The History of the Fabian Society Part 9

We had started a lending library in boxes for our local societies, and as these died away we offered the use of it to working-cla.s.s organisations, and indeed to any organisation of readers or students.

Books were purchased from special funds, a collection of some 5000 volumes was ultimately formed, and for the last twenty years the Society has kept in circulation anything up to 200 boxes of books on Socialism, economics, history and social problems, which are lent for ten shillings a year to Co-operative Societies, Trade Unions, Socialist Societies, and miscellaneous organisations. The books are intended to be educational rather than directly propagandist, and each box is made up to suit the taste, expressed or inferred, of the subscriber. Quarterly exchanges are allowed, but the twenty or thirty books in a box usually last a society for a year. It is a remarkable fact that although boxes are lent freely to such slight organisations as reading cla.s.ses, and are sent even to remote mining villages in Wales or Scotland, not a single box has ever been lost. Delays are frequent: books of course are often missing, but sooner or later every box sent out has been returned to the Society.

Another method of securing the circulation of good books on social subjects has been frequently used. We prepare a list of recent and important publications treating of social problems and request each member to report how many of them are in the Public Library of his district, and further to apply for the purchase of such as are absent.

The Local Government Act of 1894, commonly called the Parish Councils Act, which const.i.tuted out of chaos a system of local government for rural England, gave the Society an opportunity for practising that part of its policy which includes the making the best use of all forms of existing legislation. Mr. Herbert Samuel was at that time a friend, though he was never a member, of the Society, and the first step in his successful political career was his candidature for the typically rural Southern Division of Oxfordshire. He was good enough to prepare for us not only an admirable explanation of the Act, but also Questions for Parish Councillors, for Rural District Councillors, and for Urban District Councillors. Probably this was the first time that an a.n.a.lysis of a new Act of Parliament had been published at a penny. Anyway the demand for it was considerable, and over 30,000 copies were sold in five months. Then it was revised, with the omission of temporary matter, and republished as "Parish and District Councils: What they are and what they can do," and in this form has gone through many editions, and is still in print. The tract states that the secretary of the Society will give advice on any obscure point in the law, and in this way the Society has become an Information Bureau; hardly a week pa.s.sed for many years after the autumn of 1895 without a letter from some village or small town asking questions as to housing, common rights, charities, the duties of chairmen of councils, the qualifications of candidates, and so on.

Similar tracts were published describing the powers and duties of the London County Council, the London Vestries, and the Metropolitan Borough Councils, established in 1899, while one giving the powers of various local authorities for housing (No. 76, "Houses for the People") has gone through many editions and still has a steady sale.

The Workmen's Compensation Act, 1897, afforded another opportunity for this sort of work. Our penny tract (No. 82) describing the rights of the workmen under the Act was reprinted thirteen times in eight months, and over 120,000 were sold in the first year of publication. This tract offered free advice to every purchaser, and the result has been an enormous amount of correspondence which during seventeen years has never entirely ceased. This work of providing expert advice on minor legal matters has been a quiet service to the community constantly rendered by the Society. The barristers amongst our members have freely given a.s.sistance in the more difficult matters. Occasionally the solicitors amongst us have taken up cases where the plaintiff was specially helpless.

In 1894, Henry Hutchinson, who had provided the funds for much of our country lecturing, died, and to our complete surprise it was found that he had appointed Sidney Webb, whom he hardly knew personally, his executor, and had left the residue of his estate, between 9000 and 10,000, to five trustees--Sidney Webb, his daughter, myself, William Clarke, and W.S. De Mattos--with directions that the whole sum be expended within ten years. The two last named took but little part in administering the trust, and Miss Hutchinson died only fifteen months later, also leaving to her colleagues the residue of her estate, something under 1000, for similar purposes. The trustees--Mrs. Bernard Shaw, Hubert Bland, and Frederick Whelen were appointed at later dates--resolved that the money in their charge should be used exclusively for special work, as otherwise the effect would be merely to relieve the members of their obligation to pay for the maintenance of their Society. They decided to devote part of the funds to initiating the London School of Economics and Political Science, because they considered that a thorough knowledge of these sciences was a necessity for people concerned in social reconstruction, if that reconstruction was to be carried out with prudence and wisdom: and in particular it was essential that all cla.s.ses of public officials should have the opportunity of learning whatever can be known of economics and politics taught on modern lines. Our old Universities provided lectures on political science as it was understood by Plato and Aristotle, by Hobbes and Bentham: they did not then--and indeed they do not now--teach how New Zealand deals with strikes, how America legislates about trusts, how munic.i.p.alities all over the world organise tramways.

The trustees, as I have said, originated the London School of Economics, but from the first they a.s.sociated others with themselves in its management, and they made no attempt to retain any special share in its control. Their object was to get taught the best science that could be obtained, confident that if their own political theories were right, science would confirm them, and if they were wrong, it was better that they should be discredited. The London School of Economics, though thus founded, has never had any direct or organic connection with the Fabian Society, and therefore any further account of its successful career would be out of place in this volume. But it may be said that it has certainly more than justified the hopes of its founders, or rather, to be accurate, I should say, founder, since the other trustees were wholly guided by the initiative of Sidney Webb.

Besides the School, and the Library connected with it, the Trust promoted for many years regular courses of Fabian educational lectures on social and political subjects, such as Socialism, Trade Unionism, Co-operation, Poor Law, Economics, and Economic History. Lecturers were selected with care, and were in some cases given a maintenance allowance during the preparation of their lectures. Then arrangements were made for courses of four lectures each, on what may be called University Extension lines, in four or five centres in one part of the country. For example, in the year 1896-7 180 lectures were given in fifty towns, half of them under the auspices of branches of the I.L.P., and the rest organised by Co-operative Societies, Liberal a.s.sociations, Trade Unions, and other bodies. Very careful syllabuses were prepared and widely circulated, and the whole scheme was intended to be educational rather than directly propagandist. The first lecturers engaged were J. Ramsay Macdonald and Miss Enid Stacy, whose premature death, a few years after her marriage to the Rev. Percy Widdrington, was a great loss to the movement. This lecturing was maintained for many years. In 1900, shortly after the creation there of County and District Councils, we experimented upon Ireland, where J. Bruce Glasier and S.D. Shallard gave a number of courses of lectures, without any very obvious results. In 1902 W. Stephen Sanders took over the work, but the fund was coming to an end, and after 1904 subsidised lecturing virtually ceased.

In order to help working-cla.s.s students who had the desire to study more continuously than by attendance at lectures, correspondence cla.s.ses were started in the same cla.s.s of subject as the lectures. A textbook was selected and divided into sections, to each of which an introduction was written, concluding with questions. Written answers were sent in and corrected by the conductor of the cla.s.s. This went on regularly until 1900, when Ruskin College, Oxford, organised similar cla.s.ses on a larger scale, and our services were no longer required.

In August, 1896, the triennial International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress was held in London, at which the Society was represented by a numerous delegation. The chief business proved to be the expulsion of the Anarchists, who at this period attended these conferences and had to be got rid of before the appointed business could be carried on. The Society prepared an important "Report" for circulation at the Congress, one part of it advocating various reforms, no longer of any special interest, and the other part consisting of a summary of the principles and policy of the Society, drafted by Bernard Shaw in a series of epigrammatic paragraphs. This doc.u.ment, still circulated as Tract 70, is interesting both as a brief and vivid exposition of Fabianism and because it gave rise to another of the long series of fights on the policy of political toleration. The pa.s.sage chiefly objected to, written, of course, for foreigners, and therefore more detailed than otherwise would be necessary, is as follows:--

"FABIAN ELECTORAL TACTICS.

"The Fabian Society does not claim to be the people of England, or even the Socialist party, and therefore does not seek direct political representation by putting forward Fabian candidates at elections. But it loses no opportunity of influencing elections, and inducing const.i.tuencies to select Socialists as their candidates. No person, however, can obtain the support of the Fabian Society or escape its opposition, merely by calling himself a Socialist or Social-Democrat. As there is no Second Ballot in England, frivolous candidatures give great offence and discredit the party in whose name they are undertaken, because any third candidate who is not well supported will not only be beaten himself but may also involve in his defeat the better of the two candidates competing with him. Under such circ.u.mstances the Fabian Society throws its weight against the third candidate, whether he calls himself a Socialist or not, in order to secure the victory to the better of the two candidates between whom the contest really lies. But when the third candidate is not only a serious representative of Socialism, but can organise his party well and is likely to poll sufficient votes to make even his defeat a respectable demonstration of the strength and growth of Socialism in the const.i.tuency, the Fabian Society supports him resolutely under all circ.u.mstances and against all other parties."

This was an extreme statement of our position, because the Society has never, so far as I am aware, taken any action which could be described as "throwing its weight against" a third candidate in a parliamentary election. But it represented our policy as it might have been, if occasion had arisen to carry it to its logical conclusion.

It was opposed, not because it was an inaccurate statement of fact, but because a minority of the Society desired to change the policy it described; and after the Congress was over an influential requisition was got up by J. Ramsay Macdonald, who had been elected to the Executive Committee in 1894, demanding that the tract be withdrawn from circulation. The battle was joined at Clifford's Inn in October, and the insurgents were defeated, after an exciting discussion, by 108 to 33.

There is little to record of the years that followed. Graham Wallas, who had been elected to the London School Board in 1894, resigned his seat on the Executive in 1895; Bernard Shaw became a St. Pancras Vestryman without a contest in 1897, an event rather of literary[30] than political significance, and in 1898 he had a serious illness which kept him out of the movement for nearly two years; whilst at the end of 1899 Sydney Olivier was appointed Colonial Secretary of Jamaica, and spent most of the next fourteen years in the West Indies, latterly as Governor of Jamaica, until 1913, when he was recalled to London to be the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture.

External events put an end to this period of quiescence, and the Society, which was often derisively regarded as expert in the politics of the parish pump, an exponent of "gas and water Socialism," was forced to consider its att.i.tude towards the problems of Imperialism.

War was declared by President Kruger for the South African Republic on October 11th, 1899. Up to this point the whole of the Society, with very few exceptions, had scouted the idea of war. "The grievances alleged, though some of them were real enough, were ludicrously unimportant in comparison with our cognate home grievances. n.o.body in his senses would have contemplated a war on their account,"[31] But when war had come the situation was entirely altered. The majority of the Society recognised that the British Empire had to win the war, and that no other conclusion to it was possible. Some of us had joined in the protest against the threat of war: but when that protest was fruitless we declined to contest the inevitable. A large section of the Liberal Party and nearly all other Socialists took another view. They appeared to believe, and some of them even hoped, that the Boers might be successful and the British army be driven to the sea. The I.L.P. regarded the war as a typical case of the then accepted theory of Socialism that war is always instigated by capitalists for the purpose of obtaining profits. They opposed every step in the prosecution of the campaign, and criticised every action of the British authorities.

In this matter the left and right wings of the Fabians joined hands in opposition to the centre. Members who came into the movement when Marxism was supreme, like Walter Crane, those who worked largely with the I.L.P., such as J. Ramsay Macdonald, S.G. Hobson, and G.N. Barnes (later M.P. and Chairman of the Labour Party), were joined by others who were then a.s.sociated with the Liberals, such as Dr. F. Lawson Dodd, Will Crooks (later Labour M.P.), Clement Edwards (later Liberal M.P.), and Dr. John Clifford. On the other side were the older leaders of the Society, who took the view that the members had come together for the purpose of promoting Socialism, that the question at issue was one "which Socialism cannot solve and does not touch,"[32] and that whilst each member was ent.i.tled to hold and work for his own opinion, it was not necessary for the Society in its corporate capacity to adopt a formal policy with the result of excluding the large minority which would have objected to whatever decision was arrived at.

The first round in the contest was at a business meeting on October 13th, 1899, when on the advice of the Executive the members present rejected a motion of urgency for the discussion of a resolution expressing sympathy with the Boers.

It was however agreed that the matter could not end thus, and a members'

meeting was fixed for December 8th, at Clifford's Inn Hall, when S.G.

Hobson moved a long resolution declaring it essential that the att.i.tude of the Society in regard to the war should be clearly a.s.serted, and concluding: "The Fabian Society therefore formally dissociates itself from the Imperialism of Capitalism and vainglorious Nationalism and pledges itself to support the expansion of the Empire only in so far as it may be compatible with the expansion of that higher social organisation which this Society was founded to promote."

Bernard Shaw, on behalf of the Executive Committee, moved a long reasoned amendment declaring that a parliamentary vote was not worth fighting about, demanding that at the conclusion of the war measures be taken for securing the value of the Transvaal mines for the public, and that the interests of the miners be safeguarded. The amendment was barely relevant to the issue, and notwithstanding influential support it was defeated by 58 to 27. Thereupon the "previous question" was moved and carried by 59 to 50. This inconclusive result revealed a great diversity of opinion in the Society, and the Executive Committee, for the first and, so far, the only time, availed itself of the rule which authorised it to submit any question to a postal referendum of all the members.

The question submitted in February, 1900, was this: "Are you in favour of an official p.r.o.nouncement being made now by the Fabian Society on Imperialism in relation to the War?" and on the paper published in the "News" were printed four reasons on one side and five on the other, drafted by those members of the Executive who advocated each policy. On the one hand it was argued that the Society should resist aggressive capitalism and militarism, thus putting itself into line with international socialism, and that expenditure on the war would postpone social reform. On the other it was contended that the question was outside the province of the Society, that a resolution by the Society would carry no weight, would not stop the war, and might have a serious effect on the solidarity of the Society itself. The vote excited great interest: an appeal to the electorate to vote Yes, worded with much moderation, was issued by Walter Crane, S.G. Hobson, Charles Charrington, F. Lawson Dodd, J. Frederick Green, George N. Barnes, Will Crooks, Henry S. Salt, Dr. John Clifford, Mrs. Mallet, Clement Edwards, Mrs. J.R. Macdonald and others; to which a reply was sent, signed only by members of the Executive, Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, Hubert Bland, J.F. Oakeshott, H.W. Macrosty and one or two others. Finally a rejoinder by the signatories of the first circular was issued in the course of the poll which extended over nearly a month. The membership at the time was about 800, of whom 50 lived abroad, and in all only 476 votes were cast, 217 in favour of a p.r.o.nouncement and 259 against.

It was said at the time, and has constantly been alleged since, that the Society had voted its approval of the South African War and had supported imperialist aggression and anti-democratic militarism. As will be seen from the foregoing, no such statement is correct. A vote on the policy of the Government would have given an overwhelming adverse majority, but it would have destroyed the Society. In early days we had drawn a clear line between Socialism and politics: we had put on one side such problems as Home Rule and Church Disestablishment as of the nature of red herrings, matters of no real importance in comparison with the economic enfranchis.e.m.e.nt which we advocated. In the early eighties Parliament spent futile and fruitless months discussing whether Mr.

Bradlaugh should take the oath, and whether an extension of the franchise should or should not be accompanied by redistribution. We wanted to make the working cla.s.ses pay less attention to these party questions and more attention to their own social conditions. We thought, or at any rate said, that the Liberal and Conservative leaders kept the party ball rolling in order to distract the workers from the iniquity of the distribution of wealth. We insisted that Socialism was an economic doctrine, and had nothing to do with other problems. Later on we realised that the form of government is scarcely less important than its content: that the unit of administration, whether imperial, national, or local, is germane to the question of the services to be administered; that if the governmental machine is to be used for industry, that machine must be modern and efficient: and that in fact no clear line of distinction can be drawn between the problems of const.i.tutional structure which concern Socialism and those, if any, which do not concern it. In the case of the South African war it was mainly the instinct of self-preservation that actuated us; it is certain that any other decision would have destroyed the Society. The pa.s.sions of that period were extraordinarily bitter. The Pro-Boers were mobbed and howled down, their actions were misrepresented, and their motives disparaged: they retaliated by accusing the British troops of incredible atrocities, by rejoicing over every disaster which befell our arms, and by prophesying all sorts of calamities however the war ended. There was never any question of the Society issuing a p.r.o.nouncement justifying the war. Only a very few of our members went as far as that. But many others, all or nearly all who were now beginning to be called the "old gang," on whom from first to last the initiative and stability of the Society has depended, would have declined to be a.s.sociated with what they regarded as the anti-patriotic excesses of certain of the Liberals, and would have resigned their membership, or at any rate their official positions in the Society, had it adopted at that time the same policy as the I.L.P. Happily tolerance prevailed, and although an attempt was made to get up a big secession, only about fifteen members resigned in a group when the result of the poll was declared. These, however, included a few important names, J. Ramsay Macdonald and J. Frederick Green, of the Executive Committee, George N. Barnes and Pete Curran, future Labour Members of Parliament, Walter Crane, H.S. Salt, Mrs. J.R. Macdonald, and Mrs. Pankhurst.

At the election of the Executive Committee in April, 1900, the Society by another vote confirmed the previous decision. All the old members were re-elected, and those of the majority party polled the heaviest votes. The two seats vacated by resignation were filled by "Pro-Boers,"

and the only new candidate who supported the majority was defeated. It was clear, therefore, that the voting was not strictly on party lines--one of the opposition, Charles Charrington, was fourth on the poll--but that the Society as a whole approved of the non-committal policy. The Executive Committee had been elected since 1894 by a postal ballot of the whole Society, and on this occasion 509 members, over 62 per cent of the whole, recorded their votes.

The Executive had resolved at the beginning of the war to issue a tract on Imperialism, and at the Annual Meeting in May, 1900, a resolution was pa.s.sed that it prepare for submission to the members "a constructive criticism from the Socialist standpoint of the actions and programmes of the various political parties."

Needless to say, Bernard Shaw undertook the difficult job, for at this period all the official p.r.o.nouncements of the Executive were drafted by him. At the beginning of September it was announced as nearly ready, and later in the month a proof was sent to every member for criticism, and a meeting was called for the 25th to discuss it. This was the extreme example of the practice at that time habitual, of inviting the co-operation of every member in our publications. No less than 134 members returned amended proofs or wrote letters of criticism; and it is recorded that only one of these was opposed to the whole thing, whilst only nine preferred to have no manifesto at all; and another nine objected to material portions. The great majority were cordial in approval.

Bernard Shaw is fond of posing as the most conceited of persons, but those who have had to do with him in literary matters are aware that no pose was ever more preposterous. When he has acted as the literary expert of the Fabian Society he has considered every criticism with unruffled courtesy, and dealt with the many fools who always find their way into extreme parties, not according to their folly, but with the careful consideration properly accorded to eminent wisdom. The business of examining over a hundred marked proofs of a doc.u.ment of 20,000 words, every line of which was more or less controversial, was an immense one, but the author gave every criticism its proper weight, and accepted every useful amendment. Then came the meeting. It was held at Clifford's Inn, and between 130 and 140 members were present, each of whom was ent.i.tled to move any amendment on any of the 20,000 words, or any addition to or deletion of them. Nearly three hours were occupied partly in discussing the controversial portion and partly with the general question of publication. Only eighteen voted for omitting the part about Imperialism, and the minority against the publication numbered no more than fourteen. By this time the controversy over the war had reached an intensity which those who cannot recollect it will find difficult to believe, and n.o.body but the author could have written an effective doc.u.ment on the war so skilfully as to satisfy the great majority of the supporters of both parties in the Society. Bernard Shaw has accomplished many difficult feats, but none of them, in my opinion, excels that of drafting for the Society and carrying through the manifesto called "Fabianism and the Empire."

It was published as a shilling volume by Grant Richards, and although it was widely and favourably noticed in the Press the sales were only moderate, just over 2000 copies to the end of the year. Some time later the Society purchased the remainder of 1500 copies at 1d. and since sold them at prices, rising as the stock declined, up to five shillings a copy!

The theme of the manifesto is the overriding claim of efficiency not only in our own government, and in our empire, but throughout the world.

The earth belongs to mankind, and the only valid moral right to national as well as individual possession is that the occupier is making adequate use of it for the benefit of the world community. "The problem before us is how the world can be ordered by Great Powers of practically international extent.... The part.i.tion of the greater part of the globe among such powers is, as a matter of fact that must be faced approvingly or deploringly, now only a question of time" (p. 3). "The notion that a nation has a right to do what it pleases with its own territory, without reference to the interests of the rest of the world is no more tenable from the International Socialist point of view--that is, from the point of view of the twentieth century--than the notion that a landlord has a right to do what he likes with his estate without reference to the interests of his neighbours.... [In China] we are a.s.serting and enforcing international rights of travel and trade. But the right to trade is a very comprehensive one: it involves a right to insist on a settled government which can keep the peace and enforce agreements. When a native government of this order is impossible, the foreign trading power must set one up" (pp. 44-5). "The value of a State to the world lies in the quality of its civilisation, not in the magnitude of its armaments.... There is therefore no question of the steam-rollering of little States because they are little, any more than of their maintenance in deference to romantic nationalism. The State which obstructs international civilisation will have to go, be it big or little. That which advances it should be defended by all the Western Powers. Thus huge China and little Monaco may share the same fate, little Switzerland and the vast United States the same fortune" (p. 46).

As for South Africa, "however ignorantly [our] politicians may argue about it, reviling one another from the one side as brigands, and defending themselves from the other with quibbles about waste-paper treaties and childish slanders against a brave enemy, the fact remains that a Great Power, consciously or unconsciously, must govern in the interests of civilisation as a whole; and it is not to those interests that such mighty forces as gold-fields, and the formidable armaments that can be built upon them, should be wielded irresponsibly by small communities of frontiersmen. Theoretically they should be internationalised, not British-Imperialised; but until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations available as a subst.i.tute for it" (pp.

23-4).

As however the Manifesto was designed for the general election, this theme was only sketched, and the greater part was occupied with matters of a more immediately practicable character. The proposed part.i.tion of China at that time seemed imminent, and our attention had been called to the efficiency of the German State organisation of foreign trade in comparison with the _laissez-faire_ policy which dominated our Foreign Office. We regarded our overseas trade as a national a.s.set, and urged that the consular service should be revolutionised. "Any person who thinks this application of Socialism to foreign trade through the consular system impossible also thinks the survival of his country in the age of the Powers impossible. No German thinks it impossible. If he has not already achieved it, he intends to" (pp. 10, 11). We must "have in every foreign market an organ of commercially disinterested industrial intelligence. A developed consulate would be such an organ."

"The consulate could itself act as broker, if necessary, and have a revenue from commissions, of which, however, the salaries of its officials should be strictly independent" (pp. 10 and 8).

The present army should be replaced "by giving to the whole male population an effective training in the use of arms without removing them from civil life. This can be done without conscription or barrack life" by extending the half-time system to the age of 21 and training the young men in the other half. From the millions of men thus trained "we could obtain by voluntary enlistment a picked professional force of engineers, artillery, and cavalry, and as large a garrison for outlying provinces as we chose to pay for, if we made it attractive by the following reforms": full civil rights, a living wage, adequate superannuation after long service, and salaries for officers on the civil scale. The other reforms advocated included a minimum wage for labour, grants in aid for housing, freedom for munic.i.p.al trading, munic.i.p.al public-houses, and reorganisation of the machinery of education, as explained later. "The moral of it all is that what the British Empire wants most urgently in its government is not Conservatism, not Liberalism, not Imperialism, but brains and political science" (p. 93).

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRAHAM WALLAS, IN 1891]

FOOTNOTES:

[30] Shaw has "vehemently protested" against this phrase, saying that he "put in six years of hard committee work to the astonishment of the vestrymen who had not expected (him) to be a man of business and a sticker at it." But I am still of opinion that the secondary effects of those six years on his knowledge of affairs and the lessons he has drawn from them in his writings and speeches have been of greater value to his innumerable readers and hearers than was his administrative diligence to the Parish of St. Pancras.

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

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

Chapter VIII