Chapter II - Fabians and the Rise of the Labour Party

CHAPTER II FABIANS AND THE RISE OF THE LABOUR PARTY A. Ideological Education In the ensuing chapter is indicated Fabian penetration into the ideological area supporting a Labour Party to set a creed; into the area of resurgent union organizing to propagandize for the Party; into the hinterlands to exercise the Party in political action. By a fluke almost symbolical, the marks of Fabian penetration into the lowly cooperatives revealed Fabian permeation high into the realms of so-called" liberal" economics. Fabians were at once active and speculative. Arthur Henderson, J. P. Middleton, Barbara Wootton and A. Lockhurst Scott might be out in the hustings marshalling the voters into Labour ranks but the indoctrination of the leadership went on fervidly in London town, under the apparently inexhaustible Webb. The first step in the reconstituting of the Party was the laying down of a set of quasi-philosophical principles. The Society issued a prospectus for a " TutC?rial Class on the Policy and Principles of the Labour Party." 1 To be conducted by Sidney Webb at either Tothill Street or the Central Hall, the class \vould cover a six part syllabus and read eight books: Henderson's Aims of Labour, Webb's Toward Social De1nocracy, the Labour Year Book, A. W.

Humphrey's History. of Labour Representation, Mrs. Webb's Case for the Nationalltlinimu111" the FRD's How to Pay for the War (edited by Sidney Webb), and Sidney and Beatrice Webb's The Prevention of Destitution, Woolf's International Govern ment, and the Education Program1ne of the Workers' Education Association. The class was arranged by the Fabian Society, and-indicative that this was not precisely a laborers' set-up-10s 6d was charged for tuition. In the light of the fact that this course was to furnish an exposition of the" policy and principles " 1 This broadsheet was found appended to the volume of the FN which covers 1916-1920in the Library of Congress collection. 52 Fabians and the R'tse of the Labour Party 53 of the Party, said to be a political party, it is surprising to read under Section IV of the syllabus, "Music, Literature, Drama, and Art. Religion." There was nothing to warrant inclusion of the arts and religion to be found in Section I which purported to show how the principles of the Party were adduced from its history: Labour Representation in Parliament, 2 the ILP, the LRC, the effects of the Taff Vale and the Osborne judgments.

Although the elections of 1906 and 1910 are listed,it is not shown that even though "the constitution of the Labour Party and its successive transformations" followed these elections it was by sequence and not as generic growth. Indeed, these elections had demonstrated that a democratic drive toward the attainment of the commonweal cotildhave thriven within the old framework of parties. The body of persons and organizations bent. on reform might never withou,t an extraneous impulsion have been trans formed into the One-Party.3 The spark which precipitated the peculiar party was Socialism which now ordained that the " essen tial principles of Labour Party Policy" should run along the line of economics and sociology to invade by consequence the area of religion. All this is visible in this syllabus for a tutorial class in " Labour Party " policy and principles. Under "The Policy of the National Minimum " and "The Control of the ,Environment" are to be observed two of Mr.

Webb's "abysses": "The abyss involved in unmitigated indi vidualism" and " the abyss involved. in unfettered competition and the wage system "-they form but one abyss in reality, human fallibility, an area which .was to be filled up by Socialism; and this not only in Webb's teaching but in Laski's, Robson's and 2 It is. interesting to note that the third party took its rise in this special or unique representation, not, however, by evolving but by being induced to evolve something new-not by working within' the traditional framework of .politics, but by lending itself to the creation of a new social element. S This term, One-Party, is one we will helve occasion to use through the study, to stand for the instrument which the Movement created to express its will and which embodied the meaning, totalitarian. It aimed to eml:ace in a political apparatus all who labor by -hand or by brain. It might better be named the" All-Party." Young Fabians writing in The Clarion at the end of the 1920's will be found to declare that in the future society must be divided between those who are Labour and those who are "damnably other wise."

S4 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 the Fraser symposists', aU of which'will appear in a further treatment. So many are the reforms liste,d as objectives under Sections II and IV, where the abysses are found, that the element of Social ism in. which· they occur is' easily disregarded: Factory legislation, sanitation, education, housing, infant care, scientific research few would boggle at these propositions indeed; corrected indi vidualism .and moderated competition which produced these ends would be universally welcomed. Yet the theme which ran through Webb's every utterance, as expressed in his presidential address to the Party Conference of 1923 and as ,propounded to the Managers 4, (discussed. at length elsewhere) was: Only Socialism can do it. Webb exposed the basic assumption of professing Socialists, i.e., individualism and competition as elements of Capitalism could not possibly be made to include responsibility for. the good of society even by removing blemishes and invoking morality. "Profit," for Fabians, was. separated from community gain; they rejected the concept that private savings increase com munity national assets. T~e responsibility for the common good was something to be taken over by Socialism which, unlike a proper religion, absorbed the State. The Socialist State is the State of the One-Party rule.

Against the inference that liberty to act individualistically in the matter of the wage system was to disappear, Trade Unionists might have been expected to struggle. But the Tutorial Class was not exactly a school for Trade Union men. The union organi-' zations had been injected with Socialism since 1894 through ILP in which, in 1919, two-thirds of the members were Fabians, ac cording to Edward Pease. Thus the unions had been prepared to be brought under the One-Party aegis. The story· of their struggle to assert themselves independently is .the theme for another study.5 The rank and file of Trade Unionists would 4: Cf. Sidney Webb, The Root of Labour Unrest (London: Fabian Society, 1920). 5 That they have st'ruggled is apparent from Cole's works in Fabian Social ism of 1943, p. 163, .where he outlines his II New Unionism": II I want the Socialist body [elsewhere he notes that the' Fabian Society is the only extant Socialist body] to carry [it] into the Trade Union Movement." Cole has splendid ideas about attaining freedom through the Shop Council from the Fabians and the Rise of the Labour Party 55 have no quarrel with the proposition that unmitigated individual ism (Webb's phrase) should be mitigated and unfettered com petition be· at least controlled; and mere Trade Unionism, once it exchanged self-activity (the term" Direct Action" has taken on the meaning of violence) for political representation, asked that the law should remove inequities arising from human imperfec tion. But according to the principles of the Tutorial Class private ownership, competition and the wage system were to be extin guished, and in the Webb system these economic relationships were to be absorbed by Socialism (through Parliament, of course) replacing avowedly with simple ethics the theological impulsion (i.e., Charity) in individuals and association. (We shall see in anotuer connection that the young Fraser Group under Harold Laski's guidance held that Socialism should do for civilization what the Church had done for Europe· after the barbarian in vasions. These students had come to think of Charity as a dole not as a Theological Virtue and an energizing· force in organiza tion.) Socialism, according to the tutor, was to be the new civ ilization. What Sidney Webb taught of religion in the 1920's was set forth by Fabian Mrs. Mary Agnes Hamilton, in her Sidney and Beatrice Webb. He stood averse to any profession of secularism, as such. By freedom of religion, however, his students· must needs come to comprehend religion as " liberated" by being ejected large stratifications which Webbism fostered. Cf. Cole, Fabian Socialism, pp. 152-163. His insistence on Socialism to carry the H New Unionism" into the Trade Union Movement has the effect of assuring the One-Party ideal among the liberatJi workers. The difference between the Coles and the Webbs is still wha~ it was; 1943 and 1950, as in 1920. Cole returned and cooperated with F~ianism to assure the "carrying in " .of Socialism, when, as he properly conc~ives without so stating it, the monolithic state disappears.

Cole's ideas are su~limely consonant with the doctrine of "free association" and might be thou~ht anti-Marxist because he adheres to the idea of col laboration of workers and management at the works-council and shop-council level. But managdment is State and Party management in his fore-vision. Previously he had I. written in The Clarion that there must be no alliance between worker organizations and owners, as will be shown elsewhere. And his whole system is precipitated in fluid Socialism as animating spirit and ideal. He declares that the whole ideal is "ethical" (ibid., p. 164), (but, most certainly non-theological), and he uses metaphors drawn from New Testament history which show that he identifies himself and Socialism with the Christian religion which he otherwise treats as a myth (ibid., p. 29).

56 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 from the field of economics and social planning. Socio-economics having subverted the political art to economic and social ends would invest the State which, in those realms which constitute the domain of H Caesar," lies outside the surveillance of the Church, and would make religion "free." Furthermore, Webb thought of religion as an emotion. 6 The" abyss" of the wage system was to be filled in by the " spirit" (Webb's term) which guided the unions and the Party. It would be strange or unusual to take note of such matters in an ordinary history of a political party, but it is necessary to do so in the. case of the Fabian-led Labour Party because on the agenda of Webb's tutorial classes in Labour Party principles stood" Religion." Those elements which were integre gated in Webb's Tutorial Class to educate Labour politicians can not be separated in an honest evaluation.

Section III of the syllabus destroyed the last pretence to there being a mere political party in the thing Webb was creating. Never a stick was wielded, a stone thrown,)a barricade raised, nor even a shout in the streets; yet here was "the revolt of the masses." The syllabus read': "Why Democracy cannot stop at political organization, but must include control of industry and commerce." Since by Democracy Webb did not mean State, or purely political government, but the politicizing of social order ings,1 i. e., unions, cooperatives, social agencies in local govern ment and the like, within the Party, here was the ~ubversion of order. This ideological revolt of the masses consisted in the sub merging of civil order in social order, the subversion of political science to the sole role of service to socio-economic ends; in a 6 In present day currency, the collapse of that earthly trinity, republican ism, capitalism' and religion (which last, because in a real republic God is the source of authority, can collaborate wit~ government) is represented by the new semantics-" dynamic democracy," meaning politicized social ele ments; and II decadent governments," meaning Republics which recoil from Statism.

7 In the discussion of Pigou's criticism of the Webbs' Consumer Co operative ·Movement, which showed an engineer's model of the~ommunistic order as outlined in the Webb's thought, we have shown in another place what the syllabus meant here by II The sharing of Democratic Control between the Vocational Organizations and the Government [which represents] both the present generation of Consumers and the permanent interests of the State." Infra p. 102.

Fabians and the Rise of the Labour Party 57 word, The Revolution. The thing called res publica is now defined as H Control of· material, processes, product, profit, and price"; and " res privata" rises to the surface of national configuration. The base of the triangle representing societary order is now broadly extended across the top; and what was hitherto the top most peak, the angle marked State, is pointing, but momentarily before subsiding in annihilation, perilously at the bottom.s The monolithic State is an annihilated State wherein the political is consumed in the economic and social. The trinity of arts, political, economic and societary, having lost differentiation have become unitarian "Democracy" wherein the ·Party calling itself the People and investing the area of the State invades the private juridical order. There was one bright young man. who grasped Webb's ulti mates. At, the time, in the 1920's, G. D. H. Cole did not see beyond the monolith of Statism as he was later to see. For this reason, as a Guild Socialist, he remained aloof from the Society (even while the Webbs, esteeming his talents, endured his daring to differ and his impertinence) ; but he worked, up to 1924, for the Fabian Research Department 9 which had been founded by Beatrice Webb, and he returned to· the Society in 1929, meantime devoting himself to the education of young· radicals in Oxford, most of whom, like Gaitskell and Horrabin, joined the Society 8 Cf. Cole, Fabian Socialism, pp. 120 ff. "Democracy means that the people have power, and not merely the formal right to say who shall have it."

(He applied the Shop Council plan to the civil order and he confused power and authority. In a Democracy people designate who shall· bear authority. He confused social and political democracy.) Cole's power to synthesize immobilizes his thought often, e.g., "Nazi and Communist totalitarianism ... are not in the least the same in any essential particular. But they both rest in the knowledge that voting does not make a democracy [not an essential particular?] and that he who places his reliance on universal suffrage is building upon quicksand." Aside from the characteristic con tradiction, Cole says Soviet Russia is a democracy because the "whole community owns the vital instruments of production is trying to be a classless society ... giving everybody an equal chance " 9 In 1920 this Department had become the Labour Research Department but was not yet Communist. It had moved about 1919 to Labour Party Headquarters. Cole quarrelled with the Communists over their obnoxious methods.

58 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 with him in the 1930's. He had married, by then, Margaret Post gate, a colleague in the Department. The Coles developed their " New Unionism" and "Shop Councils" under a principle of collaboration of management. (not capital) and labor, while they differed from the Webbs who urged stratification and non-alliance. But the· difference was only apparent. The latter pair prepared the monolithic State which was really a State in which political life had disappeared (unless it the permanent interests of the State" should restore the non-Socialist status quo-a contradiction they were perfectly capable of containing in their preachment) and they had no plan beyond the One-Party or Order, to rule over the outcropped socio-economic mounds (Councils, Soviets or Zemst vos) in the societary terrain upon which the shadow of the mono lith lay. These Cole was preparing to invest with his "New .Unionism." The Coles and the Webbs held a common faith in Socialism and the One-Party.l0 Cole foresaw in the 1920's the disappearance of the political State, and he was to prepare to warn against its perpetuation as .the "Servile State." Beyond Statism where Webb merely stopped short, and beyond" joint consulta tion," i.e., the meeting of representatives of vocational groups with government agencies, Cole saw that H Industrial Democracy means much more· than ' j oint consultation' . . . [it means] to seek out deliberately functions of workshop control that can be transferred to the workers themselves." 11 And another young Fabian destined 10 For the Webbs the monolithic State would harden and perdure; for the Coles it would form a chimera and disappear; for Marx it would II wither" ; for Stalin it was a temporary tower of steel. .Cf. Margaret Cole, Growi"g Up Into Revolution, pp. 94-102. She declared here that she had no objection to Communism as such, only to taking orders from Moscow.

llCQle, Labour's Second Term, p. 10. Cole in 1949 wants to see this council system principle at work in the armed services; and he considers it to be working in the field of agriculture, where he equates .farmers, for whom the Government has been "solicitous" to give a "sense of managing their own affairs" [sic], with the factory workers. Certainly Cole should be credited with the intelligence to know that farmers differ in the matter of proprietorship from wage earners; yet he is asking that the Government which has nationalized industries induce· in workers a sentiment which will have the same value as proprietorship. Where papal doctrine encourages wage earners to aspire to proprietorship of land, Cole treats the farmer as a (future) mere wage earner. Cf. Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, passim.

Fabians and the Rise of the Labour Party 59 to greatness also descried the societary terrain beyond the mono lith :,12 Twelve years after his Labour in Perspective appeared, Clement Attlee was to restate: "Socialism is not just State Capitalism. The taking over of antndustry. is not an end in itself-it is a means of attaining freedom." U Freedom" meant the breakup into Councils, and other subsidiary groups. His book expounding the Socialism of a Fabian is a complete restatement again in 1949, as twelve years before, of the points Webb exposed in the tutorial syllabus of 1920. It preaches total nationalization of land, industry and labor,13 and of course the abolition of Capitalism. Attlee believes Capitalism might be abolished without State ownership of all industry. He suggests worker ownership and worker control-under the Party. What was the definition of the H Freedom JJ Attlee envisioned is not discoverable except by going back to Cole: The first principle of soundness in an economic system.:---12 Clement Attlee, Labour in Perspective and Twelve Years Later (London: Victor Gollancz, 1949), pp. 99 and 193 f.

'13 Ibid. Attlee argues that the "terror" of " socialistic" practices such as that of taking over the Post Office-something which seems nothing but right to Americans-is passing away; he does not obscure the truth that the Socialist Government means to nationalize all and not selected industries. Attlee and Cole do not advocate that the State should repress evil doers in commerce and industry ·by law, should see to it that public conveyors and purveyors, licensed and ~egulated, maintain service and goods in full supply at fair prices, and should develop for the people such enterprise or construc tion (like TVA) as are needed by or are too onerous for private capital. All that Webb, his students, and his colleagues say is said in such language as to signal to Continental Socialism-especially that which they would develop into "Social Democracy" -assent and comradeship; and this more especially with that Socialism toward which it is believed Russian Commu nism is a transition. Cf. the Memoirs of George Lansbury, pp. 223-264, but especially pp. 244 and 261; also of Ben Turner, pp. 211-231. Cf. also Cole, Fabian Soeialism,pp. 45 and 116 f., and the whole of the brochure by the Webbs, Is Russian Sovietism a N.ew Civilization?, which they answer affirmatively. It is this writer's contention that the Webbs and Shaw learned nothing new in Russia but only found articulation for what was inherent in their thought. Pius XI in Divini Redemptoris (1937) begins with a reference to the II new civilization." He answers the Webbs directly, all but naming them, by describing the new barbarism. He also refers to the conditions in Russia and Eastern Europe which he uniquely deprecated in 1924.· Cf. Pius XI, OPt cit., p. 4 f.

60 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 is that it should use all the available resources of man power to work upon the gifts of nature up to the point at which men prefer having more leisure to having more material wealth.1-4 Although this translates total mobilization, the note of genuine freedom rings in the advocacy of the Works Council and the Shop Council, "not as a meeting place for rival representatives of two , sides' but as a body representing every grade and group in the factory as partners in the common adventure of making it a success" ;15 and Cole's New Unionism had the same quality. But this " freedom" tone is muffled; it is not the true tone of liberty. In Cole's conception these Councils were presupposed to exist in a Socialist, One-Party world,16 where private ownership of the means of production was abolished,· specifically. Such was the indoctrination on the speculative side which Webb in the Tutorial Classes and Attlee and Cole from the Oxford milieu, supplied to the young leaders of the Party.

The Webbs did everything, suffered much insolence, to keep young Cole in the ranks of Labour. In this writer's opinion, he symbolize~ their own tendency toward the acceptance they were to come to make of the" new civilization," U.S.S.R. The policy and principles set forth in Section· V of the Tutorial 1·4: Cole, Fabian Socialism, p. 68. His capital-less world leaves no adven ture-save perhaps the sweepstakes; Cole's leisured universe is one wherein homo economicus must needs be perfected or be doomed to provide the ma terials for endless mystery stories-unless, forsooth, the printers should come to prefer their leisure to printing. 15 Ibid., p. 69. 161bid., p. 141. Cole carries his concept of free association over into local government, which should be made into "the small neighborhood group of dwellers in, say, a blo~k of flats or a single street or group of small streets ... a civic centre in miniature ... [with] its civiC restaurant, and ...

some one to whom the members can turn for advice in any of the troubles in life.... " (Baby sitters and games for grown-ups as well as children should be available, too.) This absurd ordering by blueprint of what develops, at least in America, from the natural association of people "in the block" assumes importance only when it is recalled that the inspiriting reason and permanent ideal was Socialism, Mr. Cole's "Socialist faith." By inspecting and categorizing ordinary societary phenomena, social scientists like Cole affix to these a coefficient altogether artificial. In such coefficients, and by manipulating them in series, they concatenate· Socialism.

Fabians and the Rise of the Labour Party 61 Class syllabus on "National Finance" were consonant with the liberal economics of the day and might have been found in the Economic Journal, the organ of the Royal Society of·.Economists, where Webb and Keynes, Pigou and W. A. Robson (Fabians) were associated; where the names of Haldane, Balfour and Alfred Marshall mingled with Bastable, Beveridge and Tawney (Fa bians) . Snowden's budgets were. to be filled with the same details as Webb set down in his syllabus: "Application [of " developed faculty" and advanced knowledge] to the problems of the budget, re-graduation of Income Tax and Death Duties, the Conscription of Wealth"; but there was added thereto the characteristic note of British Socialism as Fabians developed it: "The Standard of Life" was" No cake until all have bread." This aphorism was as economically absurd as the silly words ascribed to the queen whose memory· it evoked. That Webb meant to teach that society should exhibit no wealth until all had competence; that he would teach that nothing accrued· to society from the advances made by the more successful unless all made the same advance immediately, could be inferred from the slogan. Of course, Webb meant noth ing more than that his State would provide no luxuries until it had saturated the area of human material needs with middle-class standardized goods. On the other hand, the intention may have been simply to attract to his school for guidance the posturing young men who, in the 1920's, fancied themselves the guillotin·ers of a symbolic Marie Antoinette. Mr. Laski's students had a pre occupation with the French Revolution. l1 He also was tutoring the Labour Party.

1'he reader will experience some surprise to find that the next topic, Section VI, reads: "The Britannic Alliance and Inter nationalism." (However, it will be recalled that "Democracy" was to assu:-ue control of c01'nmerce.) Reproduced here, the con tent of the course needs no comment except that the uses of inter nationalism will come up again: The silent Transformation of the BrittsL. ~mpire into a Britannic Alliance. Why there will be no " Inlt'~rial " Parliament. The Constitutional Machinery of the---11 Cf. FAR (1933), p. 6. Laski's Socialist Tradition in the French Revolution, like his essay on Karl Marx, "continue[d] to sell well."

62 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Britannic Alliance. The Abandonment of Cosmopoli,-' tanism in favor of Internationalism, and what this implies in Foreign Relations, Tariff Policy and the estab lishment of a Supernational Authority. 18 That a step in the technique of creating a cooperative common wealth of States bound together by II internationalism" was the setting up of Fabian Societies abroad. and the encouraging of Labor parties in foreign countries was something not set forth in the syllabus.19 The· outline involved imperialism because Socialist headquarters must constitute imperial headquarters at least during the transformation or transition. 20 The answer to Professor Pigou's question as to where the capital for large enter prise involving great risk in cooperation would be found, lies in '18 Fabian Harold Laski, to whom in the 1920's Arthur Henderson (in an other example of the toleration of impudence for the sake of capturing young talent) apologized for misunderstanding him, and who was thus rejoined with the Party's new activity, prolific writer as he always was, produced in 1949 Socialism as Internationalism (London: Fabian Society and Gollancz, 1949). Pointing out the implication to Trade Unions and professional groups that their private national interests must be sacrificed, he shows that Socialism implies the separation of Nation from State. The first goes on on cultural lines; the latter goes out to meet other States and be merged in one world, ending all sovereignty. Laski's suggestions presuppose a condition of international anomy. Having repealed the natural law as a basis for inter national relations, Laski and his followers substitute an artificial basis.

19 FSAR always carried a paragraph on the affiliated Fabian Sodeti~s in Japan, India, America (Laider's II Industrial Democracy"), and Germany. Cf. Cole, Labour's SeeoM .Term, Fabian -Tract 273 (London: Fabian Society and Victor Gollancz, 1949), p. 16. II We must keep on trying to reach out across the iron curtain for means of reestablishing Socialist comradeship. . . . " Cf. also, Mark Starr, Labour Politics in U.S.A.; foreword by Margaret Cole (London: Fabian Publications and Victor Gollancz, 1949). The author is Educational Director of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union,.·U.S.A., Chairman of· Queens County Liberal Party. Starr feels that the organization called II Americans for Democratic Action" has fallen short of the hopes that it would II play the role of the Fabian Society" and "formulate long term goals and a philosophy for the new political alignment that is in formation" (p. 42). It is doubtful that Fabians have never deviated from. their assigned role of mere formulators.

20 In the "transition," America would provide the ·capital. The ensuing thoughts indicate the reasons for ADA's unsympathetic attitude toward Spain at present. Spain's unions cannot be world-amalgamated.

Fabians and the Rise of the Labour Party 63 the process of "transformation" from. "Cosmopolitanism" wherein differentiated nations subsisted together in mutual under standing, into "Internationalism." Where anomy resulting from the dissolving of national allegiance would also dissolve inter -national relations-in the old and well-understood meaning of the term-Fabians would substitute Socialism as the cohesive force among nations. And it follows that those nations whose economic systems were consonant or could be made consonant with " inter nationalist" ideals would be cherished and favored and all others would be. fought-if· only by means of political boycott-until they should conforn1. Shaw pointed out the logical conclusion to Webb's propositions and was so consistent as to advocate that headquarters be not in London but in Geneva 21 in his 1929 tract for the Society, The League of Nations (Fabian Tract 226) wherein he advocated abolishing all the political apparatus of the League save Albert Thomas's ILO office which he equated with " Vatican."

Thus the "philosophy" of the intelligentsia, leaders of the rising Labour Party, was promulgated while the prosy business of penetrating committees went on at the county and borough levels. Trade Unionism presented a middle ground between the ideolo gical camp and the field where the Party took its stand. That Fabian organizers were not agreed on unionizing methods may have been detrimental to the union movement. It is possible that the Webb-Cole argument, by offering alternatives, obscured the real goal of unionism and prevented trade union organization from developing its own character. 22 In any case in organizing or in n Cole found that the destruction on the Continent during World War II affords U larger opportunities· for the building of an international Socialist order." Cf. Fabian Socialism (1943), p. 52. His last sentence in Fabian Sodalism salutes and singles out for cooperation abroad parties banded under "Social Democracy."

22 Cf. Leo XIII, Pope, Rerum Novarum (Washington, D.C.: NCWC, 1942), pp. 32-35, where. the ideal free associations of workingmen are described. They are differentiated by "temperament of each people"; they care for their own sick, needy or aged; they allow no. wide difference in their offices such as to create discord; they settle disputes between themselves and employers (or groups of employers) before their own tribunals, It men of the same body" (employer-employee body); they disburse their funds 64 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 writing about it, Fabian work served to stimulate interest in or ganization and in politics and to bring industrial workers into the Party. A large contribution to organizing energy was made by Fabian women; and the Party gained the women's vote. In 1920, the Webbs, taking tendencies, which they believed they had foreseen in 1894, for positive trends to be recorded as history, wrote: To the new school of Trade Unionists the nationalisa tion or municipalisation of industry, or its assumption by consumers' cooperation, is a necessary preliminary to the partnership of Labour in its government. What they·are after is to alter, not only the status of the manual worker, but also the status of the employer who is the director of industry; they wish them both to become agents of the community; they desire that the manual workers and brain workers alike should be inspired, not by the greed of gain made by profit or price, but by the desire to pro duce the commodities and services needed by the com munity in return for a sufficient livelihood, and the per sonal freedom and personal responsibility which they believe should spring from vocational self-government. 23 No doubt, "vocational self-government" is the bridge built from Guild-Socialism to State-Socialism. Just above this quoted pas sage the Webbs had described the Trade· Unionist of 1920 as objecting to any sort of partnership with Capitalists or share holders since this involved leaving Rent and Interest to proprie tors. They feared that any such cooperation was destined " irre trievably [to 1 break up the sol~darity of the manual working class." (Yet, as "agents of the community " they should have a status confused with employers.) That the Webb presentation of the unionist view was not history but hope is borne out by the story of the years that followed. They presented their scheme rather than current history. The position to be occupied by the according to individual needs and provide religious benefits and educational opportunities.

23 Sidney and Beatrice Webb, History of Trade Unionism, p. 673. The principle contained in this quotation means the defeat of the papal principle of subsidiarity. Government collaboration in the industry council does not imply Government absorption of either labor or ownership.

Fabians and the Rise of the Labour Party 65 Labour Party "in the passionate support of public ownership" toward carrying out the scheme was described in 1920: [As ] . . . the result of successive attacks upon the very existence of Trade Unionism ... there has been growing up a distinct political organisation of the Trade Union Movement, aiming at securing the acceptance by the electorate, as a whole, of a definitely Socialistic policy in the administration of both home and foreign affairs. [This is the] formation of a Labour Party, ready for the the carrying into effect of the new ideas. . . .24 It is abundantly clear that it was intended that the political force within Trade Unionism was to be captured by the Party ostensibly for the protection of the principle of unionism, actually to com pass the movement and the membership for Fabian ends. The Independent Labour Party, a mere Socialist society, would be asked to confine itself to prolTIulgating Socialism in working men's ranks. The Labour Party, like Beatrice's Poor Law Commission, could recruit its members from non-Socialists even, those who would shy away from the ILP but who were nevertheless labor minded. Trade Unionism itself sought only to avail itself of the political action of the Labour Party and yet preserve its own identity. There can be no doubt that the above statement of the historians of the movement was in this case propaganda.

B. FABIANS IN TRADE UNIONISM: FOR THE PARTY The Webbs and their fellow Fabians had been beforehand in capturing the Trade Unions for the Labour Party. Before the war, Trade Unionists usually voted Liberal. Before the war's end the area of industrial organization was appropriated by Fabians to anchor thereon a part of Labour Party machinery. The Webb method was to. stratify workers-by-hand into big national amalgams. They stressed a sort of non-intercourse 1?etween the "professional groups," i.e., the unionized workers and unionized owners or employers. They rivalled the Communists in trying to infiltrate Trade Councils, those local organizations where, in a given municipality, local civil authority was represented among 24 Ibid., p. 676.

66 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 representatives of workers and owners in councils, with the aim to promote local production and to set ,local wage scales. Com munists won these over for the most part. 25 But national Trade Unions rapidly developed into large amalgamations and affiliated with the Labour Party under Fabian tutelage, which, as has been suggested, took advantage of war conditions to begin the work of building the Party. Under" Research Department" in the Fabian News, February, 1918, Fabians read: The Parliamentary committee of the Trade Union Congress has decided to cooperate with the Committee of Enquiry into Trades Councils and local Labour Parties, and has appointed F. Bramley and G. H. Stuart Bunning [Fabian] as its representatives on that Com mittee. It will be remembered that the Labour Party appointed A. Peters [in closest collaboration with Hen derson] and Sidney Webb to act in a similar capacity.

The Committee of which Egerton P .. Wake [Fabian suc cessor to Peters in the Henderson party machine] is the chairman, will issue the full questionnaire to Trades Councils and L.R. C.'s [Labour Representation Com mittees] immediately after the Labour Party Con ference. 26 Two commitees each show at least one Fabian member named if only in second place. The Enquiry was a Fabian-Labour device to develop the Party. This is an admirable example of U pene tration" by interlocking committee membership. The Fabians took over the leadership in each section. Under" Organization of Trade Councils and Local Labour Parties," 21 Fabians learned that then G. H. Stuart-Bunning (Fabian, for TUC), later to figure 25 Cf. Margaret Cole, Growing Up Into Revolution, p. 100. These remi niscences show that Cole's anti-Webb period accounts for her not knowing much about political work going on at the time.. She did not realize how Mr. Cole's talent was being used when she reports" dull" industrial organiz ing meetings as the only events that occurred in the period. Cf. her Growing Up, p. 92, where she notes that the Labour Conference of 1918 reorganized the Party and gave it "a real [Socialist] Policy." The Conference was greeted by Russian Communists through Litvinov.

26 FN, XXIX:3 (February, 1918). 21 FN1 XXIX:4 (March, 1918).

Fabians and the Rise of the Labour Party 67 prominently on the international labor scene, had presided and that G. D. H. Cole (Fabian News never treated him as an ex-Fabian) had represented the Fabian Research Department (it had not yet gone Left and into the Labour Party domicile) when the joint meeting heard· D. Carmichael of the London Trades· Council and John Baker of the Iron and Steel Trade Conference. (This was doubtless a little group destined for amalgamation.) Here we see the Party joining the TUC to survey the possibilities of increasing assimilation of· Trade· Councils and local Labour Parties by both TUC and the Party, each represented by Fabians. These instances show the methods of penetration. Another technique toward Party development waS to encourage strati fica tion. Back in 1917, at the sixth conference on Restoration of TradeD nion Conditions held in Fabian Hall,28 ~1rs. Webb had taken occasion to allude to a cutrent report· that President Wilson had suggested repealing the Sherman Anti-Trust Law to allow, as Mr. Ernest Benn also proposed,· Capitalists to meet in agreements aimed at increased productivity and to replace competition with collaboration (liable under the Sherman Act to be termed H col lusion ").29 She contrived to give the American proposition a pejorative meaning by recalling old chartered companies and say ing that state-aided monopolies were not new. She was distinctly not in favor of any cooperation of Trade-Union-with-employer groups if this involved partnership with Capitalism on the basis of the present wage· system; she feared the loss of working-class solidarity as the possible result of their succumbing to the H temp tation" for employers and employees to unite, even on a question of tariff. Collaboration of workers' and employers' groups was th~s rej ected with little reserve, because it· impeded the aim to increase the stratification of ,yorkers throughout the social fabric.

This. was expected to produce a bloc vote. Mrs. Webb said the 28 FN, XXVIII:5 (April, 1917). England has no anti-trust laws and English businessmen make agreements on prices which it is customary to keep as· gentlemen's agreements even if it means supporting a weak and unnecessary competitor. Cf. B. M. Anderson, Economics and the· Public Welfare (Toronto: D. van Nostrand, 1949), p. 163. 29 This reference may indicate the anticipation of the Webb-Pomerene Act of ·1918, allowing combinations, specifically in exporting businesses, for price fixing and order allotment.

68 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 only advantage to workingmen in entering any association of employers and employees, besides mere recognition of their unions, might be to bring about compulsory Trade Unionism. She was emphatically suspicious of any permanent association of Capital and Labor. This may not seem consonant with the ex pressed Fabian policy of opposing class warfare which appears in Sidney Webb's thought; yet Beatrice was permeating the unions with Socialist "classlessness." Inherent in her principles was the proposition that Capitalism must disappear and the owner be re placed by management, under State Planning. After stratifica tion, came the elimination of the Capitalist, the mobilization of industry through the Party. The Party was to inspirit the State and the Party was to be made up· of workers by brain as well as workers by hand sO-all persons. Beatrice Webb stressed voca tional associations, but her use of the term" vocational group" did not connote. a perpendicular order, where collaboration of workers and owners looked toward mutual benefit and the common good through production, as it did in its matrix in Guild-Socialism.

It meant instead, the conquest of one group, the Capitalists, by the others-by all persons who worked organized with their colleagues in horizontal lines. It is very significant that the seri~s of Conferences on Restoring Trade Union Conditions was held in Fabian Hall and that the conferences heard Beatrice Webb and other Fabians. The leaders of Trade Unions believed that Fabian Socialists aimed to " restore Trade Union conditions," conditions which depend upon sound Capitalism; but itl: the above set of principles propounded by-Beatrice Webb lay the reason for the Fabian rejection of the Whitley 'Council system based upon capital-labor-government collaboration, and the warping of the unions into the Party instead. Along with assisting and encouraging the big national amalgams of Trade Union groups, the Webbs were writing over again their History of Trade Unionism, 1666-1920, with references from which transition was made to this section. E. R. Pease reviewed it when it was re-issued specially for WEA and TUC in 1920.

30 Margaret Cole, Beatrice Webb (London: Longmans Green and Com pany, 1945), pp. 35 and 123. This was not one of Beatrice's" mistakes." It led her to her love of the U.S.S.R. .

· Fabians and the Rise of the Labour Party 69 This founding Fabian's succinct observations will serve to show the increasingly clear Cl rticulation of the relations of the Party to the unions affiliated with it and united. under TUC. Their criticism of the latter [Trades Unions Congress] is severe; but not, we think, unjustified. The Parlia mentary Committee has lacked inspiration; it has not made the best of its great opportunity; and its con stituents have neither expected great things of it, nor provided the income and organisation necessary for ex pansion. The Labour Party has necessarily taken over most of the work [political] which the Congress used to do, yet the Congress has neither abandoned its political business, nor attempted the coordination of Trade Union activities in the industrial sphere, a work which is urgently required and which no other body can properly undertake. 31 The italics supplied indicate the two separated functions assigned to the Party and the TUC respectively, and the excerpt indicates the part the Fabians played in outlining these spheres of indus trial and political action. They must he credited with the shunt ing .off of the effectiveness of Communist subversion which gained ground only in small or ill-defin·ed areas. However, the unions lost the right to exercise political activity on their own.

Here a Fabian shows them their proper· sphere-their own cor ner. Pease indicated that "political business" had better belong to the Party. Fabians would help with both the political business of the Party and the coordination of Trade Union activities in the industrial sphere. The challenge in this criticism· was met by steady growth in Trade Union organization, growth which continued until the TUC plunged itself, with no effort to prevent or stay it on the part of Fabians, into another debacle similar to that known as " Taff Vale," when in 1926 it made a direct attempt to coerce Parliament or the Government. Incidentally, Pease termed "a piece of anthropomorphism more appropriate for a propagandist speecp.than for serious history" the statement made 3"1 FN, XXXI:5 (May, 1920). (Italics are inserted.) Cf. also, Gannett and Catherwood, Industrial and Labour Relations in Great Britain: A Symposium (New York: published by authors, 1939). The Appendix provides descriptive documents on Whitley Councils, p. 349.

70 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 by the Webbs that in the Taff Vale case " the Capitalists" 32 re garded the temporary crippling of the Trade Union Movement as well worth all it might cost them.33 Here was an old Fabian clinging to a Fabian ideal, somewhat repelled by the strategic pragmatism· of the Webbs-in this case, an appeal to an anthro pomorphic mentality. Unionization and Trade Union Congresses were, for the Webbs, means to political power; they assisted the ill-shaped and poorly-grounded unions to consolidate their' organi zation at the time when it was believed such unions were doomed to extinction in " professionalism," by encouraging the growth of TUC and the amalgamations and by establishing the pattern of affiliation of all with the Party. The Labour Year Book of 1919 is a· monument to this policy, and to Fabian penetration. Interesting indications. of Fabian activity shaping the gro\vth of the Trade Union Movement and of the latter's being warped to the Labour Party, can be gleaned from accounts of the Fabian Women's Group. Women and The Labour Party, a publication listed in the flyleaf of the Labour Year Book of 1919, had for its authors Mrs. Sidney \Vebb, Margaret L. Davies, Mary Mac Arthur, Margaret McMillan and Rebecca West. The introduction was by Marion Phillips and the foreword by Arthur Henderson, kindly but firm" Uncle Arthur." All were Fa,bians, boasting the patronage of. Henderson, the close friend of Mary MacArthur.

Later on these women were given Cole's assistance as assigned scribe and organizer-he had a knack for getting himself "adored," Margaret says. Working women were intimately affected by the change-over from war production to peace, since they were marked for replacement earlier than men as demobiliza tion was slowed down. They were most active in forwarding unionization. Women unionizers tended to be Fabians first and workers' organizers second; vice versa as regards male organizers. As far back as December, 1917, the project of compiling a history of "Women in Trade Unions " was adopted by the Fabian 32Ibid., XXXI:5 (May, 1920). Pease might well have noted that the whole of the secction on Trade Unionism of the 1920's is pure propaganda. 33 Ibid. The sentiment was possibly something Sidney did not change in a part Beatrice had written. Pease's remark contributes weight to the observation made in the preceding pages to the· effect that social science was put under levy for propaganda by Fabian researchers.

Fabians and the Rise of the Labour Party 71 Women and Mrs. Webb's niece, Barbara Drake,84 was charged. with· the report. 35 This charge coincided or was arranged to coin cide with the Fabian Research Conference which opened December 12, 1917, on "The Legal Position of Trade Unions," a field which utilized the brilliant legal skill of Fabian Henry Slesser. 86 Fol lowing this, two groups, named Fabian Research Department (mixed) and Fabian Women's Group (from the industrial sec tion) had a joint meeting under the slogan, H Equal Pay for Equal Work," in January, 1918. The Fabian Research Department also lent its assistance to the joint committee of the Labour Party and the Trade Unions Congress (TUC) Parliamentary. Committee to assist, it so happened, in codifying the amendments proposed by them to the Workmen's Compensation Act. Here we. have Fabians working with .a committee of TUC which they later decreed should. desist from political action and we note also the device of the" joint committee" or the coincident meeting. 31 These rami fications are typical of the elaboration of Fabian methods. The Women's Group and the Research Department met again in con ference in June, 1918,38 to exchange views and experiences. Five speakers from various Unions, including the Fabian and politician, Ellen C. Wilkinson of theU nion of Cooperative Employers, were heard. They came eventually to the conclusion that women should be admitted to union membership on the same footing as men, among other reasons" in order not to depress the wage scale. Cole, of the Research Department, though not presiding and present only as an observer, nevertheless assumed authority to announce and 'arrange for future meetings and the Fabian Research Depart84 At that time and still a close personal friend of Margaret Postgate, now Mrs. Cole.

85 FN, XXIX:l (December, 1917). She brought in the Report in Novem- . ber, 1920. 36 Ibid. The legal work done for the unions by Fabian Henry Slesser was very valuable to them. Cf. Slesser, Ope cit., p. 47, and LYB, 1916. 37 In March, 1918, the Fabian Research Department reported that with the affiliation of the London Trade Council and the Cooperative Union about a hundred organizations had affiliated with' this Department. Mrs. Cole says they had spent a great deal of money in industrial rather than political work. Cf. her Growing Up Into Revolution, p. 94. The Communists later gained this Department but in the end lost the Movement to the Fabians. 38 FN, XXIX:7 (June, 1918).

72 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 ment took over the secretarial responsibility for these functions. 39 When the Fabian Worrien's Group met in January, 1919,40 they were reminded by :Or. Letitia Fairfield, recently released from administrative work' for the Government during the war, that opposition to women in industry and in local government came not only from men but from married women; so "Study Circles" were devised .to educate the opposition. Among the Fabian women there arose the question of "class.". Professor Edith Morley raised the. question as to whether they, as middle-class women and forming so small a body of Socialist women, should not direct their activities toward encouraging the organization of women in professions. As Socialists they should study to eliminate inequalities and increase education among themselves in oider to penetrate social circles, but they should not dictate, she thought, to any other part of the community, and should leave to industrial organizations the problems arising from women in industry. These Fabian women, Doctor Fairfield and Professor Morley, represented in their speeches two classes and two points of view. The latter's had the merit of faintly suggesting· that women get out of industry. At this time of increasing unemploy ment Fabians were contributing to the. increase of the number of unemployed men by insisting on women's rights in industry. The effect sought was to stratify this social segment and to bring it into the Party; these Party members were aware that the " woman in the home" is lost to politics and is an unaccountable voter. It was. natural that women should raise the question of "class."

Fabians resolved their doubts. By October, 1920/ 1 when faced with unemployment and the lapse of Part 3 of the Industrial Courts Act, there was no question that women and mef! should not belong to the same unions, and the question as to class among the women had been settled by 39 This meant work for the "Young Cuckoos" in Mr. Pease's menage. These over-educated children worked late and long under the critical eye of P. Arnot, N. Ewer, and other young Guild Socialists. Sometimes in order to have a week-end off, they had to hide from the" Great Ones" who thought only of work, as M. Cole tells in her Growing Up. 40 FN, XXX:2 (February, 1919). 4'1 FN, XXXI :11 (November, 1920).

Fabians and the Rise of the Labour Party 73 May, 1920,42 in the National Labour Party (Women's) Con ference. Then, while excising the' idea of separate unions for women, Fabians also abated the women's agitation over class dis tinction. The Party was clearly the great end and rationale: the stupid distinctions, which still exist in the mind of some people, between middle-class and working class women may be eliminated, and insomuch as that all are members of the Labour Party, and therefor.e, workers, they are all of one class working for the same object-the reconstitution of society.43 Tremendously interesting as exemplifying technique is the fact that although organized Fabian women were not eligible to partici pate in the last mentioned conference, the names of those women who were active in it were to be found in lists of Fabian Women. Not as delegates but as observers and representatives of the Society went Barbara Drake and Mrs. Stephen Sanders, among others. The chair was filled at times by two Trade Union and Cooperative women who were at the same time prominent Fabians, Miss Mary MacArthur (Mrs. Anderson) and Miss Susan Lawrence. Miss Margaret Bondfield reported from the Washington (Eight-Hour) Conference, one of the first land marks in the history of the ILO which was the creation of " Amsterdam" and" Berne," as Lorwin shows; and Mrs. Drake moved a resolution regarding education which outlined what actually became the future law on that subject. So from outside the Conference as well as from vantage points within the. Con ference, Fabian women infiltrated to bring the Conference in under the aegis of the Labour Party and to point out to conferees the peculiar kind of classlessness which Fabian Socialism incul cated.

Our intention in discussing the interweaving of unionizing and 42 FN, XXXI:5 (May .. 1920). 48 Ibid. Characteristic of the British approach to the class question was the idea of one-class. It veiled the realities of class-struggle and put English Socialism on the side of "Berne" and Amsterdam (minus-IFTU) against the Third International gestating in Europe. Cf. Lorwin, op. cit., PP. 174 339. Fabians had indoctrinated Bernstein who now was fairly reconciled with Kautsky. Cf. FN, XIV:I0 (October, 1904), where W. S. reviews R. C. K. Ensor.

74 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 politicizing activities is to illustrate Fabian effectiveness, not indeed to trace the rise of Trade Union consolidation after the war. We may, however, point out two balancing, even contradictory, ele luents: The first, political Socialism, was an incipient threat .to Trade Unionism; the second, "Labour," amalgamated the as sociated workers by hand and brain into one class exclusive only of organized owners, constituting a threat to social order. When a new direction was indicated by the announcement of conferences on " Women in the Home,"· it showed the sensitiveness of Fabians to social change, and the effect of growing unemployment. By now, however, women, whether industrially employed or at home, had be"en won to the Party as supporters and voters. Fabian literature followed these Party women into the home. When in dustrial organizing apparatus became obsolete, it was scrapped or consolidated. Women who had worked through the war· remained attached to the Pa~ty. When the Fabian Women's Group affiliated with the Joint Standing Committee of Industrial Women's Or ganization, January, 1921, Barbara Drake addressed them to advocate breaking down the "barrier between workers by hand and workers by brain," rather than on organizational or industrial questions. She was didactic: either professionalism or vocation alism would preserve class; to obliterate class was to develop the Party.