratic, the Fabians who believe in such a class are really anti-democratic. The charge seems, as a matter of fact, difficult to sustain. Fabians from the first felt and urged that the decentralisation of the State was a necessary condition of the realisation of their aim. The municipality and other local units were the natural bodies for administering the new funds and discharging the new duties which the realisation of that aim would create. 'A democratic State,' Shaw wrote, 'cannot become a Social Democratic State unless it has in every centre of population a local governing body as thoroughly democratic in its constitution as the central Parliament.' The House of Commons he felt must develop 'into the central government which will be the organ of federating the municipalities.' Fabianism thus implied no central bureaucracy; what it demanded was partly, indeed, a more efficient and expert central government (and there is plenty of room for that), but primarily an expert local civil service in close touch with and under the control of a really democratic municipal government. It is difficult to say that this is bureaucracy or that it is not desirable. Many men who are not Fabians or Socialists of any kind feel strongly that the breathing of more vigour and interest into local politics, and the creation of a proper local civil service, are the great problems of the future.

"The policy of Fabianism has thus been somewhat as follows. An intellectual circle has sought to permeate all classes, from the top to the bottom, with a common opinion in favour of social control of socially created values. Resolved to permeate all classes, it has not preached class-consciousness; it has worked as much with and through Liberal 'capitalists' as with and through Labour representatives. Resolved gradually to permeate, it has not been revolutionary: it has relied on the slow growth of opinion. Reformist rather than revolutionary, it has explained the impossibility of the sudden 'revolution' of the working classes against capital: it has urged the necessity of a gradual amelioration of social conditions by a gradual assertion of social control over unearned increment.[55] Hence Fabianism has not adopted the somewhat cold attitude of the pure Socialist Party to Trade Unions, but has rather found in their gradual conquest of better wages and better conditions for the workers the line of social advance congenial with its own principles. Again, it has preached that the society which is to exert control must be democratic, if the control is to be, as it must be, self-control: it has taught that such democratic self-control must primarily be exerted in democratic local self-government: it has emphasised the need of reconciling democratic control with expert guidance. While it has never advocated 'direct action' or the avoidance of political activity, while on the contrary, it has advocated the conquest of social reforms on the fields of parliamentary and municipal government, it has not defended the State as it is, but has rather urged the need for a State which is based on democracy tempered by respect for the 'expert.' In this way Socialism of the Fabian type has made representative democracy its creed. It has adopted the sound position that democracy flourishes in that form of state in which people freely produce, thanks to an equality of educational opportunity, and freely choose, thanks to a wide and active suffrage, their own members for their guidance, and, since they have freely produced and chosen them, give them freely and fully the honour of their trust. And thus Socialists like Mr. Sidney Webb and Mr. Ramsay Macdonald have not coquetted with primary democracy, which has always had a magnetic attraction for Socialists. The doctrine that the people itself governs directly through obedient agents—the doctrine of mandate and plebiscite, of referendum and initiative—is not the doctrine of the best English Socialism." Mr. Barker next explains that behind these ideas lies "an organic theory of society," that society is regarded as "an organic unity with a real 'general will' of its own," and after stating that "the development of Liberalism, during the last few years, shows considerable traces of Fabian influence," concludes the subject with the words "Collectivism of the Fabian order was the dominant form of Socialism in England till within the last three of four years." Of the movement of Guild Socialists and others which he deems to have replaced it I shall speak later.

I have ventured to quote from Mr. Barker at some length because his summary of Fabian doctrine seems to me (with the exception noted) to be both correct and excellent, and it is safer to borrow from a writer quite unconnected with the Society an estimate of its place in the history of English political thought, rather than to offer my own necessarily prejudiced opinion of its achievements.

* * * * *

But I must revert again to the Fabian "method." "Make Socialists," said Mr. Wells in "Faults of the Fabian," "and you will achieve Socialism. There is no other way"; and Mr. Wells in his enthusiasm anticipated a society of ten thousand Fabians as the result of a year's propaganda. Will Socialism come through the making of Socialists?

If so, Socialism has made but little progress in England, since the number who profess and call themselves Socialist is still insignificant. The foregoing pages have shown in the words of a student of political thought how Socialism has been made in England in quite another way.

We did not at the time repudiate Mr. Wells' dictum: indeed we adopted his policy, and attempted the making of Socialism on a large scale. No doubt there is a certain ambiguity in the word "Socialists." It may mean members of Socialist societies, or at any rate "unattached Socialists," all those in fact who use the name to describe their political opinions. Or it may merely be another way of stating that the existing form of society can only be altered by the wills of living people, and change will only be in the direction of Socialism, when the wills which are effective for the purpose choose that direction in preference to another.

Mr. Wells himself described as a "fantastic idea" the notion that "the world may be manoeuvred into Socialism without knowing it": that "society is to keep like it is ... and yet Socialism will be soaking through it all, changing without a sign,"[56] and he at any rate meant by his phrase, "make members of Socialist societies."

The older and better Fabian doctrine is set out in the opening paragraphs of Tract 70, the "Report on Fabian Policy" (1896).

"THE MISSION OF THE FABIANS

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

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

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

It brings all the pressure and persuasion in its power to bear on existing forces, caring nothing by what name any party calls itself or what principles, Socialist or other, it professes, but having regard solely to the tendency of its actions, supporting those which make for Socialism and Democracy and opposing those which are reactionary.

It does not propose that the practical steps towards Social Democracy should be carried out by itself or by any other specially organised society or party.

It does not ask the English people to join the Fabian Society."

In old days acting on this view of our "mission" we deliberately allowed the Society to remain small. Latterly we tried to expand, and in the main our attempt was an expensive failure. The other Socialist bodies have always used their propaganda primarily for recruiting; and they have sought to enlist the rank and file of the British people. In this they too have substantially failed, and the forty or fifty thousand members of the I.L.P. and B.S.P. are roughly no larger a proportion of the working class than the three thousand Fabians are of the middle class. If the advance of Socialism in England is to be measured by the "making of Socialists," if we are to count membership, to enumerate meetings, to sum up subscriptions, the outlook is gloomy. Thirty-four years ago a group of strong men led by Mr. H.M. Hyndman founded the Democratic Federation, which survives as the British Socialist Party, with Mr. Hyndman still to the fore; the rest have more or less dropped out, and no one has arisen to take their places. Twenty-two years ago Keir Hardie founded the Independent Labour Party: he has died since the first draft of this passage was written, and no one is left who commands such universal affection and respect amongst the members of the Society he created. Of the seven Essayists who virtually founded the Fabian Society only one is still fully in harness, and his working life must necessarily be nearing its term. It may be doubted whether a society for the propagation of ideas has the power to long outlive the inspiration of its founder, unless indeed he is a man of such outstanding personality that his followers treat him as a god. The religions of the world have been maintained by worshippers, and even in our own day the followers of Marx have held together partly because they regard his teachings with the uncritical reverence usually accorded to the prophets of new faiths. But Marxism has survived in Germany chiefly because it has created and inspired a political party, and political parties are of a different order from propagandist societies. Socialism in England has not yet created a political party; for the Labour Party, though entirely Socialist in policy, is not so in name or in creed, and in this matter the form counts rather than the fact.

Europe, as I write in the early days of 1916, is in the melting-pot, and it would be foolish to prophesy either the fate of the nations now at war or, in particular, the future of political parties in Great Britain, and especially of the Labour Party.

But so far as concerns the Fabian Society and the two other Socialist Societies, this much may be said: three factors in the past have kept them apart: differences of temperament; differences of policy; differences of leadership. In fact perhaps the last was the strongest.

I do not mean that the founders of the three societies entertained mutual antipathies or personal jealousies to the detriment of the movement. I do mean that each group preferred to go its own way, and saw no sufficient advantage in a common path to compensate for the difficulties of selecting it.

In a former chapter I have explained how a movement for a form of Socialist Unity had at last almost achieved success, when a new factor, the European War, interposed. After the war these negotiations will doubtless be resumed, and the three Socialist Societies will find themselves more closely allied than ever before. The differences of policy which have divided them will then be a matter of past history. The differences of temperament matter less and less as the general policy becomes fixed, and in a few years the old leaders from whose disputes the general policy emerged must all have left the stage. The younger men inherit an established platform and know nothing of the old-time quarrels and distrusts. They will come together more easily. If the organised propaganda of Socialism continues—and that perhaps is not a matter of certainty—it seems to me improbable that it will be carried on for long by three separate societies. In some way or other, in England as in so many other countries, a United Socialist organisation will be constituted.

* * * * *

But what of the future of Fabian ideas? In a passage already quoted Mr. Barker indicates that the dominance of "Collectivism of the Fabian order" ceased three or four years ago, and he goes on to indicate that it has been replaced by an anti-state propaganda, taking various forms, Syndicalism, Guild Socialism, and the Distributivism of Mr. Belloc. It is true that Fabianism of the old type is not the last event in the history of political thought, but it is still, I venture to think, the dominant principle in political progress. Guild Socialism, whatever its worth, is a later stage. If our railways are to be managed by the Railwaymen's Union, they must first be acquired for the community by Collectivism.

This is not the place to discuss the possibilities of Guild Socialism. After all it is but a form of Socialism, and a first principle of Fabianism has always been free thought. The leading Guild Socialists resigned from the Society: they were not expelled: they attempted to coerce the rest, but no attempt was made to coerce them. Guild Socialism as a scheme for placing production under the management of the producers seems to me to be on the wrong lines. The consumer as a citizen must necessarily decide what is to be produced for his needs. But I do not belong to the generation which will have to settle the matter. The elderly are incompetent judges of new ideas. Fabian doctrine is not stereotyped: the Society consists in the main of young people. The Essayists and their contemporaries have said their say: it remains for the younger people to accept what they choose, and to add whatever is necessary. Those who repudiated the infallibility of Marx will be the last to claim infallibility for themselves. I can only express the hope that as long as the Fabian Society lasts it will be ever open to new ideas, ever conscious that nothing is final, ever aware that the world is enormously complex, and that no single formula will summarise or circumscribe its infinite variety.[57]

* * * * *

The work of the Fabian Society has been not to make Socialists, but to make Socialism. I think it may be said that the dominant opinion in the Society—at any rate it is my opinion—is that great social changes can only come by consent. The Capitalist system cannot be overthrown by a revolution or by a parliamentary majority. Wage slavery will disappear, as serfdom disappeared, not indeed imperceptibly, for the world is now self-conscious, not even so gradually, for the pace of progress is faster than it was in the Middle Ages, but by a change of heart of the community, by a general recognition, already half realised, that whatever makes for the more equitable distribution of wealth is good; that whatever benefits the working class benefits the nation; that the rich exist only on sufferance, and deserve no more than painless extinction; that the capitalist is a servant of the public, and too often over-paid for the services that he renders.

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

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