Chapter IX - Freedom Versus Liberty

CHAPTER IX FREEDOM VERSUS LIBERTY A. REACTION TO CRITICISM: FROM WITHOUT Having served its purposes, the Labour Government went out and its Fabian mentors took stock of the criticism evoked by the election of 1924. The criticism was double-barrelled: Labour could not cope' with·· Russia and it lent itself· to infiltration . of Communist-Socialism. The Red " Scare" represented an .. over simplification of the menace of Socialism. The MacDonald Gov ernrnent might have successfully avoided the ,stigma of Bolshevism by choosing as it did, a domestic issue upon which to fall,1but for th~Tories' exploiting the well-known sympathy of Labour with Russia by producing. the Zinoviev Letter. The scandal of the Campbell Case was not that interference. from backbenchers was used to preserve a Red miscreant from the course ofthe Law, but that interference on the part of members of the Government estopped the Attorney Genera1.2 As a ·Government,Labour lost prestige. The Government by making the creation of the select committee concerned with the. Campbell. Case its reason for re signing made an issue of its pride rather than. its Red sympathies.

Even though the N S sloganized "no loan and no resignation," making it appear that the effort to make the Treaties with Russia was the cause of going to the people, this was not the case. The Treaties were submitted in Parliament for a free vote with the understanding that the Government would. not resign if they were not accepted. Because there was no good reason for resigning 1 Cf.Clynes, C4 Did .We Tatriper With the Law," Ope cit., pp. 62 f.By his preoccupation with this point of .,. fl,icayunesignificance,. Clynes reveals the naivety of his character and the improbability of his ever discovering the real nature of the Socialism he professed. 2 Hastings was quite amenable to the leadership but he decided .not to prosecute before seeing MacDonald, on Maxton's pleading; Slesser, the ex-Fabian Solicitor, was scarcely aware of the proceedings. Cf. Slesser, Ope cit., pp. 104 f. 390 Freedom Versus Liberty 391 which could be made public, and because it carried a message to the investor class, the NS took the attitude that the reason for going to' the people was really the Treaties. By coincidence, the Zinoviev Letter argued forthwith that the "bourgeois" treaties should be the signal. for seizure. of Britain by the Communist Party. Commercial interests dissatisfied with . MacDonald lent themselves to· exploiting this bogey. .Slesser gives the impression that the idea of the commercial treaty with Russia" was gaining ground popularly, a thing which made the Zinoviev Letter " neces sary." a Fabian C. Delisle Burns says also that political obstacles stood in the way of a policy based upon economic considerations and he blames. the Communists for the .difficulties .they caused Labo~r by their open criticism in Moscow of the Labour Govern ment. So both these sure-footed, writers show the Red question was real and. affected two classes of· critics. Neither Burns nor Slesser consider the Zinoviev Letter a forgery~ A forgery could easily ·have been made because so many such letters were about in Norway, the United States, and in Germany. For the same reason, it could have been genuine.' Burns says the Secret Service supplied a copy of the document they held.5 It directed 3 Ibid., p. 110. The NS conceded the Election lost from the first but did its part in the campaign as if it did not comprehend the "Long View" of MacDonald and' Henderson.

4 Cf. Williams, op. cit., p. 314. None of the memoirs hitherto cited ventures a guess as to how the Foreign Office and the Daily Mail got their copy. Official investigation found . it genuine. Francis Williams' demand that the originalbe published [sic] is naive. 5 Weir, op. cit., pp. 189-194, says it had been held since early October. He also says Sir Eyre Crowe and MacDonald were in perfect agreement but he offers no docutnentation~ If MacDonald sought to let it be used, it was 1) to discipline his followers, or 2) with fear they might be otherwise elected. .If this were true, hiS reasons for not wishing to be elected were: 1) A gentleman's agreement with. Tory leadership, 2) his knowledge that the Movement would be ruined by a political crystallization-a term .. of office doing st~ndard politics .and never.' to reach Socialism. The" Long View" revealed another fiss~re in the idea of a "Labour Party." ..The ideal of non-political social movement had been captured to form a Party. using the carrot of II Socialism." A choice had to be made in 1924. Webb, in 1924, as in 1931, considered the pruning or shock which resulted would do the Party good. Cf. Hamilton, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, p. 290.

392 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 the British Communists to " Corrupt the Allegiance of the armed forces." 6 Burns' account is the most evenly considered: ... the letter, together with Mr. MacDonald's very vigorous criticism of it forwarded by the Foreign Office to the Russian representative in London, was published by the Foreign Office on the same day as that on which the Daily Mail published it; and in the general atmos phere of suspician in regard to Russia and the Com munists generally, it was impossible to say that any single event influenced the electors. '1 The "general atmosphere of suspicion" is better described as " insular instinct" sensing a threat to English liberties. Noone can form an opinion without consideration of the fact that although Sir Eyre Crowe, the civil service head of the depart ment, is thought to have worked at cross purposes with his Chief at times, a Parliamentary Secretary thought the agreement betwen Sir Eyre and MacDonald was perfect. The latter says he saw a tentative draft and that the Office sent it out to protect him. Parmoor believed that the attribution to MacDonald of the Note to Rakovsky discredited Labour in the eyes of those who favored a Russian trade treaty. This is a telling point: There were persons who desired the trade treaty and lost confidence in the Labour Government's ability to treat with Russia-com mercially.s Parmoor says he never heard of the Zinoviev Letter before it was published and implies it was Sir Eyre Crowe's man agement which militated against the Government. 9 Neither Pon sonby, at 10 Downing Street at this time, nor Haldane; was told about the letter. 1o The electorate made it abundantly clear that they would have none of Sovietism, while" the vote of the core of Labour showed it did not equate "Socialism" and Sovietism and others, suc cessors of Cobden and Bright, evidently prefered Curzon's method 8 Cf. Burns, A Short History of the World, 1918-1928, pp. 188 f.

'1 Ibid., p. 188. a Parmoor, Ope cit., pp. 211 f. Weir, Ope cit., p. 194, thought MacDonald used the appearance of clumsy handling to ingratiate himself with the Tories. 9 Ibid., pp. 196 f. 10 Weir, Ope cit., p. 189.

Freedom Versus Liberty 393 to MacDonald's.1.1 Fabians made a great deal of the fact that the Labour poll was a million votes heavier than in 1923; but then the general vote was larger than ever due to the scare and it divided on Tory versus Labour lines. Two groups or interests, those who thought Labour could not manage Russia and those who feared Bolshevism, defeated Labour. With the Scare which arose from the threat to liberty inherent in both Socialism and Communism we are presently concerned. Much had been said throughout the campaign about the relation of Socialism to Liberty. Fabians defended Socialism and its definition of "Freedom "-not Liberty. And they intelligently sought a spiritual basis for" Freedom." George Bernard Shaw had refused office in the late Govern ment.12 While Pease wrote" Victory in Sight," Shaw disclosed a point of view different from the historian's in a chapter which the latter incorporated in his History of the Fabian Society.ls In 1924, Sha,v looked further back than upon that day's triumph and his retrospect. cast light upon the future: He said that, long before the tide had turned, albeit with the "same water," at the time when his deductive economics (Ricardo on rent and Jevons on 1.1 Cf. again Carl Marx, The Eastern Question (London: Sonnenschein and Company, 1897), pp. 232-236. Marx judged CobdeI1's interest in the cloth trade with Moscow the key to his absorption with II free trade" and ascribed to this interest ascendancy over patriotic, religious, or cultural drives hi British statesmen's attitudes tOrWard Russia.

1.2 Cf. Clynes, Ope cit., p. 46. This is the only account which mentions the fact. The union leader was nonplussed by the intellectual's refusal to serve in Commons or U waste his time in the House of Lords" as U our spokesman." Clynes ·speaks erroneously of Shaw's "invaluable work as a propagandist of Labour's thought." Clynes iacks a real grasp of the fact that Shaw was a propagandist of Socialist thought which was repelled by the inclusion of the Trade Unions in the movement. ·13 Pease, the Fabian without guile, is the type generally· accepted in super ficial opinion formed upon the idea that Fabians are good Christians or trying to do the work good Christians leave undone. A letter to this writer from Neville Braybrooke, son of Fabian Patrick Braybrooke and editor of the literary Wind and Rain (London), expresses this view. Such opinion accepts the tenets of social democracy uncritically. Shaw, wily, guileful, profoundly penetrating, was one· Fabian who, along with Margaret Cole who has no charity for him, admitted being a Communist, and had from the beginning pointed out the ultimate conclusions of their logic.

394 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 value) had been supplanted by the Webbs' "historical concrete economics" in their Trade Unionism and Industrial Democracy,!' Graham Wallas who, though out of the Society, was still Fabian at heart; had showed ·up the "staleness" of their' movement by his studies of Chartism and his Jifeof Francis Place; 15, that while it was averred ,that one might be" a Christian and a Socialist, the actuality was the opp'osite and in the atmosphere' of the Society, spiritual persons" starved." 16 Shaw was too intelligent ,not tOiknow this meant morethan that they, being always ". Philistines,'" failed to appreciate Ruskin and Wagner, as he complained they did. Here was a succinct descrip tion of the" spirit" of Fabianism as of 1924: Concretizedeco,.. nomics (down from the moon of theory~to unions); activation of ideology (away from the staleness of Mill's and Owen's socio..

economic.' constructs~topolitical action). This very concretiza tion and activation precluded 'flights of artistic enthusiasm or ex cursions -into spiritual bournes (not to speak orthe human good derived, from sociality-mutual and equity associations capabie of flourishing under the dynamism of Charity). In the conflict between sociaLmovem'ent and political action the latter had won the ascendency. Yet 'Shaw' himself contributed' to the "starving", atmosphere. He had, by ,1924, arrived at ~sitive conclusions on the economic objectives of •Socialism which, he expressed as _" equal, distribu tion " and as the . ',' only solution that will realize the ideals' -of So cialism. '. . . This is not fully accepted as yet in the movement; in which· there' is still . . . the old craving for-an easy...going system, which,beginning 'with "the socialisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange" will then work out automatically without interference with the citizens' private affairs~11 Shaw took support from Plato's idea of " qualified rulers," adding that, "without qualified" rulers a Socialist State is impossible," as 14 Pease, op. cit.,'p. 277.

15 Ibid., p.278. 18 Ibid., pp. 279 f. 11 Ibid., p. 283.

Freedom Versus Liberty 395 impossible as achieving it without" interference with the citizen's private affairs." This only marked out a great change, one which had already transpired. ... The old republican ideal of people from all walks of life choosing one of their number to speak for them on common political interests, one who represented all, including or regardless of his own way of life, is to be discarded in favor of choosing a "trained ruler," an expert, who may lack personal experience in the business, political, professional, or religious life of a com munity. We noted how Laski found the need for using politicians to render the experts' political inexpertness bearable to people.18 His treatise on this point served to illustrate a trend rather than to produce a constructive return to republicanism. Shaw reduced political instrumentation, as he had reduced economic objective, to a concrete form. His words were redundant and ephemeral-sounding: "Democratisation of Democracy." He thought of this as creative of a "positive organising force."

Some meditation upon this theme will disclose the meaning that with multiple committee-forming, the problem confronting all plan ners, fixed in the individuality. of voters in municipalities or in factories is removed. The small committ(fe, the factory unit, the neighborhood gathering, makes for facility in carrying a majority;, these lilliputian political organisms are easily carried by the one informed member and in this way a monopoly opinion can be produced.,19 In this way, the tension found in an uneasy majority procured in the face of one or more active oppositions and bound to respect the· best thought in the minority-the old way of re publican government-is resolved. Unanimity, emerging from the assent or consent, however critical, of the minority to desig nated authority, is transformed under" democratised democracy"; '18 Supra, p. 171. Students of comparativegovernmenf will recall that Fascist Mussolini, whose State was constructed of politicized social orders, was, before the commencement of .World War II, building a "brain trust"

of political scientists to develop the political arts as well as the other arts in The Academy. 19 In this way, the virtue of non-stratification, the social adhesion produced by the fact of persons joining groups having diverse objectives is lost, and a party line established which defeats all ends save its own. Cf. Arthur M. Schlesinger, "Biography of a Nation of Joiners." American Historical Review, vol. L (October, 1944), 1-26.

396 Fabianism fn the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 it is. no longer unanimity but only acquiescence, forced or flaccid (and it is possibly the subversion of the real majority). The result defines itself as One-Party rule, the product and producer of monopoly-opinion. Shaw said " a positive organising force" was the fruit of democratising democracy; thus he implied democracy was to be henceforth an unchecked Force, not merely, as of old, "a check on tyranny." If one could read Shaw, it was hardly necessary to have a Zinoviev letter. Up to 1924, some of the old anarchies of Guild Socialism re mained to plague the Fabians. Shaw wiped. out the "imaginary issue"; for now, said he, both groups had arrived at the idea of " pqoled products" -for equal distribution. He had said, back in 1919,20 that the Society would have done better to have taken on Wells' ideas outright and let the "Old Gang" go, to get along as they would, " somewhere, somehow"; and now in 1924, he writes, "Here [in the economic and political objectives above stated] are two large jobs already in sight to occupy future Fabians. Whether they will call themselves Fabians and begin by joining the Society is a question which will not be settled by the generation to which I belong." 21 20 Cf. F. E. Lowenstein, "The Shaw-Wells Controversy," FQ, 41 (April, 1944), 15-20.

21 One cannot help the feeling that the old lion of St. Pancras Vestry is bidding for the sympathy of the offspring to whom he pathetically says adieu. It could account for the Cornelia-like devotedness of Margaret Cole to the members of the U Old Gang," (except Shaw) whom she idolizes duti fully, while she criticizes. Cf. her B,eatrice Webb and her preface to Our Partnership. A generation later, the newly formed Society was in the fore front of the Labour Party and had chosen the road of "control." They had nationalized all the promised items, even" labour," and, beginning to survey effects, were hesitant to find thecoal miners still unhappy. Cf. the review of Margaret Cole's report, "Miners and the Board," FN, 60:5 (May, 1949), 74. One reads" the Group argues with conviction [having provided" no statistical sample," however] that there are remedies for the miners' dis appointment about many matters, and that unless action is taken true disillu sion may set in." The change from. nationalization to Socialism was under study. Yet in 1947 (cf. FN, 58 :5· [June, 1947]) the Executive seemed trying to recall the Society to its old vocation, that of the Old Gang and not of the Wells-Shaw development. It is so significant as to need full quotation: "This Annual General Meeting endorses the following statement of the aims of the Society: "The principal aim of the Fabian society should be to influence, stimulate, Freedom Versus Liberty 397 Writing while Labour lived its brief day of power, his was 'no note of triumph but only of warning: Between bending every effort to create a politicized centre and forming cadres to trans form the circuit of popular power in a democratised democracy led by trained rulers, lay the choice of the future. Shaw thought it did not matter really what choice was made. A new synthesis was taking shape: Out of decentralized social ordering would come the monopoly opinion to inform the monolithic state itse1f that robot which must result from politicized economic and social units. Shaw offered no synthesis, only a choice. There is no indication that British Socialism made the choice so offered; few understood Shaw. Within another decade, however, the "Old Gang" had swarmed off. But when Wells died it was said his spirit had always been one with the Society. We refer in another place to his idea of the H priesthood" of social responsibility.

The shape of' "The Order" is perceivable in the words now coming into use: Cor'rol, force, elite leadership, equal distribu tion. But for the immediate future Fabians were still calling themselves Fabians and looking to the next Election by defending and instruct the vanguard of the Socialist movement rather than to engage directly in mass activities. For this purpose the role of the Society is primarily to conduct research, to assemble and interpret significant facts, to serve as a forum of discussion at a relatively advanced level, to maintain a continuous intellectual initiative in the formation of constructive policies, and generally to act as a radiating centre for new ideas. The development of cadres in the Labour movement is an i~portant aspect of this objective. The dissemination of ideas emerging from the parent Society's work among a wider public can be carried out to a considerable extent through the provincial Fabian Societies.

"While the Society can usefully devote a limited amount of attention to writing memoranda for Labour Ministers and Members of Parliament, it should take care not to become absorbed with current affairs of immediate practical importance to the detriment of questions of future importance. The Society should resist the tendency to disperse its resources by attempt ing to cover too wide a field, and should concentrate on problems of major significance. The Society should welcome financial aid for its work from outside bodies or persons, but its work is unlikely to reach a high standard unless' the subjects of investigation are chosen primarily with a view to the interests of' the members taking part in them." "Buffet Tea will be available at about 4.30 p.m. ANDREW FILSON, General Secretary."

398 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Freedom. The ,It Labour" Movement had had political experience and had contributed to the historical dynamic the peculiar force which was its' O'wn. Fabian Socialists had learned empirically· the effect of pol~tical action directed toward economic ends through social magnitudes. And they had learned, that a fear of losing Freedom 22 could move the electorate. Thus it came about that Professor Harold Laski (of whom Shaw said in his interlinear reply to this writer's letter, which was thus returned, that he was ,a fairly representative Fabian) took upon himself the task of explaining the nature of Freedom in the Socialists' conception, since the electorate had exhibited a fear more instinctive than rational in October, 1924. The Society pub lished and sold Laski's Fabian Tract No. 216, Socialism and Free dom, which came out in July, 1925. He wished to appease the fears found current. He enumerated the feared threats to freedolTI: 1) "Bureaucracy," 2) Platonic Utopia, 3) the threat to the farnily, 4) the peril to artists and thinkers, 5) the" absence of a leisure class," 6) the loss of the apprentice' dream of becoming the Boss, 7) the loss of color and variety in an era of planning, 8) the loss of " chance and vividness" when " no man remains . . .

eager and able to be master of the event . .. mediocrity . . . uniformity." By antithesis, he remarked that an "idyllic picture" which lacks "the single merit, of accuracy" was presented by those who sought amelioration without Socialism. He listed these admitted gains: 1) The increase in real wages, 2) social insurance, 3) increased educational opportunity, 4) an awakening national conscience regarding' slums, infant mortality, preventable accidents in industry, inequality before the law, a harsh penal system, 5) charity. more widespread, 6) .growing .unity of classes, 7) the " spirit of progress" keynoted by concern for the right of the individual. This list contributed by ameliorists did not, he said, "possess the single merit of accuracy." The reader seeks in vain for the assuagement of the listed fears; the rest of the article is an elaboration of his antithesis. 22 The semantics of "Freedom" as opposed to "Liberty" are very significant: Freedom is something bestowed on dependents; Liberty is .. an inherent quality, sometimes resisted or denied but irremovable. Fabians spoke of Freedom.

Freedom Versus Liberty 399 Laski's H Freedom" is very difficult to define, .even in fourteen pages full of materialism 23 wherein H fellowship" is the preserver of· the commonwealth H whether [men] will or no," a discovery to be made by ... experiment with the best in themselves. But, so to experiment we need to be members of a State to which the allegiance of men is given with a passionat once vivid and intelligent, and, to that end, it must be a State con ceived in justice. For justice is the twin-sister of free dom and each lives in the victory of the other. 24 Indeed, Laski's thesis on "Freedom" is identical with Shaw's 28 Cf. H. J. Laski, Socialism and Freedom (London: Fabian Society, 1924). "... in the appreciation of [art; for artists are the true leaders of civilization] lies the most joyous experience life can offer:'P. 12. Italics are inserted.. Laski was a professed atheist. Cf. Mrs. Hamilton, Ope cit., p.

399. 24 Italics are inserted. Mr. Laski's psychology presupposes a high perfec tion in men, utopian if not unique-passion and intelligent action; in another place he says" the .discipline ordained can be made instinct with justice." Again, on page 13, "we build our philosophy on hopes not on fears," as if a successful dichotomy of these emotions could be made. Again, on page 6, " from wonder is· born indignation, and from·indignation thought." Slesser, also, comments upon the belief in human perfectibility which once he and his colleagues cherished. But, after years of Thomistic study, Slesser argues that law and property (and liberty therein) are part of fallen human nature's need, and he calls for " the application of vocational fraternity" to abolish· invidious distinction between employer and employed by uniting both in one common operative entity. (This is the· understanding of vocational group or ordines held by· Wilfred Parsons, S. J., whereas, William Smith, S.J.,· of the New York Labor School, finds the ordines in Industrial .Councils. In the English translation, " Vocational· Group," has doubtful meaning in Quadragesimo·. Anno). Slesser finds that vocational cooperation is "but partly represented in the trade union, for trade unions, both of employers and employed, represent respectively, but a moiety of the industrial process." Slesser feared the vastness both of syndicalism and of the Labour Party which unduly subordinated the individual. ''It is therefore rather to the smaller form of industrial guild than to vast and mechanical structures that the Labour Party, if it be persuaded to base itself on medieval tradition, will be forced to look." Cf. Slesser, Ope cit., p. 141. (He had hitherto, in a complimentary sense, found all their tru~ tenets" medieval,"

e.g.,.their stand against· absolute property, unjust price, usurious interest, the plutocratic state.) 400 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 U concrete economics"; it lies in "equal distribution" and "pooled products." lIe too insists on the training of rulers. With what sou.nds like. Cistercian idealism, he writes, " It is only by freeing ourselves from the tyranny of things that we can enter into our heritage." But the parallel with Citeaux ends too soon: U Freedom is impossible as long as the division of property is not referable to principles of justice." 25 Laski seems to equate the artist with the man of freedom and the libertarian. And he says "true Socialism is a libertarian, and not an authoritarian, Socialism." But, ,vhile he has· averred that in the Socialist order artists' "perception and insight \vill be their own," he shifts sights in the next paragraph to Socialists in general and continues: " Rules made must be rules to which the average man has con sented . . . discipline ordained can be made instinct with jus tice . . . [and can] win the ... allegiance of erect-minded men." Laski's Socialists do not suggest that freedom and con formity are synonymous; but they do insist there can be It no free dom until those things about which conformity is demanded. have been established only with the common assent of the com25 Since we have made the reference to Christian Communism a telling distinction may be added by pressing the analogy further. Mr. Laski's State embraces all men as Socialists, immured in a system where the souls of men are regarded as of too great worth to be degraded by a "mean struggle for bread." No, his monks are all artists, leisured by equal distribution; but if they jump over the wall as we learn an occasional Cistercian sometimes does, falling back into· that society we call, with wider connotation than" State,"

the nation, Mr. Laski's monks have no place to go. This Citeaux of material ism has enveloped the nation. Their State has bounded all things in Social ism. But compare Thomas Merton, The Waters of Siloe (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1949), wherein Christian Communism fully adopted offers in radical form the solution to modern over-emphasis on in dustrialization, in the form of a radical agricultural and liturgical way of life, wherein property is held in community and distribution based on Charity (not" charitarianism ")-1( to each according to his need; from each accord ing to his ability." Incidentally, Shaw speaks of the heads of the ILO, Mr. Albert Thomas and his staff, as neo-Carthusians in his Tract No. 226, The League of Nations (London: Fabian Society, January, 1929). The Fabians, to date, appear to believe the "medieval" Church and its orders have disappeared leaving only myths for them to appropriate. If that is how it is in England, America is something else·to reckon with.

Freedom Versus Liberty 401 munity." 28 It is clear to us then that the artists' perception and insight will be formed upon the media of an order wrought by the demanded conformity with the average and the common. Mr. Laski is in full agreement with Mr. Webb that reform as societymay, the only real re-formationis that accomplishedunder Socialism. Also"in this essay at least, he is a gradualist, saying that where Socialism" has been overemphatic as in Hungary and Italy, it has suffered appropriate penalty." 27 Like Webb, he considers "religious toleration" a mark of freedom"s progress and to this he equates "toleration" of Socialism or growth in "faith in Socialism." He counts with this freedom before the courts of law, as one mark of progress although he believes the courts are partial to the wealthy and thus divide the rich and poor still more. He takes one class, as Webb does not-the miners, their health, problems and educational limitations, and their insecurity, as his basis for Socialists' "scepticism of the freedom effected by the present order." He counts as slaves-in a breathtaking transi tion-those who in homes devoid of beauty, live a life of unending routine, obeying their masters" from dumb inertia"; for, although they have political power, they are spectators in politics and " forced" to remain private persons. Whereas, H at the base of society their main desire is to· be let alone," "at the summit" this is Mr. Laski's transition-they mainly desire notice by the keyhole-listening fourth estate, to be at the right first night or to be painted by the right artist; and the same as to clothes, books, travel. 28 Laski's" slaves" equate H private persons "-those either shrinking from view or those craving. flashbulb notoriety.

He does not say how Socialism can keep the base and summit dwellers from exchanging places when the laborer has gained con trol of ,the condition of his work, and has achieved a " share in making the orders under which he lives," when the laborer has attained an "opportunity for creative leisure," and the education to judge that conditions he assists in making are as " intelligible" as the orders of a " medical man or a sanitary engineer" and are 26 Laski, Socialism and Freedom, p. 12, italics added. 21/bid., p. 6. Clearly, in The Crisis and the Constitution, Laski submits that the boundary line between not-socialism and socialism cannot be crossed by gradualism-only by political cataclysm. 28 Ibid., p. 5.

402 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 H referable . . . to principle which can be established as rational by scientific investigation." 29 Mr. Laski contends that only Socialism can produce the last-described desirable state of workers. It is not a unique assumption. The Socialist, he says, does not H dogmatise" as to the forms· social ownership should take; he merely "insists" that effective administration for community interest can come solely from community possession. But· some industries will "still be left in private hands" although the owners' .motive can no longer predominantly be "profit." Still, a man is free; free to marry, to beget children (but they will by the State" be trained to an understanding of the meaning of life "), free in " religious belief," free not ever to be unemployed, free to help make rules, and to " get elected." Under Socialism there will he no nepotism, no caprice, no danger of anyone advancing by taking advantage of his fellows.so He does not say what moral force will make men so perfect under Socialism. There is no evidence that the laborer or the artist shall be free not to be a Socialist, or not to entertain an intelligent "passion" for his State.

Laski had not the forthrightness nor the penetration to ultimates, nor the honesty of Shaw, but both taught the same doctrine. Nevertheless, Laski's vision embodied more anarchism (rulerless ness) than Shaw and less design to develop a special class to rule than W. A. Robson whose Standardisation is to be reviewed. s1 In OctDber, 1926, William A. Robson, a member of the New Fabian Group, but long a Fabian, wrote for publication and sale by the Fabian Society,SociaJism and the Standardised Life. He attributed to fear of the Standardised Life on the part of large numbers of persons other\vise full of "sympathy for the under29 Ibid.} p. 8. oo Ibid.} p. 9. 81 W.A. Robson, Socialism and the Standardised Life (London: Fabian Society, 1926). Ex-Fabian Slesser, op. cit.} p. 151, and Fabian Sir Josiah Wedgwood, when in Parliament, established a practice of safeguarding the liberty of individuals, or human liberty, by a vigilance which kept them in their places in Parliament when· urtdebated measures were being passed, exercising a power which was theirs in Government or in Opposition to say,' U Object." Together they prevented many obnoxious measures •of both Tories and Labour from being passed.

Freedom Versus Liberty 403 dog," all the impervious resistance to "irrefragible economic reasoning," statistics, and even" dramatic horrors" by Socialist writers. But he said. these sympathetic persons were all wrong; for Capitalism, it was,. which produced dread uniformity. Like Laski and Shaw, he too adduced the example of craftsmen and artists: Where an artisan is forced in conformity with custom Ie to provide an ugly funeral for his wife," yielding to silent pressure of public opinion, the artist poses as a Bohemian with " elaborate disregard for standardised conventions" in inverted homage to class conduct; each case represents a perversion produced by Capitalism. Robson belJeved biological standardization would be changed by Socialism-'s removing economic unequalities and the, resultant "dysgenic" organisation of society, using Shaw's phrase. At the risk of begging the question, Robson expatiated upon the desirable standardizations produced by large Capitalistic enterprises and soug-ht by Trade Unionists particularly in ILO objectives. But fortified by the opinions of Professor Taussig, of Graham Wallas, and of W. H. Hudson, Mr. Robson warned that the danger of encrustation of civilization by standardized cus toms is real and not to be dismissed lightmindedly. He, too, like Shaw and Laski, believed equality of income would enable men to resist the tyranny of standardized conventions. 32 Robson expressed greater respect than Laski evinced for the whole system of gov ernment administration which relied on " an equality of treatment being meted out and a potential equality of service being ren dered . . . to all [at least1falling within the ambit of a particular class," 33 and he cited the wisdom of Sidney Webb to sustain his vievv that in democracy's" catering essentially for minorities" it is the similarity of the individuals which is insisted upon rather than their differences.

If the Socialists wish to establish a society in which life shall be tolerable, they will have to pay mOt'e attention to 32 His assumption confuses the psychological with the socio-economic. Because a man had only the amount to spend which any other has does not preclude the possibility of his spending it without regard for the opinions of his neighbors.' Robson's psychology, like Laski's, assumes the perfecti bility of human nature in the way exemplified by Rousseau's Emile. ss Ibid., p. 7.

404 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 the differences between human beings than to the similar ities among them.34, With great wisdom he warned 35 that Socialist doctrine should be kept within narrow limits to be wide enough to "embrace those who want a full and deep and diverse life" ; nor should it become so comprehensive as to establish a dogma on every important question. While he admitted Socialists are right who believe that the Socialist outlook on Property should be accompanied by general justice in all fields, he said no such thing as demanding this was advocated; for a man could be a sinner and a Socialist. But if Socialists were to be sinners, life would be intolerable and Socialism would be proved a failure. The virtue of " seeing life as a whole" must be left to development in individual minds, never projected in institutions and group organizations, else in fields where freedom and diversity are of the first importance coercion would be introduced.

Professor Robson was self-contradictory. He worked himself into the trap of total social control which Shaw and Laski devised. Socialism for him was the " apotheosis of the Many" led by the F euJ who cannot by nature be standardised: Socialism, aware of the importance of the Few, eschews the educational experience of the United States where even though the barriers of wealth and kin ship are broken do,vn in the educational system, standardization has nourished the average and starved the exceptional child.36 So, with characteristic positivism, he advocated the special training of a new elite to e-re1nplify diversity alongside the uniformity of the masses. As for Laski so for Robson, the only sin was to aim low. His Socialists should aim to produce great pictures and great inventions, to achieve the formulation of great scientific laws and not leave them to chance, far less should their aim be merely to "level up" the bottom strata. It is for the Socialist Common wealth to produce desirable environment. "Spcialism alone,"

offers such" enrichment of human existence." 31 84 Ibid., p. 15, 85 Ibid. 86 He overlooks the great diversity discoverable in the adaptation which American people have made from the fairly uniform education offered. 81 All these Fabians are favorable to Russia. Robson, even though he Freedom V ersus Liberty 405 Common to all three writers are these several notes: 1) They are confronted with the people's fears of forced standardization; 2) they assume the artist class to be leaders of civilization though not of the ruling group, i.e., likely to be the most horrible ex amples of rebellion against standardization and capable, if properly treated-not to say trained-of providing the spiritual pabulum' of the masses,. 3) they argue that the Few or the elite are to be trained for political leadership and to provide diversity (for the artists' conten1plation and dissemination, no doubt, since they say masses tend to standardize whatever they receive regardless of Socialism or Capitalism) ; 4) they equate the State with all socie tary magnitudes' within the nation and the economic order; 5) they treat reforms of men as persons, reforms of systems of business, and forms of Trade Union practice, as extraneous to themselves and, their system; and they do so with tutelary con tempt because they hold to the slogan that only Socialism will do.

Only Robson pointed out some things to be avoided by sincere Socialists. This was in 1926 and the wave of the future was rising in Labour Party gains even though by October, 1926, the Trade Unions had been broken on the wheel of the General Strike and the Act of Parliament controlling contracting in and the use of funds of Trade Unions was taking shape. (It was amended but not repealed by the Labour Government of 1929-1931.) The Fabian Society, although nothing in' Fabian News indicates it, and only the uniformity in membership, constant book sales, and obituary notes ,,,ould suggest it in FSAR, was drifting. The most impressive indication of activity is the formation of the New disapproved of Russia's criminal code which ruled that certain books be removed from libraries, compared the United States unfavorably with Russia, as nations equally standardized, to prove his contention that there is no con nection between the Standardised Life and either Capitalism or Socialism.

However, Robson's judgment on America is made upon the data of the Scopes trial (concerning Darwinism) in Tennessee, the Higgins Patriotic TextBook Bill in New York, and the" standardising regulations" enforced upon Freshmen (known in the United States as "hazing") in American Universities. Like Shaw and the NS generally, Robson believed the Ku Klux Klan coerced " huge masses of American citizens to conform to certain standardsentiments and customs." Cf. ibid., p. 13. Italics are inserted.

406 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Fabian Group (( to revive the glories of the old," as Professor Laski said in introducing Robert Fraser's A Social, Philosophy for Fabians, like Robson's, published and sold by the parent Fabian Society, in 1930~ Although it came out when the Party was in office, it appears from internal evidence to have been in preparation some time. The impression is· given that Professor Laski trained the youngsters who wrote it as a symposium which Robert Fraser edited, to doubt the old Mill and Jevons solutions, to assume an outlook more (( complex," because they had shaped their background from T. H. Green, Leonard Hobhouse and Professor Tawney and had formed their minds under the impact of Mr. and Mrs. Hammonds' " classic books." They had acquired political skepticism, according to Laski's preface, from Wallas. 38 Now free from the (( dogmatic confidence" of the old Society they are dubious of their power to cope with the problems they see; they assume Mr. Fraser's cautious hypothesis in H fascinating con trast" to (( Mrs. Besant's certitudes." That is, Mr. Laski finds them so. We find that, as there was a statement of aims by seven members of the Labour Party striving in 1923 to preserve cold Socialism in the melting heats of political activity, now, on the eve of another political experience when the (( Old Gang" appears too weary to give more than an order for printing, new, young 88 Cf. Graham. Wallas, Human Natiure in Politics (London: Constable and .Company, 1.948). Wallas (page 169) proposed assaying the U new tendencies," i.e., the finding of contrivances for measuring press influences, class instincts, saloon conversations, as potentials in controlling political forces. He states as his hypothetical objective: "Some day the conception of .a harmony of thought and passion may take the place,· in the deepest regions of our moral consciousness, of· our present day confusion and· barren conflicts. If that day comes much in politics which is now impossible will become possible [the "sense of the State," "remembering Athens"]. The politician will be .able not only to control and direct in himself the impulses of whose nature he is more fully aware, but to assume in his hearers. an understanding of his aim [expressed] in that grave simplicity of speech which in the best Japanese State Papers rings so strangely in our ears [Science with them had allied and indeed identified itself with that idea of natural law which had, Wallas said, always underlain their various religions], and citizens may learn to look to their representatives, as the Japanese arl11Y looked to their generals, for that unbought effort of the mind by which alone man becomes at once servant and the master of nature." Ibid., p. 198.

Freedom Versus Liberty 407 thinkers struggle with the old dogmas armed with skepticism and U the right amplitude of mind." 39 The pamphlet is a childish mimistic thing, repeating the ortho doxy of non-orthodox Fabianism with a reassertion of what its authors believed to be Aristotle's union of the" sociality of man with politics." They make the uncritical assumption that the U early Christian Church" ~aw socio-economics as irrelevant to the "unseen" world; and they produce the quite usual confusion of " State" with nation. There is also a confusion of nineteenth century laissez-faire with the supposed "automatic beneficence" of "Progress." Like their elders, they hold the State as the All of social well-being; they equate not ·politicalfreedom with eco nomic power, nor economic freedom with political power, but freedom with equal distribution. 40 .They speak of "equality" as equal distribution (and admit of allowable exceptions to uni formity). They owe their notions of equality to Shaw, their concept of social directive force to Wells, their grammar of politics to Laski, their business concepts to Webb's slogans, "expertise"

·89 Cf. Harold Laski, II Introductory Note" to Tract No. 234, which is Robert Fraser, A Social Philosophy fo,.Pabians (London: Fabian Society, 1930). It is analyzed throughout using a few words in quotations for semantic reasons. A parallel action takes place in the United States today. Students for Democratic Action (SDA), the junior affiliate of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), echo their elders on resisting II reaction from the right or the left." "Expanding for academic freedom, student rights, and non",dis crimination," Columbia University. SDA sponsored "educational meetings on the German situation [pro-SodalDemocrats], United-States' atomic policy [re the circulating Stockholm Petition, Soviet-inspired, against the use of A-bombs] ... ran a drive against any aid to the Franco regime in Spain, worked in the Lehman [ADA] campaign for Senator.... " Cf." Exten sion of Remarks of Hon. F. D. Roosevelt, Jr.," Congressional Record, Tuesday, August 1, 1950, p. A5857. Cf. David Williams (Fabian, Rhodes Scholar, CIO-AFL, director of London Bureau of ADA) "Labour Britain and American Progressives" in FQ :53 March 1947, pp. 7-10. Cf. especially p. 10 where intercommunication of "Labour" and ADA is shown: a twice monthly" London Letter," sent to "opinion formers," a U trades union press agency covering over 100 American labour journals," touring lecturers, etc.

40 Actually, "Political Economy,'" in the original synthesis, bore reference to the socio-economic well-being within the civil framework-both the support and the concern of the political order but distinguished from it as family from State.

408 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 and H measurement and publicity," their institutional inventions to Beatrice Webb. They too, without the "horrid" word H in tellectuals" or even H elite," profess that the H group" directs society by spreading the fruit of its research" downward"; also, H the Party" is defined as the" instrument of legislation." There is no room for the Party's educative experience from contact with other Parties, mutually respected. The slight changes in ideo logical coloration noticeable in the New Fabians cannot be ex plained without reference to the fact that in the immediate environs, on platforms and in Conferences, two new spirits Herbert Morrison and Oswald Mosley raised their banners; and two pathvvays lay open before these youngsters, too: 1) The way of " the Party" and H the group" and 2) the way of decentralized social order 41 (both ways neglect the definition of citizenship in terms of relation to the State as informed by political science), wherein H decisions were taken by those who have a major in terest in the results" a~d the individual registered his· will H at the source of social decision." Anyone could see that the easier path to take was the first. To these young joiners Fabianism, although the Fabian Society consists of Socialists, is not Social ism: It is a "doctrine" and a H method" and Socialism is no longer the only means of social salvation. The political empiric has changed that. 42 Democracy, the absolute sovereignty of the people, is the Ne\v Fabian doctrinal objective. This is not so new as they imagine; it is inherent in Shaw's H democratised democ racy." But the H method" is defined now as to H persuade the influential" (not to appeal' to the people) ; to give order to the H administrative aspects of philosophical tenets," and this bya 41 Decentralized social ordering is subject to socialistic manipulation, whereas decentralized civil ordering is a desirable preventive of "too, much government." The Fraser group did not make this distinction.

42 This is not the only place where it is stated in Fabian circles that Fabianism is not Socialism. It heralded, faintly and far away, the new "dynamic democracy," an expression which is becoming current in 1950 in antithesis with ~, decadent governments" (republics). "Dynamic democracy" is. still social democracy, i.e., politicized social configurations dynamized by the One-Party. Cf." Contest for the Minds of Men," a speech of Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon in the Congressional Record, July 10, 1950, pp. 9936 f, especially the editorial used for text.

Freedom Versus Liberty 409 group (the Fabians) "temperamentally "unsuited to street cor ners, whose publications carry the Socialist preachment "latent under the facts." This is the atmosphere of the 1920's and still there is talk of Democracy. The 1930's will see the word recalled with doubt of its potency. Now, however, the arranging of "administrative aspects of philosophical tenets" is calculated to achieve the effect of a One-Party and monopoly-opinion program. Where de cision is taken "at the source of social decision," "Democracy" is to function through the persuaded influential ones. Let a polit ical situation be as heterogeneous as the twenty-two Soviet Re publics, the administrative aspects of philosophical tenets work out - according to the opinion of the persuaded and the influential working at H the source of social decision." Democratised democ racy meant decentralisation for centralisation.

A whole dissertation might be written on this pamphlet, the product of the Fabian "Pueri Virginesque," (recalling NS sar donic comment on Baldwin's appeal to youth) by taking cogni zance of the history of the' Society, to which allusion is made, and the impact of rising Fascism as of 1929, or by merely engag ing in criticizing the philosophy. Here we have only to note how the children of the Fabians were indoctrinated and sent into political action dogmatic in their anti-dogmatisms, equipped. with philosophical assumptions not altogether indisputable. To list a few of the assumptions : With youthful dogmatism they say, " Experience and modern psychology combine to insist" and" the view we take is concise" that " the good life is impossible except in a good society." (They probably mean a State which sub sumes all economic life of the nation.) This would be quite Thomistic if it meant that the State is a perfect society because it can provide for or protect for the families (a family is an imperfect society) which constitute the nation whatever is needed for their perfection, civilly, economically, juridically, even religiously.

But by " good society" these young Fabians mean a society of a certain kind, one assun1ing all societary good as its own to create and dispense, the State \vhich assumes the contours of the Nation. 43 As to " good life" they Inean a life of freedom from .3 In our concept the State is inherent in civic coefficients belonging to the 410 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 economic inequalities and provided with the material elements of living, even of psychological materia for the arts. H Their State is not something which provides the means to complete the family's perfection to enable the family or the familially ordered group to complete its contribution to society ·45 and to develop its individuals' personalities. 46 Their State exists for the individual and his "rights," immediately, and for them "equal rights" depend on equal freedom, i.e., freedom of economic opportunity. They allow that the law of equality may admit of dispensations; inequality may be tolerated for special need and even be demanded by the social societary units which constitute the Nation and retain to themselves elements not proper to the' civil construct, the State.

'" In 1949, at the Blackpool Labour Conference, atheistic Harold J. Laski was chairman of the Labour Party Executive Committee. (:f. Michael St.raight, U British Labour Takes Stock, A Report from Blackpool," Th~ New Republic, 120 (June 27, 1949). "The older laborites demanded a return to a pioneering faith. But the leadership was strangely silent in response, knowing at heart that the problem is, instead, to liberate the people from outworn formulas in search of a new synthesis. Herbert Morrison declared, 'Our new economy needs a new social driving force; we must set ourselves more than materialistic aims.... ' U Richard Acland, former head of the Commonwealth Movement,carried this doctrine to an appeal for the introduction of religion into public life. Aneurin Bevan, the agnostic, matched Acland's spirit with .another kind of religious fervour ... the delegates, roaring with laughter and shouting assent, [when he said] 'suspect those who speak of religion in abstract terms.

Never in the history of mankind have the best of religious ideas found greater expression than in the program we have carried out.' 'Suffer little children' [he quoted and added] 'What is national planning but the insistence that human beings make' ethical choices on a national scale? The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism ... Our programs are but the prosaic instruments of a great design.' " .5 The doctrine of the Mystical Body is precluded. The State should leave to "free initiative of citizens ... the cultural areas," says Pius XII in an address to the Eighth International, Congress of Administrative Sciences, August 5, 1950. (The Catholic Mind, July, 1951.) 46 The idea of divine vocation is completely removed. The Address cited (n. 45) states that the State is a "moral organism," a living entity: The "last word" does not belong to "mere organizational technicians." Govern ment is exercised'" in the name of the State, not of man immediately . . . of the country in such a way that individuals never find themselves submerged under the weight of State Administration." (The Catholic Mind, July, 1951, pp. 460 f.) Freedom Versus Liberty 411 quality of the work performed. Here the young thinkers arrived at .a very old concept arising· from the hierarchy found in the "nature of thing's." (TheNS in 1924 had argued that ministers of government and Members of Parliament should for efficiency's sake ride first-class in trains ·from London to their courttry homes and back, and it opined that the· Prime Minister should have a car for his use, better provided by the State.4 '1) But in general equality must be "imposed" by "social control," that is, control of pro duction and distribution. The Fraser group concluded that Ben thamism failed by " leaving untouched" the question of social and economic denials of a good life. For these young thinkers the good life depends on education for political policy; it is evaded by war so politicians who make wars must be rejected. Already re jected are laissez-faire and the Christian Religion, specifically.

These writers are " collectivists," .they say, because" profit" as a motive is not· morally or practically efficient to achieve the "de liberate and instructed will of society." As to "bureaucracy" which they disclaim, they say Fabianism does not imply the "superiority of the decisions of a centralized bureaucracy over the decision of the people" but since bureaucracy, an element of modern·· government, is art "inevitable element," it should be of " high quality." They do not underscore their two not altogether incompatible ideas: 1) The decentralization of authority and 2) the invention of central committees or councils to work in connec tion with elements in Parliament-nothing more or less than a political subsuming of the" lobby." All this committee-making serves, the uniform or monopoly opinion and the one-party system. It is safe to say the Fraser group did not see so far as Laski or Shaw. They thought bravely of a government which would" consult" and they invented means to speed up the lagging institution of Parliament, a "circle of advisory committees around the legislature." They think it is admirable (although it was not invented) that the Cabinet de veloped to embody responsibility after a hundred-year search for an institution adequate to democracy; yet, in the "mild perora tion" (self-styled) they say democracy has never yet existed.

Their philosophical assumptions on "Property" are a "fas41 NS, XXIII (September20, 1924),662.

412 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 cinating contrast" to older certitudes, certainly: Property if unequal gives unequal power and perverts the State by means of the Press and the Universities as in America. 48 Democracy has " no respect" for such general welfare as a legislative or executive branch made up of moneyed men might envision; such welfare could only be for their own ends and a subterfuge. 49 One must conclude that hedonism and materialism in the training of .these young thinkers leave no doubts with them that men can be other than beings determined by their economic self-interest. Terribly old-fashioned, even in the late 1920's, was this working assumption that homo economicus really existed. Property to them is eco nom'ically harmful, in proportion as it seeks profit and not social gain; they assume that profits and gains to society may be phys ically separated completely. That a legitimate profit contributes to savings which in turn builds national assets was unthinkable.

The rich have no place in their society.50 Fraser's group con tinue: Property is spiritually harmful; men of no property have to take orderSJ and do not control the conditions of their work. 5,1 As 48 Shaw might be thought far too intelligent to join Laski, Robson, and the group which dictated Robert Fraser's pamphlet, if one did not know that exactly like Robson,hemistook the Ku Klux Klan for a vital movement and like N Sand FN, in which his lectures dealing with the Klan were announced (FN, appendix to 1924), he considers it the new world" fascismo." 49 Feiling's Life of Neville Chamberlain, passim,surely negates this view. 50 Rerum N ovarum insists throughout on 1) right to land ownership, 2) benefit to society from right use of riches, 3) immorality of taxation which drains away private wealth. Cf. especially page 29. 51 Pius XII insists that not all private enterprise comes within the sphere of public right; that the proprietor always remains master in economic decision; that the latter is" obliged to contribute to the increase of national assets by savings." "Proprietor" may be an "individual, or an association or a foundation of workers." Cf. full text of address to Delegates of International Union of Catholic Employers Associations. U. S. News, June 17, 1949, 32 f.

Outside Socialist circles the aim in striving for" Control of conditions" is not to avoid obeying just laws but to procure economic justice, and assist in creating the conditions for social justice. "Economics [are] the living product of the free enterprise of individuals and of groups of individuals freely constituted. Enterprise ... is amenable to the private juridical order of economic life." Pius XII, ibid., p. 33.

Freedom Versus Liberty 413 to H wealth," it is "the reward of sterile leisure." As to class, "Lambeth and Rhondda Valley" is the metonyme used-coal miners to typify or symbolize all workers. 52 5"2 With academic exactitude, a critical bibliography is appended to this eleven page Fraser pamphlet. There are thirty books arid nine Fabian tracts. The authors are exactly fifty percent Fabians including Ernest Barker whose account of English Hegelianism and of the Hinfluence of German idealism in English State Socialism" is remarked. To Harold Laski's Grammar 0/ Politics is owed" more than can be expressed in words" but was fairly stated in eleven pages. Robson taught them the defense of delegation of judicial powers as a necessary result of the development of the social service State, i.e., boards and bureaus to replace courts; Tawney, the functionlessness of our society. The Webbs in the "only book" of theirs that Hhas nothing whatever to do with Socialism" probably inspired their confidence in Fabianism above Socialism by The Decay a/Capitalism.

Herman Finer provided the knowledge of the Civil Service for purposes of politicizing; and Pease, the history of the Society from which, again they picked the Poor Law Minority Report as one of their past glories, and the birth control studies made among Fabians and early universalized, as a glorious use of statistical data. Kingsley Martin's story of the General Strike seems to have whetted enthusiasm without inspiring respect for history. (It is a disillusioned ideological account.) Graham Wallas' "best analysis of the psychology of politics," has not left so clear a mark as Lippmann's Public Opinion, about which they have this to say: HWe live in a pseudo-environment created by the Press, which corresponds exactly with our actual environment ... catastrophes ... inevitably occur since our actions are prompted by the one environment, and yet have their effect in the other." Of course, they thought Cole" vigorous and dogmatic" on unemployment, currency, education and agriculture, but not prophetic in his The Next Ten Years, etc. They thought C. Delisle Burns' A Short History of the World, 1918-1928a good" introduction" to Toynbee's annual volumes published by the Institute of International Affairs. To nine Fabian tracts on kindred problems they added Woolf's Imperialism.

They read some non-Fabians; indeed the leakage of distilled Socialism from its new bottles is traceable to the atmosphere of books like H. N. Carver's Distribution of Wealth, called the "core of economics," "Damag ing to orthodox Socialist theory," this study makes it "implicitly clear" that interference" with the unit returns of capital"and labour" is dangerous and that" reduction of inequality lies through redistribution of property, and not by raising wages at the expense of profits." (This is far removed from the abolition of Capitalism advocated by the Fabian Socialist critics of Fabianism in politics.) And then, the" development of the idea of semi... autonomous industry" as an idea with a future was found in The End of 414 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 As we are about to consider the General Strike of 1926 we con clude the selected list of philosophical. assumptions made by the Fraser group with this gem: (( The General Strike was the answer that men gave to a State that seemed to them faithless to its own purpose." They listed Kingsley Martin 53 as their source on the strike but the· Fabian, the future editor of the NS (beginning 1931), does not offer full warrant for such a statement. True, Martin saw class-struggle as inevitable, saw the" two nations" of Marx and Disraeli, said that " democratic conventions give way"

in a struggle for self-preservation or mere justice: 54: It is· true he saw a "revolutionary future for England." In Martin's view~pure-Socialist rather than Fabian-any future Labour Gov ernment must risk "dismissal upon a piece of constructive Socialist legislature" or lose the faith of the wage earners (not " people") as they surely must by "playing the party game." The "democratic faith" of "constitutionalists" will but doubt fully stand the test if Labour "finds the money for internal re organisation by a policy of disarmament." 55 This. did not only mean that the Party with the money to spend on welfare would not be .opposed by. voters worried over lost liberties; it meant that, given a political majority, the Labour Party must find the money to become State Capitalist to the end that private Capitalism be obliterated. Martin also endorsed hereby the" Long View "-the Laissez-Faire by J. M. Keynes. Imperialism, the Last Phase of Capitalism (now so worn a theory), which was then "the best modern statement of the Marxian theory of Imperialism as the internal Contradiction in Capitalism,"

and The State and 'Revolution, "more advanced and esoteric" than Laski's Communism, were listed" the works of V. 1. V. Lenin. These· young thinkers produced a creative idea in the concept of autono mous associations versus the State, which they only half grasped. Communist mentors used the same idea to break up society into" soviets 11 for purposes of assuming control by· monopoly· opinion in the One-Party. The Fraser group are more Laski-ite than Martin-ite. They do not follow through to the envisioning of a Public Statute or Constitution, which might be developed as a subsidiary and free agency for social-economic peace in the Industry Council system. It was glimpsed,then lost to view by Martin. 53 Kingsley Martin, The British Public and the General Strike (London: Hogarth Press, 1926). 54 Ibid., pp. 112 f. 551bid./ pp. 121 f, Freedom Versus Liberty 415 standpoint that Socialists ought to go out or stay out of political office in order to preserve the Movement.

Martin's every word shows the impossibility under which the politicized section must labor. His history is better than the average determinist's but moves in a dreary circle nevertheless. He shows Protestantism and nationalism moving toward it de mocracy," its inherent tyranny, twinned with" religious tolera tion," which grew from the loss of the "living force of social faith." He wrote that nationalism moved toward imperialism and the Leviathan State, fostered then consumed by economic and political prosperity; that the idea of private property (which once meant land "mixed" with a man's labor) was now, after its fixation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, connotative of the absentee. owner and the shareholder. Since· no peasantry re mains, civilization moves the more rapidly toward destruction; men do not prefer peace, but love the joy of battle. Come full circle, Communist and Capitalist strive for domination of one class over another, and so the revolt against tyranny must begin all over again. Martin's cyclic history, for all its monotony, divulged a great secret; 56 The TUC was not revolutionary but might become so, for by being so labelled it was liable to be induced to extend its demands into fields of which it was ignorant, or which lay beyond its competence. It represented association versus the State, a conflict of· sovereignties. I f Parliament represented consumers, TUC represented producers and those .. who WOUld. avoid disaster should accord TUC respect. Martin is not sure but he suggests that had the Industry Council"system of 1919 not been dropped, TUC, "accepted as an authoritative body representing the wage earners," would have become a powerful agency for peace, ex emplifying the" professional conservatism" of which "Liberals"

would" soon be complaining." 51 This throws great light on the reason for the opposition of the W ebbs to Whitley Councils en dorsed by other Fabians like Macrae-Gibson. Martin sees that a H constitution" developed out of definitions by the Courts and 56 Ibid., pp. 107 f. 51 Ibid., p. 109. Let those who favor a. Labour Party in America recall that Fabian-Socialism destroyed the Whitley· Council, or Industry Council System in Britain, by the doctrine of "non-alliance."

416. Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 based upon labor law might have resulted from retaining Whitley Councils. (This is the "Public. Statute" envisioned in papal principles.) This is a point in Fabian Martin's message which the young Fabians missed. 58 It opens a great void, a chasm of hopeless fear over which Slesser had found a bridge when he wrote in 1941 "Who Goes Home." 59 The last statement cited from the Fraser group is indicative of the uses to which history was put by the new Fabians. It over looks the meaning of Martin's historical discussion and does not do credit to the Hammonds. Opinion on both sides agreed the General Strike was a terrible mistake and a failure which created a mechanical reaction. Every genuine labor leader 60 deplored 61 it except the head of the miners. Every real liberal worked to avert and then to settle it fairly. The N S excoriated the inept handling which brought it on, and some Labourites hinted 62 58 Ibid., pp. 124 to 128. Martin, too, relies on Laski's Grammar ofPolitics and on Keynes' End of Laissez-Faire. Martin deplores the dropping of the Industrial Council System as begun in 1919. Cf. Martin, op. cit., p. 109. The U victory" in dropping the Councils was a Webb-over-other-Fabians victory.

Said Martin, the Industry Council system of 1919 was " the one policy which might save the Constitution, if that is what Constitutionalists really desire." (Italics supplied.) 59 Slesser, op. cit., pp. 232-250. 60 Cf. Clynes, op. cit., pp. 75 and 81. "We of the Trade Unions bought national peace in 1926 at a terrible price. The cost to my Union alone was over £20,000." The King, Clynes relates, expected U all this" [His Royal surroundings] to " vanish" if the Strike came. Clynes says the Trade Unions saw to it that it did not" come to the worst." Ibid., p. 82. ~61 Cf. Thomas, op. cit., pp. 106 f, where he tells of urging Samuel to come, when Baldwin rejected the offer of aid from this former head of the Royal Commission on Coal of whose Report acceptance was pending. Thomas arranged meetings in Sir Abe Bailey's house between TUC negotia tors, the miners' leaders, and Samuel who was in touch with his former Commissioners. Thomas was always severely criticized by· Socialist editors.

Cf., e.g., The Clarion, 1930, passim, when the editors were all Fabians. 62 Weir, op. cit., p. 207, says, U It is now known that the aim of the Government was to compel the Trade Unions to call a general strike." Weir gives no other documentation than Clynes whom he cites (Clynes, op. cit., p. 73) as noting U jubilation" of "hot-headed Tories" at the prospect of smashing Trade Union power-in 1925. Snowden excoriates Trade Unions for precipitating it, and MacDonald for" treachery and betrayal" in ending it. There was no unity at headquarters. Snowden says the TUC was in the Freedon't Versus Liberty 417 none too delicately that Baldwin provoked it, unable to control his "wild men," e.g.} Churchill. Two sections only were well served: the first, the very radical wing which detested labor leadership and needed the muddy waters of social upheaval in which to fish for control of the Movement, taking advantage frOITI the splintering of Trade Unions, as Martin shows ;63 and the second, the extreme Tories who aimed to curb Trade Unionism, either because Unions were becoming powerful to demand higher stipends or because they provided the moneys which sustained the Moven1ent which in the • eyes of conservatives was fearsomely Socialistic. The TUC, who~ leadership threatened the Strike in bluff, was afraid of a drive to lower vvages generally. The propaganda of Tories never touched Fabianisn1, but always blalned the Unions for the Social ism which actually emanated from the Society and from the ILP but was not thoroughly absorbed by the Unions. Noone on either Conservative or Labour side was well aware of the capture by Conlmunists of effective salients of TUC in 1925. Martin notes their aims 64 and the N S constantly urged ignoring them 65 even while it prodded the too independent and too democratic unions into affiliating under TUCGC.66 Mrs. Cole, whose hus band was close to sources at the time, wrote that this capture was dark while Fyfe of the Labour newsmen's corps says they had their spies and knew every move. The Trade Unions never realized the forces against them, e.g., the non-union workers. The Council made "a serious mistake in making arrangements for the General Strike while negotiations with the Government were still going on." Cf. Snowden, op. cit., p. 730. Snowden was "not sorry the experiment had been tried," the Trade Unions "needed a lesson of the futility and foolishness of such a trial of strength." Cf.

ibid., p. 731. Snowden read the minutes of all the conferences and finds no one, until Lord Birkenhead focused the issues, ever "came to grips with the problem." Cf. ibid., p. 732. In another connection we see the ideological indefiniteness, really the "Long View," of Martin, op. cit., and the concrete action, in getting out a journal, of Hamilton Fyfe. Cf. Fyfe, Behind the Scenes of the Greal Strike (London: The Labour Publishing Company, 1926). Neither fulfills the purposes of the title of his book; Martin does not touch public opinion and Fyfe gives only one scene "behind the scenes." They typify Fabianism. (Publishers, unconnected with Party, soon liqui, dated.) 63 Martin, op. cit.} p. 116. 64 Ibid. 65 NS, XXIII (August 30, 1924), 587. 66NS, XXIII (August 16, 1924),539.

418 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 made.6T The Fabians treated the Strike with as scientific ob jectivity as they had treated the Boer War, the Dock Strike, and World War I: To demand a radical adhesion to principle, would cleave the Society lengthwise or to demand outright repudiation of " direct action" would alienate the Unions· and sever· the Labour Party head from trunk. 6s Ellen Wilkinson's poor novel, Clash, which had stirring reviews and advertisements in the. N S, de scribed a typical Fabian's participation and depicted devoted per sonal enthusiasm for workers' causes in a manner which estab lished prestige and earned worker confidence for the Society. So much for the General Strike. During this interim, 1924 1929, Slesser, the expert on labor law, was noting his criticisms of Fabian-Socialisnl. He fought the reaction which produced the Trade Unions Bill of 1927, but he criticized the philosophy which had produced the demand for reaction. Slesser, who attributes his mental formation·· to Fabianism which he espoused at R. C. K.

Ensor's direction,69 was" awakened" by Wells' writings, and like Shaw, is inclined to think Wells was more right than the Webbs, whose predominance. in the Society ended Wells' adherence. Slesser's criticism of Fabianism TO coincides with Shaw's but is 61 Cole, Beatrice Webb, p. 157. 68 When, after the settlement, the editor of the NS wrote, Ie Should We Hang Mr. Churchill or Not," NS, XXVII :682 (May 22, 1926), he opined that the Strike had taught everyone something very valuable. 'N0 General Strike without violence could win. The left wing would have a hard time converting Trade Unions to revolutionary ideas. Hang the Ie blood-letter" to be safe, however. The humor is not to be lost sight of. Ben Turner, an old Fabian who went with his local group into ILP, says that he suspects Churchill had something to do with the situation at the Daily Mail which gave the Government the excuse to cut off negotiations. Cf. Ben Turner, About Myself (London: Humphrey Toulmin, 1930), p. 295.

It was· said that Fabians felt that a long step had been taken toward Socialism. Yet Fabians recoiled from their own conclusions; actually··a long step was taken in reaction, and Fabians manifested no great efficacy either in Opposition or in the 1929 Government toward getting the Trade Disputes Act of 1927 repealed. It curbed the Trade Union movement. The hands of the moderate Socialists, the gradualist parliamentarian group, were strengthened. 69 Slesser worked up through the Fabian Nursery and was proudly elected by the Nursery to the Executive. Slesser, op. cit., p. 19. 10 For current confusion of fascism and Christianism cf n. 70 below.

Freedom Versus Liberty 419 based on Thomism: 1) Fabians were agnostics (except for a few like Stewart Headlam), 2) they were ignorant of all the Reforma tion had robbed them of (excited about the hypothetical descent of man from simians, they" cared and knew nothing" of the" more ascertainable views of their less remote ancestors of the Middle Ages") ,1.1 3) the "spiritual character of the civil material with which they hoped to build Utopia was never illumined by a Fabian tract as it was in Wallas' H uman Nature in Polities," 4) "the Fabians ignored history [this is not to say they did not use his tory], so they overlooked traditional human insufficiencies" _H of Sin and Fall we reckoned nothing," 72 5) missing the great over tones in Wells, his "vague proleptic designs," they kept the "timorous middle class" engrossed in administrative proposals; but fundamentally Wells and his opponents were agreed: They were all Progressives, Spencerians who ignored the' Huxley ques tionabout evolution's being possibly dysgenic. Shaw alone doubted the intrinsic necessity of Progress and was nearest to Wells who was Nominalist, Pragmatist; and Pantheist, and thought of himself as "part or partner" with a " Striving Deity." Then, Slesser says, the time had still to come when the Vitalists, following Butler, Bergson and' Sorel, possibly Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, w"Quld succeed in over-emphasizing will and emotion by decrying the cautious processes of reason, so as to produce our present [1941] disorders.

He was speaking of 1906 and overlooking 1926. Long before, Slesser himself had advanced an organistic (Holoism) view of man as H but a unit in a higher organism-the State" when he was fighting Belloc. Then he was on the side of MacDonald, if not of Vitalist Sha,v: but before 1931, Slesser was convinced that Belloc had been far in advance of his age when he warned of the 71 Slesser, op. cit., p. 18. Fabians are Social Democrats and not in any sense Christian Socialists although the' contrary was asserted in a recent BIS pamphlet. Many non-Catholic Christians are Fabians, but Fabianism is not Christian·Socialism. Vis-a-vis Europe, Fabians collaborate with Social Democrats. It is clearer to write" Christian Social party" than" Christian Socialists," words Leo XIII considered a contradiction in terms. 12 Cf. F. Neumann's review of Aus Beispeil Osterreichs by Joseph But tinger (Als Manuskript Geduct, 1951), in P.S.Q., LXVII:I (March, 1952) 138-140.

420 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 menace of the Tyrant State which, while it complained of plutoc racy's destroying men's freedom, inconsistently sought It not to restore their freedoln but permanently to curtail it by harnessing m.en in their productive aspect, to the irresistible chariot of the State." Slesser says the Society and the Party H though urging drastic change ), had no coherent outlook at all; a condition of mind which Mr. Pease in his history of the Fabian Society finds to be very English and very admirable. We must credit Slesser w~th having set. forth most clearly the fact that in the amorphousness of the thought patterns of Fabianism was an internally developing meta physic of Tyranny. W ehave seen the efforts to reassure the electorate, to define Freedom in Socialism. From 1924 to 1929, as the Party strength itnproved, the nature of the philosophy siphoned into it by Fabian ism from the pure-Socialist strealn must fail to convince anyone that Liberty, as distinguished fronl Freedom, was not jeopardized.

In 1929, the electorate took a chance on the reliability of Fabian Socialism to remain "very English" and returned the Labour Party to power. B. COPING WITH CRITICISM FROM WITHIN The fissure between the leadership and the Party-segments was ignored by the Labour campaigners of 1929. In an ensuing sec tion, we cOlnpare the clear statement of what some Fabians ex pected the leaders of the Party (also Fabians) to produce, and the platform of 1929. The Capital Levy, ardently advocated in 1923, in 1929 yielded to a simple project to despoil the rentier class. Criticism within the Party seems to have effected this change. A little book had come out in 1923,73 when Labour, on the 13 Seven 11embers of the Labour Party, The Labour Party's Aim (Lon don, Allen and Unwin), 1923. The publishers, Allen and Unwin, used some diligence to assist this investigator to discove9" the names of the writers.

They were· able to suggest two names which are very likely ones of. Fabians of the highest calibre: one, a woman prominent in the Socialist International and the party organization; the other, a professional historian whose widow could supply no information. Since the Labour Party headquarters were obviously reluctant to confirm .these two names or supply others, they are not being revealed here. The writer is certain that two writers were Fabians, Freedom Versus Liberty 421 threshold of power, was exhibiting a tendency to act like any other political party and H larnin' to be a twoad,"-at least in the eyes of pure-Socialists, "sentimental" Socialists and idealistic Fabians not in office. Against the straddling of issues and com promising of principles of the political leadership which was Fabianism, a group of seven Socialists, calling themselves "mem bers of the Labour Party" but otherwise anonymous, had written this book full of rather subtle distinctions in Socialistic thought.

Baldwin had used it as campaign material in 1923, according to an Allen and Unwin advertisement carried in the N 5, November 24, 1923.74 Certainly the book was not the work of Trade Unionists but of members of the intelligentsia. It was also not harmonious with the ostensible Webb-gradualist mentality, nor yet with the aggressive Socialism of ILP. It was not far from being of the Wells-Shaw school. It is suspiciously like The Clarion,75 and contributors to The Clarion. That they called themselves members of the Labour Party and not of the Society gave their anonymity greater safety; but their insistence that they were Socialists unsatisfied with the Snowden exposition as too negative, and their invoking the agreement of colleagues in the labor world in "the great movement of right," makes it doubtful that they came into the Labour Party save by way of intellectualism. They intended to formulate anew Socialism for the Labour Party.

14 NS, XXII, 219. The writer does not consider this a mark of undying hostility to Socialism on Baldwin's part. 75 The Clarion, as was disclosed in January, 1932, when it became the New Clarion, was edited by Ernest Davies, the son of A. E. Davies, almost singlehanded. It prrnted Fabian lectures and had as contributors Fabians C. Delisle Burns, Marion Phillips, Mary A. Hamilton, Harold Laski, G. D. H. Cole, George Lansbury, Hugh Dalton, Herbert Morrison, Josiah Wedg wood, Norman Angell, A. E. Davies, Mrs. Webb. It is strange that this list, up to the name of Dalton, is very like one which could be made from the old F.R.D. given by Margaret Postgate Cole. From Webb back to Dalton, it represents' the "moderates" and those whom earlier the radical young persons of F.R.D. dubbed "the Great." But as of 1929, The Clarion represented the amalgamation of the groups and the victory of the long-suffering Mrs. Webb in winning back Cole. (She once invited him to dinner and asked Mrs. Cole to come in for coffeef) A difference had formerly existed over the question of "worker control" which Beatrice called" pernicious nonsense." Now with Shaw's "democratising democracy" the synthesis had been achieved: Mrs. Webb had acknowledged that ·Guild Socialism had contributed the" bridge n to her industrial democ racy (under State-aided Capitalism). But Cole, in 1950, still looks beyond 422',Pabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 after Ernest,Davies and F. L. Stevens revived it in 1928, making it!'more Fabian-Socialist than the NS. Clarion now listed many F<ibian,contributors, and named the more active M.P.'s in con nectionwith Parliamentary situations, who were invariably Fabians.

The Aim was the work of Fabians-" the others," not the HOld Gang" and not the new Mosley type. The only two authors' names discoverable 'were those of Fabian contributors to The Clarion. They remained anonymous to avoid the charge of being " sectional or schismatic." The Seven of 1923 stated their disagreements: (1) with Lenin and Communists for describing only the past, and for expecting world revolution, mistaking both the character of the State and the the triumph' of the Webb-Shaw-Wells system to 'a, re-birth of associational freedom under the Party. Cf. M. Cole, Growing Up Into Revolution, pp. 61-79. Henderson also' did his part in gathering the young intellectuals into the Movement""especially Harold l.aski," to' whom he stooped in surprising humility in order to win him over.Cf. Hamilton, op. cit.,p. 272. Slesser,for one, doubted up to 1941 the reality of the Socialism of the Labour Party. To become a member one joined a federated cooperative society of' Trade Union, or one joined the Party and supported the im mediate programme. Slesser found the only requisite for membership" con demnation of the acquisitive assumptions of the modern commercial and industrial world---Plutocracy." ," Eutttrists " who believe" exemption from the imperium of mammon" is discoverable and "regressivists" who, like Slesser, believe that "a', sane human society was in the process of being achieved in medievaltimes . . . [a1 development . . . [which was) distorted bya falsephilosophy ..." make likely members. This is the view that has prevented 'Fabianism from being condemned as Socialism is condemned, nominatim. The' proportion of such thought as Slesser's to the opposite thought can bejudged by the reader. Writings would indicate that Slesser's simple anti-plutocracy was almost solitary; but probably a large segment of the Labour Party membership inarticulately felt as Slesser did and ignored the ideological sound and fury. Individual workmen did not join, the Party as persons, however" but as part of a bloc.

Slesser has become a Catholic since' writing his Judgment Reserved. He feels'that (Slesser,op. cit., p. 248) his Parliamentary life was a failure. He had H-ied to affirm an avowed Christian policy-" the alternative to Christian p6litics"is Tyranny 'black or red." Socialist MacDonald" did hot desire his assistance in his new Government" (1929)' and gave him a place on the Court of Appeal. The contrast in spirit between Slesser's philosophy and 'that of "the seven" ought to impress those who think Fabians are Christians.

Freedom Versus Liberty 423 proper methods of transformation; 76 (2) with Marx, because, belonging to the intelligentsia not to the proletariat, he had not foreseen the power of Trade Unionsm; '1'1 (3) with the Webbs for overlooking international issues 78 and for elaborating details of government schemes that were " too conventional " ; 79 4) with the ILP for not stating principles, only urging practices; 5) with Mac Donald and Snowden for never being" comprehensible" ;so 6) with Guild Socialists for being obsessed with" one idea"; 81 7}with the '/8 The F.R.D. split up into Socialists and Communists on the point of .the Russian Revolution, once deemed glorious by all. Mrs. Cole herself visited Russia .as a member of the New Fabian Research Bureau. She furnishes data all of which she notes with disapproval but she drops the data, after giving the impression of objectivity, to generalize in favor of the U.S.S.R.

Cf. Cole, Growing Up Into Revolution, p. 23. .'11 Cole, Growing Up Into Revolution, p. 63. The F.R.D. did not in 1918 recognize the divisional nature of Trade Unionism: the leaders, the (apa thetic) membership, and the rank and file. Mrs. Cole thinks they of the movement learned too late. '/8 This is simply impatience. The Webbswere " internationalistic " enough but understood the interpl~y of domestic and international issues better than others. '/9 The Clarion editor seemed to entertain an attitude of amused and filial disrespect toward the Webbs and a puritan-Socialistattitude toward Fabians. For example, he speaks of Mrs. Webb's" complete charm" which brought a crowd to Admiralty House (Alexander's dwelling) for a reception'and describes Lord Passfield as- "trotting" from salon .. to cloakroom worried over the congestion as if lacking confidence.in the "inevitability. of gradual ism." See The Clarion, 11:4' (April, 1930), 99~ Again: Fabians are criticized for going to Lord Londonderry's r~ception for Naval Delegates, held especially for visiting Americans, rather thall to their own>reception given the same night for Fabian M.P.'s. and Ministers... ,See The Clarion, 11:2 (March, 1930), 67. The F.R.D. had been founded by Beatrice but members were currently pacifists as well. as Guild Socialists; .:they were sure they were more enlightened than their elders especially'on " functional ism" and internationalism.

8'0 The young" cuckoos" in F.R.D. were especially.imwlite.· to :Snowden. Cole, Crowing .Up, p. 70. 81 Cole, Crowing Up Into Revolution,.pp. 66, J. Her grqup, F.R.D., call~d . itself "The Movement,". and it· was all Guild Socialist. So the Coles ,and vVilliam Mellor, a former evangelical minister and ac10se associate, were not in on this document. Nevertheless among .. this group must be .. found the Seven. To read The Clarion, 1929-1931, is to find these seven criticisms consonant with its policy. It is probable that the approach toward app~ecia424 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 French, Italian, and German Socialists for offering no restate ments, just "controversial commentary upon the work of dead socialists. " On the PO'Sitive side they believ'ed British Labour (Socialist) "vas the hope of the world; that the" socialist conquerors of Trade Unionism" had intermarried \vith their" subjects" to produce off spring which had the qualities of both.82 It was all very well, they said, to be Parliamentarian and palliative but palliatives should not halTIper the march to the "abolition of Capitalism and the estab lishment of the Socialist Comn10nwealth." "Reformism" meant merely to harden Capitalism, not abolish it; it made of Labour only a political party-" in," then "out." Despite the boasts of FabianislTI that they had influenced Conservatives in the reforms they adopted, the Seven wanted" bedrock" Socialist organization, not "prQgress weighted with reactionary criticism and reaction mitigated by progressive criticism." 83 The Seven pressed toward " the world we seek to create ": The Capital Levy was bad if it only delayed the end of Capitalism.

Guild SociaJism was better than such bureaucracy as was demon strated by the nationalization practiced during the War. The "worn out garments of a past ideology," i.e., slogans about Rights, Freedom, Equality, Service, Conscience, minorities-all needed rehabilitation. The Seven were sick of "workers of the world unite "-that was meant for the \vorkers of the little industion of Mrs. Webb evinced in its pages as in Margaret Cole's personal story, coincided with the graduation of Cole out of his Guild ideas, approaching the Webbs and returning to the Society. The spirit of the Seven found itself a new dwelling in The Clarion after 1928. 82 We have seen the domestic tensions of the so-married and to identify the offspring we get no assistance from" the Seven." Shaw saw the need to subjugate unions and seven years later Cole made an enlightening synthesis in The Clarion. Cf. Cole, "Trade Unions and the Government," The Clarion, 11:2 (February, 1930), 41.

83 This, of course, is the product of two parties such as exist in the United States where such activity is mutual self-criticism, elections are made unanimous, and majority makes a measure the law of the land for all; not where one party dominates and opposition stratifies into constant conflict, or the minority goes into revolt. The' Seven did not see that what they demanded was stratification. In this they came close to the Webb-Shaw Wells construct-functional blocs controlled by an elite.

Freedom Versus Liberty 425 trial countries of small western Europe and was now overblown; and " self-determination "-what did it mean? The ideals of the Seven embraced internationalism which did not allow patriotism, but permitted exercise of self-interest to sovereign states on such matters as a choice of form or of policy of their government. There was another old garment, "Peace "-" a social situation." They asked for something positive, an organized system for de veloping resources. Wars to them were" national enterprises" not peculiar to Capitalism or religion, but due to a political tend ency. If social order be only for the proletariat, it is crude; if referable to religion, culture, nationality, itis childish. However, only those who work are eligible for political or social status in international affairs. A care for "interests of neighbors" no nation has the right to neglect, yet national considerations are not powerful enough to override the" distinct interest of a group which has a characteristic tradition and ideal of life." Non-inter ference and Free Trade are childish slogans to the Seven : The abolition of sovereignty means only that no state in regard to another will be· final arbiter of its own rights. The Governments of Sovereign States, controlled by peoples governed must have their relations (inter-State relations) politically organized. 84 As to "Property," the Seven could concede 85 that over the food a man was about to eat he might have absolute property 84 Cf. Mrs. H. Swanwich, Labour's Foreign Policy, and G. B. Shaw's The League of Nations, 1929. Shaw's writing is ideological: Why should" two estates" be at Geneva? Only the ILO should be there. Albert Thomas is "the (Pope' of this' Catholic'" [sic] ordering. Mrs. Swanwich excoriates the Tories for their weakening of the League by secret diplomacy, e.g., their working with France, Spain, Poland-encouraging the aspiratiops of these nations to be admitted to the Council, a policy which kept Germany out of the League-and·· with Italy regarding spheres of influence in Abyssinia.

The" self-defense" clause in the Kellogg Pact, the " understanding" with France in the disarmament conferences, the delay to ratify the eight-hour convention, the failure to adopt the Optional Clause and the principle of "All-in-Arbitration," the refusal to surrender sovereignty, even Sir Austen Chamberlain's hesitancy to encroach on the sovereignty of minorities under the Mandate system-these are all criticized. (This attitude of H doing for" minorities and impatience with respect for liberty is char~cteristic. The latter respect for liberty is predominant in the Liberal Party's platform of 1929 as shall be shown further on.) 85 Like the catechism of the vows on Religious Poverty.

426 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 rights. That was as far as their concept of private property would let them go. As to Capital, " irritating the Capitalist and placating the workers" were not Socialism's true methods. Present day taxation (Snowden's) and wage demands (Trade Unionism) only tended to destroy the usefulness of the .Capitalist. Socialism must· be positive in pursuit of two objectives, com munalenterprise and the abolition of Capitalism. The old Social ist "nationalisation of means of production, distribution and exchange" was obsolete. Gone with· it should be the Webbs' notion of . two parliaments, one political, one social; for this was impossible in the. face of international economic interre1ations just one Parliament for all would do. From Russia deliberately the Seven took H no representation without service" upon which to base the franchise, that· is, the determination of voting rights by occupation rather than by residence. They wanted a strong executive overseeing a " coherent policy in all departments," and subsidiary Councils to obviate. the dictatorship of the Cabinet.86 Concerning "individuals," the Seven "laugh out of Court". the idea. that Socialism favors atheism and free love or that experts will· ride roughshod over H regimented individuals." Indeed, said they, " A social philosophy which sees·a restriction of liberty in social regulations should. by this time be out of date even in the Universities! "87 Socialism was not religion, it offered no theory of morals but it affected and' intended to affect education and social standards. Education should produce a person who was a H vigorous associate .of other men" and make the individual " subordinate to new and Qetter society.." The" freer world" is is the "better regulated "one~ Law" creates the area for the exercise of powers which ·is ·freedom." Some kinds of art and religion, of dubious genuineness or value, may not be able to 86 The reader will have to puzzle with the writer the meaning of Ie strong executive" in. juxtapOsition with· the plan' of checkmating the Cabinet. In 1930, desperate in the face of clogged Parliamentary machinery and interna tional stalemate from rising nationalisms, The Clarion ran Mrs. Webb's Ie My Parliament" (II [December, 1930], 347 f)~ She considered the Cabinet a dictatorship.. She advocated removing domestic and social measures from Parliament and giving them to her new Assembly.

81 Ibid., p. 92.

Freedom Versus Liberty 427 exist even in the areas of freedom which are not defined by law.88 The Seven offered no ideas' about education of ",U the elite"; for them, whatever education is to be had should be for all. Andthe usual negating reservation follows-allowing only for ' difference of intellectual ability-youths could 'stay in school:or goto·work. 89 As to marriage: The Seven stood "for the abolition of .u eco nomic subordination of women," in property, alimony, or career. They professed holding no philosophy of sexual morality. Only if a pair have children should society be concerned. TheSevenrcdnceded "the State or the industrial community " is not the sale guardian of children; there is something to be said for the thing called "relations of the generation" ;" the only" good interference,"as in the best families" is some " small scale and variable ,organisa tion." (This probably means something like Scouts.) But it no socialist community could exist in which there was reckless and unthinking procreation of ,children." NoMalthusianism~:hq:w ever: Socialists must educate parents to, improve the quality . of children and eradicate the "superstition" of the," excelleJ1ce'of numbers." (This is their contradiction, as stated ,by them.) The Seven, insisting they themselves are not sectionaLors~his matic, add that there will always be various kinds of .Socialism because men of different creeds and cultures adopt Socialis~'s economic and political ideals.90 The Seven"~lose their restatetnent with the prospect that Sdcialism is to do. the H service" which the Church "in the early middle ages "di9 among " 'Yarringand ignorant tribes." "

So much for Fabian criticisms of Fabians, recalling on th~, eve 88 This is a distinct threat to' religious liberty~ ,,' Tiresome as the: reitera tionsare, it must be' observed that these non-schismatic, non-sectarian critics of Fabianism agreed on the nature of Freedom with the professedly Fabian members whom we have cited above. It was freedom foqnd in regulation. 89 A constant source of wonderment is this pompous arrival at solemn definitions of what everyone knows. It has the effect ,of making hearers and readers doubtful of things 'long taken for granted. When they have taken their mental picture apart •and put it togethe'r again, it has acquired an exponent of Socialism. The practice doubtless played no small part in toe persuading of voters and candidates to concede superiority to and bestow confidence on the Fabian intellectuals or those things which they supported. 90 This does not seem logical ; but the reader must hitherto have noted certain inconsistencies in Fabian thinking.

428 Fabian·ism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 of election the fact that" The Fabian Society consists of Social ists " when the leadership, seeking to garner" the votes of " workers by brain and hand" (unions and cooperatives), and the N S, founded by Shaw and Webb, now run by Fabian Clifford Sharp, were trying to defeat Conservatives by negative criticism; and all were in danger of forgetting Socialism while Labour seemed to be becoming just another political party. After 1924, and all through the regime of 1929-1931, The Clarion warned against this danger; and, by its criticism, it pointed up the distinction between the Party and the Government. Looking back on this manifesto, after the Labour Government dissolved, we are able to see that among the Socialists even in the ranks of Fabianism there was a divided will: One section wanted gradualism to mean pene tration of Labour and slow, sure capture of the Movement for Socialism (the Blatchford ideal: To have Socialism we must make Socialists); the other wanted Socialism to weld hinges of easy relationships for the non-homogeneous parts of the Labour Move ment and so, in a Party, to capture political power. 91 \Vith this, the voice of intimate family warning sounding in their ears, Fabian political leaders had essayed a Government.

When it failed, Socialisn1 was found to have created a two headed monstrosity, a Janus, if not of War, of Power: A Labour front with a 'leadership looking both ways to "votes" for power and to Socialism for paradise; and a Movement animated by a materialistic philosophy of welfare which many Britons feared would destroy all they cherished of Liberty. It is a patent illustration of the best Fabian method, that pure Socialists \vere allowed to establish the collateral of Socialist doctrine upon which the trimlners banked when Socialism was re91 Cf. Tiltman, OPt cit., p. 31, where he explains how Socialists at a Trade Union Congress in Glasgow, 1892, conspired to capture the Trade Unions for Socialism; and again, ibid., p. 32, where the Maxton-Cook Manifesto in 1928 (ILP) had for objective the retention of Socialist power and stood for a bolder programme than the Labour Party so formed' could put forward.

The Clarion claims the ILP was born in its office in 1892 and boasts its "contribution to the cause of Socialism greater than any other journal." Cf. "G. B. S., You and Us," The Clarion, 11:3 (March, 1930), where G. B. S. is noted as about the oldest subscriber who then wrote, "at last The Clarion [1930] has a twentieth century air about it," to the_ editor's delight.

Freedom Versus Liberty 429 quired as backing, or concerning which they could deprecate the sentimentality as occasion demanded. C. COMPARISON OF PLATFORMS The threat to liberty was the ..keynote of the criticism of Labour politics from 1924to 1929. If it allayed the fears of the elector~ ate, the answer to the criticism changed nothing in the Fabian spirit. To contrast the Liberal Party's platform and that of Labour shows this to be true. To examine Can Lloyd George Do It! by J. M. Keynes and H. D. Henderson (both of The Nation and Athenaeum) in contrast with Fabian· Pethick-Lawrence's National Finance 92 and Fabian R. H. Tawney's draft of policy and programme entitled Labour and the Nation, adopted at Birming ham in October, 1928, is to find the difference in spirit and to lay the groundwork for criticism of the financial policy of Fabians in 1931. The "Foreword," written by MacDonald for Labour and the Nation referred again to transforming Capitalism into Socialism. Interposed between "transformatio~ " and the means to achieving it (i.e., "every parliamentary opportunity") lay a formidable list of evils to be coped with. by gaining command of industrial and political power. Both kinds of power were attain able· through and with Trade Unionists, said MacDonald.

The remnant of the Liberal Party created a "pledge" for Lloyd George and published The Yellow Book of 1928 embody ing "Britain's Industrial Future." 93 Briefly," The Pledge Ex amined" had four characteristics: It outlined a programme of ,yorks, a fina:p.cial system of Credit, a truly English attitude of mind and a certain deference for liberty (especially regarding private ownership of railways and banks). Works like road building \vere devised to care for the worker-transfer probl~m without increased taxation but by loans· to industry,94 with the design to attract workers to new scenes of endeavor (Miners, "permanently redundant," 95 depressed their own labor market 92 Fabian Tract No. 229 (1929). 93 This book was not to be· ignored by. anyone who thought U straight," said the NS, as quoted in the flyleaf of Can Lloyd George Do It? 94 The Hoover-created RFC had its pattern herein. 95 All the reforms of 1925-1928 were overlooked in Labour Party 430 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 by refusing to venture forth from ancestral once-green valleys). 96 Keynes explained that this credit· system would not cause "infla tion " so long as loans outside the country were halted (Cons,erva tives as individuals and Labour as a matter of principle encouraged loans and made them to German municipalities, states, and in dustries) . 91 The" flight of gold'" would only follow upon loans made abroad. There were certain fields where population in crease, decentralization of industry, and. the need to develop parks, or roads, called for public development. Rural preserva tion had hitherto been owed to private munificence. These Liberals spoke as Englishmen of downs, moors, and lakes, of Surrey Commons, South Downs, Salisbury Plains, Dartmoor, Exmoor, Peak and Lake Districts. They had once seen Shelley plain where the Fabians had seen only his father-in-law. Liberals did not, like the Fabians, intend to discriminate in' credit or loan making so as to develop some and repress other industries; they would bring out the measures now pigeonholed by economy minded Tories, measures which were the" children of the most active and progressive brains." There stood on the statute books the Trade Facilities Act which would enable extensions of service to be developed-telephones, electricity, drainage. The Tories had cut the subsidy for Housing; they would, by building a million houses in ten years, not merely replace and barely provide hous ing, but clear the slums. Railways, semi-privately owned, would be encouraged to borrow money and rationalize their equipment.

The Bank with its admittedly dangerous power over the rate would be counted upon to second rational plans.98 propaganda. Cf. Theelarion, n.s., 21 (January, 1929), 1. The miners' plight 'was exploited to create. a demand to reduce the financial power of the wealthy. The rentier and Trade Union classes were enjoying a rising standard of living, as Keith Feiling points out, alongside of the continued decay of a proletariat of over a million in spite of huge Government spend ing in benefits. Cf. Feiling, Ope cit., p. 128. 96 The rest of the New Deal Public Works program is outlined-traceable, not to Socialism, but to Keynesian Liberalism. The Liberals had great generalship and no soldiers. What if they had retained the members of Trade Unions and Cooperatives on their rosters? 91 Cf. Davies, Public Ownership, Points From Prospectuses (London: Fabian Society, 1928). 98 Recently, with savings going out of the country so fast, the Bank had Freedom Versus Liberty 431 The Liberals' economics were as concrete as Keynes' ideas could be and free from any ideological bent such as using taxation to raise or lower a class of people, or to diminish or increase popula tions in specified classes: They hoped to transfer the H perma nently redundant" workers· by attracting them to industries which would be revived by loans.99 The plan counted on. the reality of resultant indirect employment (never publicly considered by the other parties) and on increased purchasing power from wages to make savings in insurance payments. If the programs cost three hundred million pounds with no return to the Budget (not to speak of national income or well-being) it would cost the Budget eighteen million a year, which was two and one-half per cent of the national revenue. This was not formidable. Only five per cent increase in employed population would raise tax-yield one and one-half per cent, and the rest of the bill could be met by reducing armaments seven and one-half per cent.100 The Liberal programme could be relied upon, however, to cost even less. If certain revenues and "betterment" funds were assigned for the Road Fund, itvvould cost the Budget nothing. Instead of building one hundred thousand houses, they could build two hundred thousand houses. In three years, for subsidies and charges on rates the Budget would payout five million four hundred thou sand pounds, but there would be an appreciable return from rents and one hundred and fifty thousand men would _be employed.

Telephones and Trade Facilities loans would pay for themselves. With the gain to the Unemployment Fund of twenty-five million pounds yearly, a quarter of the capital cost of each year's pro gramme ,vould be balanced within that year; and an eighth would be recovered through gain in revenue from increased national raised the rate'to keep back the gold. The Clarion, n.s., 21 (February, 1929), 2, inveighed against it, shortsightedly. And Fabian Sir Josiah Wedgwood in his II Fantastic I Cures' for Unemployment," The Clarion, n.s., 21 (January, 1929), 6, argued for a lower rate enforced by law. . 99 A pamphlet of the British Information Service, BIS, Contemporary Britain (New York: 1950), pp. 14-15, boasts of achievements along these lines-produced in the 1930's, i.e., by the Baldwin Government. Incidentally, this propaganda, issued by a Labour Government, dissembles altogether· the Socialistic nature of H.M.'s Government.

1()O This item they had in common with Labour.

432 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 income; thus "nearly hal f the capital cost would be recovered at the time. J1 All was contingent upon the plan to embargo foreign issues. The programme was understated in all respects, according to the authors of The Pledge E%an~ined. They were encouraged by Pigou's Industrial Fluctuations, the public statements of Sir Josiah Stamp, and 11cKenna's PostWar Banking Policy to pro claim that to increase the volume investable-at home-was not inflation. Consurnption going up, imports ,vould increase; it could not, they wrote, decrease exports. The Treasury's preoccupation 'with " conversion" (i.e., of the Debt) to loans at lowered rates of 'interest, was, Keynes and Henderson said, dogmatic, blunder ing and premature. "Wait for an ideal conjuncture of conditions [when world rates are low] and" pull off something big." The rate would fall because of abundant savings~that was to the na tional interest, but if outlets should then deliberately be curtailed and investments in home industries be stopped, it would be dis astrous. Act positively, they urgedH using" enriches the coun try. The Tory treasury had instead been" choking off" whenever possible, only to create "the worst of all worlds" by using back ward equipment, and getting low profits; income tax was high in rate. and low in yield so that no relief to taxpayers and no social reforms were possible; unemployment was rampant; the rate of saving was off: so interest rates, defying any effort to lower them, remained high.

Keynes and Henderson pointed out one difference between themselves and Socialists. Socialism would take from private enterprise the financial means for social services; the Liberals offered national assistance to further those ventures which no private enterprise would attempt, and they would make loans to private enterprise, thereby to increase employment. One hundred million pounds in surplus saving were lent abroad yearly' under the Tory regime. lOt Keynes' proposition depended upon creating 101 Cf. Davies, Public Ownership, p. 10, for example,' where in Berlin Beats London the author tells that Baring, Rothsthild and Sthroder issued in London, July, 1927, £3,500,000 of City of 'Berlin six per cent bonds. for overhead Tubes. The City of Berlin owned every servke from its trainways to its slaughter houses. The wily Fabian listed only one such bond issue in London but followed it with arguments for the prosperity of Municipal Corporations such as "VIAG," a German Government company dealing in nitrates, aluminum, electricity, mines and banks, and numerous subsidiaries.

Freedom Versus Liberty 433 credit for home investment and making sure the Bank did not deflate the currency. There was every indication the Bank would welcome the opportunity to cooperate since in 1927 it produced the effect of an embargo upon foreign issues in national (and self-) defense. A source of savings for home investment should be found in reduced lending. English loans were financing over seas Governments and municipalities. Where Liberals sought to deflect the policy of the bond market ~ toward home issues, the Fabian financial experts directed their quest for financial power against the rentier class.102 It is instructive to contrast with the reasonings of Keynes· and Henderson the Fabians' National Finance. The Fabian Socialists selected a class to prosecute, directly. The rentier class had pros pered during the ye-ars after the war; incomes of 1920 were worth double value in 1929.103 Fabians boldly assumed that the active producing element in Society lost what the rentier class gained.

This company's six per cent bonds were quoted in New York. It held, because of its diversity of interests, an "advantageous position with respect to the acquisition· of foreign exchange for the service of the bonds" (Page 14). Bavaria's State-owned Banks, Mines, Forests, Vineyards, Brewery, Spas, Opera Houses, and Theatres, had profited from a $15,000,000six and one-half percent loan in New York in 1925. Davies selected fewer London loans than he might have. Fabians approved of the policy of foreign loans. Tories engaged in making them. (Davies instanced as a prosperous municipal project, Los Angeles' Power and Light, city-owned.) 1~2 Slesser wrote in 1944, "Whether . . . a resurrection of Liberalism is probable may depend upon the possibility. of the recapture of the vision of the basic invaluable quality of personality." [Otherwise," planning by competent authority must be the prime concern of governments and society"

which have adopted the view that sociology "has exploded the vision of the free autonomous individual."] "The decay of party government may assist the progress of benevolent surveillance . . . when all are agreed how to organise and educate the citizenry his· prospects of independence are poor. . . . If it is correct [that Liberalism has converted both other parties; its fall] is but an incident in the general acceptance of .libertarian ideals; if it be false, the failure of Liberalism may prove to be an unqualified disaster." Cf. Slesser, A History of the Liberal Party (London: Hutchinson and Company, 1944), pp. 163 f. 103 That this economically healthy segment of society and its source of income was not affected by non-production was seen by Keynes, no doubt, but he applied the financial remedy to the ailing segment while Fabians, seeing all society" as one," would penalize the healthy for the sick.

434 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Made for a different reason, Pethick-Lawrence's list of Church ill's H economies" and H cuts" corresponded with Keynes'. In Labour's more positive view, the Party had for tasks: 1) expanded social services, 2) control of Banking and Credit, 3) cutting the armed services. For the social services .(some one hundred and thirteen million saved from the military establishment would not suffice) there must be direct taxes and these should be, of set purpose,discriminatory: Surtaxes from income investment which would be H graduated," steeper inheritance taxes, and (assuming as the writer did that .an owner 'does no service to the community by maintaining a building where the community enriches it) high taxes on urban ground value. Strangely, Pethick-Lawrence sug gested at another point, that they might be so successful as not to need to increase taxes. (The principle of discrimination, it must be remarked, would thus yield to expediency.) . In Labour's scheme no liberty to act rationally was to be left to the Bank of England; it was to be reconstructed into a public corpora'tion, its Board to be made up of members both of the Treasury and of the Board of Trade, together with representatives of Industry, Labour, ' and-without subtlety-Cooperatives. Simplifying all financial problems, Fabians in politics used this equation: Falling prices caused exports to. drop, and hence unemployment. They rejected the remedies offered in the name of inflation and deflation as being mutually irrelevant, like scalding and freezing, since one was not a remedy for the other. H Stabilisation of price level " they, like the Liberals, took from Sir Josiah Stamp. H National Develop ment" meant housing, road-making, bridge-building, as it did for the Liberals; but not as things which reimbursed the Budget by indirect employment and consumer activation, rather as things to be paid for out of funds extracted from therentiers. Socialist' H Labour" advocated Municipal Banks. They made no mention of foreign lending, and understandably so; they took a vital interest in the German municipalized industries. Credit which the Bank must create was to them of two kinds: Quantitative, which, do mestically used, could be expanded without inflation or going off the gold standard or producing unstable exchanges; 104 and qualita104-Keynes thought this could not be done without an embargo on foreign loans to stop the flow of gold.

Freedom Versus Liberty 435 tive credit, designed to discriminate among industries selected for death or survival. The next Chancellor would have a chance, said the Fabian exemplifier of the Birmingham programme of 1928, to do "memorable" service, provided he possessed good judgment, the support of the Party, and the will. For· judgment upon that "memorable service II there will be Webb's What Happened in 1931. Labour was elected in 1929 and forthwith, Snowden, whose Socialism was like a Sunday religion having little effect upon his Monday econolnics, became Chancellor of the Exchequer again. I f the Labour Party had intended, really, to do the works of Socialism and keep the pledges made to all Socialists of whatever stripe whom it lashed to its mast, it should never have chosen Snowden for its Budget maker.10S In the intervening term, 1925-1929, three important events took place. A" General Strike" occurred in 1926 and in 1927 the Baldwin Government passed Neville Chamberlain's National Health Insurance Act which ended the old Poor Law.106 In April 1928, it became known that in America, publication of trade news revealing H trade disturbance and unemployment" had re sulted in dismay to which " nothing in recent history . . . [was] comparable.II 101 105 The old F.R.D. (1917)", which reformed into S.S.I.P. (Zip in 1929) and later (1932) into the New Fabian Research Bureau, certainly never approved of Snowden. Cf. M. Cole, Growing Up Into Revolution, p. 70: I( We were pretty rude to him although we would always cooperate tem porarily with pacifists against Labour leaders"; also, cf. pp. 112 and 152 f, where she excoriates Snowden for alienating French public opinion at the Hague.

106 Cf. Keith Feiling, Ope cit., pp. 140-143. 101 NS, XXX (April 7, 1928), 814. The financial history of these years involving Norman Montagne's visit to U. S., the behaviour of the Federal Reserve and restricted diaries in:L. C., is· not beyond avera"geunderstanding and should be written.