Chapter I - The Field and the Players for "Fun and Games in Politics"

CHAPTER I THE FIELD AND THE PLAYERS FOR "FUN AND GAMES IN POLITICS" A. THE POLITICAL BACKGROUND, 1919-1931 British political life to all outward appearance from 1919 to 1931 can be described in simple outline.1 The Coalition Govern ment headed by Lloyd George had won the war and the ensuing " Coupon Election " gave the Prime Minister a very large and un wieldy majority. Certain social problems lay within everyone's purview; 2 recession and concentrated new wealth on one hand, and demobilisation, together with the dispersal of -large numbers of Government workers on the other, coincided with early but not unprecedented strikes in the coal mines and railways. People knew that peace conferences were going on, that Germany was trying to shape herself into the pattern of the Weimar Republic and -that Russia was in the hands of revolutionary leaders who were not the idealists of 1917, and that Greeks and Turks were at war. There was great surprise, however, when- "Chanak," in 1922, rocked the Cabinet.3 The· ensuing election produced the first Conservative Government in sixteen years. It cleared-the political air and revealed the presence of a new power in the -person of Stanley Baldwin, who became Chancellor of the Exchequer under Bonar Law, while Lloyd George, Austen Chamberlain, Balfour, and Birkenhead were relegated to temporary inactivity. Lord Curzon then in the Foreign Office, would, it seemed, become the successor to the ailing Prime Minister, Bonar Law. Labour, led by MacDonald, for whom J. R. Clynes 4 had stepped aside, stood 1 John Alfred Spender, A Short History of Our Times (London: Cassell and Company, 1934), pp. 225-309.

2 Sidney and Beatrice Webb, History of Trade Unions (Revised Edition Extending to 1920) (London: Longmans Green and Company, 1920), p. 64S. S Winston S. Churchill, The Aftermath, being a sequel to The World Crisis (London: The Macmillan Company, 1941), pp. 409-438. 4 C£. Mary Agnes Hamilton, Arthur Henderson (London: William Heine34 Field and Players for It Fun and Games in Politics" 35 in. official Opposition. The English people found Tory leadership acceptable. It was a stabilizing force, so its aversion to " sur render" to the Irish coupled with its favoring of Turkish nation alism was overlooked. The tax-burdened and nervous populace was relieved to be rid of Lloyd George's empiricism, war scares, and scandals. Bonar Law achieved a measure of success, for the Germans paid in fifty millions of pounds in 1922 on their Repara tions debt (although somewhat less was paid the next year). The English l~arned that French troops, had been dispatched to .the Ruhr, also that the Prime Minister was opposed to this action taken by Poincare.

Bonar Law had to resign in May and Stanley Baldwin became Prime Minister. In October, the latter exhibited conscientious scruples regarding Protection which resulted in an election to get a mandate from the people on the matter. It was still the style for anyone with pretensions to liberalism to vote for free trade. To the uncritical observer this' circumstance ensured Baldwin's defeat yet produced the most surprising event of the decade, the election of a Labour Government. In a sense, the people did not elect a Labour Government; the too few elected liberals divided into warring camps, and there were too few free trade conservatives. In spite of the fears suggested to the English mind, fears which were derived from the uncertain knowledge of Russian, affairs and of German waverings, and from such British manifestations of radicalism as were embodied in "the Clydesiders," 5 Asquith the mann, 1938), pp. 229 f; also, J. R. Clynes, P.C., M.P., D.C.L., Memoirs I, 1869-1924, pp. 330-333, and II, 1924-1937 (London: Hutchinson and Com pany, 1937). ]. R. Clynes, "half-Irish and wholly Lancastrian," had been Labour leader in Parliament 1920-1922. He had begun life as a "piecer."

He formed a Piecers' union, 1885-1888, and became, through the initial fame of his "Piecer" letters, president of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers. He brought to his leadership a knowledge of Carlyle, Emerson, Ruskin,. but most of all experience of the rise of Kerr Hardie, and discipleship of Burns, Crooks, Gillett, Morris and Shaw. During the War he had headed the Ministry of Food Control. His Socialism was an un articulated religion of humanitarianism. 5 Cf. Mary Agnes Hamilton, Arthur Henderson, p. 231. Led by "boss" Baillie John Wheatley and James Maxton, an Irish and Scottish group which Mrs. Hamilton characterized as pro-Soviet, class-war agitators, the "'Clyde siders" supported MacDonald, then, and later repudiated him.

36 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Liberal leader was known 6 to have stated that it would be unconsti tutional· not.to permit Labour to form a Government. The winter of 1923 furnished any 'Government which might ensue with the results of the financial statesmanship of Balfour 1 who in 1922, in place of the ailing Curzon, had issued the " Balfour Note" on the basis of which Baldwin, in the winter of 1922, had achieved the agreement with Wa~hington on war debts, whereby British credit ,vas saved.. Wisely or not, the idea of connecting debts and reparations had thus been formulated in the British view. The unemployment problem impressed the public more than 'the fact of Curzon's limping' off to a sinecure leadership of the Tories in the House of Lords. 8 But the public failed to perceive the con nection between the settlement in Washington which had linked the real. (debts) with the hypothetical (reparations), and evoked the reactionary proposal to revert to Protection. It seemed that a Labour Government was accepted as the result merely of the tally.

It was indeed to be another short-lived Government. Yet notable success in the field of foreign affairs marked by the adoption of the Dawes Plan and preparation for the Commercial Treaty fell to Labour's lot. In 1924, because the fear of Bolshevism had become more real, Labour could not hold its position in the election which a vote of censure precipitated. Conservatives came· back with " safeguard ing" tariffs under Baldwin. Churchill deserted the l ..iberals and took a place in the Cabinet. Balfour· returned to the Government along with Austen Chamberlain and Lord Birkenhead. Asquith, still a Liberal failed to get a seat in Parliament by being adopted 6]. A. Spender and Cyril Asquith, The Life of Herbert Henry Asquith, Lord Oxford and Asquith (London: Hutchinson and Company, 1932), pp; 342-346. 7 Blanche E. C. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfo~r (London: Hutchinson and Company, 1936), II, p. 315.

8 The shattering of Lord Curzon's life's ambition came when Baldwin be came Prime Minister. Cf. The Earl of Ronaldshay (Lawrence John Lumley Dundas, 2nd Marquis of Zetland), The Life of Lord Curzon (London: Ernest Benn, 1928), III, pp. 349-365. A principle fQrmulated since Salis bury's premiership was thus exemplified: The Prime Minister must lead in Commons. Labour leaderS' insisted upon its application in Cur-zon's case. Asquith had faced it squarely too. Cf. Spender and Asquith, Ope cit., p. 51.

Field and Players for it Fun and Games in Politics" 37 by Paisley. It seemed like old England again. The Dawes Plan and its sequel, the Commercial Treaty with Germany, paved the way to Locarno. Few people understood that creditor nations were bor rowing to postpone the disruption .of trade, and were buying cur rencies to pay debtor nations. Tariffs were reappearing, as a result of which all the world's gold became-magnetized at two poles, America and France. The only constructive measure at tributable to the Labour Government, the Wheatley Housing Act, amended, went into effect. The people of Britain had at last been given something they had been promised before the·" coupon " election: two and one-half million working class houses were begun. In 1925, Winston Churchill, implementing full reaction on the economic side, by his first budget as Chancellor of the Exchequer, brought about the return to the gold standard, the resumption of the policy of basing sterling upon gold, and the allowance of .the export of gold. The pound. gained in inter national trade but exports, especially coal, were curtailed. The Government maintained equilibrium by subsidies to the coal min ing industry. These subsidies were stopped in 1926. The great Strike in 1926 was the result, to all appearances, of an effort to reduce wages and increase hours of labour. There had been talk of the possibility of a General Strike ever since the Dock Strike in 1908, and especially during the Raihvay Strike of 1911; and in 1921 a General Strike had nearly come to pass.9 Now a new power entered the press and parlance-TUC, it was called after being once named, the Trade Union Council. Every el~ment in volved in the Strike shared a comn1on fear, that of Revolution. lo It was all over in nine days. Popular reliance upon public authority grew appreciably-approaching dependence, while sec tions of the Liberal Party developed schism, and Lloyd George and Asquith parted for good. The coal miners remained out, to return to work, terribly defeated, in 1927. The same Government prepared legislation to deal with labor problems which was passed 9 Cf. J. H. Thomas, My Story (London : Hutchinson and Company, 1937), pp. 31 f.

10 The Webbs, Ope cit., p. 672, had written in 1920 that such a strike could result only from a reactionary Parliament's" fishing up" from the U legal armoury" something like an injunction, and that such a General Strike must mean U revolution" in the continental sense.

38 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 in 1927 and did not show political effects until Stanley Baldwin's Government was defeated in the regular election of 1929. Meantime, certain social measures, implemented by " derating" designed for poor law reform, went into operation under the dis parate direction of Neville Chamberlain 11 and Winston Churchill. Publishing his theory that the general interest would be served if industry and agriculture were relieved of taxation,Churchill put through his scheme to de-rate all agriculture and reduce by three fourths the rates on all industry, the Exchequer to compensate local administrations to the extent of twenty-two million pounds total annually. Chamberlain's Local Government Bill meantime set up Councils in place of the old Board of Guardians in an effort to unify administration and humanize the Poor Laws. At this time the public was less aware of the differences between Churchill and Chamberlain than of those between Lloyd George and Asquith. 12 During the same years, 1927 and 1928, public feeling was stirred by the introduction of a bill for' modification of the Prayer Book. The British public learned how far secularism had ad vanced and in what quarters. It was noted that the Lords approved the changes which would have legalized the position of Anglo-Catholics while Commons evinced Protestant feeling which, by its illiberalism, created a new non-conformity.13 An election fell due in 1929. The public was aware of dif ferences between Churchill and ]oynson-Hicks, of Trade Union resentment against the Trades Disputes Act of 1927, of increasing unemployment, of a spirit of " safety first" in a' world in which fascism had announced a slogan of "living dangerously." A Labour Government was elected. MacDonald and the colleagues of the Labour Government of 1924 came back. Almost simul taneously the American stock market crashed. The new Govern1'1 Cf.. Keith Graham Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain (London: The Macmillan Company, 1946), pp. 149-197, where the different positions taken by the two leaders, N. Chamberlain and Churchill, are shown. Cf. also, "Mr. Churchill and the Ratepayers" in NS, XXXI (May 5, 1928), 113 f.

'12 A. J. Sylvester, The Real Lloyd George (London: Cassell and Company, 1947), pp. 146-159. 13 NS, XXX (March 24, 1928), 748 f. Cf. also, H. Slesser, Judgment R,eserved, pp. 129-136 and 232-235.

Field and Players for it Fun and Games in Politics" 39 ment found itself headed toward abandoning free trade and again going off the gold standard. Although Asquith had stated in 1923 that Labour had long been independent of the Liberal Party, the Parliamentary Labour Party, numbering 287 in the House of Commons, found itself again dependent upon Liberal support against Conservatives numbering 261. Early, upon the matter of a Coal Export Bill, came one critical moment which passed and served only as warning when, on the matter of the amendment of the Trade Union Bill of 1927, Liberal opposition checked· action. An Education Bill raising the school-leaving age and subsidizing parents of those who would elect to remain longer in school than was cMstomary for their class, failed of passage in the House of Lords. Immediate and pressing were the problems of getting funds for Unemployment Insurance and for balancing the Budget. In 1930, Philip Snowden, Chan cellor of the Exchequer, revealed a deficit of 47 million pounds, created by the charges made upon the Exchequer because of the derating begun in Churchill's administration. The public now found itself bearing new kinds of taxation; for Snowden managed to raise 30 million pounds by beer and income taxes, super-taxes and death duties. By 1931, the Exchequer was borrowing to meet Unmployment Insurance, while the Minister of Labour, Miss Bondfie1d, seeking a stop-gap fund of 25 million pounds, admitted a million pounds deficit weekly. Snowden managed to raise 20 million by petrol taxes and through the "dollar exchange"

account; and he asked payers of income and super-taxes to remit three-fourths in January instead of the usual half. By 1931 the desperation of the financial situation created a schism in .the Cabinet. Philip Snowden and his chief, Ramsay MacDonald, took a stand for economies and for keeping expenditures within the limits of feasible taxation; the rest of the Cabinet, including the powerful Arthur Henderson, thought that the occasion should be used to bring the banks under public control. Alarm. had been spread by the publication of the report of the May Committee, a body hitherto unnoticed which had been set up on the suggestion of Liberals in Parliament. Their forecast of 125 million pounds' d~ficit in the next budget resulted in bank withdrawals and forced the Bank of England to ask help from the United States Federal Reserve and the Bank of France.

40 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 MacDonald resigned on August 24, and on the next day formed a Coalition Cabinet. The Labour Party was not to regain control for fourteen years. The British public was ever after aware, however, that the forces creating a Labour Party were extant, needing only coalescence to become formidable. From this point until the eve of Munich, Baldwin and MacDonald shared power.u We turn now to a description of the position and spirit of Fabianism as of c. 1919: its own Basis, its work on the new Trade Unions Organization and the new Labour Constitution, followed by a discussion of the Fabian Plan, a blueprint for British Social ism. Then, the significance of its action within· the political struc ture shown above will become apparent. As to the Fabian Society, it emerged from World War I having shocked and shaken off those of its sentimental Socialists who were pacifists. The War had tested its principle of political action; the Labour Party had gone into coalition to assist in the nationaEzation of industries and total mobilization of men and materials so as to be able to point out their unique thesis that what could be done for war in the way of raising money for public ex penditures was possible in peace time. As in the Boer War, so in World War I (and World War 11),15 the Society took a position which compromised its Socialist tenets but was true to its per meating practice and its long view. The Party, the Trade Unions, the Socialist Societies, especially the Independent Labour Party, and the Cooperatives claimed the attention of Fabians after the War. Like theliving creatures flying to and fro among the elders in the apocalyptic vision, Fabians were external to but active among all these parts of the Labour Movement. Each part by reason of its immaturity provided an opportunity to the Fabians to inocuiate it with their peculiar Socialism which was monistic, 14 Cf. Rt. Hon. Viscount Samuel (Herbert L. Samuel), Grooves of Change: A Book of Memoirs (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-MerrillCompany, 1946), especially, "Home Secretary Again, 1931-1932,"pp. 257-271.

15 Written by individuals of the" Socialist Clarity Group," Labour's Next Step (London: Fabian Society, 1940) shows the Fabian's concerted will to use the position of Labour in Coalition in· World· War II to undermine the Government in order to effect a programme of "social democracy" after the war, everywhere, "for purposes that the mass of the people desires." They argue that only a Labour Government will do.

Field and Players for U Fun and Games in Politics" 41 gradualistic and stoic. For all their activity, they were patient people. Their symbol was, and is, the plodding turtle. Their motto reads: it I wait long. When I strike, I strike hard." In what follows we shall see the long slow waiting to strike while in filtrating the elements of politicallife of Great Britain. B. POST WAR FABIANS AND THEIR BASIS By deliberate choice a section of the bourgeois intelligentsia called itself" Labour"; thus it beaconed to the working class beaconed with hand and finger to English workers and signaled, with a lantern of Socialism to the Continent. Leaving it to the' psychologist to trespass where Veblen found his specimens of " invidious" reaction, history merely shows that this was done. In the following section there is a brief. survey of the membership of the Society and its Basis. In the Society, membership in which was gained by being spon sored and elected, several professions were represented: The financial fraternity by A. Emil Davies; 16 medical, by Captain Haden Guest, Doctors Letitia Fairfield and Ethel Bentham; bar risters, by many such as H. H. Slesser but none more promising than Clement Attlee and C. M. Lloyd; 17 -historians, by F. E.

16 Chairman of several investment trusts, historian of the LCC, editor of the Treasure Book of Knowledge, according to Who's Who, 1931, and FN, XXXIV:8 (August, 1923). Some Fabians contributed to the first-named work, namely, J. L. Cohen, Dorothy Evans, F. W. Galton, Frank Rutter, Ernest Davies. 1'1 Cf. Clement R. Attlee, The Labour Party in Perspective (London: Victor Gollancz, 1937). His opening sentences in Chapter I are character istic: " Some thirty years ago, when I was a young barrister just'down from Oxford, I engaged in various forms of social work in East London [Toyn beeism]. The conditions of the people led me to study their causes and to reconsider the assumptions of the social class to which I belonged. I became an enthusiastic convert to Socialism. I joined the Fabian Society and the Independent Labour Party and became a member of my Trade Union, the National Union of Clerks. For many years, I worked as a rank and file member of the movement, taking my share of the work of branch activities and propaganda meetings at street corners. I shared the hopes and disap pointments incidental to Socialist work in what was then a very backward area." H. H. Slesser (Schloesser) was the legal authority for Fabians on Trade Unions Law. Cf. FNJ XXIX (February, 1918). Also, cf. his 42 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Green, R. C. K. Ensor, R. H. Tawney and Gilbert Slater; 18 statisticians and economists by Mrs. Frances Wood and C. H.

Judgment Reserv,ed. Lloyd served a long time. Cf. Cole, "Lloyd, Charles Mostyn," FN, 57:5 (May, 1946). The notice of Lloyd's death is here given in full because it is highly characteristic of Fabian appraisal of colleagues. G. D. H. Cole signed it under date of May, 1946. "Charles Mostyn Lloyd's death in February, 1946, has taken away a Fabian who was rightly loved. He was one of the most genuine Socialists and one of the best friends I have known. Joining the Fabian Society at Oxford in 1900, he remained faithful to it for the rest of his life, serving on the Executive for a number of years, and always enthusiastically ready to do for it what needed doing rather than what he would have preferred to do. That was Mostyn Lloyd's way; he served the Socialist movement, and never asserted his own· claims. [Religiousness is a notable characteristic.] After Oxford he went to live first at Toynbee Hall and then in Bethnal Green, and was called to the Bar.

The Webbs soon claimed him and his first big job was on the staff of the National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution, formed by the Webbs to push the Poor Law Minority Report of 1909. Before that he had married Theo Reeves, who shared his work. [A typical case of intrasect marriage. The Pember-Reeves were Fabians.] They went on living in Be!hnal Green, where they played an active part in the ILP. Mostyn Lloyd refused to label himself as "Progressive." He fought-and lost-as" Labour" [this evinced ILP mentality; the Progressives were a Webb faction which vanished] because he felt his duty was to the Socialist movement. In 1914 war claimed him, of his own accord; he was wounded on the Somme, and was thereaft~r employed in training officers. After the war he took up double duty [in the London School of Economics and as assistant editor of the NS]. He wrote ... on Trade Unionism; the rest of his writings, including some ex cellent tracts on Local Government for the Fabian Society, are scattered largely in the NS ... he effaced himself, doing jobs for the cause, and not bothering about fame or money ... an idealist cynic, with a great sense of humor; a friend who understood friendship; and admirable teacher.... "

[Repetitiousness is characteristic of Cole.] The italics inserted .indicate the characteristics and the habitat, as it were, of many a Fabian. The London School of Economics is not a Fabian Society appurtenance. It was founded by Sidney Webb with moneys from a bequest. Its first president was not a Socialist. It represents the conviction of Fabians that academic freedom in pursuit of truth will bring science to its proper ends. A Jetter from A. E. Davies, LCC, to the writer confirms this view and also the view that the NS may be considered a genuine Fabian organ. N S is an organ of Fabianism if not a Fabian organ;· LSE turned out many social democrats, i.f not Fabians. 18Cf. R. H. Tawney, The British Labour Movement (New Haven: The Institute· of Political Publications of Williams College of Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1925).

Field and Players for {( Fun and Games in Politics" 43 Clapham; the literary fraternity by Aylmer Maude and Patrick Braybrooke; the military, by Brigadier General C. B. Thomson, Major Graham Pole, Captain Basil Hall; engineering, by H. H. Pearsall; architecture and city planning, by Raymond Unwin; publishing, by George Standring; 19 novelists and publicists, by Rebecca West on the staff of the New Republic (U.S.) 20 and Clifford Sharp of the New Statesman,. theatre, by Herbert Trench and St. John Ervine; academicians, by Professor Edith Morley; economists, by Hugh Dalton and W. A. Robson; social scientists, by Michael Oakeshott and Ernest Barker; 21 ecclesiastical art by Reverend Percy Dearmer; poetry by Mrs. Jessie Duncan West brook, .Maurice Hewlett and Edward Carpenter (Rupert Brooke had been killed in the war) ; philosophy, by C. E. M. Joad; peers, by Viscount Haldane,22 Lord Parmoor, and Lord. Henry Bentick; 19 Victor Gollancz was shortly to become their publisher as well as a member.

20 Contributor to the NS and The Clarion, Miss West wrote even then for the New Republic, and in 1931, was "visiting critic" to the New York Herald Tribune. Cf. Who's Who, 1931. This is a far from unusual ,case in poirl1f of "penetration" of the United States. 21 Cf. Michael Oakeshott, The Social and Political Doctrines of Contem porary Europe (Cambridge: The University Press; New York: The Mac millan Company, 1942). This was first published in 1938. The American edition bears prefaces by Frederic A. Ogg and Ernest Barker. 2~ Richard Burdon Haldane, An Autobiography (London: Hodder and Staughton, 1929), p. 93. He was very intimate with the Webbs, but differed with Fabianism on Imperial Federation. His philosophy, a synthesis of Fichte, Hegel and Kant, with Goethe-in" Relativity "-made Haldane sym pathetic with the best in German culture. It precluded exaggerated nationalis tic positivism. Cf. R. Metz, " Richard Burdon Haldane," Di,ePhilosophischen Stromungen der Geganwerin Grosbrittannen, pp. 294--295. "Die neue Zutage gefordete .Wissenshaft ist nichts anderes als eine neue Erfiillung der Hegelschen Lehre" (p. 248). At this time Harold Laski was sifting Marxianism into the Fabian leaven. Pease reviewed in FN, XXXIII: 10 (October, .1922), Laski's Karl Marx: A Study, which had been printed by the Fabian Society . He pointed out that the theory of value was all anybody in England paid any attention to in 1892, but that since the war" Mr. Laski sees in Marx the Prophet of Revolution." Mr. Pease, surely with tongue in cheek, wrote, "This is the aspect of Marxianism [Laski's remark and as sumption that a generation which had seen the doctrine supported by ma chine guns is not likely to belittle the revolutionary's as a method of the proletariat's gaining power], which interests readers ,·nowadays and for this reason, if for no other, ,Mr. Laski's essay should bea best seller."

44 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain.1919-1931 organizers, by Tom Mann, J. H. Thomas of the Railways and Ben Cooper of the Cigar Makers Association; 23 university men, by Sidney Ball,up to his death in June, 1918, don of St. John's and founder of the Social Club which sponsored Fabian Lecturers. 2,' Stephen Sanders was Fabian Secretary, destined to great service in the ILO as deputy Chief of Administrative Service. Women's names, destined to loom large, were already prominent: Margaret Bondfield, devoted to Trade Unionism; Susan Lawrence and Ellen Wilkinson, Labour Party politicians; the dynamic organizer, Miss Mary MacArthur (her husband, C. W. Anderson, died before 1920). Besides the members there were the friends, those who were joined in their friendship for the Webbs, like Herbert Samuel, Sidney Buxton, Kate Courtney and Lord Parmoor (Cripps) ; or by connection with the ILP, like Philip Snowden, formerly of the Temperance movement, who detested Trade Unionism. (Mrs. Snowden was a· very prominent Fabian. They had been. introduced at a Fabian Society meeting.) 25 Again, the 23 FN, XXXI:2 (February, 1920). "Obituary."

24 Cf. Herbert Louis Samuel (Viscount Samuel, P.C., G.D.B., G.B.E.,· Hon. D.C.L. [Oxford], Hon. Fellow of BalIioI), Grooves of Change, op. cit., p.27. "Return to Politicis: 1926-1931,"p. 233, and on through" Resignation: 1932," ending on p. 271, are pertinent pages. Samuel who did not join the Society wrote of those he met in the Grosvenor RoadHouse of the Webbs: Haldane, H. G. Wells, Creighton, Bishop of London, William Pember Reeves from the New Zealand Government, Shaw, Wallas, and later Charles Trevelyan, brother of the poet and historian. He describes his last visit to them, when, aged 85 and 83, Beatrice and Sidney rejoiced in his sympathy with them regarding" the new civilisation"; and he recalls the conversation about Trevelyan's angry reaction to Well's The New Machiavelli,which they had found amusing at the time of its publication. Beatrice's last letter to Samuel spoke of Trevelyan's adherence to the Soviet ideal and his" austere life." A certain H.· W. Samuels is named as serving· as chairman for lectures under Fabian auspices often in FN; e.g., the March, 1918, issue (FN, XXIX :4) mentions his presiding at a meeting of the Women's Fabian Group. He was an M.P., 1923-24 and 1929-31.

Cf. Ronald Knox, A Spiritual Aenead (Westminster: Newman Book Company, 1948) tells of his belonging to the Oxford Fabian Society· in undergraduate days. But Knox had become a Catholic by 1919. 25ILP was showing signs of developing two mentalities; the scientific and the sentimental, exemplified by Pethick-Lawrence and Jenny Lee, for ex amples.

Field and Players for Ii Fun and Games in Politics" 45 Society had its globe trotting lecturers, more like missionaries, such as Samuel K. Ratcliffe, the London repre~ei1tative of the N e'W Republic (U.S.) reporting about observations made not only in .A.merica but in India. And there were reporters back from Russia like George Lansbury and Julius West. 26 In general, its membership was not drawn from the laboring classes, save for the rising organizers who. had to show membership in a socialist society in order to take their places in the Labour and Socialist International. The large and luminous names were those of men and women in the height of careers: Besides the Webbs, Shaw and Lord Olivier, there were Arthur Henderson, Lord Ponsonby,21 Arthur Greenwood,28 Harold Laski, Edwin R. Pease and Bertrand Russell,29 and Beatrice Webb's nephews, Malcolm and H. T. Muggeridge and Stafford Cripps.so Margaret and Raymond Postgate (disowned by their father) and G. D. H. Cole were then serving in the Fabian Research Bureau, which, in 1920, was undergoing infiltration by Communists. H. G. Wells was at loggerheads with the Old Gang~not with the Society itself. 31 Graham Wallas was gone· but not in any sense forgotten.

Sta.rting in 1919, a new impulse was given to the intellectual efforts exerted by Fabians. Several historical books appeared or were re-issued or re-emphasized: Sidney and B.eatrice Webb's 28 Ne Rappaport. Cf. FN, XXX:l (January, 1919), f( The Death of Julius West." 27 His last contest as a Liberal was in 1918. M.P. in 1920-1922as Labour member, Ponsonby was the only notable musici~n (except Sir Thomas Beecham) among Fabians; a member of the Council of the Royal Society of Music. The Fabian utopia held a vision of free concerts. 28 Greenwood gave six lectures on local government. Cf. FN, XXI:2 (1920). 29 Cf. f( Subject Groups: Fabian Nursery," FN, XXIX:5 (April, 1918). A resolution was passed and f( forwarded to the Trades Councils, Universities, and individuals" expressing approval of the work done by Bertrand Russell f( in the cause of truth and freedom." 30 Stephen H. Hobhouse was not attached to Fabianism. Cf. his Margaret Hobhouse and Her Family (Rochester: The Stanhope Press, 1934).

81 H. G. Wells, After Democracy (London: Watts and Company, 1932), p. 11. Wells, addressing the Liberal Summer School in 1932, acknowledged his too early insistence on· international mindedness and on an elite or U Samurai" as of c..1910 when he had broken with the Fabians. The Samurai idea was little different from U the experts" or " the elite" in Fabian schemes.

46 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 History of Trade Unionism, brought down to date with the rail way strike included, and the place of Trade Unions in the state " emphasized," 32 had a new edition, as did their Industrial Democracy. The history was sold to members at a reduction. Union members and WEA 33 members were given special rates. A cheap edition of Fabian H. Duncan Hall's The British Com monwealth of Nations was arranged for members, and the same arrangement, also with Methuen and Company, was made for Max Beer's History of British Socialism; 34 likewise a special edition of The Village Labourer, 1760-1832 by Fabians J. L. and B. Hammond. ~vangelical support for Fabian ethics came from such publications as that of the Reverend Gilbert C. Binyon, The Christian Faith and The Social Revolution. The author was a Fabian and the publication was made through the SPCK.35 Spe cial emphasis was given to the cheap edition of J. M. Keynes, Economic Consequences of the Peace, orders limited to Trade Unions, Socialist and Labour bodies, and Cooperative Organiza tions. The volume is almost symbolical of the intermingling of liberal economics with Socialist economic thought at the level of the Economic Journal, the organ of the Royal Society of Econo mists whose lists, as we shall see further on, included many Fab ians. Remembering the fate of "made" constitutions and the historicism of the Webbs, it is surprising to learn that there was published by Longmans, Green and Company, A Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain, by Mrs. Sidney Webb. Sidney Webb's Toward Social Democracy, described as a ·82 Webb, History of Trade Unionism, pp. 643-649.

38 Workingmen's .Education Association was not precisely" doctrinaire" as was its predecessor, the Worker's Educational Society of London. It was heavily infiltrated with Fabian teachers. Its" Programme" was listed in Webb's bibliography for his Tutorial Class. Cf. Lorwin, Labor and Inter nationalism (New York: Macmillan and Company,1929), p. 23. ME. R. Pease, in his review of this book, found fault with the inade 'quate treatment of the part played by G. B. Shaw in promoting Socialism. "A thousand people have heard Shaw's characters talk Socialism on the stage··for everyone who has read a Socialistic book or attended a Socialistic meeting." FN, XXI :11 (November, 1920). 85 FN, XXXI :12 (December, 1920). (SPCK, the Society for the Promo tion of Christian Knowledge. Much is indicated by the names of the pub lishers which·cannot be evaluated here.) Field and Players for i( Fun and Games in Politics" 47 study of social evolution during the past three-quarters of the cen tury, was reprinted from the Cambridge Modern History.86 There was evidence of " gradual transformation, both of opinion and of institutions from an essentially Individualistic to an essentially Collectivistic basis . . . ," as Webb said, lecturing October 17, 1919, at Essex Hall upon "Fabian Essays in Socialism: Thirty Years After." He then announced the reprinting of Fabian Essays with emendations to supply their two omissions: " failure to think internationally," and failure to grasp the idea of local bodies as associations of consumers. (The latter idea projected the contrast between Municipal Socialism and State Socialism, and only appar ently lent sympathy to the cooperative idea. However, the dis cussion furthered the movement toward socialism because to categorize little towns as " local bodies, associations of consumers"

is to subtract some political element from the idea or concept of " town," and to give the idea an exponent of Socialism or Soviet ism.) The essayists thus corrected again their previously acknowl edged "errors" regarding Trade Unionism and Cooperatives. " Equality" and " justice" as of old conveyed no "metaphysical nonsense "-equality of opportunity was meant and" the sense of justice of the community," 31 i.e., " fair shares" and "industrial democracy." The attack on the future was launched with great books. It is too soon to point out how erudition was used to justify bold generalizations unwarranted by the data. 86 This had first appeared as a Fabian Tract in 1902. In 1901, Leo XIII's Graves de Communi had rejected the terminology" social democracy" on the grounds of its monistic implications, while describing it exactly as Fabians do. "It aims at putting all government in the hands of the people, reducing all ranks to the same level, abolishing all distinction of class, and finally introducing community of goods ... the right of ownership is to be abrogated.... There is nothing in common between Social and Christian Democracy." Cf. Christian Democracy (New York: Paulist Press) 1941, p.6.

81 Cf. J. H. Thomas, My Story (London: Hutchinson and Company, 1937), p. 16. "It was not equality I wanted but equality of opportunity." This was Trade Union mentality. Also, cf. Sidney Webb, Fabian Tract No. 188. " It is vital to our character that nothing should be done that would outrage, not justice, as to which there is no abstract definition of validity, but the sense of justice of the community," p. 9. This evinced the pragmatism of a British Socialist.

48 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 The New Basis of the Fabian Society was confirmed on Decem ber 12, 1919, having been moved May 23.38 A brief comparison with the old Basis is revealing: Both Bases stated, "The Fabian Society consists of Socialists," a statement which meant something luore positive in 1919 than in 1887; then Fabians. had not been partial to the special notes of Socialism except for a nod to the Marxian theory of value for they had been Ricardians primarily, and later they had followed Jevons ; and as for economic determin ism in history, it was as little regarded as the notion of " comrade." In 1919 they embraced both economic determinism and the appel lation of comrade, especially in speaking of cContinental Socialists. Both Bases declared the aim of the Society to be an equitable sharing. by the " ,vhole people" (not indeed " all the people") of the nation's advantages, natural and acquired, by means of " emancipation" of Land and Industrial Capital and the vesting of such in the community. The old Basis had said" individual and class ownership" was destined to be destroyed; the new omitted " and class." The old had been an adaptation of pure or doctrinaire Socialism; the new was a summary of political socialistic beliefs, because the middle class, now in 1919, held more individually owned property than in 1887. The New Basis toned down the tenet that the Socialist State should dissolve all ownership. Shaw's fine hand had been detectible in the unscientific but literary old form which defined rent as " the price paid for permission to use the earth, as ,veil as for the advantage of superior soils and sites."

The new. form, more Webbian, would meet" extinction of private property in land with equitable consideration of established ex pectations and due provision as to the tenure of the home and the homestead"; that is, the Basis of 1919 allowed compensation for expropriated property and permitted ownership of a house and lot (not to mention royalties for writings). As in the old Basis, nationalization of "only such industries as can be conducted socially" should be accomplished-" constitutionally." Again, in 38 FN, XXXI:1 (January, 1920). Both Bas.es are given in Pease, History of Fabian Society. Italics in quotations inserted. The names, for what it would be worth in the organization, of those who opposed the motion to confirm were printed. Webb, Shaw, and William Stephen Sanders sup ported confirmation. Later, the Labour Party developed a principle of expulsion of dissenters. It was possible to expel from the Society a Fabian, once elected, also.

Field and Players for it Fun and Games in Politics 11 49 the new Basis, in place of the harangue about the worker's obtain ing H leave to earn" from the H proprietary class," the contem porary. fusion of hand and brain workers was recognized in the dignified statement that the It governing consideration" in regula-' tion was the " common good," instead ofprivate profit, which was to be subordinated to it. It read that "in the regulation of production, distribution and service," private profit was not to be the If governing principle." (It cannot be asserted that private profit was outlawed, although when Fabians wrote for the Inter national they advocated nationalizing all property and all profes sions.) This distinguished' Fabians from the H pure" or " senti mental" Socialists. In the old Basis, no compensation, only relief, 'was to be givell-for expropriated properties; the new Basis undertook compensation. If two characteristics of' the old Basis, namely the idea of adding Rent and Interest to the reward· of ' Labour, and the disapproval of "the idle class now living on the labour of others," were not expressed in the new, .these elements were not lost to view. This will appear later on when the eco nomic basis of 1919, the Capital Levy, is discussed, and Webb's National Finance and a Levy on Capital: What Labour Intends, and his How to Pay for the War, are examined. The new Biisis incorporated the information previously given in advertising descriptions of the Society that it was a constituent body of the Labour Party and it added" and of the International Socialist Congress" ; also It it takes part freely in all constitutional .

movements which can be guided towards its own objects." 39 It seems necessary to quote entirely its H direct business" : (a) The propaganda of Socialism in its application to current problems; (b) investigation and discovery in social, industrial, political and economic relations; (c) the working out of Socialist principles in .legislation and administrative reconstruction; (d) the publication of the results of its i'nvestigations and their practical lessons. 89 Italics inserted. The egotism of Fabians shown in their candidly appraising all movements in the light of their own objectives, is something to be noted. Fabians gave attention to all liberal ideas (even though the Webbs were poor listeners) and had no doubts about their own capacity to evaluate them. Margaret Hobhouse wrote in 1901: II The Sidney Webbs are here, very clever, very conceited. . . ." Cf. Stephen Hobhouse, Ope cit., p. 162.

50 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Equal citizenship of men and women, added to the old Basis in 1907, was now amplified by the expression by the Society of its belief that citizenship should not. be qualified by sex, race, or creed. The new Basis spoke of " discovery" in various" relations" where the old Basis had spoken of the aim to disseminate knowledge as to the relations of the individual and society under economic, ethical, political aspects. That collective entities were to. supply the fields for discovery of relations is indicated; in the new Basis, the individual has disappeared because Individualism is no longer a problem.40 Indeed, mention of "ethical" social aims is not made in the new Basis. And still a definition of Socialism is lack ing. It was good strategy for Fabians not to define Socialism if they hoped to have the cooperation of European and Russian socialists as well as domestic Trade Unionists.

In connection with the new Basis, the attitude toward Continental Socialists of the British gradualists is an aid to understanding the new understatements. In the Labour Year Book, 1919, under "The Attitude of the Socialist and Labour Parties during the War," the Socialist Parties of every European country were tabu lated. The effects of an hypothetical unanimity were contem plated. Socialism was demonstrably conceived as an universal " religion" and" faith." ·41 Socialists in England attempted to do what religion did not do, that is, bring into existence a thing of one-party and one-world. In this frame of mind the inclusion of an article by the Belgian Socialist and Internationalist Camille Huysman in the British Labour Party's Year Book was an acceptable thing. 42 The most important changes besides the new dignity in diction ~ Socialism and Individualism by Sidney Webb, Bernard Shaw, Sidney Ball and Sir Oliver Lodge. This was Fabian Socialist Series No.3, reprinted in New York by John Lane Company, 1911.

4'1 In Richard V. Burke, "A Conception of Ideology for Historians" in The] ournal of the History of Ideas, X :2, April 1949, 183-198, note 38, the support of Benedette Croce and Pareto is cited for the idea that the" isms" are" religions." Beatrice Webb deplored" creed-wars." (She often tried to escape'the conclusions of the Socialist propositions.) She advocated" the religion of scientific humanism." Where the governing forces of natural1aw holding together human institutions are, to all intents and purposes dissolved, socialism offers itself as a replacement. • 2 Cf. Labour Year Book, 1919, p. 43.

Field and Players for II Fun and Games in Politics" 51 and the more scientific tone, are the notion of compensation for expropriation and the transfer into a Socialistic order, (perhaps the state) of specific industries rather than expropriation of In dustrial Capital outright. Shaw named this "State-Aided Cap italism." As long as the Fabian Basis would be in operation and Fabians in control of a Government there should be no full aboli tion of Capitalism; only those industries which can be socially controlled should be expropriated. 48 How the Fabian Basis and the utterances of Socialists belonging to the Labour Party were not always consonant isto be seen as this study progresses. 4:8 U Social control" which can be ethical control is mistakenly equated with State Control. State Control in a republic, means Party Control. National~zation of a very few basic industries under Party Control conduces to control of all business through taxation to support expropriated businesses.

If the Party be Sociaist, the stage is set for Socialism --" a creed.