Chapter VIII - The First "Socialist" Government

CHAPTER VIII THE FIRST "SOCIALIST" GOVERNMENT A. SOME EFFECTS OF POLITICS ON SOCIALISM The few historians who have written of the period find not much to relate. Labour, having to rely upon Liberal support,~ould do little to implement a programme.!· Asquith, implored by" men, women and lunatics" to save the country· from "Socialism· and confiscation," kept the "two upper-class" parties from uniting and preserved the balance in the House ; and, far more important, he kept· the· Liberals from becoming an adjunct or wing of any party, for the time at least. To Tories-for-Protection or 'to Labour-for-the-Capital Levy-he could deny support at any time. But he complained that the leaders of· Labour expected Liberals .to be hewers and drawers only; that Labourites feared fraternization -a sectarian attitude~and did not understand. their minority position. 2 Furthermore there was scant agreement among the Labour Party's constituent parts; there was only " spirit." The inherent weaknesses of· a politicized socio-economic centre· began to show in the antagonisms of Trade Unionists and" intellectuals"; even within these groups there existed a division. hetween·· Clydesiders and English workers, between Fabian gradualists and "senti mental" Socialists inside or outside the Fabian·· Society.

Outside of the usual Parliamentary Party organization, the Labour Government devised a Consultative Committee 3 as liaison 1 Spender and Asquith, Ope cit., pp. 342f. 2 Ibid., p. 544. 3 Mr. Henderson devised this Committee. In the 1929-1931 government its function is more notable than here. Cf.c.g., Snowden, Ope cit., II, p. 983: "I resented deeply their [the CabinefsJ weak surrender to the dictation of the Trade Union Congress. By this action they had shown that they were not a national Party but the servants of an outside caucus." We shall see that The Clarion Fabians considered the Committee a device for breaking the dictatorship of the Cabinet and reasserting the initiative of Parliament. 310 ThCc First U Socialist" Government 311 between the Parliamentary Labour Party and the Cabinet.; further more,. this Committee, or a representative from the Party in .Com mons, met with a TUC Committee at need: " In the end [Asquith] found himself powerless against the growing resentment of the House of Commons at the appearance which Ministers presented of .. beitlg at the mercy of an .. outsid~ and irrespopsible body cor recting and revising their decisions." 4 The chagrin of Parliament was one thing but the effect upon democratic processes was an other. Th~ more committee organization was devised, the less had rank and file persons to say; leadership itl several committees might he identical, in persons or in' ideas. And when an extra legalforegatherhlg occurred the action could be blamed on "back benchers." This is what happened in the Russian Treaty and Loan Case. .

Spender says the Wheatley Housing Act alone represents the Labour Government's contribution to national progress. "Poplar," I) symbol of. dilemma, showed. how easily the Liberal leadership could unhorse Labour in any Parliamentary tilt-its only signifi cance except for the demonstration it provided of vacillation between principle and practice, and the momentum given . Poor Law reform which culminated only in 1927 under a Tory regime. When the time was ripe, the Campbell Case afforded the moment for Dissolution and the ensuing election was assertedly lost by 4rSpender and Asquith, op. cit., p. 345~ I) Snowden, op. cit., p. 630. G. Lansbury's Poplar,wehave seen, marked an about face inNS thinking. At one time, NS favored national assumption of some of the onus of poor relief; now (NS, XXII, 529) it asked if U local democracies were to be submitted· to a certain bureaucracy?" Wheatley had resci~ded his cancellation of the Mond (his predecessor's) order which had passed on sur-pay to the state. Now surcharges wereac cumulating against the Poplar Board of Guardians who were supported by the local vote in their revolt against· Poor Law charges. Most of the rates, the. NS said now for the first time, were paid by non-voters, absentee owners.

Asquith had threatened to move a vote of Censure had not the Mond pro cedure been restored. In any case, the Labour Government was protected by its .earlier pronouncement that it would not resign on a II snap vote" nor vote upon a vital issue without due notice. Lansbury's humane endeavors, raising the dole, improving work-house clothing, food, type of work and house-regulations, make a moving story. The burghers could not support in the 1920's the charges assumed in c. 1901. ct. Lansbury, op. cit., pp. 138 f.

312 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919.....1931 Labour because of the Zinoviev letter and the Red Scare raised by its publication. The story would be brief if this were all of it. But Fabians claimed to have inaugurated "administrative and financial re forms," 6 as well as to have ~improved relations with foreign countries. It can .be conceded they made pat.terns and performed a rehearsal of· a Labour, if not of a SocialiSt, Government. The improvement in foreign relations is undeniable-whether, in Asquith's phrase, due to luck or skill is disputable. Indeed, Tory politicians, if they were sure they would never need the pattern again, might boast that they used Labour to mature Conservative aims in Europe. In the effort to identify some' of the" reforms" and to find the effect of attempting social welfare by political action on the part of economically conditioned groups, we examine briefly a few items in the area of domestic politics which inter ested Fabians.

The Wheatley Housing Bill demanded exercise of the best Labour tactics. It drew a line of tension between Fabian norms (dilution) and Trade Union monopoly (anti-diluteeism) because of the need to watch the votes of Labour. The Clydesider, Wheatley, a wise, experienced and popular Irishman, was given this one effective measure to handle; and the N S 'advised him weekly on· procedure. According to their plans, the Local Au thority, true to the principle of " decentralisation," was· to handle the housing units, once built. To finance a unit the State con tributed nine pounds and the Local Authority about one-half that amount in addition. The rents were to be kept at pre-war levels plus the amount necessary to keep the annual subsidy down to a little more than thirteen pounds. 1 The problem was not found in these matters but in the efforts of Mr. Wheatley to get contractors and workers to agree and the workingmen to supply enough labor by permitting "dilution," or the "open shop." The N S was I never very positive in support of dilution despite the fact that the Webbs had \vritten in Industrial De1nocracy in the introduc tion to the 1902 edition 8 that it was the " great merit" of British Trade Unionism that it had rejected the" Device of Restriction ,., 6 FSAR (1924), 1.

7 NS, XXIII, 146 f. a Passfield, Industrial Democracy (London: Longmans Green and Com pany, 1902), liii.

The First It Socialist" Government 313 and followed the "Device of the Common Rule" which was consonant, they said, with economic science. Now, however, the encouragement of dilution was but half-hearted. 9 At the risk of appearing cynical, it must be observed that union men with jobs and dwellings had votes.to At another time, the N S said 1,1 Wheatley could simply go ahead and build under the· old Act of 1919 and on his official authority. It would take fifteen yeax.-s as the program now stood, whereas, with more dilution of labor, the Conservative measure would take three years. This was meant to be a warning, no doubt, to Trade Unionists, to encourage some compromise. The bill passed and went into. effect, only to be altered by the succeeding Tory Government. The one successful measure was a Clydesider's triumph. 12 From the story certain facts stand out: Trade-unionists were less benevolent, less. con cerned 'with the houseless than politicians; a. labor-party is an anomaly; -" intellectual" or quasi-spiritual leadership if committed to a Party cannot balance the demands of opposing interests with out negating one or other of its principles. Fabians, as stated above, never won Wheatley's adherence.13 9 NS, XXII, 467.

1.0 At this time, the NS, despite protestations to the contrary, was supply. ing the need of a Party organ. I t disclaims being a Fabian Society organ but. a letter from Lord Davies and statements made by Shaw in Pease's History (Pease, OPt cit., p. 227) show that it was, at least in the 1920's, the mouthpiece of ·leading Fabians if not the organ of the Society; if not a Labour Party organ, the voice of Fabians advising the Party; if never a Trade Unionists magazine, the bulletin of Fabian political opinion for the Party to which unionists belonged. Davies certainly considered it a Fabian II organ." 'A letter in reply from a Secretary in the NS editorial office stated that the NS was never and is not now the organ of the Fabian Society. This would have been true if the words Labour Party stood in place of Fabian Society. Also, it is true of II Society" but not of II Fabians." It made its own way financially but Fabians received it at a discount and· it' printed Fabian documents and supplements.

11 NS, XXIII, 242. Wheatley was also faced with "the Rings," i.e., builders' trusts. A Builders' Guild was created and died, unwept by Fabians. It was dismissed as a good lesson for Cole. The Webbs encouraged only consumers', not producers', cooperatives. Cf. NS,'XXII, 498. 12 He was not included in the next Labour Government. Cf. Snowden, OPt cit., p. 700. MacDonald detested him. :18 The NS linked Wheatley's name with Webb's even while it scolded ILP northerners for their" scene" making. Cf. NS, XXI (July 7, 1923), 379 314 Fabianis1n in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 The general question of housing rents drifted, then died,14 illustrating Labour's helplessness \vhen Liberals held a Tory view; but of greater significance is the demonstrable helplessness· of Labour leaders forced to try to carry out particular union de mandswhich .were politically inexpedient: the renting and the rentier classes existed and voted still, although the ideological leaders. spoke of liquidating them. On the other hand, there was carelessness on all sides for that class which cannot get a job the never-employed carpenter, like the" casual" docker and the misplaced urbanized proletarian. In still another connection. will be shown the inadequacy of politicized industrial democracy to compass all welfare, its perennial need to find caretakers for an unemployed segment of industrialized society, or else merely to ignore the voteless. " Rents" and "casual labour" suffered neglect because of politics, .that is, because the agency to agitate reform was the agent of reform and subject to political rather than cultural social motivation. (A Culture, found in its products, resttlts from the community's pursuit of that which it loves.) The Home Office commenced \vriting a new factory· bill.

Henderson brought it in. Long and involved, it came too late to pass in 1924.15 11r. Tom Shaw, J\1inister for Labour,having revived the Trade Boards/ 6 and having· abolished the "gap" of three weeks without payment of unemployed benefits to insured persons who had already collected benefits twelve weeks longer than their contributions warranted, drafted a new Unemployment Insurance BilLl1 This became law, raising the existing rate of benefit.18 The term "Unemployed workers" included those who had never worked, and the bill, when it came up, was found to have an educational clause which aimed at giving to young persons now leaving school at fourteen, in-service training instead of taking them out of the labor market by raising the school-leaving age. and 382· f. This represented on the part .of the· Fabian publicists a direct bid to the backbenchers for cooperation. 14 NS, XXII, 745, and NS, XXII, 146.

15 N S, XXIII, 275~ 16 NS, XXXII, 534. 11 NS, XXIII, 147. 18 ef. Snowden, OPt cit., p. 699.

The First ff Socialist" Government 315" The London Diarist wondered how Haldane and Trevelyan (advocates' of state aid to public education) could possibly accept it,19 representing as it did H obsolescent trade unionism." 20 Tom Shaw· was not primarily interested in education. He withdrew the offending clause.21 Notbecause it represents the confusion of thought on youth and unemployment; but because the leadership's growing impatience with Trade Unionism comes to the fore,,' is this item important. Massingham opposed with literary violence Shaw' sideas of· it in~service" training-the intellectual and the union' leader clashed. This Government, the former said, it was not put in to rule: England in the spirit of the least enlightened Trade Unionism." It was responsible to a it progressive Eng land" in dealing with it the children of the people." 22 Fabian thought was tutoring the Trade Unionist. Too pragmatic even for utilitarians, the Trade Unions were apparently unaware of the educational plans of Fabians. 23 A bill of Snowden's modified the Means Limit in old age pensions, so as not to discourage savings so much as by the 19 NS, XXIII, 218.

20 Cf. Passfield, Industrial Democracy, p. 770. A corroborative section, the passage. however shows the Webbs urging the policy of raising the school-leaving' age and increasing. technical education in schools. But Tom Shaw was standing on ground correctly described as "trade-unionism." 21 NS, XXIII, 211. 22 NS, XXIII, 188. 23 Public education, and secularism therein, was their objective, as we shall see in another connection. Another fissure in the Party was prevented from appearing until 1929. To push their viewpoint now would jeopardize their Government as it did later; but later the cry, II Resign, Resign," could be heard and unashamedly disregarded, signifying the progress made' in techniques of control. The aims of altruism and humanitarianism are equated and identified witb "Christian" in quotation marks, by Mrs. Cole in herEducation for Democ racy (London: Allen and Unwin and the Fabian Society, 1942). Social values, according to Mrs. Cole, have no relation to any "religious instruc tion "-again, her quotation marks-I( All other roads lead to Fascism . . .

decent social values can only be taught with real effectiveness in a Socialist community," p. 68. Readers should regard the semantics of "Fascism" and " medieval" with attention. The" medieval" church is now II fascist" in Fabian parlance. In 1950, it is identified with I( decadent" forms of govern ment (republics).

316 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 former method whereby an income of ten shillings a week, from whatsoever source, disqualified the aged from the full pension. The political branch was valiantly trying to cope with a societary problem, th~ industrially unemployed. Its every effort repeated the formulae of the" industrialised" .society. Snowden's master ful analysis of the economic problem, simple as it was, proved tragically correct ten years afterward. Half the million unem ployed wen~ abnormally conditioned by the depression in three staple industries-shipbuilding, engineering, cotton-all dependent upon foreign trade, wherein exports stood at a price level ninety percent above pre-war levels and imports at only a fifty percent higher level. To sell more cheaply, costs must be lowered; but the Labour Government's effort to lower production costs was aimed only at transport costs,24not wages.

Labour had for agriculture only more industrial formulae. Mr. C. R. Buxton's short and efficient Agriculture Act established-of all things-County Wage Boards. 25 If friendly, these could con nive with farmers to evade the law; if unfriendly, they could ruin them-something surprising only when the crude expression, " the liquidation of the kulak," is forgotten. There were many indications of the antagonistic nature of the relationship of Fabianism to Trade Unionism. Unions left the marks of their initiative· upon the Party. Of old, Snowden had thought and recorded later:" I never considered the Trade Union basis of the Labour Party as idea1." Money, they could provide, indeed, but Trade Union officials were not, he said, politicians. Of course, this was the usual Fabian attitude often stated by the N S ; 26 but in 1924 it was personified in the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his conduct toward theTUC Members of Parlia ment. (Snowden seemed to disregard most Fabians save Webb, Graham, and Henderson, whom he evaluated as politicians Qnly.) Again, Snowden thought that the Trade Union movement was too often defiant of authority. Yet others thought that trade 24. Snowden, op. cit., p. 702. The real historical mystery is that a country which controlled India, vast new provinces in Africa, Singapore, and Hong Kong generated no dynamic ideas in 'the face of its U surplus" shipbuilding, engineering, cotton industries.

25 Ibid., pp. 701 f. 26 Cf. Snowden, Autobiography, I, pp. 224 f.

The First l( Sociazist" Government 317 unions were too easily led :-Litvinoff had written to Tchitcherin that they must support the Daily Herald which " acts as if it were our organ," or else" it will go 'Right,' Trade Unionist." 27 In the matter of Party discipline, the Trade Unions themselves had once insisted that a Labour member who dissented from the· ma jority must resign. As early as 1906~ this rule was rescinded and the "conscience clause" adopted. Snowden says ·the Trade Unions then " wanted protection against being required to support extreme socialist proposals." 28 Fabians could not have it all one way. Likewise indicating the tension between leaders and led, J. H. Thomas in My Story 29 speaks of one of the Clydesiders , George Buchanan, who knew the Unemployment Insurance Act ·.most intimately and "hated Labour's official Gang." Thomas writes again, "in a struggle between the ordinary trade unions and the Intellectuals, who, by the way, have become much more vocal in recent years in proclaiming Labour's policy, Ernest Bevin can be relied upon to let it be clearly known who pays the piper." 30 And yet Thomas feared Bevin as a would-be dictator and tells how Ben Tillett, Fabian and Trade Union politician, discovered Bevin and promoted his leadership in order to have surcease from fighting ex-Fabians Mann and Burns. Bevin, although he belonged to " Zip ", was not recorded a Fabian until 1931 when G. D. H. Cole lists him as a founder of the New Fabian Research Bureau along with Attlee, Cripps, Dalton, Pritt, and Henderson, " a good mixed bag." 3.1 Bevin, in the 1920's the champion of unions as the Party's subsidizers, was by 1931 one of " the Intellectuals," himself.

Weir tells in his Tragedy that MacDonald called the Trade 27 Ibid., p. 538. 28 Ibid., p. 134. The U conscience clause II served the Party in the birth control question (supra) and the school question (below). 29 Thomas, My Story, p. 253. 80 Ibid., pp. 277-278. 31 Cf. Cole, The Fabian Society Past and Present, Fabian Tract No. 258 (London: Fabian Society, 1942), p. 13. The Clarion's Reporter, as it will be seen below, tells how Bevin learned his economics on the MacMillan Commission, 1930, and he learned at the same time not to be U apologetic " about Socialism. D. N. Pritt was brought over to the U. S. to defend the appeal of the eleven Communists before the Supreme Court, 1950.

318 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919~1931 Unionists" Poor Law Socialists." 32 The NS,which was sympa thetic with the MacDonald views' in most matters in 1924, also stated 33 that aims of the TUe were, the ending of· the Poor Law, Unemployment· Insurance, and reduced hours of labor. The last item, the NS said, was" impossible "as it presupposed a "new order." The inference to be taken was that the TUCmust wait for Socialism to remake its world for it. Over and over again the sphe~e of their' activity was delimited for the Trade Unions, by publicists directing that they omit political .in favor of social objectives. Their money and their votes would repay the advice and direction on political questions which they received. 34 Henderson was preparing a Franchise Bill but· no particulars were vouchsafed in .. advance. Proportional representation was suggested as, doubtless, one of the items critics would be glad to have in advance. The NS said the connection was " silly." 35 But aSocialist element, of the kind that throve independent of Fabian ism, 'was.known to favor P.R., as did the Liberal Party. It would have given the, latter some advantage; 36 they polled such large nnmbers in fe,:v constituencies that their representation in Parlia ment did not show their numerical strength. We have seen. that Fabians rejected P.R. under the direction of Herman Finer's study. Here was a minor point of difference between sentimental Socialists, and gradualists,. who w~re \villing to \vork with the old political machinery.

B. FABIANS IN THE,MINISTRIES So ·much for the "Labour" front and the impact of political exigencies on Fabian norms in the field of reform. There is scant substantiation for the FSAR claims that "administrative and financial reforms " were. made .. by theLabour Government. N ever theless, behind the fa<;ade of " I-Jabour " was a strong Fabiatl ~up porting structure. Although the LabourGov~rnment's eff~rts 32 Weir, Ope cit., p. 396. By 1929 MacDonald was so poor a Socialist himself that he had remaining to him only the support of"the .unionists in the Conference. 33 NS, XXII, 499. 34 Cf. Passfield, Industrial Democracy, p. 839. 35 NS, XXIII, 179. 36 NSJ XXIII, 124; The First tt Socialist" Government 319 failed, the patterns for a Fabian regime were laid out. The N S spoke of harmonious relationships in .identifying persons charged with the Ministries, and said nothing of their Fabianism. The Fabian Society Annual Report of March, 1924, did not identify the Fabians in office, save as five in the Cabinet and" as many" in minor Ministries. Occasionally , Fabian News took notice of Fabians in office under" Personal Notes." Twenty-two Fabians were elected to Parliament. 37 Fabian News announced a "testi monial. dinner for the elected Fabians, the expectation that R. H.

Tawney would be Chairman, and that the five members of the Society who were Cabinet Ministers would attend; but with studied disregard for an axiom of chronicle writing, it omitted their names, which were Olivier, Thomson, Webb, Henderson and Snowden. 38 In the Fabian News it was stated under " Per sonal Notes" that Dr. Somerville Hastings ~nd Miss Susan La\vrence had become Parliamentary Private Secretaries to the Minister of Education (Mr. Charles P. Trevelyan, not named).39 Fabian Margaret Bondfield was UnderSecretary of State for Labour, Fabian Colonel T. S. B. Williams became Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Board of Trade, whose head was Mr. ·Webb. At this time, a link which became a permanent association was formed between a Cooperator and Fabian-Labour when A. V. Alexander, who was head of the Cooperative Party, became also Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mr. Webb; likewise, Fabians Dr. L. Haden Guest and Arthur Greenwood, to the Minister of Health, Clydeside leader John Wheatley; and Fabian Ernest Thurtle, who was married to one of George Lansbury's daughters, 37 A Fabian, Pethick-Lawrence, obtained the seat for Leicester previously held by another Labourite. FN did not gloat over the fact that the second of the defeated candidates was Winston Churchill. Cf. FN, XXV:1 (January, 1924).

38 Evening dress was optional and vegetarians were to state their require ment on their application. There is so· much ado about these matters that one interpreting their spirit must notice such minutiae, as indicative of a meticulous kindness characteristic of this secular" religious order." 89 Close to Mrs. Webb but not often listed as an active Fabian, as' far as can be ascertained, he was more radical and austere than most Fabians. Cf. Samuel, Grooves of Change, p. 346 f, where Beatrice writes of their travels together. and Trevelyan's" living philosophy of Soviet Communism," and his austerity.

320 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 to the Minister of Pensions, Mr. F. O. Roberts. 4o The Clydesider, John Muir, was Fabian Thurtles' colleague in Roberts' office. .Here were three offices where non-Fabians, however amenable to Fabian guidance, were further offset by Fabians. Two Fabians to help 1\1rs. Webb's protege, Trevelyan; Williams to balance Alex ander in Webb's domain; Fabians Guest and Greenwood to assist Wheatley and doubly Fabian Thurtle to balance the more radical Muir in the kindly Roberts' office. Another source reveals that Fabian Noel-Baker was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Lord Parmoor. 41 Fabian William Graham, Financial Secretary of the . Treasury was at Snowden's side in Parliament. Discreet, infal lible on figures, he was indispenable to his chief.42 Fabian Josiah Wedgwood was Chancellor of .the Duchy of Lancaster, a sinecure. A little more information in the way of some names without their official connection, came with -the chronicle of the dinner in Fabian N e7.VS, Tawney presiding. 43 Over two hundred members had· heard Miss Lawrence toast the Government; Henderson, the Party Whip,44 and Lord Olivier, Secretary of State for India, replied. Lord Thomson, Minister for Air, replied to St. John Ervine's toast to the evening's guests, one of whom having been received with musical honors, Sidney Webb (Board of Trade), responded to W. S. Sander's toast to the Fabian Society, as also did Edward Pease, founder and historian. 45 Major C. R. Attlee, 40 Alexander and Roberts appear on Fabians' lists after this date.

41 Parmoor (Lord, Charles Alfred Cripps), A Retrospect (London: William Heinemann, 1936), p. 196. 42 Snowden, op. cit., II, Index; fifteen entries under Graham, all laudatory, p. 1089. 43 He had lectured· in January in the King's Hall (Fabian) Series on the need for an international authority, a redefining of the State in terms connoting the end of State sovereignty. Then Mr. Mosley had presided. See, FN, XXXV:1 (January, 1924). The Series was on U Civilization" which Mr. Webb then defined as "society with a surplus productivity" (Ibid.). The attack on" Sovereignty" was launched simultaneously with assertions everywhere of a stronger Statism and a merely functional defini tion of human life. 44 Although temporarily out of Parliament, he had for lieutenant in Parliament as Assistant Whip, Fabian Ben Spoor, a Protestant minister. 4,5 His· son, also a Fabian, was married to Marjorie Wedgwood, daughter of Fabian Colonel Josiah WedgwQod.

The First U Socialist" Government 321 a Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister (offsetting Weir), proposed the Chairman. Noted for unavoidable absence were C. R. Buxton, Minister for Agriculture, Arthur Greenwood,· Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health, and James Stewart, the one Fabian Clydesider!6 Evidently, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whom Pease listed before 1914, was not in good standing. His lameness may have precluded social activities. Mrs. Snowden was an active cam paigner for Socialism and a Fabian of prominence. The future Lord Snowden was more ILP than Fabian. About one-third the total ILP membership was not Fabian,41 but the Snowdens had' met at a Fabian Society me~ting. Snowden was to resign from the ILP in 1927 since it was then drifting, he said, from "evolu tionary Socialism into revolutionary Socialism." 48 Snowden speaks of the Trade Unionists' dissatisfaction with the fact that out of twenty Cabinet members, thirteen belonged to the non-Trade Union section of the Party; only seven were Trade Unionists.He does not name them but they were: J. R. Clynes, 41 Nowhere can a list be had directly stating Fabian membership or offices.

The Society cannot supply a list. Mrs. Cole suggested the writer might be supplied with old Annual Reports from Dartmouth 11, SW, London, but these are to be found in the. Library of Congress. The writer has made one from election lists, and "personal notes" published in FN and obituary notices in FSAR. Two letters, one from Mrs. Cole, another from a secretary, Eve Saville, indicate that even the Society has not complete.files or rosters, and Miss Saville expressed surprise to find certain names not in their files, e.g., that of Aneurin Bevan and Alfred Spender. 41 Cf. Pease, Ope cit., who gives this proportion of ILP to Fabian. ~ Snowden, Autobiography II, p. 746. His objection to the ILP drift puts him on the side of Fabians in principle. His autobiography shows deep appreciation of Webb and friendship with both Sidney and Beatrice who were first to propose Snowden's going into Lords in 1931. Cf. Snowden, op. cit., p. 927. His closest associate in these days was to be William Graham, a prominent Fabian and economist who was at hi~ side in the Exchequer and at Geneva. Mr. Graham was unstintingly praised by Snowden, (ibid., pp. 654, 924) until 1931 (ibid., p. 974). Mr. Graham figures prominently in the story of the period as told by Mr. J. H. Thomas as well as by Viscount Snowden. Incidentally, Mr. Graham's election manager, Fabian Mr. Job Gill, was a prominent Freemason, Oddfellow, and Quaker, up to his death in 1923. Fabian Clifford Allen (later Lord Allen) married Mr. Gill's daughter.

322 Fabian·ism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Hon. President of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers, formerly a " piecer " ;. J .. H. Thomas, a president of the LF.T.U., fornlerly an engine driver, now head of NUR; Tom Shaw, Secretary of the International Federation of Textile Workers, once a weaver; William Adamson, General Secretary of three divisions of Scottish Miners' Associations, formerly Chair n1an of the Parliamentary Labor Party, 1919-1921; JOM Wheatley, an organizer and laborer in Clydeside foundries, Stephen Walsh, a Clyde workman, ranking leader with Ctynes in 1918-1922 ; Vernon Hartshorn. 49 The last named was one who ·was greatly respected in labor circles. It must be recalled he was President of the South Wales Miners' Federation and Sidney Webb, who represented Seaham in Durham County, a coal-mining constituency, was the author of the Story of Coal (1924),50 and had served for the coal miners on the Royal Commission which issued the Sankey Report. Hartshorn became a member of the Privy Council in 1924 and was Postmaster General that year.

Undoubtedly he was a Webb" find." He was very popular and guided the miners away from radicalism. Along with Hodge of the steel mills (he was not in the Cabinet-probably steel workers were too capitalistic), Thomas, the socially popular railway engi neer, and Clynes, the diminutive former mill piecer, had all been with Henderson as far back as 1903 in LRC.51 They now con tinued to head their organizations, outside of their Parliamentary work. They were associated with Fabians, through Henderson, who in 1924 gave over the Secretaryship of the Party to Fabian James Nliddleton,and through Webb, \vho in 1923 was Chairman of the Labour Conference. Both Webb and Henderson knew the political actunen of the leaders and the strength of the demand for recognition of their followers. The TV segment of the Cabinet was more a Henderson construct than a Webb one. Where Snow den, the ardent Socialist, disagreed with Fabian Henderson's" we must take the Trade Union movement with us," 52 Webb simply ,~9 Snowden, op. cit., p. 606.

50 NS, XXII, p. 771. 51 Hamilton, op. cit., p. 40. Snowden said Frank Hodges' "great ability was wasted" by his appointment as Civil Head of the Admiralty. 52 Snowden, op. cit., p. 958.

The First it Socialist" Government 323 warped Labour into the Socialist Movement without philosophical quibble. The policy took toll in 1931. The rest of the Cabinet and some names of lower rank show Webb's influence the more powerful. The surprise reported in the NS concerning the appointment of Lord Olivier could not. have been shared by those who knew the history of the Fabian Society.53 He was one of the original Essayists. He was no "dark horse" but obviously the right· person for the India Office by reason of his experience in colonial affairs. A literateur in his own right, he collaborated with Webb in a book, Socialism and the Individual. Shaw credited· Olivier. with being a lone exception .to the general Philistinism of Fabians. Lord Chelmsford was a fonner Viceroy of India. Snowden U believed he was not even then a member of the Party. His religious connections may have associated him with Parmoor. He was among other such things a Knight of Justice of St. John, J erusalem-in- England. He had· been on the London School Board, 1900-1904, during the Webb controversy with Wallas over subsidizing non-provided schools and he had been a London County Councillor, 1904-1905, and Alderman in 1913. Service in Queensland and in New South Wales preceded his India service. Webb was formerly a. clerk in the Colonial Office, it will be recalled; Webb also had long experience in the London County Council. The reason for this Unionist Party liberal finding his place as Firsf Lord of the Admiralty is easily perceived. It is a little more difficult to find a .reason for the assignment of Fabian Frank Hodges of the Steelworkers to the Admiralty-save for the question of the few cruisers abuilding-because the Fabian Government" sank the Navy."

Snowden 55 is confused also as to Haldane's nomination. Miss Naomi Haldane (later Mrs. Mitchison) was prominent in the 53 NS, XXII, 438. 54 Snowden,op. cit.~ p. 607; and Francis Williams, Fifty Years' March, p. 304, where he. blames 11acDonald's poor choice on his "congenital lack of faith in the ability of his political colleagues." But Williams did not know, it seems, that the Fabian Brigadier General Thomson was MacDonald's " golfing partner" when he made the Cabinet list. 55 Snowden, op. cit., p. 607.

324 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Fabian vVomen's Group and Lord Haldane, her father, was a close personal friend of the Webbs. Sno,vden does not know that Haldane became a member of the Labour Party in 1920 convinced about " N ationalisation " by wartime experience. Haldane, upon his death, was said in the Fabian News to have been for a long time amen1ber of the Society.56 His sympathies with the best in German thought and c,ulture were well known. He was a perfect cOlnplement for ParU100r whom he had sponsored earlier for a peerage, in order to procure Parmoor's talent for the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Snowden thinks Brigadier General Thomson came into the Socialist Movement through the War. He seems not to know the place of the Brigadier General in Fabian history,57 nor his close association with MacDonald during the Cabinet-making days at Lossiemouth. The loyal Fabian had been defeated for Parliament but was made a peer. At it were, per salturn, Olivier, Thomson and Arnold, all Fabians, the latter Undersecretary of State for Colonies, "Tere elevated to the Cabinet. Having never held elective office, they attained their Cabinet status by way of being given peerages.

Snowden accounts Parmoor a recent recruit to Labour. Par moor says it was the Labour Party's stand on Revision and the like international principles which claimed his adherence. 58 He was also one of those who believed as MacDonald· did--.-or preached-that Christianity led to Socialism, one the outcome of the other. 59 Parmoor's first wife, the mother of five children the oldest of whom was Stafford Cripps, was a sister of Beatrice Webb. Another sister, Lady Kate Courtney, campaigned actively for the then Mr. Cripps (pere) for Parliament. At Lady Court56 FN, XXXIX (September 9,1928). 51 Cf. Pease, op. cit., p. 266. 58 Parmoor, op. cit., pp. 188 f. 59 Cf. ibid., p. 195, citing MacDonald's speech at Brighton Free Church in March, 1924. Cf. also, Lord (Henry) Snell, Men, Movements and Myself (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1936), pp. 111-120, where this secularist writes: "I has been my privilege to see the ecclesiastical mind [Church of England-not non-conformist) change from unconcealed horror of what they thought the word Socialism involved, to an understanding tolerance, if not approval of Socialist principles."

The First it Socialist" Government 325 ney's Cheyne Walk house, he met the MacDonalds 60 and the Hendersons. 61 He had been associated with the Webbs and Mrs. C. R. Buxton along with Dr. G. P. Gooch and C. P. Scott of the Manchester Guardian in the cause of a just peace in 1919.62 The Parmoor estate became the rendezvous for many of the great names in "the Movement" and for visitors such as the German delegation to the London Conference 63 to discuss, for one ex ample, Germany's joining the League. Haldane, as Chancellor, in Asquith's Premiership in 1913, pressed Parmoor's acceptance of a peerage. Parmoor possessed talent and connections and ideal isms like Haldane's; and, temperamentally, he was well-suited to the House of Lords. And then, for the Potter ladies, especially Kate Courtney, it would have been it task at every election to get him elected. Snowden in surprise at Parmoor's inclusion says he was " a high Tory and a devoted Churchman-the last man in the world one would expect to ever become identified with the Socialist Movement." To this, rejoinder is found in Parmoor's Retrospect: Upon his Bishop's -advice, he contributed his support to Labour and not to Socialism and he eschewed the principle of " delegacy,"

i.e., Parmoor, like Slesser, considered his vote his own and not to be cast by dictation from'the Party caucus or TUC conference. 64 He had been a Liberal-Unionist but had changed his views re garding Ireland to conform with the Fabian persuasion;' and in doing so, cited St. Thomas More for a precedent on changing one's mind. He was so scrupulous as to consult his Bishop on Socialism and was reassured that while the Socialist view on prop erty was heretical, he might collaborate in the Government in order to do good especially in the judicial and internatidnal fields~65 The Bishop said that hitherto society's leaders had not had faith, had not believed in the eternal principle which makes "what is 80 Parmoor, OPt cit., p. 187. 81 Ibid., p. 226. The Potter girls' cousin was Mary Macauley, wife' of Charles Booth. 62 Ibid., p. 142. The elder (Sydney) Buxton had ,collaborated with Cardinal Manning to effect the successful outcome of the Dock Strike led by Ben TilIett.' Cf. SnelI,op.t#., p. 107~ 68 Parmoor, OPt cit., pp. 201 and 206.

M Ibid., pp. 193 f. John Scurr was disciplined for exercising such self-will. 65 Snowden, Ope cit., p. 193.

326 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 expedient also right," [sic1]. Parmoor was given for his guide, PhilipN oel-Baker;66 a Fabian who had had some experience at Geneva in the League of Nations Secretariat. Parmoor, as Lord President, was charged with League of Nations' affairs and given a "special room" in Sir Eyre Crowe's office and Noel-Baker " was allotted on the first floor of the Foreign Office." Snowden makes no mention of the fact that Fabian· Lord Pon sonby was named UnderSecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, a position in which he was to do notable if unsuccessful work on the Russian question. His Now is The Time 67 appeared in 1925~ In writing it, Ponsonby was assisted by Mrs. Swanwich, a promi nent Fabian ·,voman associated with .Henderson· and Parmoor at Geneva 68 and Clifford Allen (later Lord Allen, after 1931 when he followed MacDonald) who was once (1912) a member of the Fabian Executive. A journalist (Daily Citizen and New Leader) and a Conscientious Objector, Allen was associated with Mr.

Webb, Henderson and Tom Shaw among others in creating the new •International in 1923.61} Therefore, the collective opinion of Fabians Ponsonby, Swanwich and Allen would be. as it read in 1925: The doctrines of Socialism, which are going forward, should always be shown to be indissolubly linked with Internationalism, disarmament and peace; and con versely, it must be shown that none of these latter can be permanently established except on the basis of a Socialist society.70 This was the same viewpoint Webb expressed on the domestic side: Only Socialism "vill do.Ponsonby's. thesis was: Authority, in a Great Conspiracy," popularizes war." Socialism must assume authority and make war unpopular and impossible. This was the man and .these his ideas and associates standing nearest Mac Donald in the Foreign Office. Not to be forgotten, however,. was 66 Parmoor, op. cit., p. 196. Among his publications, Noel-Baker lists The Geneva Protocol, 1925.

67 Ponsoriby, Now is The Time (London: Leonard Parsons, 1925). 6SParmoor, op. cit., p. 233, and Hamilton, op. cit., p. 250. 69 Brand, op. cit., p. 229. 70 Ponsonby, op. cit., p. 187.

The First (t Socialist" Government 327 the civil servant, Sir Eyre Crowe. Weir thought Sir Eyre agreed with MacDonald; Snowden and Parmoor. said he did not. Four or five other names are signif;i.cant. Snowden did not know why Lansbury was left out. The ex-mayor (1919-1920) was the present M.P. for Poplar. Snowden later noted that Lans bury was stigmatized by " Poplarism " at the time (1924).71 That Emanuel Shinwell,. National Organizer and Parliamentary Agent of the Amalgamated Marine Workers' Union-he had never been a laboring "marine worker "-was now Parliamentary Secretary to the Department of Mines is overlooked by Mr. .Snowden. 72 This was the time that "Labour's latest and not least promising recruit" joined the Party and the Fabian Society, only to become a protege of MacDonald and a thorn in the side of Thomas. Oswald Mosley's appearance with John Strachey as his ghost . caused an historical repetition of the Wellsian episode and like wise left its mark on the Society. This rich man who came into the Movement and tried' to change it disgusted Snowden. On April 5, 1924, he was hailed in the NS as a "sane idealist." 78 Sir Patrick Hastings will be' found the Attorney General in the Campbell case. The Fabian News in December, 1923, listed him K.C., M.P., as a Chairman of one of the King's Hall (Fabian) Lectures. u Henry H. Slesser, who had drafted the early Poor Law measure at the time of Beatrice's "crusade," was' a legal authority indispensable to the Party but was persona non grata to MacDonald. He should have outranked Hastings but the latter's amenability was such that it might be construed as complacency 11 Snowden, 01'. cit., p. 760.

12 NS, XXIII, 54. He was destined much later to defeat MacDonald in Sidney .Webb's. constituency, Seaham in· South Durham.. The N S advised the If reorganisation of the whole system of coal supply" in reporting the questionnaire sent out by Mr. ShinwelI; it advocated (NS, XXIII, 87) " unification" in the matter of the mining industry which would end in nationlisation. It advised. Fabian Shinwell U nothing in the coal industry corresponds to the economic views of the agricultural producer" (NS, XXIII, 87). (It would be well if Fabianism exempted agriculture from the industrial producers' apparatus, as it exempts coal fron,:I economics based upon" marginal values.") 73 NS, XXII, 74 and 756. 74 FN, XXXIV:12 (December 12, 1923).

328 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 with. the Fabian views.15 It was undoubtedly Webb who, in spite of MacDonald, arranged for Slesser's appointment ·as Solicitor. This former Fabian had an enviable record as a labor lawyer and an authority on Trade Union law. Slesser wrote that "it had become [1919] a matter almost of instinct to frame any proposal whatever for the reformation of earth or heaven in Parliamentary language." 16 In choosing an ambassador, theory clashed with utility. The NS was reluctant to agree to Sir James O'Grady's being ap pointed,11 as it was supposed he would be, to Russia as the first English ambassador. Weir was chagrined that O'Grady was not appointed. O'Grady was the choice of the "sentimental" Socialist, not the Fabian type.18 So, again we see the enthusiasts under tutelage to a pragmatic and controlling intellectualism. O'Grady became Governor of Tasmania. Ex-Fabian Slesser, 75 Hastings did not serve in 1929. Slesser then went" on the bench" into the rare judicial atmosphere above politics to replace Lord Sankey in 1929.

Webb was still loyal to a good labor lawyer. '16 Cf. Sir Henry Slesser, Judgment Reserved (London: Hutchinson and Company, 1941), p. 69. '17 NS, XXII, 497. The NS pleaded inconsistently against spoils-system appointments. O'Grady figures in the narratives of various pilgrims to Moscow, serving as it were" the Finland Station" literally and figuratively. '18 In this connection, the name of ex-Fabian Herman Slesser usually cropped up as an alternative. After he became Solicitor General he was seldom conversant with MacDonald's thought. Cf. Slesser, Ope cit., p. 108. The future was to find him a Catholic convert, and a critic of Fabian Socialism. Slesser narrates in his Judgment Res,erved that because O'Grady, his friend, was sent to Tasmania (Weir makes bitter reflections on this lowly assignment) he, Slesser, was enabled to obtain a seat in Parliament for O'Grady's constituency. Slesser was enlightened by Sidney Webb as to the reason why he had been asked to take silk at an unusual time. He had been baffled and so consulted Webb only to learn it was· the necessary step toward nomination as H.Mo's Solicitor General. Slesser records that many persons like O'Grady seem to have been promised positions in the Govern ment and found themselves excluded or shunted about like the latter.

Evidently, Webb had some trouble managing everything with MacDonald. The latter surely never appreciated Slesser, but Webb knew his value as a successful solicitor and Trade Union lawyer regardless of the fact that Slesser had quit the Fabians in 1915-one of the few who withdrew because of disagreement upon the philosophical basis of Fabianism.

The First ({ Socialist" Government 329 Webb's friend, obtained O'Grady's seat in Parliament and became Solicitor General. Harry Gosling, who boasts in Who's Who of his apprenticeship (under father and grandfather) as waterman and lighterman, was named Minister of Transport and Paymaster General in Mac Donald's Government. That he was President of the Transport and General Workers' Union could explai~ his selection, but not so interestingly as the fact that he had been on the London County Council from 1898 to 1919 for one division and until 1925 for another. This indicates early and long association with Webb, Tawney, Susan Lawrence, and A. E. Davies. He was to reorgan ize London Transportation even though he entered upon his term of office faced with a long hard bus strike. He prepared and got passed his London Traffic Bill, acting with his customary" sweet reasonableness" and with "complete knowledge " of London's problem, as Snowden narrates. 19 Fabian Hamilton Fyfe, novelist, playwright, and propagandist, now became editor by. special request of the Daily HeraJd, the TUC and Labour Party organ. A Lecturer on Spain and on the Russian Revolution of 1917, in 1917, 1918, and 1922, Fyfe traveled all over Britain talking on the topic, H The Meaning of the World Revolution of 1919." His name is found in sympa thetic association with Fabians in the Fabian News. His sympa thies were entirely Socialist, although· he was the biographer of Lord Northc1iffe.

At this time, a change not 'easily detectable took place in the NS attitude toward France. Sisley Huddleston, having long ex perience as a correspondent in France for the Times, joined the NS staff. He was the author of The Labour Who's Who,' 80 and he wrote for American periodicals among which were The New Re public and The A tlantic Monthly. He was the biographer of Poincare. It was not widely known that Robert Dell had been expelled from France for publishing the story of the Austrian Emperor's peace offer in 1918, of which President Wilson had not been apprised. It would seem that enlisting Huddleston as a weekly contributor was an indication on the part of the N S of a 79 Cf. Snowden, op. cit., p. 705. . 8Q N5, XXII, 449 and Ibid., 459.

330 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 changing attitude toward France. Huddleston wrote sympa.. thetically of Ie belltt pays. It is no wonder that Sidney Webb, alone, of all the Fabian members of the Government, was received with· musical honors at the Fabian testimonial dinner. Only Fabians could know how truly the Government was a Webb construct. The seams and splices of the· Party needed constant care if not repair, notwith .. standing. Symbolic of the problem: No Fabian organ publicized the fact that Arthur J. Balfour in 1924 accepted Webb's invita tion .to head his Committee on British Trade and Industry. TUGC boycotted it and so rendered nugatory its belated report in 1929.81 But for Webb this was not a problem but a demonstra tion. Fabianism must reduce the liberals, the industries and the unions. The N S, fully subservient to the spirit of expediency and grad ualism, counseled self-control to ILP members, and to Pacifists; "every sensible Socialist is an· opportunist." This reads like Webb's own formula, "every instructed person." A debate on "the delicate problem of socialism" under the Chairmanship of Fabian Clifford Sharp 82 was reported as "MacDonald and the ILP" in April, 1924.83 Fabian F. W. Jowett, Minister of Works, against the pacifists' contention that now was the time to put on the full Socialist program, said that at the time total disarma ment, for example, would destroy the Government and produce a militarist reaction. Agreeing, the NS added that the Govern ment, asa minority Government, had no right to impose a Socialist program now; MacDonald's" bookish association" with Socialists left him still with a, preference for the term" Labour"; paramount were the" national" issues, not Party issues.84 Their problem, the editor said, was France and Germany, and it was no good "whistling in a graveyard." But this ,vas exactly what the 81 Hamilton, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, pp. 269 f. Balfour's political "philosophical doubt" 'accounts for his becoming a symbol of the develop ment of Socialism out of Liberalism. Cf. Dugdale, Ope cit., II, p. 316 to end.

82 Clifford Sharp died in 1935, having served on NS since 1913. Kingsley Martin succeeded him as editor. 83 N S, XXIII, 56. 8. This was a point which the bitter Weir missed in his tracing of the word "national" in MacDonald's semantics.

The First (t Socialist" Government 331 ...¥ S was doing when it said that ·ILP had no desire to thwart MacDonald. Earlier, in apparent· tongue-in-cheek flattery offered to Trade Unionists, the NS had boasted 85 of MacDonald's" inter course with representative men" and asked, rhetorically, who might know more about England than Mr. Webb, Mr. Hartshorn, Mr. [Tom] Shaw, Mr. Clynes, Mr. Hodges, a group whom even non-Laborites considered" interesting and of high political value," men who had spent most of their lives in " social administration. " Thus, theNS coined a new term for the function of trade union officials-" social administration." The names selected were l ..abour Conference names, skimmed off TU Congress lists, wherein Webb bestrode like a colossus the two elements, Fabian ism and Trade Unionism. "Pure" Socialism was not represented in this N S list.86 .Palpable persuasion as this N S listing was, it dissembled the "intellectual" structure of the Government, re vealing only the Trade Unionist front, which the Prime Minister, it· was said, .supplied in "psychological things," with a " superior psychological insight." 81 C. " .PROGRESS" AND CONTRADICTIONS There were two reports of progress,88 one after three weeks, and· the other after three months: " Three Weeks Work" listed 1) the "Geddes Ax" of economy and job-insecurity lifted from the necks of Civil Servants, 2) Trades Boards. revived, 3) the eight-hour day established by the 'VVashingtonConvention through Margaret Bondfield's efforts (not adopted), 4) Mr. Wheatley's success· in settling the Poplar problem so that. the way was open to " effective welfare services by local authorities with the aid and sympathy. of the Central Government," 89. 5) in time housing building would start; consultation of "master builders and oper ators "had begun, 6) Mr. F. O. Robertsin the Pensions Ministry 85 NS,XXII, 507.

86 NS, XXII, 534. 81 NS,· XXII, 533. Weir passim is severely critkal of the claim for superior insight made·for MacDonald. 88 NS, XXII, 534, and NS,XXIII, 56. 89 This .was a promise only.. The Poor Law was destined.. to be changed by a succeeding Tory. regime. Cf. Feiling, Neville Chamberlain, pp.126-148.

332 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 was to be counted upon to have humanity and common sense. It was not reported that his trade was printing and his status that of Honorary Life Vice-President of the Northampton Labour Party and that his Undersecretary was John Muir, the former editor of the Clyde Workers' news organ. 90 Muir's being placed in the Pensions Office was a tactical move as he represented. not the intelligentsia nor the Trade Unionist, but the Guild and shop steward mentality of the Clyde. ,Men like Kirkwood and Stewart had demonstrated effective charity and justice in their stormy defense of the workless and evicted in Glasgow. Muir, like Wheatley, had no great love for British Trade Unionism. A sentence in Kirkwood's Life of Revolt, "the out-and-out Trade Unionists attacked him [Wheatley] for having agreed to dilution [Wheatley's scheme] ," 9.1 indicates the fissure in Party construction which had to be covered if not filled in. Public commentary showed only the smooth side. But the Party policy makers had been embarrassed already by ILP forthrightness .. Shortly after the Government was formed,92 Churchill had been gored to bovine vocality against the Red Flag Song and the Internationale when 'the heroic John Muir had made a speech in Commons against private ownership. The Webb-MacDonald problem, keeping en thusiastic Socialists under control. from political necessity, is understandable and the sixth item was meant to be reassuring to the readers ofNS that· Roberts would be efficient in the pensions office even if Muir caused trouble. It was hard, however, to keep the Labour front intact, even though the NS reassured the public that 7) France, Cologne, India and the City were beneficiaries of the new stabilizing of politics and economics. This, of course, was ephemeral, one of those "psychological things" commanded by ~1acDonald's "psychological insight" and managed by the NS. It was true enough that the European situation was better ing. The ensuing chapter attempts to assay the contribution of 90 Wheatley, Kirkwood, and Rosslyn Mitchell knew who wrote the article for which John Muir, along with Bell and Gallacher, went to prison during the war, when Henderson, striving to anglicize the unionism of the Clyde, was working close beside Lloyd George.

91 Kirkwood, op. cit., p. 118. 92 NS, XXII, 720. Clynes naively believed they had to get out Whitaker's Almanac to learn what posts' to fill. Ever since 1924, Whitaker's carries a notice that offices of the Royal Household are left to the King's choice.

The First tt Socialij~" Government 333 Labour to that amelioration. In the precipitation of certain meas urable results which crystallized in amorphous European politics, Fabian gradualism served as a catalyst; but the claims made by this first report were supported by prophecy and hope rather than fact. The second report, on the eve of Snowden's Budget message, was more heartening still to those whose aim was the destruction of the old order: 1) They had achieved peace with Russia-de jure recognition; 2) the "atmosphere" in Europe was better; 3) the "white elephant" of Singapore had been abandoned; 4) the military services had been wisely dealt with, that is, cut back ruthlessly. In this connection, some characteristic incon sistencies must be remarked: Admiral Beatty, whom! they would have allowed to resign over the Singapore and the cruiser ques tions, said to Mr. Thomas, " You know, Jim, you politicians are going to land us in a hole before long, and we shall pay dearly for your milk and water policy!" Thomas' answer had the Fabian ring; munitions are costly, money were better spent in social services.93 It was also usual for Fabian thinking to disparage the armed services· as mere social ornaments. 94 Five cruisers were abuilding, however, justified by need for employment and the threat that a projected Franco-Italian alliance \vould close the Mediterranean and sever the Greeks. To answer the charge that Russia was building up a navy, it was said this was but for her own security. The fifth and sIxth points again were ephemeral: Progress was reported on unemployment, housing, agriculture and education. 95 It was said new services create new markets; so plans were afoot for electrical development under national or regional control-not in private hands-for railroad expansion,96 for school buildings, roads and bridges (municipally regulated under a uniform law). The Poor Law was to be replaced by amending the Unemployment Insurance Act. (This Neville Chamberlain achieved in 1928.) Each item, above named, posed an insuperable problem caused 93 Cf. Thomas, op. cit., p. 221, and NS, XXII, 616.

94NS, XXII, 558. 95 Trevelyan and Ellen Wilkinson were sternly bent on closing inefficient non-provided schools. There were too few of any kind. 96 Clynes,.op. cit., II, p. 43.

334 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 in each case by the uniform solution which Socialists attempted, that is, industrialization: 1) In the question of employment, the residuum of· potential "dilutees" or casual laborers (as in. the current Dock strikes) ; 91 2) in housing, the relation of Central to Local Authority, like the problem of "Poplarism"; 3) in agri culture, the threat from the middleman or from government planning; which made "big business" out of agriculture, hitherto a way of life. The N S was " sick of waiting for· the farmer to make it possible for the government to help him." 98 There is more to be said on these last ephemeral gains, agricultural·· and educational. Noel-Buxton brought in an Agricultural Wages Bill upon which the N S commented, presuming as usual that its readers were aware of the proposed legislation and of most of its provisions--- which again indicates the level of literacy assumed of its readers by the NS. It appears from the remarks of the editor that farmers, owners as well as renters, were practicing laissez-faire and not cultivating all the· arable land possible, governing them selves by the rule of price based on scarcity and surrendering themselves to the tyranny of Covent Garden and United Dairies (middlemen) . The reformers suggested ~. County Control Board and a Wages Board to administer· respectively state subsidies for cultivation and minimum wages for workers. 99 The private good of the farmer was not listed as an objective, nor was the develop ment\of agriculture as a way of lifeprojected. In the background of Fabian criticism runs an unspoken hint to farmers to collecti vize, voluntarily. The NS editor disapproved a suggested tax on imported barley which was meant to encourage planting; likewise, the proposal to subsidize increased cultivation. He hoped Buxton would be firm against encouraging County rather than National 97 The editor of the NS supported Bevin who had a jurisdictional strike on his hands at the Docks. Cf. NS, XXII, 558. NS proposed "blue ticketing" to control casual labour; appealing to the authority of Mr.

William Beveridge, it was urged that all casual· labor be abolished in all industries. Cf. NS, XXII, 590. No dilution here. "Decasualisation" was urged-and one big union. Cf. NS, XXII, 439.-Industrialized democracy was perennially faced with the problem of the urbanized unemployed. 98 N S, XXII, 244. 99 N S, XXIII, 244.

The First it Socialist " Government 335 control, because individuals, he said, could not It stand up" to a local board. It is notable that this is the opposite principle from the Housing Act procedures and contrary to the usual encourage ment of local control. The N S supported the proposition of a Wages Board (this could break a farmer, of course, if he didn't It do something" about a money crop) ; and it advocated the or ganizing of Cooperatives.';J.oo That Cooperatives would be guided by national directives, and politicized/ol goes without saying. In regard to policy in the field of education it has been shown that Trade Unionists and Fabian thinkers differed; but the in'dustriallabor market dictated the methods of both sides. Propa ganda for industrial democracy should enrich the curriculum en visioned by the latter, while in-service training to delay new workers from reaching the labor market would satisfy the former.

Outside of the educational sphere, the NS approved of Trade Union policy; for, discussing industrial revival, it stressed not " relief" but training-in-service of the never emplo'J1ed. It was admitted this constituted dilution; but that was necessary, especially in the Housing program. 102 A strike \vave set in but in no case was the anomaly of " Labour" governing more patent than when the Vienna State Opera Company visited England only to find that the musician's 100 NS, XXIII, 211. 10'1 Agriculture and The Labour Party, Fabian T.,.act No. 228, by G. T. Garratt, a Fabian, appeared in 1929. The ideas had crystallized then into a proposal to nationalize the land (not farmers) and to control Dominion meat and wheat prices by. nationalizing the trusts as well as milk and meat. In 1924 these ideas were only embryonic. To compare the ideas of Bensusan, NS authority on 'agriculture, and' Fabian Garratt. would be a rewardi'ng study. The hypothesis suggests itself' that a more "agriculturalist" view point hI the writings of Fabian Bensusan in NS was slowly warped toward an industrialist viewpoint in the Fabian Tract of Garratt. The politicized socio-economic order which excluded agriculture as a. way of life and treated agronomy as a cog in the industrial wheel was creating a social vacuum which was bound to cause a reaction as such. (The results of an economic vacuum created by the war-guilt-Reparation thesis became patent in the economy of every nation by 1931.) Hesitancy in dealing, with agricultural questions postponed the politicizing of farm organization, while an economic safety valve, the Cooperative~ assumed sizable if still inadequate proportions.

102 NS, XXII, 443 f. The" gains" were wishful and immaterial so far. The constant publishing of aims had educative value, however.

336 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 union, with the backing of the Royal College of Music, was picket ing. Mr. Tom Shaw (Trade Unionist) would have liked to extend to the Viennese the Government's welcome; but it was politically not feasible. Then it was stated that" I...abour" men, once elected, becan1e H.~,1.'s Governn1ent and were no longer Trade Unionists. The N S vie,v "ras not that of the unions, but of their. instructor: Union" Labour," once elected to public office, could no longer be partial to trade u1110n objectives but must represent the public. In the ensuing months the unions tested the Labour Government severely and often a strike had to be settled on sentiment or per sonal "pull" rather than on its n1erits as when Thomas and Clynes found it necessary to plead for patriotism and to portray the King's " despair," in order to get strikers to go back and finish the work on the Wembley British Empire Exposition. The Ex position itself was planned with the purpose to stimulate trade and " re-knit" some "loosened" Empire ties,103 said the harried Clynes.

Some of the leadership's policies made the lot of unionists reciprocally harder. The Fabian leadership was tolerant of Com munists. Publicists of the Party consistently maintained that as Communists had no labor following they were not dangerous. The NS advocated cooperation on the part of Trade Unions with the Unemployed Workers' Committee, admittedly Communistic. 104 We have seen that the NS advocated coordination of Trade Unions and the Trades Councils, local organizations not then affiliated with the TUC, which were then Communist controlled. The N S asked that these two groups meet in a joint advisory council link ing them to the TUGC, since " local labour formed an element in the Conference of the Labour Party"-a matter of votes and an effort at penetration. This was done May 10, 1924.105 It was politically expedient and brought into the TUC and the Labour Party persons not classifiable as workingmen so much as crafts men. . Again, on questions pending abroad, editorializing on the ITUC meeting in Vienna in 1924, the N S said the IFTU had in vited back the Russian T rade Unions; it believed they existed 103 Clynes, Ope cit., II, p. 54.

104 NS, XXIII, 147. 105 N S, XXIII, 115.

The First tt Socialist" Government 337 independently of the Soviet Government. That the" Red" Inter national Labour Unions H caused revolts and supported minority movements in other countries" N S was aware, but it simul taneously accused Mr. J. A. Thomas of "folly" in his attitude toward the current unofficial strike of NUR, led, it acknowledged, by Communists. Thomas meantime acted on the belief that this strike was so inspired. While the N S asked public support of disciplinary measures, it alleged that the railway men had real grievances. l06 To emphasize grievances, to disparage the leader, to disregard ill-:starred inspiration, represented N S method of proffering Fabian guidance. Mr. Thomas was a president of the IFTU and he records taking a stand in a public letter against revolution, class-warfare and class-prejudice; a position which IFTU, in an official letter, repudiated. l01 Mr. Thomas was the object 6f special Communist odium .108 because he had collected a fine for libel from them in 1921. (It was told above; the money was forthcoming only after a mysterious handing over of a box of chocolates filled with jewels. It was common knowledge in these days, as pages in the N S evince, that many things Russian were so. financed. ) Thomas always maintained that those who advocate" class conflict" H traduced" him, and not his fellows for whom he devoted every Sunday for years to building the NUR from a group of downtrodden men to a self-reliant union. Mr.

Thomas recorded that Communists resented his not having H the railwaymen dragged in to support every tin-pot dispute." He judged it a H mistake not realizing the tremendous work in an underground wOay, they [communists] perform" 109 and he 106 NS, XXIII, 274. 101 Cf. Thomas, op. cit., pp. 88 f. "Comrade Thomas" was requested to withdraw his statement rejecting class-war. He refused. 108 Ibid., p. 196. NUR, as of 1950, endorsed the Soviet inspired" Stock holm Appeal" regarding" peace" and the use of the .atom bomb. The left wingers seem to have won out in Thomas' old and much-loved NUR. 109 Ibid., p. 280. Mr. Thomas, when Colonial Secretary, had for Parlia mentary Private Secretary, George Isaacs, the head, he says, of an important Trade Union, a person willing to do any, the most servile, work. Cf. Clynes, op. cit., p. 92. Isaacs' union was a newspaper printers' union affiliated with the Trades Councils. It is to be recalled that when, in 1926, Thomas was working fervently to prevent the General Strike which he knew would destroy his life work, the NUR, a strike (cf. Thomas, op. cit., p. 14), 3,38 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 described their capitalizing on Trade Union apathy and their ex~ plaiting of grievances. Their· aim, he said, was chaos in industry.

He related how Litvinoff, expecting Labour to form a regime in England, had called at Unity House and asked to interview the Labour Executive Committee; to be "promptly refused "with " ann9yance." Litvinoff believed that foreign affairs were hence.. forth to be controlled by TradeU nion officials, not in embassies.110 The .Fabians let the Communists'. roam abroad letting Trade U riionists resist .as best they might.'l11 The Communists,. it was said, should be ignored because they had no .labor following; but propaganda-wise the Reds provided whole cloth from which Fabian socialists cut segments to suit .their gradualist· patterns. Furthermore, a very unusual picture of Russian social conditions was run without editorial dissent by Massingham in the NS. Russia, he said, wanted to sell her own goods to her own peasants, not· ,German or English goods, and political pressure .was being unauthorized and quickly repudiated (cf. Thomas, Ope cit., p. 126), occurred in the D-aily Mail press rooms and furnished the reason for Baldwin's refusal to negotiate further to avert the threatening General Strike. .Cf.

Thomas, Ope cit., p. 273. The Daily Mail answered a request ·for informa tion regarding the printers'union which precipitated the stt;ike in 1926, and concerning the affiliations of -this union, by stating they had no information which would be of interest to the inquirer. Further clarification is outside the scope of this study. It is noted here only to take cognizance of a possible result of the "pairing" technique of' those who made the Cabinet and Government set-up. The" rightist" Trade Union Thomas was" paired" with the head of adifficult-to-handle union. Fyfe, in his Behind the Scenes in the General Strike, says that Isaacs was secretary of the Machine Men, the National Society of Operative Printers. "He wanted the Mail to appear." Also, the editorial staff of the Daily Mail was pro-labor. We cannot learn who authored the article which caused the strike and precipitated the General Strike by ending negotiations.

110 Thomas, Ope cit., p. 274. It would seem that Litvinoff was under the same impression as the" mistaken" Russian Trade .Unions who" did not understand" the New Economic Policy. 111 There is admirable shrewdness in such practice: Fabianism is made to seem the alternative to communism and a refuge, since Socialism will have been made to seem inevitable. NS, XXII (November 24, 1923),p. 219, ran an advertisement of Allen and Unwin (Fabian) of the Labour Sevens' Aims of Labour. The publishers capitalized on the fact that Baldwin had dealt at length with this book in his Swansea speech. Fabians let the opponellts work for Fabianism.

The First it Socialisl" Government 339 exerted by workmen in the State factories for the protection of home industries. The Peasant, said the Diarist, pays and pays until he H flies" to the" vote and the Parliament." No· present day reader .finds anything which rings true in this picture of Lenin's, now Stalin's Russia. Only C. Delisle Burns' Short His tory supplies a similar socio-economic picture of Russia under the NEP, but a little later. But this explains'the otherwise enigmatic toleration of Communism by British Socialists. Regardless of the political imperialism and diplomatic mendaciousness which D'Abernon pilloried, the social changes in Russia. were depicted as holding out a budding promise· which the British Socialists feared to injure lest a trade treaty fail to materialize. If G. "B. Shaw and Lansbury later thought and stated that NEP was pure Fabianism, the editor of the N S had in 1923 stated that NEP was capitalistic but advancing to,vard the workers" state, the State to control or own all capitaL112 It is possible, and appears evident from NS policy, that Fabians saw an obverse picture of them selves in Russia, i.e., an explosive, fervid, action on the margins of a hard core of H industrial democracy": Let Litvinoff and Tchitcherin and Radek fuss, let classes and persons disappear or suffet, let a reputation for malicious intent to deceive surround the Soviets in diplomatic circles as Lord D'Abernon remarked; 113 'beneath all this theNEP prospered. In fact, Wayfarer saw or was led by some interested person to see a conspiracy on the part of Zinoviev and Radek to destroy a rising representative move ment in Russia in favor of their peculiar imperialism and to dis credit moderate Socialism before it was proven a" force of social construction." 114 However, the editor found Tchitcherin and Krassin not "reasonable or business-like" .and warned that despite" recognition," Russia could not get credit. by decree.

Favorable Fabian opinion of Russia and the policy of tolerat ing the infiltrating subversive elements could only give the Trade 112 NS, XXII, 473. (Vs Zinoviev, Stalin decreed the" Eastern Detour.") 118 Lord D'Abernon, The Diary of an Ambassador (New York: Double day, Doran and Company, 1930), III, p. 28. 114 NS, XXII, 540. This information throws light. on the future fate of these old Bolsheviks, who perished in the 1936 "trials." Massingham's source of information. was a disciple of the new school of Soviet thought, the throw-back to gradualism, and the eventual recapture -0£ czarist power.

340 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Union official cause for grief. Henderson at the Home Office ordered the policing of Communist meetings. This met with the scornful criticism of the N S 1}.5 and insistence that Communists were harmless because they had· no great number of followers. But minding one's manners toward Communists was not the only lesson the N S taught. At the same time, the N S criticized Labour members for in civility toward Liberals. 116 Clifford Sharp made a plea early in 1924, for support to Mr. Lloyd George's campaign to rehabilitate Liberalism and prevent its disappearance despite the complaints of Socialists like Weir who, .as Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Premier's office, complained of MacDonald's association with Liberals. lI7 The Diarist, indeed, had dubbed the Liberals " vulgar" when he had scolded them for quarrelling 118 with Labourites. On the other hand, a letter from one J. H. Harris to the editor of the NS complained that Labour forced the coopera tion of Liberals in Parliament and then embarassed them in the constituencies by "obtrusively" giving." fair play" to Tories and " no quarter" to the Liberals.,u9 Editorially the NS said that Labour was under the superior tutelage of a Liberal" Governess"

[sic] (Sir John Simon) and of Mr. Pringle. It smoothed the surface for readers by showing how the "Communist-pacifist" ILP voted with MacDonald on building some cruisers and how the Minister of Health (Wheatley) combined with MacDonald to win through by retracting a rescinding order on the Poplar ques tion (they had to go back to Mond's order to keep Asquith from censuring the Government);· and finally, how it was. impossible that a wedge. could be driven between the Liberals and Labour as only the former would suffer thereby. Reassuringly, it was stated that the effort of the Press, which aimed " to detach the Govern ment from the Party" (Weir found such words prophetic) would come to nought. 120 So," Civility" was ordered toward Com munists, and toward Liberals-without showing this juxtaposition, 115 N S, XXIII, 30. 116 NS, XXIII, 30. 117 NS, XXIII, 145. 118 NS, XXIII, 10 f. 119 NS, XXII, 758.

120 N S, XXII, 477.

The First (( Socialist" Government 341 indeed. It was a characteristic Fabian position but it did not assist workingmen to avoid the machinations of their enemies. Snowden's budget was awaited with bated breath and received with applause on all sides. The N S 121 said it was" not socialism but points toward socialism." The Capital Levy, of course, was debarred from consideration but the Liberals endorsed Snowden's ideas on taxing land values, on super-taxes and higher death duties. The editor termed "nonsensical " the idea evidently cur rent that Socialists" nourished a secret love for Protection," but he thought they could have been spared the repeal of the McKenna duties on cars, pianos, clocks, films. This -attitude, positive and negative on Protection, surely justified the above mentioned" non sensical "suspicion. The synthesis, " Free trade and low tariffs," will reappear on the German scene. The editor recalled the prin ciple of taxation for reforln, to obviate economic and social in equalities 122 and remarked that the programme was set forth in the platform of the 1919 Labour Conference-Webb's work, one recalls. Strangely enough, Mr. Snowden had the close coopera tion and deeply appreciated assistance of a Fabian, Mr. William Graham, who figures here and at the Hague and at Geneva as a very able economist. Mr. Thomas, a convinced Trade Union pro tectionist who stood for imperial preference,123 with whom Graham was also closely associated in later years, remarks that Graham was not" riveted" to free trade. In fact, Thomas and Graham held that to force the issue would break up the Movement.

The issue "vas straddled very adroitly· by the Socialist Chancellor of the Exchequer who so delighted the City, and the Fabian economist. We find Mr. Snowden 124 also promising a Mothers' Pension if I__abour stayed in office and Mr. Graham withdrawing a Pension Bill in order to bring in a more liberal one obviating the 121 N S, XXIII, 456. 122 Cf. R. H. Tawney, Equality (which is dedicated to Beatrice Webb) (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1929), pp. 218 f. and 265, where Tawney deals with restraint of liberty and c, stagnation" which precedes u confusion "--on the road to Socialism and equality. He concludes that if things purchasable by wealth are provided by the State, the desirability of wealth and the roots of wealth-creating inequality will be removed (p. 272). 123 Cf. Thomas, op. cit., p. 205. 12. NS, XXII, 558.

342 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Means Test. 125 These proffers were made for political reasons although they embodied Fabian Women's projects of long stand ing. The political uses of the Budget were as patent as the serious minded Snowden could countenance. Two trends developed which were to stultify the next Labour Government. These "were destined to fructify in the- "national" Government of 1931 : First, the Tory espousal of agitated reforms, a process named by Fabians themselves" Tory collectivism," and, second, the tendency on the part of "Fabian intellectuals to "draw back, to compromise their radical principle when acting as an element of the Party and yet, from this very experience in Party, to grow more radical as they moved toward creating an"Order" in imitation of the myth of the Jesuits. The incidence of a Wallas, a Wells, a Mosley, a G. B. Shaw (in his later years boasting of being a Communist), a Trevelyan and the Webbs, all moving ideologically into· a concept of control"by some kind of force not necessarily bloody, indicates" the _relentless logic of the dialectic of materialism. 126 D. TORIES, TRADE UNIONS AND TRUCE WITH FRANCE In 1922 Labour Opposition had been confronted with Oyde siders who made it clear they expected Labour to carry out its pledges on Socialism. In 1924 the back benches were again popu lated by the forthright men from Glasgow but H.M.'s Government found certain sympathies among mempers of its Tory Opposition.

The typical Trade Unionist, Thomas, saw much to praise in the old-party members: Alfred Mond (Lord Melchett) who believed "bad labour conditions do not pay" and who stood high in Trade Union confidence; 127 Sir Ben Turner who contributed more than others on the labor side" in a certain conference with TUC mem bers," called by Mond; 128 Baldwin whom Thomas thought not 125 NS, XXIII, 179. 126 Sir Stafford Cripps lectured often on" Control" after 1931. Cf. e.g., FN, XLIII (December, 1932). Mrs. Webb's predilection for an Order some thing like the Jesuits or like the Russian Communist Party, or like the Japanese Samurai,is set forth by Mrs. Cole in her Beatrice Webb, p. 158. 127 Thomas, op. cit., p. 255. 128 Ibid., p. 255.

The First· it Socialist'~ Government 343 "indifferent to the lot of the common people •or opposed to organised labour"; ,129 Birkenhead who later wrote the acceptable formula for ending the General Strike and who defended Thomas openly; ,130 Neville Chamberlain always. "anxious to improve the lot of the workers"; Lord Hirst who "worked like a Trojan to bring' capital and labour together"; Sir Herbert Samuel, .whom Thomas convinced he should return· to collaborate in ending the Strike by working with those meeting secretly in Sir Abe Bailey's .house to reach a strike settlement, in 1926.131 It is interesting to speculate what would have been the picture of England had these men replaced the Fabians with .Trade Unions, had they galvanized workmen into a Party as the Fabians did. They could not have offered "nationalisation"; they could have developed" free associations." Socialists who like Maxton were· determined " never to make. any barber a capitalist" 132 criticized,; even as Weir criticized MacDonald, Thomas' association with these Liberals· and Tories. Thomas knew .from personal ex perience the men" and matters whereof he spoke," personal ex~ perience which withdrawn Socialists denied themselves. At the same time, Socialist Snowden, a man who despised the Trade Unionist mentality but appreciated Thomas, praised unstintingly Norman Montague, the Governor of the Bank of England. To oversimplify, not without substantiation: Tories verged on collec tivism as political collectivists became more like Tories. The most patent indication of this change in Socialists-in-office was the new outlook in France to which attention will be directed further on.

Further to illustrate the Tory" reform": An editor of the NS wrote " Virginibus Puerisque,". a sarcastic account of Mr. Bald win's speech to a youth-gathering in which he had touched upon the Home Office's preparing new factory legislation, the Board of Trade's investigation of profiteering, the Ministry of Health's housing propositions, had praised Whitley Councils and, re129 Ibid., p. 229. 180 Ibid., p. 231. Slesser narrates that Birkenhead connived with bench and Government to set the nearest precedent for the Campbell case, the precedent of Government interference for reasons of policy' in a prosecution. This happened during the war, in 1918. Cf. Slesser, Ope cit., pp. 64 f. 181 Ibid., p. 106. 182 Thomas, Ope cit., p.. 253.

344 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 echoing Kirkwood, had said that understanding business was not the workingman's part, but" responsibility" was H their share of control." The disparaging editor had Mr. Baldwin on the hip, however; he noted that the boasted example of support of Trade Unionism by Disraeli was followed by the effort to' legislate against Trade Unions by the successors of Disraeli in the Con servative Party.13S This was an early presage of 1926-1927; Fabians had good reason to feel such a prophecy stirring. They too must find a means of control of the labor element. The re formed Tory mentality modified its anti-labor trend but sought political control of a Socialist-guided force that was feared; and the evolutionary Socialists, Labour Party guides, arrived at a point where control of the Trade Unions, i.e., of the socio-political force generated by organized labor, seemed an objective which if undesired was unavoidable-if Socialism and not Trade Union Capitalism was to emerge victorious. The political action of Fabian leadership oscillated between a Trade Union and a Tory mentality while itself remaining free; but crystallizing within itself was a hard core called" contro1." This it was which was going to make necessary a long apology for Freedom after the debacle of October, 1924. It was going to bring l\1rs. Webb to see the perfection she dreamed of in Russia and H with a grand gesture [throw] Gradualism over board at a Fabian gathering in the early spring of 1932." 134 (It must have been that she saw Fabianism revivified by the Coles as that which would produce the Order when she returned to the Society in 1939.) In the mind of a Fabian founder, an idea, not to be expressed until after the defeat of Fascism, then rising, was beginning to take shape. .A.s usual, far in advance' of his contemporaries, G. B.

Shaw was to say in 1944, reviewing Fabian history on the Dia mond Jubilee of the Society: " We shall have to defend [after the War] as best we can their [Nazi-Fascist] nationalisation of Trade Unions." lS5 In this article Shaw recalled that he had long iS3 NS, XXIII. 116f. The article showed there were two reasons for " reforms": 1) the conquest of Power; 2) response to the demand of the electorate for ameliorative measures: 1) Socialism; 2) witt of the com munity. 134 Hamilton. Sidney and Beatrice Webb, p. 291. 135 FQ, 41 (April, 1944),4 f.

The First It Socialist" Government 345 ago questioned Edward Pease, who had triumphantly announced they had H roped in the Miners' Federation" and "the money difficulty no longer existed": H What then becomes of Social ism? "136 What indeed: It had to develop a technique of control of Trade Unionism and it had to find a modus vivendi in Europe. The first half of the decade of the 1920's saw the deaths of Wallas and Wells and the rise of Mosley; and Shaw, who in 1924 ap proved their spirit, recorded that these years marked his enlighten ment on Foreign Affairs when he "proposed the arrangements effected later at Locamo [Locarno was a hardened form of the fluid idealism in the Geneva Protocol] when the war had been adjourned after four years fighting." .137 Shavian Mosleyism promised control of union sentiment now to be .shifted in favor of France. The road to Locarno lay through France.

The H atmosphere" regarding France was at least twice re ported to be better ,138 when France was still spoken of as the " only serious and dangerous enemy we have in the whole world," 186 Ibid., p. 2. 137 Ibid., p. 4. The hardening of fluid concepts into notions of control, even an 'I iron curtain" concept, is demonstrated in the ensuing discussion of Locarno. It represented the meeting of minds, at an international level. Because he was looking backward as he· judged the contemporary scene in 1944, it will assist in interpretation of the 1920's to note Shaw's reaction in 1944. 'I At this moment ...•newspapers and Parties claiming to represent the extreme left· are scheming for the utter eradication . . . of Fascism, which means simply the Geddes Ax taken out of the Tory toolchest and applied to Military Communism as after 1918, and ~ . . are . . . demanding the reimprisonment of Oswald Mosley.... Professed socialist papers are more reactionary ... than the Times, the Observer, and the Economist [and] Mosley is none the worse for their ravings; but Herbert Morrison and Ellen Wilkinson, whose prestige is part of our own political stock in trade, are considerably embarrassed by them. From such idiotic truckling to what Ellen rightly calls mob hysteria the Fabians must do all they can to head the Labour Party off." Ibid., p. 4. Apropos of what has been written here of Fabian collaboration with Liberals, Tories, Fascists, and Communists, Shaw said: "The true Fabian is not and never can be a Party man or woman . . .

All Fabians have their price, which is always the adoption of Fabian measures no matter by what Party." He added, "The Beveridge Report is quite as likely to be implemented by an Eden Cabinet as by a Stafford Cripps one.... Mr. Eden must have our support even if our own converts on the left denounce the Fabian Society.... " 138 NS, XXII, 590.

346 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 and when MacDonald's good style was credited with the improve mentin Franco-British relations. 139 After the winter of 1923, the Labour Government and the editorial policy of the N S turned toward the Entente. The change commenced when the NS ad mitted that the fall of the franc which unseated Poincare had been manipulated: "We were forced to seek the salvation of Europe in the temporary ruin of France "; it was" an abominable thing" but there was "no alternative." The long watchful waiting for the bloc"des gauches to win through was over. Baldwin, Asquith and Lloyd George supported the Labour Prime Minister who pressed France and urged Germany to accept the Dawes Report (t sans phrase." ;140 With France going left,Reparations would come" down from the Moon"; Henderson's campaign programme took on added significance since a moratorium and an agency of international supervision for reparations was being worked OUt. l41 Webb said a " change of spirit" would be Revision enough, after the French election.1042 Then, the" Europe of science and rational feeling and humane endeavor to which nationalism is the chief obstacle" would emerge.

0 The Entente must remain.:l43 Naive persons and those out of touch with the N S failed to perceive the new trend toward sympathy for "rationalist" -not nationalist France. Mrs. Hamilton refers to "ILP postwar hostility to France" as having a surprising recrudescence in Snowden, whom she criticizes in 1929 as " ignorant" and a " nationalist" and not a Trade Unionist. 144 Nationalist and militarist France was to be replaced by the France of"" Civilisation and humanity." 145 139 NS, XXII, 696. After Whitsuntide in 1923, Lord Balfour and" Lord D'Abernon vacationed together" at a golfing resort. Dugdale, Ope cit., II," p. 359. 140 NS, XXIII, 148 f. 141 NS, XXII, 468. 'H2NS) XXII, 592 £. 1-4:3 NS} XXII, 468 f. In the NS, "Nationalist" was a recurrent omnibus term used often to designate all who were not internationalists; sometimes, mer'e1y the Right. 1-44 Hamilton, op. cit., p. 316. 145 NS, XXIII," 219. Cf. also,NS, XXIII, 242, for indications of the spirit of political Socialism :-Thereis no hesitancy to weaken the barriers against Russia. In the summer of 1924, the Roumanian rulers sought aloan from England to help them in their struggle to hold B~ssarabiaagainst The First It Socialist" Government 347 To complete the picture of the domestic background against which a few brilliant strokes of diplomacy were laid, let it be said by way of summary: In searching out the attempted reforms and studying the secret of Cabinet-and-Ministry-making of the Labour Party, we find that certain problems took their rise in the fact that the intellectual leadership was a peculiar Socialism, Fabianism. The Party pro gramme was stymied by dependence on Liberals, by the sectarian ism. of some Labourites, by antagonism of union men against the leadership and by the check which Conservatives, otherwise in agreement on policy, exerted. upon Labour where it was subservi ent to " outside" influences. Antagonism of the Fabian mentality against the Trade Union mentality, reciprocated the Trade Union ists antipathy for the political leadership. Even among Socialists themselves some stood for such things as P.R., the Capital Levy, absolute Revision, further Poor Law reform, which Fabians now rejected or held in abeyance. Fabians and certain elements of the Party possessed a reliable common bond made up of hatted for France, interest in Germany and loyalty to Russia. Vote-con sciousness handicapped rent control; the voteless were in danger of being ignored. Some proposed bills snagged themselves on su'ch questions as whether factory reform should be effected before Socialism should be established or only afterward. On questions such as using education to control the labor· market, lowering only transportation costs to balance imports and exports without touch ing wages, setting up county wage boards with or witho~t govern ment subsidy for agriculture, and controlling middlemen or trusts, Fabianism interposed gradualism between the Party's demands and the public.

An appearance of harmony was given by the construction of the Cabinet· and the Ministries. Fabians were distributed on a plusRussia. The. N S at every juncture argued against the loan and denied that Trotsky ever said Bessarabia was the first step to Constantinople; the NS was. seeking ~n "honest and democratic government in Roumania." Very non-Tory in this viewpoint, the NS was quite traditional in regard to Egypt. Ct ibid., 219. The NS insisted on retaining the condominium in the Soudan; since her frontiers· were tangent with French and Italian sections, Egypt came under the European State system. No imperialism: "keep Imperialist objects out of it"; the difference, a " liberal spirit."

348 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 and-minus system to counter-balance non-Fabians in office and govern Trade Unionists and Clydesiders. The Trade Union segment of the Government was a Henderson-and- Webb construct. The remaining segments; Fabian or Fabian-associate, were Webb constructs. Socialism posed a " delicate problem" of· which Fabian gradual ism assumed the solution. Two reports of progress showed wish ful thinking or m~re1y ephemeral gains but underlined the problem raised by the attempt to apply industrialism as a social panacea. When organized labor reverted to direct action, Fabianism won through by an appeal to sentiment. A principle restated that government must be for all and not for a single class jarred the complacency of those who believed "labor" had acquired a mo nopoly on social and economic gains. Fabian toleration of Communists made control hard for Trade Union leaders, on the domestic front; on the side of foreign affairs, there appeared a tendency to seek trade and overlook ideas.

Readers are prepared to understand the complication of the trade treaty problem and the. Red Scare, which caused Labour's failure to be reelected. Fabians taught manners toward Liberals and toward Commu nists. That Snowden-Graham construct, the Budget, made a synthesis of "free trade and low tariffs," even as ideals and pensions "vent together to make good politics, on the domestic side. The Party itself was so divided on " Protection" that only Fabian equivocation saved the Movement. Two trends developed in Fabianism: A toward-Tory mind and an elite-control mentality. The first took both political sides to ward an " understanding" with France. Both parties for different reasons-to appearances only-aimed at control of Trade Union forces. And both for not so different reasons, moved toward Locarno. France s"vung a little left while in Germany the min istry garnered some support from the left and in England, Labour swung a little right; so the Dawes Plan ,vent into effect. The strange understanding between Fabian and Tory mentalities pro duced an interesting effect to be seen it'! the section which follows on " Broad Diplomacy."

The First I( Socialist" Government 349 E. BROAD DIPLOMACY Two baffling arguments in which neither antagonist ever spoke definitely-Protection and the Entente-swirled over the. area of political life but an understanding on the part of the electorate and the parties, however inarticulate, was disclosed in the general satisfaction found in the culmination-Locarno. When certain men-Lord D'Abernon, Balfour, Asquith, Churchill, Geoffrey Dawson of the Times, and "several newspaper magnates" fore gathered at Sir Abe Bailey's London house to celebrate a " Bel shazzar's feast of a refined order" honoring "my [Lord D'Abernon's] part in Locarno." 146 it marked the culmination of a long series of important moves made by the British Ambassador to Berlin, and the concretizing of what was shown in the last chapter to be the policy of that Fabian leadership which had the closest touch with political realities. In this case the political leadership did not run counter to the ends urged by British Socialists: " Revision "was now the Dawes Plan. Webb had said, when MacDonald was embarrassed by Henderson's carrying Revision to the hustings in 1924, that if reparations were scaled down, that would be "revision." The Protocol was now the Pact of Mutual Guarantee; but more important still, the notion of " economic co operation" was now the Commercial. Treaty of England with Germany. In 1922, Lord D'Abemon, having often consulted Schacht and Ritscher, Berlin bankers, had arranged to get expert study and advice on currency for a German Government whose leaders professed to him to have no knowledge of such matters.

He called upon his friends, J. M. Keynes, Professor Cassell of Stockholm, and R. H.Brand, with some others. Cassell and Keynes, but especially the former, were doubtful about the prin146 Edgar Vincent D'Abernon, Dawes to Locarno, 1924-1926 (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1931), p. 212. Sir Abe Bailey called him self in Who's Who, I93I, "one of the principal Transvaal mine owners" and boasted of his being" sentenced two years" for reformist activities. The close association of Balfour and D'Abernon has been noted: likewise Balfour's being chosen by Webb to head the" Balfour Commission" on British Trade and Industry. Set up to find a way to defeat the majority against curbs on competition it numbered Lord Sankey among its members. Hamilton, Sidney and Beatrice T¥ebb, pp. 269 f.

350 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 ciple of a fixed gold basis; argued that more fluidity would bring more rapid circulation. (That reasoning explains perhaps why the Dawes Report led to .the Young· Plan.) Inflation was not caused by the unmitigated Machiavellianism which some attributed to the German leaders of 1920-1923 ; D'Abernon, on November 14, 1924," take [s1leave to doubt the truth of this supposition" which he had recorded November 4, as hearsay opinion.141 But D'Aber non's experts had stepped aside for the" Dawes" experts whose Report was adopted after Herriot had visited at Chequers and MacDonald had gone to France and both had written directly to the Reich to plead for agreement (Left support for Stresemann). To the " fluidity" of League idealism,· of Protocol metaphysics , and of printing press Inflation, the concreteness of gold and " iron-curtains" were welcome antinomies. D'Abernon had man aged to forward his friends' findings to Paris but only after the demise of· three persons: of Reichsbank President Haverstein, " a public danger," of the elder Stinnes, a "great supporter of his views," and of Helfferich, "arch-priest of inflation," 148 followed by· the more complete ascendency of Stresemann. Then the recommendations of the above-mentioned experts gained attention.

D'Abernon' s private study prepared the Germans for the recep tion of the Dawes· Plan. The plan outlined in the Dawes Report was the creation of Schacht and· Owen Young under the Honorable Charles Dawes' signature, devised with the encouragement of, Hughes, D'Abernon, and· Kellogg, and supported by the influence of Keynes in Webb MacDonald-Henderson- Parmoor circles. Schacht was the main stay (If D'Abernon in German financial reorganization. The reforms he made-goldbacking of the currency and the end of the inflation--paved the way for .the success of the Dawes Plan. After the Pact of London based upon the Report was signed on August 16, 1924,. the Labour Government completing what Con servatives had inaugurated, Lord D'Abernon forthwith proposed the Commercial Treaty. This was the first public proposal, Sep tember 22, 1924; it was proposed again October 28, 1924, when Conferences werealready'underway. On November 14, the new 1.41 Ibid., pp. 114 f.

148 Ibid., p. 110.

The First it Socialist " Government 351 Tory Government, but· ten days after Election, signaled its assent to continuing negotiation which had begun October 21, 1924. Since the Versailles. Treaty prohibited any ally from making a commercial treaty with Germany for five years, January, 1925, ",as the earliest date· publicly possible; and the Treaty was already in order by that date-ready for initialing. It was ratified in Berlin August 15, 1925, and in London October 18. Meantime, Locarno was initialled October 16, 1925, to be ratified in Decem ber. The sequence of dates shows the intermeshing of Lord D'Aber~.on's activities over vvhich the episode of a "Socialist" Government in England passed, like one of the whirlwinds. one sees .on the placid surface· of a broad Western plain, apart wrapped in its own activities. From January, 1924, until October, Labour had been H. M.'s " luckiest" Government. In October they went out, driven by. a H Red Scare." FSAR indicated that Fabians were "confident that this set-back is only temporary and that. at the next oppor tunity the verdict of 1924 will be reversed." (The next op portunity did not come until 1929.) When Labour fell, the Dawes Plan had begun successfully to function and a leftist French Government was acting reasonably. The way was set and the road open to Locarno. Providence, planning, or plain luck had produced the coalescence· of a German Government centered about Stresemann and under a Sociaist· president,. which had ac cepted the Dawes Plan. Planning is the only hypothesis within our province, slender as the present evidence is. Stresemann was quasi-nationalist, an uneasy member of the V olkespartei, and an unconvinced anti-monarchist. D'Abernon admired and appreci ated him.149 The. Ambassador. had worked for several years 149 Ibid., p. 16.. This, in spite of the misinformation coming home from Dell who, detesting the Socialists in office (not those collaborating with Bolsheviks in the provinces), called Stresemann a monarchist and reported all "nationalists" (confusing Right, Centre, and Fascist) as being against accepting the Report, while he dubbed the Centre an." absurdity" and wanted the three parties to get together with the Trade Union; as in England-; forsooth-and form a Government. Cf. NS, XXII (December 1, 1923), 237.

By June, 1924, Dell sang a new tune. He had begun to see that reluctance of groups to accept the Report was part of their bargaining technique. He had come to the conclusion that the German Communist Party was U quite 352 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 toward the· consummation brought about by Stresemann who suc cessfully manipulated the splintered Socialists and the hardening nationalists into acceptance, first of currency reform, then of the Dawes Report. The .latter group, the nationalists, had desired to adopt the Dawes Plan but dared not endorse it on an election platform. The news about the difficult position of rightist ele ments in Germany, as it appeared in the spring issues of the N 5, was calculated to create antipathy toward them as " reactionary"; and only after the acceptance of the Report was credit given to the Centre, which had pulled left (mild Socialists) and the right (nationalists) together " on its own terms." From Dell's report ing, it would have been hard for the uninitiated to divine in April, 1924, how far" fascist" extended into the reporter's meaning of " nationalist." At this time the !(PD dubbed all Socialists and those they collaborated with, " Social Fascists."

No Tory and never q. Liberal has risen up to claim" we planned it that way" but the effect of confidence inspired in "Labour" circles in Germany by the rise of British Labour to power was not· unnoticed by LordD' Abernon. He was capable of ·laying claim to the special virtue of "insular instinct" to which he credited the recoil from the Protocol of Geneva, where there was, he said, too much Latin and Catholic influence. In the Diary which he was keeping, masterful in understatement, it is clear that he was fully aware of the usefulness of the dynamics of " the left," even the splintered left. He found himself persona grata 150 to the MacDonald Government, upon his visit home early in MacDonald's term. (Of course, the plan was discussed.) And like the editors of the N 5, he was fully aware of the threat to England of French hegemony-against which only Labour had been out spoken. Furthermore, although no one can say exactly why an incapable" of leading Trade Unions into a Labour Party. He thought Trade Unions should" alone create a new party of Labour" emancipated" from the tutelage of the Socialist Party and the interference of politicians of all sorts." It will be recalled he once endorsed the idea that the Labour-front should be Moscow-led. NS, XXIII (June 21, 1924),306 f.

150 The NS, wily and ostensibly righteous, said early in 1924 there ought to be no spoils system. The it no spoils" principle left D'Abernon in office or explained why his resignation was not accepted. Cf. NS, XXII (January 26, 1924) and ibid. (February 9, 1924),437 f and 498.

The First uSocialist" Government 353 election was precipitated in the Fall of 1923, its sequel made a.vail able forces which had been withheld in the checkmate in Europe. The Commercial Treaty when it came from. its Tory adopters embodied "Free Trade and low tariffs "-a consummate Fabian synthesis. There can be no doubt that the psychological effect of Labour's rise to power in England hastened, as much as the fall of the franc, the rise of the Left to power in France. Only five months later, Tory skill capitalized upon the resultant amenability. Locarno was not, however, a Socialists' ideal consummation. That wo·uld have been rather the Protocol which in its compulsory arbitration features showed a tendency to crystallize a disputed metaphysic and so fill the gaps in the League Covenant. In defining an aggressor and making explicit the finding of force to carry out measures against an aggressor, it was designed to .

strengthen the League. "Insular instinct," Tory, Liberal, and Labour, defeated it: Socialism might one day take the aggressive. The Locarno understanding, ignoring the Dominions as the Proto col did not, accepted England as a Continental power and crystal lized Lord D'Abernon' s conception of an "iron curtain" -" a barrier between France and Germany." 151 It seemed like old orthodoxy. Long before the Pact of London the Germanophile British Am bassador, confiding in Herr Karl von Schubert, Secretary of State, had opened his mind concerning the Pact of Reciprocal Guaran tee,-it Das K·ind," .152 his brain child. He confided to his record the result. October 16, 1925.-Pact of Mutual Security initialed at Locarno. Formal signature is to take place in London on December 1. All is well.153 The Pact bound England and Italy, in the event of any future Franco-German conflict, to take the side of the non-aggressor: England became arbiter of Europe again and the balance of power 151 D'Abernon, Ope cit., p. 211.

152 Ibid., pp. 151 f and 2tO.He had inveigled Stresemann, the voluble, into having his portrait painted by Augustus John.. During the sittings D'Abernon, in his halting German, indoctrinated the helpless sitter with his scheme, It Das Kind." 158 Ibid., pp. 111 and 199.

354 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 was restored. The Ruhr had been evacuated by France on a pre-date; the "sanctions" cities likewise. But the Allies were still in Cologne. The N S editor revealed a year before that Baldwin had lost the advantage the British held in Cologne, their "Gibraltar on the Rhine," and that MacDonald would "change all that." 154 So it was. Lord D'Abernon summarized the effect of the dynamism .released by the British election of 1923: It is certainly an anomaly that both the Commercial Treaty with England 155 and the Pact of Mutual Security will be carried by a Government nominally of the Right, on the real foundation of support from the Left." 1.56 The Pact of Mutual Security, crowning point in the Am bassador's system of pacts, had started in Stresemann-D'Abernon correspondence, was relayed to France and England, kept pru dently secret and allowed but slowly to filter into French and English consciousness by Herriot who had earlier knowledge from London (January 20, 1925) and, after the Election, by Neville Chamberlain. There was some fear that the Right extremists would kill the negotiations or, perhaps, the negotiators: 157 Lord Crewe, abetted in the inner sanctum by Sir Eyre Crowe, had handled the Foreign Office in collaboration with D'Abernon espe1.54:NS, XXII (January 12,1924),381.

155 D'Abernon, op. cit., p. 185. 1,56 Ibid., p. 184. Schubert and D'Abernon rejoiced that Herriot for some unrevealed reason kept the German-initiated suggestion secret. D'Abernon leaves the matter to the day when the secret history of France during these years is written, and thanks Providence-while advising delay in enquiring. Cf. ibid., p.. 8. Some of the forces at work are indicated by the fact that when Chamberlain forthrightly proposed a bilateral pact with France (cf. ibid., p. 155), Balfour, Birkenhead,· Curzon, and Churchill opposed him, giving as their reason the fear that the fluid relations between Germany and Russia might thus be solidified. (Rapallo was still on the books.) When delaY,and the return to Tory Government, to all appearances cooled Germany's ardour for her own proposal, Chamberlain began to fight· for it and to build public opinion for ·.the Pact of Mutual Security and Reciprocal Guarantee, beginning with a speech at Geneva explaining the rejection of the Protocol. . InD'Abernon's record it was noted that MacDonald, leader of the Opposition, on this occasion had" also spoken wisely." Cf. ibid., p. 157.

1,57 Ibid., p. 140.

The·.First tt Socialist" Government 355 cially in the negotiations for a Military Commission of Contro1.158 The episode-of Labour Government left untouched the Tory foreign policy and even served it by the creation of amenability in France and Germany. That there was masterful timing and manipulation of social forces by the talented" ruling class," called in the NS " second-class brains," in allowing-Labour to come to power only for so long as it should take to precipitate governments in France and Germany capable of utilizing the force of leftist sentiment,cannot be claim'ed for the Conservatives with material substantiation. It cannot be denied on the other hand that the election which was designed either to put Labour in office or to annihilate it as a political force was necessitated by the stalemate encountered by Tories in France and Germany. The Dawes Plan was a Keynes and Schacht construct which had American backing. It was made feasible by Reichsbank President Schacht's and Chancellor Luther's 159. currency reforms on the principle of goldbacking and by loans from English financiers backed by the Bank of England. 16°As early as January 31, 1924, " astonishingly rigid" reform was remarked by D'Abernon. This was, no doubt, the explanation for the movement on the gold market which Dell had ascribed to Reich maneuvers having a rightist turn which Dell detested. D'Abernon took the measure of Hughes and Young and Dawes according to his estimate of the correlation of American idealism with American business sense, as he disclosed in his Diary. There can be no question that the man who inveigled Stresemann into having his picture painted by Augustus John ,1,61 in order to create for himself the opportunity of talking about (( Das Kind" and its prenatal care,162 even though he spoke faulty German to the quick-thinking Minister whose rapid oratory w,as thus perforce silenced, did not let Americans who came to enc'ourage Schacht or to " observe" the experts, leave without seeing his dream.163 At home, the Fabian leadership and the Labour Chancellor, assured of the collaboration of Norman 158 Ibid.,. p. 208.

159 Ibid., p. 126. 160 Ibid., pp. 109 fi. 161. Ibid., p. 16. 162 Ibid., p. 121. 168 Ibid., p. 49.

356 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 ~t1ontague, Governor of the Bank of England, all endorsed the Dawes Plan openly, and the Labour Government put to use the sympathy it stitnulated abroad to insist as no Tory Government might dare insist on the adoption of the Plan H sans phrase."164 The Labour Government achieved a Tory objective; then, a Tory Government capitalized on the Trade Treaty which Labour initiated. Both were ultimate goals of the British Ambassador, and steps to Locarno and the Pact of Mutual Security. Inaugurated December 2, 1924, the Commercial Treaty em bodied the meeting of minds as it marked the confluence of political energies and it· bore the imprint of the struggle over Ii Protection" and/or" 'Free Trade." 165 It Her Free Trade and her low tariffs" adducing "the widest possible interpretation of the most favored nation" clause constituted the "advantage offered by England." The Ambassador gloried that for the first time 166 "reciprocity" was written into a trade treaty. This meant that Germany, "rhile protecting her industry and dealing on a free· trade basis with England, gave reciprocal treatment to British-made goods, as England treated Germany's. France had hoped to effect such a treaty and had, along with Belgium, begun to " strengthen the commercial elements of their diplomatic staffs in Berlin." 161 The Ruhr position had been .. expected to afford France leverage. France and Belgium had tried to begin negotia164 Ibid., p. 65.

165 Speculation might be made upon several contrasting points: 1) The willingness of Chamberlain to encourage the negotiations begun by the "free trade" Labour Government tending toward the disadvantage of France; 2) his pretensions in delaying assent to the German-initiated Pact of· Mutual Guarantee until he should be assured the French anxieties regard ing security should be allayed; 3) his need to be converted from devotion to a bilateral pact with France. Was it necessary to placate the Right in Herriot's France, to make a show of Entente Cordiale now that the program of the Left was proceeding and France was all but mortally wounded by the Commercial Treaty? It offers no contrast with Fabian forward thinking: Chequers marked the end of angry utterance against France on the part of Fabian thinkers; the Commercial Treaty gave quietus to fears of French hegemony on the Continent, and henceforth only the ILP retained "a dangerous measure ... of postwar hostility to France." Cf. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 316.

166 D'Abernon, op. cit., p. 114. 161 Ibid., p. 106.

The First l( Socialist" Government 357 tions in London at the preliminary meetings leading up to the Pact of London, but they were already too late. The currency reforms and the Expert's Report had had from their incipiency this economic end. This is clear in the triumphant words of D'Aber non. NlacDonald's Government had achieved the synthesis H free trade and low tariffs"; it was a thoroughly Fabian formula. The Conservatives had but to take over the proj ect and sequester their Protection policy. D'Abernon offered to resign after the London Pact was nego tiated but M~cDonald, who had doubtless learned about l( Das Kind" when the Ambassador visited London shortly after the Labour Government took office, kept him at the Berlin pOSt-16B The prevenient Ambassador had the generosity to attribute the succe~s of the London Conference to l\1acDonald, calling it his great contribution. 169 However, a hasty review shows Labour-Liberal energies con verging with Conservative national self-interest. The French were precluded from getting the commercial treaty they sought with Germany because lAbour achieved the Dawes Plan's acceptance.

But Labour had been provided with a ready-made success which it surrendered back to the makers of the Pact of Mutual Security. tI Das Kind" had been discussed around December 8, 1924, by D'Abernon with Schubert. This was two days after the official Trade Pact discussion started; January, 1925, was the earliest date a commercial treaty could legally be made. But the under standing on that date was already so clear that the text of the sequential pact, that of Reciprocal Guarantee, was· forwarded (in secret) on the date the Commercial Pact might first be openly djs cussed. Schubert had recalled, when asked for his recollections by D'Abernon that he had talked of the gestating pact " during the last three years-once I remember in 1923." The Commercial Treaty accelerated the momentum toward Locarno. On January 21, 1925, the Diary reads: H Surprise would be even greater [than the surprise found in the moderate and progressive tone adopted 168 It was not in the least impossible that a foreign officer might be asked to resign. Henderson to the fury of the Opposition dispensed with the services of the British representative in Egypt in 1929, Lord Lloyd.

169 Ibid., pp. 31 f.

358" Fabianism ,in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 byl;.uth~r andStresemann] did the public know the· contents of the memorandum Pact of Mutual Security [supposed to be GeFman",inspired;' and kept secret by Herriot)' which I forwarded to Loridan last .. night." 170 The important point is that this Pact would have' been impossible even to suggest without the Com mercialTreaty ; and this Treaty could only follow on the gains flowing from the London Pact (Dawes) ; and neither the Dawes Plan nor the Commercial Treaty might have materialized without the" hew 'atmosphere" in Europe which enabled Rightist move ments to glean support from Leftist sentiment encouraged by the r~se. df ,Labou~, fronted by intelligent idealists, to power in Eng land.. ',The election of 1923, falling midway in the dynamic creative ()£the thtee pacts, did not interrupt but implemented the forte of that dynamic. The main-stream of Socialist philosophy veered away from the Geneva Protocol and flowed back into the old .. Etlglish current. When the Protocol died aborning, the op}n,ionpreparedfor its reception strengthened the acceptability of LOcarno.. No one claims to have planned it that way. The for tUl).ateD'Abernonbelieved in " insular instinct."

F. NARROW DIPLOMACY: "BISCUITS," CAMPBELL, AND THE RED ~ETTER Russia was extended recognition de jure forthwith upon Labour's coming into office. The City and same companies already set up for the purpose began economic transactions for the success .of which de facto settlements were needed. In August, Lord Ponsonby for the Foreign Office engaged in negotiations with Russian emissaries in a Conference to settle the claims of British investors who had been despoiled by Bolshevik confisca tions"o£ British properties in Russia. No figures on these evi dently ,substantial claims were ever ,known to ,the Labourite writers; but upon settlement of them hinged the possibility of a IQan .to Russia, for trade purposes, to be guaranteed by the Gov ernment. The Russians countered with claims against England for· interference in the 'civil war following the Revolution. Pon sonby and those of the same mind, Weir,Hamilton,Clynes, Snell, 170 Ibid., p. 123.

The First (( Socialist" Government 359 and even Slesser, urged the negotiation of treaties-"'-there were three drafted to cover the problems separately. MacDonaldwas somewhat reluctant; and the Conservative press spoke against ratification. The proposal of these treaties really impaired the stability of the Government as, constituted; NS tried to inspire a movement to set them aside. They came before Parliament under the agreement that-the House was free-"'-no:Party line. They were ratified on the day after Parliament recessed for the September holidays. In the ratified form another date for settlement 'of the claims was set and any subsequent loan was made contingent upon that settlement. Nevertheless, the country was aroused ; Con servatives and Liberals drew together. This might be'considered the real cause of Labour's fall, if no other factors· were discover able. . But the intervention of Russian emissaries-along the lines of TUe and Parliamentary Party connections became known and met with disapproval. It clarified nothing to recall that in June the' Parliamentary Party' had been thought to have said there. were no negotiations afoot· and, in August a treaty was introduced, even then but one day after it had been stated that negotiations had broken down. There was a reasonable fear that such confusion was the result. of "intervention." Even so, the good atmosphere created by the Pact of London was spoilt by the breaking into the news of the Campbell Case rather than by the treaties. The Sep tember,'recess found the treaties going into effect and the Campbell Case under advisement--the ILP was"angry about it. A way -out . was being sought. MacDonald's "hick," asCurzoncalled his Continental success,. was running out. So much for external appearances. In an ensuing section, we look a bit deeper for explanations., .' As if to show that "'Red" mCtchinationswould not be tolerated, the Government had arrested for a seditious manifesto published in late ]uly, one J.R. Campbell,17,la wounded veteran, who was 171 Campbell, acting editor of the Workers' Weekly, published a plea to soldiers and sailors to t:efuse ,. to use. their arms against their own class . i~ labor disputes. He. was indicted, by orders of the new .recruit to Labour and the, Fabian Society, Sir Patrick Hastings, Attorney General. John Maxton, "most picturesque figure" of the Clydesiders of, whom Wheatl,~y was "boss" (cf. Mrs. Hamilton, Ope cit., p. 231), told Hastings that Camp bell, a war hero, was only' the acting editor of the Weekly; and Hastings 360 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 acting editor of the W orkers' Weekly. Campbell's act was" part of a characteristic campaign by the Communist Party to try to present the Labour Government to the workers as the tool of reaction and oppression," 112 according to Francis Williams, M.P.

Conservatives in the House "asked questions" and the Director of Public Prosecutions advised prosecution. Perhaps Sir Patrick Hastings was naive; he authorized the Prosecutor to institute pro ceedings. This was early in August. The angry questions of John Scurr (Catholic, Fabian, ILP-er) brought forth the story of raid and arrest. Backbenchers 11axton, Lansbury, and others ardent for the Russian treaty which they knew was shaping up, itnagined they saw in the arrest the effort of the Prime Minister to use scare tactics to prevent Ponsonby's treaties from being acted upon favorably. They also professed to see an attempt to muzzle the left-wing by the threat so to deal with them because of the manner and content of their harangues. Tom Dickson shouted amidst the" general uproar," " They will probably lose half their party!" And it indicated the real reason why the case was with drawn. 173 Further, the whole business was a case of stumbling into a well-laid Communist trap, with the circumstance that any defense attorney (the Communists threatened to employ Sir John Simon) would exploit for sympathy the wounds and the record of the acting editor. The treaty question and the Campbell Case thus are seen to run parallel. Upon Parliament's reconvening in Oc tober, Lloyd George and· the Conservatives, seeking to defeat the Government on account of the treaties, moved a vote of Censure alleging that the Campbell case had been withdrawn for political withdrew the case. Conservatives moved a· vote of censure for the Govern ment's having done so although at wors~ they had only used II policy" in selecting a case for prosecution. Asquith helped defeat this, then moved a select committee to investigate. For this he had Tory support. MacDonald, rather than assent to the select committee's investigation, decided to resign.

It is pretty clear from most accounts that he was only looking for a chance to resign. The most legalistic discussion of the Campbell Case is in Slesser, op. cit., pp. 65 and 146, and the most cynical in Weir, op. cit., pp. 174-183, 188, 194, and 391. But there are no clearer facts to be found in any other treatments of the case, except perhaps in Francis Williams' Fifty Years' March, pp. 309-317. 112 Cf. Williams, Fifty Years' March, p. 309. Williams is a Fabian. 173 Ibid.

The First it Socialist" Government 361 reasons. Asquith moved an amendment proposing a select com mittee to investigate; Patrick Hastings made a clear and frank statement of his part in the case, and everything would have con verged to extend the life of the Labour Government but for Mac Donald's announcement that if either move passed, "then we go." One historian of the period, the latest, Francis Williams, thinks MacDonald's hurt pride was the reason for his, "then we go," because he had been hurt by criticism for having accepted a car and income. to run it in the form of stock in a biscuit corporation from a friend who· was at the same time a benefactor of Glasgow University and a .recent recipient of a baronetcy. The colossal ambition and the shrinking sensitiveness which his vilifiers ascribe to MacDonald could not exist in such proportions as they adduced in one character. Anyone who had campaigned as much as MacDonald, especially under the scourging accusation of "paci fism," would hardly break up the Government embQdying(to all appearances) the life ambition of himself and his ,colleagues to express a pique or from self-pity. Meantime, the D(iily Mail was holding for publication-it must have been holding it if it was sent September IS-the Zinoviev letter. The Foreign Office·got it only on October 10, two days after the Government's defeat in Parliament. The Office sent it to MacDonald on October 16. It is inconceivable that the Daily Mail, which had shouted in head lines, It No money for murderers," on the question of the loan, in August, could have held the Zinoviev letter back except to save ammunition for the campaign they must have known to be coming as early as mid-September. The existence of such a letter was far more fearsome than the dismissal by the Government of the Campbell Case, whereby the Government seemed to be yielding to its left-wingers. The" Red Letter" was a rallying summons to the Communist Party of Britain giving directions on how to super sede the Labour Party of MacDonald which it designated as " re actionary" (two months after the Campbell manifesto and prob ably part of the same scheme). The Foreign Office, which was acting, MacDonald afterward said, to protect him, published, along with the ietter, the draft of a note of protest to the Russian Government which the Prime Minister had tentatively initialled, on the day the Daiy Mail gave the Letter to the public-three days before the election.

3(;>.2 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 This is all anyone. knows or divulges about· the Letter. It was signed by. the ideologue, Zinoviev, and by the Finnish Comintern member along with "MacManus." The last named was a "red" Clydesider the _fa<:tualness-.ofwhose association with the -upper councils of the Soviet Party Kirkwood greatly doubted; It is hard to' see how Zinoviev's missive -could have failed to show tha.t Mac Donald was.'non -grata to the Communists. It certainly -revealed, as also· did the Campbell Case, that MacDonald's machine was en cumbered, hopelessly, by the left..:wing Socialists ranging from Fabians, including the" just" John Scurr, the pious Lansbury, and the Tschitcherinesque Ponsonby, to non-Fabians including Gallacher and the lovable and uncontrollable Maxton. The public in any case refused, to accept the soporific, H Communists hate Socialists." They'sensed the Party's vulnerability because of the common philosophical basis of -Communism -and Socialism.

The NS had revealed'a long time before that trade was going on apace with Russia. Evidently not even the Communists -really wanted the treaties, since they timed -the Campbell publication to coincide with the treaty making . Webb's prophecy that by 1926 Labour would g'o in' with a clear majority was extant. That it paid to shake off, or prune (this word was used again in 1931) or to discipline the 'left-wingers was proved by the great gains made in the Labour Party vote~five times that of 1923. The large body of votes scared out by the Red Scare was Labour's defeat and Fa~~anleadersh.ip's gain. "There had' been interventions," Asquith wrote. .We propose nqw to study the various interventions occurring within the outline of t~e above'story. G. "INTERVENTIONS" AND RECOIL The Faoian turtle thrust its head out of its shell, and withdrew it~out, on certain' experiITlental excursions; in, to await a better season for social democracy.

The ,generafrecoil from an experiment with Labour Govern rrtent occurred atthe point where the intervention of an " outside" el~ineht' induced disgust. The Fabian recoil came on the left and ri'ght, arid' even from its TUC center: On the left from its own The·First It Socialist" 'Government ,363 pure-Socialist element ",' which demonstrated .possible amenity to Sovietism; on the right from its own. conservatism which found.itself amenable to Christianisrn While .some, especially the' Liberal allies, .. resented the .'TUC .voice'.at .the' political level, an<l.;Qthe,ts resented the.interferences'of spokesmen for;;aforeign.power, within the leadership of Labour itself there/·was.a recoil from its own heavy charges of impolitic Socialism and from its impact with another· autochthonous force '. it· :had felt in E.urope. Fabianism recoiled to wait, motivated by something' Lord D'Abernon approv ingly termed" insular instinct." 174 When Labour went out,of office in October, 1924, Fabians took the reverse philosophically puhliclyassuming .the.attitude •that the resignation of· the Government· was,.. 'unnecessary. The' NS had pleaded with MacDonaldtoihold·.on.· Now-the NSsaid it had fores~ell. the outcome all along, ,and·it· proceeded' to 'try to. salvage MacDonald's European gains by suggesting, .A.ustenChamberlain for the Foreign Office and Working against ,Curzon's resuming:it.

From the outside, if not from the view of the sentimental Socialist, this was the correct attitude. MacDonald .and~looking oye.r .the list .of .Fabians in Parliament-Sidney Webb we.re'perhaps the only ones save Asquith who comprehended the unbearableness of the parliamentary'. situation especiallywh~re "t~e.misery took its source in the feeling that .Labour me1;hbers' (;l~d.~ MiI1i?te~s., w~re under pressures from outside forces.17~ 'And it .is 'ittdisputable '1'1~C£. "On R~construction to Social Order," (QA ) of Pius XI (Wa~h ington,D. C.: NeWe, 1942), p.40, where is notedth~r~coil; of Socialists from the conclusions their creed must, arrive at inConuDunist;l1. This study -shows that ~ocialdemocrats recoil also Jrom their near approach to Christian ism; it supports . the. papal pronouncement: "Whether consi<;iered as ;a doctrine, or as an historical fact, .or, a movement"lSocialism, if. it .remain true'socialism, even after it has been guided to truth and justke 011 the points we have mentioned [no longer even censorable on class-w-arfare and aboli tion of ownership] cannot be reconciled' with the teaq4ing' of..·the Catholic ChU1;Ch because itsf;oncept of _society .is utterly foreign, to qhri;.rtian truth [it holds, "human association has,.Qeetl instituted, Jor: the sake of material adva,ntage alone"]." lbid.,pp. 41 f,italics added.

175 Cf. ,Spender, op.. cit.jp. 659. He describes the committee of twelve (known .in 1931 as the Consultative Committee) which'acted· as a "liaison body" .between the Party and the Cabinet. .·Often it modified or corrected the Cabinet position and its activities seemed even welcome to the Ministers.

364 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 that they knew that to remain in office would destroy the Move ment. Recoil was imperative. What some of these "interventions" were can be seen by looking at TUC, for example. The TUC had not yet consolidated all the big unions under its General Council 116 and was being infiltrated by Comnlunists who would have made the future of a Labour Govenlment still more unhappy. How far Communism had infiltrated may be seen from the fact that in 1925 the TUe nearly became anti-political, that is, "direct actionist." It re quired all 'the efforts of Fabian T. C. Cramp 177 to smooth out the Labour Conference and muffle leftist invective against MacDonald which had been heard already in 1924. Not only was TUC being drawn away from the political leadership of Fabians, whom Mac Donald still personified; ILP-ers expressed sectionalism and self interest in their criticism, and the Party made itself difficult on the score both of Russia and of Geneva. When in August, 1924, the NS 178 said the Communist" Minority Movement" was more political than industrial U a la Russe" (as the shop-steward move ments during the war had been) and that it would " cut no ice,"

it was dissembling its fears and assuaging those of its readers Of course, this situation involved the debate whether a member must be only the mouthpiece of his constituency (or of his party) or whether (in accordance with Blackstone) he represents the Commonwealth. 176 NS, XXIII (August 16, 1924),539. 171 Cf. Hamilton, Ope cit., p. 259. Cf. also, H. Hessell Tiltman, J. Ramsay MacDonald: Labour's Man of Destiny (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1929) (p. 244). In 1925, at the ILPConference (not to be con fused with the Labour Party Conference) in Gloucester a member criticized the Labour Government on eight points: 1) Pensions postponed, 2) Gretna factory, despiteTU pressure, unused, 3) Glasgow dockyards left in disrepair, 4) number of inspectors of ships reduced, jeopardizing sailors' lives, 5) unemployed benefits denied thousands one day when the Government was at a royal levee, 6) no care taken of certain police strikers, 7) the failure to settle the Sudan, 8) using troops in industrial strikes. The same year at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, Bevin of the Transport Workers moved that never again should Labour take office without a clear majority. At MacDonald's instance, this was rejected (p. 246). Incidentally, The Observer (cited, p. 248) praised MacDonald's stand regarding the Sudan. In, 1924, as in 1929, Labour and Tory views on the Sudan question were identical in meaning if not in expression.

118 NS, XXIII (August 30, 1924),587.

The First II Socialist" Government 365 with an air of calm. The interpretation was hardly accurate. Regardless of how NS or Fabians characterized shop-stewardism, it is certain they looked upon it as " anarchy." Any association, communist-inspired, socialist-inspired or of Christian derivation, which represented the principle of subsidiarity was anathema-but politely-to Fabians. In this instance the" minority movement" was a communist nuisance. The Campbell Case upon which the Government dissolved was not half so meaningful as the fact that during the last stage of negotiations for the Russian Treaty, Russian Communists addressed members of the Parliamentary Labour Party on the premises of Parliament. Not only spokes men for the Conservatives and the Liberals, who were realistically fearful of Red machinations, but also MacDonald, who could not have been alone in his wariness of Bolsheviks, took exception to such proceedings. 119 But it was far more adroit-and one is tempted to mock the NS editor's characteristic phr-ase, "Who in the world could have advised it ? "-to dissolve over a domestic question, that of the Government's being accused of tampering with justice, than to brave criticism on the score of countenancing foreign tampering with diplomacy or to go down on some issue derived from TUC tampering with Party politics, tampering con cerning which the Churchillian Liberals were very vocal.

Cases like the Campbell Case became rotitine thereafter. For example, Slesser as a Liberal and an Anglican argued for days before a judge and jury that the .actions of a large group of Communists, 'prosecuted for disseminating literature urging soldiers to use their arms only against the enemies of their class and not against their own class in a labor dispute, did not consti tute sedition nor incitement to sedition.18°(The jury nevertheless found them guilty.) Asquith alluded to the effects of interven tion, saying,t81 "After the intervention of a group of Labour Members [that is, in August, just one day after the Prime Minis ter had said that treaty negotiations he ,vas believed to have denied lT9 Ponsonby is shown by Tiltman, op. cit., p. 224, to have used the inter vention in order to get the negotiations, which had broken down on a minor point, resumed. He stated that three treaties were already drafted. Evi dently this was not what Snowden understood.

180 Cf. Slesser, Ope cit., pp. 176. 181 Spender and Asquith, op. cit., p. 345.

366 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 to be afoot in June had broken down on the question of confisca tions of British property in Russia]," Ponsonby's treaty was introduced carrying H.M.'s Government's promise to guarantee a loan. Asquith recorded how the House was revolted by the incon sistency of MacDonald and the incongruity of the notion of the Government's guaranteeing private loans to Russia. 182 However, it was the Campbell Case involving Government "intervention" based on policy, and not the Russian treaties, which caused the dissolution. (The two stories run simultaneously and are hard to disentangle.) MacDonald chose to resign if the select committee to investigate the handling of the Campbell Case were adopted. Any "interventions" which a Select Committee might have brought to light remain unknown. Asquith was disgusted and chagrined that the Liberals should be so traduced by the lack of " skill or luck" of the Labour Party. He paid for their ineptitude with his political life as we have seen in reviewing the new elec tioneering techniques above. Yet, to Lloyd George his enemy in the Liberal Party, and to the latter's ability to reach a modus vivendi w'ith those Tories who grasped the meaning of the international situation, is Asquith's powerlessness to preserve the unstable equilibrium in Parliament attributable. 18B The Lloyd George Liberals joined the Tories on a vote of Censure against the Gov ernment for having failed to prosecute the Red. The countenanc ing .of seditious utterance and the Ponsonby treaties were .the cause of the bad atmosphere but the House had been free on the latter. While" intervention" furnished Fabians a stick to beat the dogs of "undisciplined" Party members, and afforded a reason for dissolution, it is also true that the political leadership had to find a way to stop the experiment; because the interventions were only too real. And it is not at all impossible that Mac Donald and Baldwin (backed by Balfour, friend of Asquith) had made an agreement, although it was not so diabolical a treachery as Weir made it out to be.

The Fabian biographer of Henderson and of MacDonald 182 Ibid., p. 345. 188 Tiltman quotes MacDonald on this point but exchanges Lloyd George's name to read Asquith's in the conspiracy to overthrow Labour. Tiltman is mistaken according to the other Labour Party members' memories. Mac Donald was quite clear on the point. Tiltman, Ope cit., pp. 230 f.

The First (( Socialist" Government 367 (1929), Mrs. Hamilton, ignores the Campbell incident. She was elected to Parliament only in 1929. Her account of the dissolu tion appears made up from hearsay and she confuses the It inter ventions." The Campbell Case was dismissed not only because of Maxton's plea but also because backbenchers, even John Scurr, threatened to bolt if Campbell were tried for something no more heinous than what they themselves so often perpetrated. The intervention. on the Russian Trade Treaty 184 was more important to the Tories and to the electorate. Mrs. Hamilton simply remarks, "There had been an incident-of which a great deal too much was made in the Press-implying too much backbench pressure to accelerate [treaty] negotiation." 185 In both cases Party· policy was reversed, seemingly as a result of" intervention." While in the treaty matter the intervention came from Russian Communists directly upon M.P.'s through Trade Unionists, the It intervention" in the Campbell Case was that of a Clydesider, James Maxton, a friend of the indicted man, called into con ference, Williams says, with the Attorney. The treaty interven tion revolted the House, the people and the wiser Labour Party politicians, and was palpably objectionable. The significance of the allegations regarding intervention in the Campbell Case was farcical in comparison, taken from a legal standpoint and apart from the general situation, of which it was only a token. Mac Donald assumed an aii-of injured innocence and· went down to defeat, following a decision calculated to preserve the appearance of Party unity~ It was not unusual for prosecutions to be selected by policy· and policy caused this case to be set aside. Apart from the fact t1?-at it was inhuman to prosecute Campbell, the leadership elected to save the Party from divisive self-critieism, and to avoid hardening a fluid left wing by giving it a martyr. (The outright Socialists asked in Parliament if they should not be arrested on the morrow for the same offense. ) Fabian writers stood together in defense of the Party.

Clynes 186 says Haldane agreed on this procedure; Weir,t87 to .184 Slesser writes. there were two tre~ties and says of· themtha~ .they represented MacDonald's finest work. Cf. Slesser, Ope cit., pp. 107, 109, 110. J85 Hamilton, op. cit., p. 252. 186 Clynes, op. cit., II, pp. ·61 f. Where Slesser says the Labour Govern368 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 sustain" our policy," that is, the selection of cases by policy, cites the Lord Chief Justice. It is certain Slesser, the Solicitor General, approved of Sir Patrick Hastings' decision and fairly certain that MacDonald had nothing to do with it, although he repeatedly justified his position by saying his law officers advised him.188 While Mrs. Hamilton seems to imply that the ILP members were Russophile and blameable for the pressure put on MacDonald and by him upon the Attorney General to withdraw the indictment of Campbell, Slesser believe Hastings acted independently; but Slesser was never in :rvlacDonald's confidence. Indeed he often disregarded his orders. The Campbell Case U intervention " took the steam off the intra-party trouble that was coming to a boil.

It afforded the" straw man " o~ the H whipping boy," self-selected by the Party leadership. More truth about the intervention in the treaty matter is told by Snowden: 189 The treaty was to come up in a few days and the Government was said to be expecting to be defeated on it; but the Party had safeguarded itself by leaving the House of Commons free on it. There was therefore no cause for resignation in the treaty question, technically. (So, it seems that Mrs. Hamilton's confusion of the two events is inexcusable.) Snowden writes: Some of the Soviet delegates [on treaty business] had been in touch with certain of the Labour members and Trade Union officials during the whole Conference [on the treaty]. They had been telling fairy tales about the hundreds of millions of Russian orders which were wait ing to be given to British industrialists as soon as the treaty was signed. When the announcement was officially made by the Foreign Office that the Conference had broken down, the Soviet· delegates got to work with ment used the "Red Scare" to excuse their failures on the domestic front, Clynes says their" enemies" found they were doing" too well."

181 Weir, Ope cit., p. 179. 188 Slesser, Judgment Reserved, p. 105. But the NS blamed MacDonald for his confused handling. It seems not to have been well informed during August and September of 1924 as a perusal of the memoirs and a scanning of its pages will indicate. It was wiser for NS to assume the air of a liberal, non-partisan observer. 189 Snowden, Ope cit., II, p. 698, italics added. The NS had been" telling fairy tales" all along. Cf. NS (October 10, 1923), 33 f.

The First I( Socialist" Government 369 this group of British Labour members and Trade Union ists, and a meeting was held in one of the rooms at the House of Commons at which all the· Russian delegates were: present.190 The sequel was an appeal by those impressed with Soviet" fairy tales" to Lord Ponsonby to resume the Conference under a formula which Snowden, to whom it was submitted, called a " face-saving" device. He knew the preliminary conditions for a loan-the one· thing the Russians wanted-would not be met, so he feared nothing. He believed that a token political treaty might pass, if made contingent upon an economic settlement which was to be postponed to be dealt vvithby a commission on terms which, he knew, would never produce a settlement. In his memoirs, he admits he made a mistake in permitting this " face-saving" effort. (Free-trader, life-time Socialist as he was, Snowden's early naivety on this score is ama.zing.) He declares it was a mistake to have allowed these trade-seeking members to place the political members o'f the Party in so awkward a position. MacDonaldhad said in May, that for a loan to be guaranteed by the British Gov ernment was out of the question. In August, the Foreign Office announced that the treaty negotiations had failed. Suddenly a treaty of a political nature was presented which left the economic settlement to the future but secured a guarantee for a loan under the Export Credit System.U1 Ponsonby's explicit instructions had been to the effect that there should be no guarantee of a loan until debts of the Soviet for confiscations were settled; and the Soviet delegates had pressed for treaty and loa.n, and no settle ment of debts. Indeed, they countered the debt claims with still greater Russian claims for damages caused by Britons. Pon sonby's effort to get something in the nature of a political treaty and Snowden's acquiescence in yielding to those whom the Soviet delegates had persuaded that the English owed the Russians four thousand million pounds, created 11acDonald's predicament. It is fairly certain he did not care to make the treaties at all. It was 190 Ibid., pp. 682 f. Italics are inserted. Mrs. Hamilton,. ILP of Scot land, appears as a Fabian-Labour M.P. in the pages of The Clarion, 1929 1931. After the National Government was formed she followed the anti -MacDonald party segment.

191 Tiltman, Ope cit., p. 224.

370 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 learned that pressures were being .exerted and that strange in fluences penetrated inward from the periphery of "wild men," and sentimentalists and Trade Unionists ; and it was alarming. 192 !\1rs.. Hamilton praises all Fabian Ponsonby's efforts but does not distinguish the real negotiation from the" face-saving" plan. There can be no doubt that the intrusion of the Soviet delegates, all oia part with Zinoviev's intrusion at Unity House and Tschit cherin's proffered monetary support for the Daily Herald fur nished rather real data for those· who worried about Sovietism's march to power. Fabian C. Delisle Burns, in his A Short History of the World, 1918-1928/ 93 says that exactly six Labour Mem bers of Commons intervened with Ponsonby for resumption of negotiations, that the treaty signed August 8, one day after Parlia ment adjourned, represented the first of two tentative treaties, that the question of claims of British citizens, " ambiguouslyrecog..:.

nized" by Russia, was reserved to be· dealt within the second treaty, .together with conditions for a guarantee of credit. Fabian Bttrns affirms "the activities of the Communists made these ob stacles [political and economic] insurn1ountable." Burns sees the main difficulty of the Government then as the one created by the threat of Sovietism. The methods of the Labour Government's lesser officials like Ponsonby, and of the gullible Trade Unionists, only increased the trouble of the Labour Government by spreading. fear of its capture by Sovietism. Such" intervention" prepared the Opposition to react promptly against the Government the next time it seemed to be taking orders from its Russophile left, and this was the Campbell Case. Although it has little to do with the story it may be said that whereas, to all appearances. the Com munists did not wish a Fabian-led Government in Britain to suc ceed, already the difference between the ideology of Russia's senti mental Socialists and the "pure-Fabianism" NEP, of Stalin's Government,19'4was being sensed abroad. 195 192 Mrs. Snowden, an ardent Fabian, was an "authority" on Russia, and frankly Russophile. It is possible she influenced Snowden's assent to the interventionists.

193 C. Delisle Burns, A Short History of the World, 1918-1928 (New York: Payson and Clarke, 1928), pp. 186 f. . 194 Ibid. Shaw named NEP "pure Fabianism" in 1931 ; yet in 1931 the change recorded in 1936, commenced. An aspect of "free enterprise"

The First it Socialist·" Government 371 Yet Fabians were responsible for the credulity of persons whom they had taught. On October 20, 1923, the NS observed sar castically : T~e insidious Mr. Wise has now got his bloody-handed frIends from Moscow into the most respectable British circles. Not only has an Anglo-Russian Company for the purchase and shipment of Russian grain been formed, but behind the Company stands the City.196 This was put in such a way as to mock all fears and cynically, it went on to urge greater aid to Mr. Wise's competitors from pub licists and financial sources; and the editor added " British work men are unemployed who might be producing [agricultural machinery for Russia]." 197 NS advice was plus-and-minus, stop and-go. Clynes seems to .have been one of those enlightened by the Soviet delegates on the debt owed to Russia by Britain. He was attributable to NEP practice was then condemned in favor of " Socialism in everything." See Chaptre XIII, note 7.

195 Zinoviev, head of the Politboro, spoke openly in Moscow in disparage ment of the British Labour Party and pilloried MacOonald at the Fifth World Congress of the Communist International. (Tiltman, op. cit., p. 222.) Zinoviev was destined to die as a "wrecker," when the Old Bolsheviks perished in the purge of 1936. By that date "NEP-ism" was condemned also. MacDonald, as an old hand in the political game, should not have been hurt by the Zinoviev letter though· his critics say he was. The abuse of MacDonald should have shown that the Bolsheviks disapproved of the " reactionary" Labour Party and ought to have boomeranged upon any scheme of the Tory press to show a tie-up with Moscow. MacDonald had a way of appealing to pity and he could have thought its publication would do him no harm and would check the Clydesiders.-Observers who rely on the enmity between Communists and· Socialists should consider that sibling jealousy, however violent its·manifestation, is usually a superficial characteris tic overshadowing, but temporarily, deep and. fraternal mutual acceptance.

196 NS, XXII, 33 f. A certain E. F. Wise, C.B., lectured in 1927 on "The New Corn Laws," R. H. Tawney· presiding. FN, XXXVIII (January, 1927). 197 The reader can scarcely resist an adverse reflection upon· the assumed omniscience·of this Fabian voice, if' it is recalled that this was the time of the terrible starvation years (1921-1923) in the Ukraine. Where did the grain Russia would· ship originate? Cf. Edmund Walsh, Total Empire, (Milwaukee: Bruce and Co.) 1951.

372 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 in a position to learn of the Soviet attitude since, of course, he acted as leader until MacDonald returned from Geneva. He omits mention of the meeting of Soviet delegates with Members of Parliament and Trade Uni6nists in a room in the House of Com mons; omits also the story of the six Labourites who carried the resolution of this gathering to Ponsonby and Snowden. He shows himself impressed by the data with which Soviet de1egatescoun tered the English charges of Czarist debts and demands for. corn pensation to British subjects for confiscations by the Soviet The Bolsheviks, remembering no doubt the . Alabama claims,)isted damages caused Russians by English "interference" in 'their civil wars and by blockades; they computed these, as said above, at four thousand million pounds. Clynes swallowed this because he believed Russia" one of the biggest potential markets in the world for the goods we produce." 198 This was the very line taken hitherto by the NS and its correspondents save for the one quotation taken from 11assingham cited above:199 It was also Henderson's view when addressing Trade Unionists, as has been said. It is not surprising that Trade Unionists believed in glowing possibilities of trade with Russia but that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Snowden, ILP member and old-line Socialist as he was, did not so believe although he abetted the effort to log-roll the treaty. We know Mrs. Hamilton criticized Snowclenbecause he was not a Trade Unionist and always lacked Trade Unionist views. His sympathy with Russia was ideological and juridical; he stood for de jure recognition as already granted, no more.

Even as a Socialist he \vas not a "whole-hogger." He was sel£19·8 Clynes, op. cit., p. 52. He did not specify what sort of goods might be exchanged and his class was careless of the losses industrialists and busi nessmen or bond holders sustained from Soviet confiscations. The City was involved. Cf. NS, XXII (October 20, 1923),33 f. 1.'99 As said above, Burns' Short History substantiates Massingham's unusual view, but as of 1928 when Stalin's State ·Capitalism was in control. Lansbury, in 1920, drew a cheerful acknowledgment from Lenin that what was going on in Russia was Fabianism, which was being used as a step toward Communism and was dependent upon the p~ogress of Socialism in other countries for its evolution into true Communism. Cf. Lansbury, op. cit., p. 243. In 1926, he proclaimed (in a tone which protested too much) that he had seen again the same pattern; but now he deplored Stalin's God lessness and the Communist Party's criticism of "Labour." Ibid., p. 264.

The First i( Socialist" Government 373 taught to.a degree. Nevertheless, the glowing hopes of people who listened to Russian" fairy tales" had first been aroused by the Snowdens, by Clynes, Henderson and· other Fabians, and espe cially writers in N S. The 1924 Election, turning out the Labour Party and giving a very clear Conservative majority, has always since been said to have hinged upon the Zinoviev Letter. The text is in the appendix to Volume II of Snowden's autobiography. He would have been noble to have included the Foreign Office Note to Rakovsky, the Soviet representative in .London. The Letter was a directive to the British Communist Party on how to capture the power of Gov ernment especially by militarizing the working class areas and de feating tc bourgeoise" rearmament. Also, it abused MacDonald. The Daily Mail, controlled by the Duke of Northumberland, had a copy ready to come out the day the Foreign Office, under Sir Eyre Crowe (MacDonald being absent, campaigning), published it along with a note to the Russian Ambassador.20u~ It really seems as if the Red Letter could have worked either way, for or against the Labour Party. (Actually, the Labour vote was larger than ever. before although the Conservatives gained more constit uencies. ) Burns. writes that it was the Secret Service which supplied a copy of the" Red Letter." to the Foreign Office on October 10.

The fact of its publication by the For~ign Office the same day as by 'the Daily Mail, along with MacDonald's note, according to Burns, weakens the contention that a fear of the Government's Red leanings alone, swayed the voters. 20.1 Sir Henry Slesser, too, in his Judgment Reserved,202implies that commenting Labourites in recounting the history of the 1924 election take refuge in Red scare excuses for unsuccessful domestic performance. He thinks the tc face-saving" treaty suggestions were" innocuous" and even good. Although he withheld full loyalty to MacDonald generally, he pronounced these treaties to be high points in MacDonald's 200 Mr. Churchill, wh~se association with the Duke and the. Tory controlled Press was to be demonstrated in the Strike, stated in a reply to this writer's inquiry that he knows no more than is presently publicly known about the Red Letter. 201 Burns, op. cit'l p. 188.

202 Slesser, JudgmentReserved l pp. 96 and 98.

374 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 diplomatic achievements. Fabian Burns and ex-Fabian (since 1915) Slesser present the story in what might be termed an adult perspective in contrast with the emotional narratives. of Weir, the partisan presentation of Mrs. Hamilton, the baffled accounts of Thomas and Clynes, the studied displeasure of Viscount Snowden, and the sentimental retelling by Francis Williams, one of the led. Slesser said the people approved the idea of a Treaty with Russia and that to bring out Zinoviev's letter was necessary in order to defeat Labour by arousing fear. 203 Neither Burns nor Slesser believed it a forgery; it had many prototypes. The case would seem to be supported by the evidence of Fabians themselves, that the Labour Party, whether the Red Scare had anything to do with it or not, had· certainly been obliged to ask for a dissolution because it could not carry out its program and would have lost its following had it. continued in office. So, it retired· to the more comfortable haunt of Opposition unburdened by the need to rely upon a Liberal segment for support, and unhampered by those it led who kept delnanding " Socialism now."

MacDonald and the Cabinet-there was no struggle-used the threatened Censure vote and the compromise creation of the select committee in connection with the Campbell Case ct to ride for a fall," according to Snowden,204 Mrs. Hamilton,205 and Weir. 206 Weir is specific and charges that there arose a Tory intrigue to overthrow the Labour Government, an intrigue revealed to have been knovvn to the Cabinet as evidenced by Thomas' "withering contempt" when he turned his reply to Asquith into "the first [speech] of .the Election Campaign." 207 From the viewpoint of this study, the· names Weir gives are significant. They were the names of men who had an eye to the international scene, rather more than the Asquithian Liberals: Lloyd George conspired, says Weir, with Conservatives Austen Chamberlain, Lord Birkenhead, and Sir Samuel Hoare 208 to dish the Asquithians without whom 203 Ibid., p. 110.

204 Snowden, Ope cit., p. 696. 205 Hamilton, .Henderson, p. 253. 206 Weir, Ope cit.,p. 183. 207 Ibid., p. 183. 208 Ibid: These men had experienced Communist obstructionism at Genoa, for example. Lloyd George's Secretary, Sylvester, reveals it between the The First it Socialist" Government 375 H.M.'s Government must dissolve, and so to create a working Tory Government which, on international problems, would have Labour-in-Opposition's support. Weir also insinuates' that there was a deal made by which the Government escaped the vote of Censure and agreed that when, Tories and Liberals united on the select committee, to 'investigate, they would resign and go to the country. Weir's, theory is not acceptable. Had they incurred a vote of' Censure there might have been no dissolution; the King would nave sent for Mr. Baldwin; but then, Baldwin's Tory Govern ment would nave had the Asquith Liberals to contend with or to placate. , As it was, the election " dished " the Liberals, and broke the ,Asqui~hians. 'The N S noted that this consummation was part of the "LongView" 209 and was MacDonald's view as well as that of the Socialists who were against cooperation with Liberals.

If MacDonald," for whom the old gang could never go far enough," as Shaw onc~ said, was' trying to use Baldwin while Baldwin used MacDonald" the evidence is a well-kept secret so far. In the long view, the forces set in motion by Socialist agita tion and the Tory-Labour rapprochement must move in the" in.;. evitability of 'gradualness" toward the decline, then the fall, of British Capitalism. 2.10 There are scant available data on how or where stood Sidney Webb in 1924. For 1931 we have his What Happened. Whatever the degree of disgust with ]\1acDonald,' he could not dispense with him yet.211 lines in which he deals with French impossibilism. Cf.Sylvester, op. cit., p. 91. 209 N S, XXIII (October 18, 1924),36. 2"10 Cf. Keith Hutchinson, The Decline and Fall of British Capitalism, in which he carries out the thesis of the" Long View." Tory Governments did the work, of Socialist destructionism.

211 Cf. Beatrice Webb, Our Partttership, pp. 471, 476; also, Hamilton, Sidney and Beatrice Webb,p. 271. This writer has a strong suspicion Webb had taught Clifford Sharp' the meaning of the "Long View." Sharp was to-express the idea more patently still in 1931. Clifford Sharp had been the only hope of the Society when in 1911 Beatrice mourned that there were no young men save Sharp' to .carryon, should the Old Gang take George Bernard '. Shaw's, example or follow his' advice and resign. There existed among Fabians patent antipathy toward the old gang and an anti-Beatrice II cave." Webb was returned bySeaham although he insisted he had come to Parliament too late. Mrs. Cole thinks the Webbs had doubts about the wisdom of creating a "Labour" Party. In 1926, they packed off to 376 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 It is clear in Hamilton's H enderson, and in the Asquith and the Snowden accounts, that the Labour Government unhorsed itself. 212 It chose a domestic issue on which to fall, hoping, it would seem, thus to avoid the dispute on the eastern international proolems. These the Tories nevertheless managed to conjure up by means of the Zinoviev Letter. 213 The western international problem was shaping up politically into manageable form as the result of homeland changes. It was better in any, case to keep Russian matters fluid. France now going Left, it seemed, still retained her grip (economically based) upon the Little Entente.

Although the writers we have cited and also Fabian Brailsford, editor of the ILP New Leader, and Lady Snowden, then lecturing in Canada, blamed MacDonald for the debacle, Henderson refused adamantly to displace MacDonald in the leadership; 214: and Sidney Webb kept his peace. MacDonald was a tool by which British Fabianism captured the International, and his Government was the means of England's regaining the hegemony of Europe. So much for "interventions." They were not more important in shaping the course of Fabianism in the political life of Britain than those things from which Fabianism recoiled. There was another power whose influence was still more to be evaded, that Church which had enunciated clear and defining con demnation of 1) Socialism, however disguised or reformed, 2) Pass field Corners-Crown lands U inalienably safe," says Mrs. Hamilton. The Fabian Society stayed in London but Fabianism had its citadel in 'Passfield Corners whither many liberals who were not Fabians came U on pilgrimages" -long past the April of English Socialism.

2'12 To survey the Party affiliation of the majority of holders of bonds in German municipal and State enterprises-all very successful-is beyond the scope of this study but if Tories invested as they did, Labourites approved the enterprises. Money to expand home industries or renovate, for example, the Railways as Thomas urged, was not to be had in sufficient supply. 2'18 Weir makes a great deal of MacDonald's slow action and hesitant reaction to the news of the publication of the Zinoviev Letter, as if to insinuate MacDonald wanted its effects to transpire. That he had an agree ment with Baldwin to turn the tide in Europe and then retire, or, that he saw Labour must be defeated because of its non-homogeneous condition, needs none of Weir's animosity to stimulate imagining. 2'14 Cf. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 256.

The First it Socialist" Government 377 Communism, and 3) the monolithic state.215 We have noted the Fabian attitude of preference for social democracy on the Conti nent. Christian Democrats and Christian Trade Unions were disregarded and .the Centre disparaged. Slesser, before he became a Catholic, pointed out the religious ignorance of the Society gen erally. Mrs. Webb thought of her own Socialism as a religion and desired the Party to become a religion governed by an Order like the Jesuits. She assumed some erroneous viewpoints which would be insignificant if they. did not measure religious literacy. She imagined that religion denied legitimate reliefs such as smoking or an extra cup of coffee (she was sleepless at night with her scruples on this score); 216 that the Christian religion con demn~d all profit-taking; that all capitalists worked only for profit unaware of any social obligations and incapable of being made aware of them or of acting morally so long as they worked for profit.217 She appears as a badly instructed person and possessed of a puritanical or jansenist "blue law" conscience. Another leading publicist, Mrs. Hamilton, like Lansbury, Clynes, Snell and most of the autobiographers except Slesser who points out the real difference between materialistic good-doing and acting from supernatural Faith, talked of Socialism as " faith" ina religious sense.218 Mrs. Cole manifests animosity toward what she imagines to be political Catholicism in her Growing Up Into Revolution; likewise her own "faith" is a self-made religion 215 Henderson was a Wesleyan minister. His tolerance was never so great as to give the impression he might be pro-Catholic. When it was suggested the Government might be represented at the Vatican, his reply was that such a move was improbable because the Prime Minister was a Unitarian and he· was a Wesleyan! Although in the 'case of Russia, he insisted one distinguish between the Party' and the Government, he let his own-religion dictate his nation's policy toward -the Vatican state. Later, in 1941, it became apparent that Fabians thought of the Catholic Church as "fascist." C£. FQ, 20 (Summer, 1941), pp. 5 f, and ibid, 29 (Spring, 1941), 32.

216 Cf. Our Partnership, p. 471. Mrs. Cole thinks Beatrice would have been happy to learn she was to be buried in Christian Westminster and that Sidney would have agreed for her sake. 217 Ibid., p. 482. 2'18 Hamilton, op. cit., p. 59. The correct meaning of religion is "to bind together again" -God and man.

J78 Fabianism in the. Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 based on .an. unscholarly, if not ill-tutored, attitude toward the Bible. Incongruous as it may at first appear, the reader is asked to consider the fact that at Geneva, in ILO, and in the forces gathering to produce the Protocol, Catholic thought and the more refined norms of Socialism approached agreement. However, at the point where it should have become Christian societary doc trine, Fabianism recoiled. All the' evidence points not to ill-will but to ignorance and fear of ecclesiastical influence. To try to state ;more succinctly the awkward fact that the mentors of the Socialist Labour Party were .. persons of religious illiteracy who made bold to treat with criticism and contempt the religious forces found at work in the international sphere would be less than objective. From the· kind of "intervention" generated by such forces recoil was· swift.

There are two considerations which we are about to examine which,. understood separately and in juxtaposition, help to explain why the Socialist Government resigned at the time it did, at the point 'when one of their greatest achievements was taking shape, the Geneva Protocol; for even··as an unratified measure it stands as an achievement. In itself it was worth the struggle to continue in office. Some data taken from a domestic situation throw light on attitudes otherwise inexplicable in. foreign affairs. First: When MacDonald,. because the general situation was· not manageable and not because a select committee was something to fear,219 after consulting the Cabinet, resigned, it brought bewilder219 The NS assumed an air of innocent surprise. What ·was so to be feared about a select committee? The NS supported MacDonald all through the episode. of Government until he induced the. dissolution. . TheNS tried to head off another election by pointing out the half-finished business in education, afforestation, Trade Boards, and the Webb surveys in the Board of Trade. It failed to note, these surveys under the chairmanship of Balfour were boycotted by TUGC. (Mrs. Hamilton, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, pp.269 f.) Cf. NS, XXIII (August9, 1924),514. Then it was happy that it had been decided to drop the Campbell Case. An" adult democracy"

needed. no protection against "sedition." Ibid., p.. 534. A week late~ it was furious against" the Russian treaty." It said" no loan" and" nocompensa tion" :-Let the Russians float a loan and·" satisfy the City." Indicating the ultimate source of the "Crisis," as the NS termed the dissolution of 1924, the NS pointed out that the all too naive explanation of the Daimler car and the Biscuit Shares would bring criticism· from the Part'Y~ In ,The First C( Socialist" Government 379 ment to his Parliamentary Secretary, L. MacNeill, Weir, to whom we are, indebted 220 for a clue to another possible reason. Weir tells the story of a peculiar bias Mr. MacDonald possessed which was demonstrated in, a later, (1929) division in the ranks of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Quietly, inexorably and un ashamedly, MacDonald made it necessary (according to Weir) October, early, the NS warned that in a possible election (NS, XXIII [September 29, 1924], 662) Labour could not win. Ibid.,p. 722. "No loans and no resignation;" it pleaded: MacDonald had, got into the predicament but he was clever enough to extricate himself and Party. (Ibid., p. 724.) Again the Party division was indicated (NS, XXIV [October 11, 1924], 2) when it was said the Dawes Report was not popular with a segment of the Party (the miners had been fairly persuaded to accept it). The NS tried to keep calm after the Crisis came. At the Party Conference, the Com munistshad had to be defeated but the NS said that it was "nonsense" to try to exclude them from the unions on account of their" politics." Well, the Protocol was not going to go through anyway. (England was not ready for so great acommitment.) TheNS made a very revelatoryobserva tion: U but for the, Crisis" the, Foreign Minister of the Labour Government would have been given" rough handling" at the annual Conference. (Ibid., 2 f.) / But a few pages further on,Clifford Sharp under "This Absurd Crisis"

took the characteristic ,Fabian viewpoint : This best of 'Foreign Ministers had done an "unintelligible" thing. True, he had "that, high, horse of his" and his vanity and could" lose his head." He had treated the Liberals and, Asquith, the greatest living statesman, very badly. (Ibid., 4.) A week later, Sharp had learned something which· made the Crisis less unintelligible~ There was "The Long View and· the Short View." MacDonald's was the long view: Break the Liberals sooner and sooner will come a Labour Govern ment with a clear, majority. Sharp took the short view: Garner the present gains, keep alive the three Parties. Cf.NS (October 18, 1924), 36. By the next week, the NS was more explicit. (Ibid., 65 f.) Anti-Socialists were making a two-party situation based on class lines. The N S' disapproved, but did' not recall that Sharp had warned against the anti-Liberal Labourites doing the same thing.

In connection with this matter, it is pertinent to recall that Beatrice Webb, as far back as, 1911, had written: "We did not assert, or even imply in our propagand~ that the proposed enforcement of a national minimum of life for" all inhabitants, an' the time, was impracticable under profit-making Capitalism. .Rightly or wrongly, we believed in ' the inevitability of gradual ness.'" They were content' to leave the future to take care of itself " though we ourselves were convinced Socialists." C£. Beatrice Webb, Our Partner ship, p. 482. 220 Weir, ap. cit.,pp. 257 fE.

380 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 that Trevelyan bring in an education bill which provided no state assistance to " non-provided" [Catholic] schools, while it required building and <;urricular expansion in order to raise the school age.221 Then he allowed his Government to be defeated on the subsequent amendment which all knew must be introduced as it was by a Fabian and a Catholic,222 John Scurr. The "conscience clause" sent too many Labourites into the Tory lobby that day. Weir, whose thesis is that MacDonald betrayed his Party, is sure Mac Donald was swayed by his anti-Catholic feeling in permitting matters to come to such a pass. Postponed again was the triumph of Graham Wallas-complete secular education-which Sidney Webb had balked since 1902. John Scurr, head of the Parlia mentary Consultative Committee, as we have said, a Fabian and a Catholic, introduced the opposing amendment to the bilL Catholic Labourites voted with the Tories. It meant a decisive defeat for the Labour Government of 1929, but MacDonald unblushingly refused to heed the cry which went up: "Resign! Resign!"

The risk was calculated, no doubt, and the incident emphasized the secularism of the intellectuals while measuring the strength of Catholics in the Movement-a "stress measurement" which showed lessening rather than increasing power in the Movement. Weir 223 is corroborated upon the point of Mr. MacDonald's anti Catholic feeling by ex-Fabian Lord Slesser who mentions it ex plicitly.224 SIesser in his "Through Anglicanism to the Church" in The London Tablet 225 says that the liberty he exercised in 221 It is doubtful if Trevelyan had any tenderness for "non-provided" schools although he had agreed to a compromise with religious leaders on 50-75·% help. Cf. Weir, op. cit., p. 252 and p. 254, which reveals Trevelyan's attitude and belies Weir. 222 This is a rare combination. Margaret Cole wrote that C. Delisle Burns did not outgrow his" Jesuit" training altogether. It seems he was Anglican.

Cf. James Oldmeadow, Cardinal Bourne (London: Burns Oats), 1948, p 236. 228 Weir, op. cit., p. 258. 22·4 His anti-Catholicism was, in this student's judgment, not bigotry in MacDonald but a cultural vestigial emotion like those attributed by Kingsley Martin to hereditary coal mine owners loath to surrender traditionally claimed properties to social controls. Cf. Kingsley Martin, The British Public and the General Strike (London: Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Hogarth Press, 1926), p. 125. 225 Slesser, "Through Anglicanism to the Church," The Tablet, CXCII ( November 20, 1948}, 326 f.

The First ((Socialist" Government 381 approaching economic and social problems from a Catholic stand point (when he was not yet a Catholic) was justly derived from his having been elected upon a platform compiled· from Rerum N ovarum and St. Thomas, and that the exercise of this liberty earned him" the distrust of my very anti-Catholic leader, Ramsay MacDonald." 226 The second· consideration is as follows: An international pattern was forming upon the periphery of action where Socialist idealism and Catholic principles meet. Socialistic internationalism indi cated the desirability of a League of Nations, and more especially of its appendage, the ILO, and for this end eschewed much ideological particularism. Catholic nations saw in the League a lack of executive implementation, beyond mere utopian ideals. In the act of producing the Draft of the Protocol of Geneva was a meeting of minds. (Parmoor offers the document.) To con front aggression with H solidarity," to reduce armaments, to induce compulsory arbitration before the Permanent Court, were the aims of the signatories. But a certain kind of particularism reasserted itself when an order came to the British delegates not to sign it, upon the eve of their doing so. It was only when Hender son returned to London that he learned the Government was about to resign. There would have been time to sign and ratify the Protocol. A remark of Lord D'Abernon' s throws light upon the question: He found too much Catholic influence at Geneva. By taking these exhibitions of attitudes from two fields and from both periods of Labour Government, the story of the recoil at Geneva becomes more intelligible.

Suddenly, before the dissolution, when the British delegates were about to· sign the Draft of the Protocol after learning th~t, almost unbelievably, Briand would sign for France, the order came from MacDonald to desist. Everyone concerned, especially Hen derson and ·Parmoor, says the imminency of dissolution dictated it. But Parliament did not dissolve. It had to stay in session through October to get the Ulster 'Boundary Bill through the House of Lords. 221 Weir and Mrs. Hamilton, idealist concerning the Socialist International, bewail the incidentand berate MacDonald. 228 Ibid. Italics are inserted. 227 Cf. Spender,op. cit., p. 658.

382 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Yet the resigned attitudes, of Henderson and Parmoor are too nobly sustained to raise any questions as to their comprehension of the Prime Minister's attitude. The NSexpected the Protocol would fail of ratification and but for the crisis cause embarrass n1ent to the' Prime Minister at Party Conference time. The Fleet, so blithely scaled down in the early days of this" Socialist" Gov ernn1ent, becatne the darling symbol of Socialist isolationism. The Protocol embodied the principles Lord Parmoor had laid dovvn when accepting office: "The three problems of disarmament, arbitration, and security should be approached as an indivisible whole." 228 The proposed document set a date for a disarmament conference upon which all the rest of the settlement hung, made arbitration compulsory for all nations, and gave a world-wide authority to the Court (through the Optional Clause). It defined an aggressor and determined how and 'when an international police force might be called upon. 229 The British delegation, of whom Sir Cecil Hurst ,and Sir H. S. Smith are the only names not found insotne\vell-kno\vn association with outstanding Fabians, had held important positions and taken prominent part in the Proto col's development: Fabians Henderson and Mrs. Swanwich had labored for its adoption. Anglican, and Fabian-familiar, Parmoor had ,striven ,to create it as the embodiment of his ideals ,for strengthening the League. Parmoor, Liberal Lord Hurst/ 3o Hen22Sparmoor, op. cit., p. 224. D'Abernon(op. cit., III, passim), meantime, having put Security first had later deferred security to Currency Control.

He hadachieved his aims in the Dawes Plan, accounting it Labour's triumph and was currently engaged in getting his 'Commercial Treaty, out""maneuver ing France. 229 This raised a hue and cry about the, FI~et's' being put at the disposal of an outside authority. 23-0 Hurst, whose willing cooperationParmoor achknowledges (op. cit., p. 197), was serving in his capacity of legal advisor to the Foreign Office in which he had ~erved as assistant or head .since.1902.He became a judge on the International Courtand:gngland's member at the Hague in 1929..Sir Hubert Smith had been associated with Labour on the Liberal side since his lectureship on Political Economy to students under th~ Oxford. University Extension arid Toynbee Trust (1888), and his commissionership for Labour in the Labour Department of the Board of Trade (1893) .and during his permanent secretaryship to the Board of Trade (1919) and tenure as Chief Economic Advisor to H.M.'s Government from 1919 on (ending in' 1929).

The reader by now must be aware of the measurement for usefulness to the cause provided Mr. Webb by their mutual associations.

The First ({ Socialist" Government 383 derson, and C. R. Buxton had worked on the committee on reduc tion of armaments. Henderson took the leading part for England on the subcommittee to prepare a Draft Proposal. It is significant that Parmoorand Viscount Cecil, in whose office Noel-Baker had served as secretary, wanted the draft, as adopted, to be rewritten; and Parmoor .proposed that .Sir Cecil Hurst do the revision for England, but the Labour Government rej~cted this proposal. It was generally conceded that the .. League lacked sanctions. Parmoor championed sanctions in the Protocol and endorsed the change which was made from the wording of the Covenant: " recommend" was concretized to "call upon" in the case of nations asked to provide means to enforce sanctions. 231 Fabian l\1rs. Swanwich was the only "vomanwho addressed the Assembly. She publicized the demand of women for peace. Liberal Lord Hurst was credited by Parmoor with couching the Protocol in terms which won unanimous consent in the Assembly. Professor Gilbert Murray, whose name is found associated with Fabians as a lecturer of great authority, ever since the days of Beatrice's " Destitution" Committee and the Minority Report, had served as third delegate at Geneva upon the Prime Minister's departure.

Later he told Parmoor that the Protocol was, in his opinion, re jected because " people allow considerations of party advantage to outweigh realities." 232 This allowed the inference that the 231 Attempting to define an "aggressor". in the face of Japan's· fear she would incur this epithet by "protecting" her nationalists in a foreign country and· Australia's fear the Council would impinge upon "domestic jurisdic tion," Parmoor and Hurst procured the ruling that the fact of having made previous appeal to the Council should preclude a nation's being defined as an aggressor, and they made concessions on " domestic jurisdiction" which were as weakening as "self defense" would prove in the future Kellogg Pact. (The way was cleared for Japanese intervention to protect nationals in Manchuria. ) 232 Parmoor, op. cit., p. 227. The professor was not unaware that Poland and Hungary, by ·1924, would have .given a forthright answer if asked to name the aggressor whom Pilsudski and Horthy had conquered. In 1925, Gilbert Murray contributed theintroduction to Social Insurance, the Ureport of a Conference arranged by The League of Nations Union and held at The London School of Economics, November 23rd-26th, 1925, on the subject of 'Social Insurance in its National and International Aspects and in Relation to the Work of the International Labour Organisation of the League of Nations.' " The speakers included Sir Kingsley Wood, M.P., Miss Ellen 384 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Labour Party Conference would have divided against the Prime Minister if he had allowed the Protocol to be endorsed; or perhaps Professor Murray meant to blame the Tories insofar as Mac Donald's order not to sign it was apparently moved by a Tory conviction. (He. could have allowed it to be signed and let the Conservatives bear the onus of rejecting it.) That it was Tory mentality which rej ected the Protocol seemed to be confirmed by Austen Chamberlain's speech at Geneva (1925) soon afterward.

MacDonald's concession to the Tory view had a Tory reason: " English good sense." It was not patently the work of Fabians that the Protocol failed of ratification, but of "the Party" which enveloped their activity, with their assent. Lord D'Abernon, the British Ambassador to Berlin, looking back to this disappointment, had something very provocative to contribute. Upon the later occasion of the rejection of Germany's request for a place on the Council as a condition of joining the League of Nations, Lord D'Abernon, who had then favored Ger many, ren1arked that the rejection of the Protocol was necessary and good because there were already too great French and Catholic influences at Geneva; the "dilution of the Council by adding Spain and Poland [demanded as a condition for admittIng Germany] was rejected by English good sense." And he traced back the course taken by "English good sense": "It was strangely right when refusing the Protocol" -it "remained for insular instinct to pull them [the delegates] back." 233 The character of Fabianism cannot be understood without a grasp of the significance of this recoil.

Lord D'Abernonwas English Ambassador to Germany from 1919 to 1926, that is, through the term of Labour's First Govern Inent without break. No final conclusion can be made from these scant data; neither can they be ignored. In sho\ving that Mac Donald's Government was arriving at a Tory mentality while the Labour Party was reassuming ideologically the shape of its consti tuent social parts, it may be recalled that the fashion of the Con servative mentality was to reject those international products of Wilkinson, M.P., The Rt. Han. Sir Alfred Mond, Bart., M.P., Mr. H. N. Brailsford, et ai. 233 Cf. Lord D'Abernon, Diaries, Vol. III, Dawes to Locarno (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1931), p. 226. Italics are inserted.