Chapter XI - The Government of 1929-1931

CHAPTER XI THE GOVERNMENT OF 1929-1931 A. ITS FABIAN CONTENT This chapter deals with the composition of the Government of 1929 and the Fabian reaction to its failures of which the angriest expression was Harold Laski's. It surveys, also, the general atti ... tude of The Clarion which portrayed the state of mind of Fabians to the point of facsimile and so provides silent, sardonic com mentary upon the wrathy expression of Sidney Webb as he " dished" MacDonald without lament for the fall of H.M.'s Labour Government.! There were certain parallels with the Government of 1924 to be found in that of 1929-1931. In the relative position of the Capital Levy stood the idea of " family allowances." 2 It was said that this idea stood in the place of the historical agitation of land for the peasants. Like the Capital Levy, it stood aside because as was the case with the Government of 1924, the Party had no majority; and the" right to work" replaced .the member of the equation named " community ownership." 3 Unlike 1924, this time dissent of sen timental Socialists like Maxton and Bevin against taking office without a majority was resolved by Conference majority vote rather than by a letter from Webb after election;" unlike 1924, this time there would be no doubling. Again the Party had grown from the influx of individual members; seven hundred thousand new women voters had joined the Labour Party. 5 Trade Unions listed fewer members but tradesmen were 1 Mrs. Cole wrote, "We were so profoundly relieved to be rid of Mac Donald at last," in her Growing Up Into Revolution, p. 155.

2 Cf. The Labour Year Book of 1931, published by the General Council of the Trade Union Congress and the National Executive of the Labour Party (London: Labour Publications Department, Transport House, 1931), p.7. (Hereinafter, LYB.) 8 Cf. Snowden, Ope cit., II, p. 179. 4. Cf. Hamilton, Henderson, p. 281. 5 Cf. Snowden, Ope cit., II, p. 756. 456 The Government of 1929-1931 457 impelled by the reaction to the Trades Dispute Law· to favor Labour. "Contracting in" had scant effect on the volume of the vote. Again recourse was had to political action; as in 1923 after a wave of strikes, so in 1929, after the spasm of the General Strike. Again the Labour Party had a " Programme," Labour and the Nation, in place of Labour and the New Social Order. The former, couched in Tawney's phrases was evolved by Fabians from a " mandate" of the Party Executive: George Lansbury, F. O. Roberts, T. C. Cramp, Herbert Morrison, Ellen Wilkinson, Os wald Mosley, Charles Trevelyan (not on any Fabian list but a friend of the Webbs), and Arthur Henderson along with Mac Donald." Again the Big Five met to decide policy: 8 MacDonald, Snowden, Clynes, Henderson, Thomas. Webb was not in evidence.

Henderson's biographer believes he might have opposed Mac Donald's leadership-presumably, had he followed his inclination but he remained " loyal." The fact is that the Labour Party Con ference where the real weight of labor was a force, favored Mac Donald who, with one of his" big speeches" 9 had won rejection of the resolution (Wheatley's), 10 supported by Maxton, like Bevin's in 1925, not to accept the Ministry without a majority in Parlia ment. MacDonald had been very close to the work of drafting Labour and the Nation which was to be Henderson's "book of words." 11 Whereas in 1923-1924 the ILP had demanded Mac Donald's leadership, now it was the Trade Unionists of the second and third class (in Mrs. Cole's classification) plus the liberal core of England against Baldwin, which favored MacDonald. The Con•LYB, p. 11. 'I Cf. Hamilton, Ope cit., p. 262. 8 Cf. Snowden, Ope cit., II, p. 755.

9 Hamilton, Ope cit., p. 260. Working to promote MacDonald's leadership was the Fabian Quaker, Walter Newbold. His objective was disarmament. Cf. Snowden, Ope cit., II, p. 249, and Weir, Ope cit., p. 432. The use of Fabians in "behind the scene" places as in 1924 is a repeated pattern. Newbold had been a Fabian since 1908 and by 1924 was an ex-Communist. He had been on the Labour Research Department, 1922-1926. L. M. Weir, a former Academy Head, was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mac Donald until replaced by another Fabian from the London School of Economics, S. F. Markham, a Mosleyite at the time. 1'0 Cf. Snowden, Ope cit., II, p. 760. 11 Hamilton, Henderson,pp. 262 f.

458 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 ference had repudiated the proffered leadership of the Wheatleys, the Maxtons, and the Mosleys. Young Fabians in The Clarion were keeping an eye on Ernest Bevin and his four million union men. There was no personality in 1924 comparable with Ernest Bevin now becoming a politico who could be counted upon to keep Trade Unionists out of splinter Inovements like Mosley's, and to remind the politicians "who pays the piper." 12 Again there were a half-hundred Liberals representing a dispropor tionately larger electoral segment than their numbers signified but no Asquith to hold the balance. The suggestion was made that Labour coalesce with Conservatives, but Snowden with his" free trade" sentiment, Henderson who had made" free trade" part of the bone-structure of the Party, and Thomas whose railway men could get along now with or \vithout " free trade," steered the Party a\vay from coalition or coalescence with Tories on the basis of this ancient antagonism.13 The veteran Lloyd George became the arbiter of Parliamentary policy. But, like the realism of 1924, the realism of 1930 drew the Labour leaders far over into the " right" orbit of Tory thinking before the denouement. 14 In 1929, in place of Asquith, a still form and a silent power stood in the background. Once, and then 'with such elaborate protesta tions of confidence in the absolute constitutionality of its actions that he contradicted himself, Lord Passfield alluded to it; again, the closest scrutinizer of the actions of the Minister who headed the Foreign Office alluded to it with· studied objectivity: 15 the form and the power of the King of England.

The proportion of men of Trade Union mentality to the in telligentsia was thirteen out of twenty in the Cabinet of 1924; in '12 Thomas, Ope cit., p. 278. 18 Cf. Snowden, Ope cit., II, p. 758. '14 Cf. Weir, Ope cit., p. 451, where he tells of Neville Chamberlain's collaboration in the composition of Snowden's speech on the crisis. Also, ibid., p. 316, where Weir speaks of Baldwin and MacDonald having mutual friends. Weir describes a scene wherein the Prime Minister sent for Bald win in a very agitated mood; and he insinuates that then it was that Baldwin took the measure of the P.M., and dictated the Cabinet's formation. Cf. Weir,.op. cit., pp. 310 f. Weir ascribes the financial plight of the time to Tory and City machinations devised to get Labour" in a corner" by H finan cial jugglery." Ibid., p. 397. 15 Cf. Hamilton, Henderson, p. 312.

The Government of 1929-1931 459 19r29, most of the Cabinet were Fabians, or their associates, as were twentY~0ne out of fifty-four in the Parliamentary Party. As to local parties and TUe, Fabians predominated in both camps. Almost as if Socialism .was a religion which stood in danger of its being forgotten and required to be preached in season and out, the admonition to bring it in everywhere is given, gratuitously, in a discussion of "rationalisation" in the TUGC's Yearbook. 16 The state of tutelage of Trade Unionism was more abject in 1929 than in 1924 even though Trade Unionism, per se, was more ,clearly articulated. The YearbQok of 1931 shows definitely in digenous leadership but the usual permeation of Fabians in the upper groups and in advisory capacities, where about three fourths were ·-Fabians. Those most easily, identified were: In Defense, Basil Hall; Finance, A. E. Davies and Commander J.M. Kenworthy; -Education, R. H. Tawney and Barbara Drake; Home, Barbara Ayrton Gould; International, C. R. Buxton and L. \VooH; Land, .Josiah Wedgwood; Legal, Arthur Henderson, Jr.; Local Government, Herbert Morrison; Health, Somerville Hastings and G. P. Blizard; Science, G. W. Thomson; Transport, C.T. Cramp.17 As in 1923-:-1924, Henderson came into the Government of 1929 with fresh laurels gleaned from internationalism. M.A.

Hamilton, now a member of Parliament, gloried in the .inter~ national assiduities in 1924-1929 of the new head of the Foreign Office.18 Two new Clubs, the National Labour Club headed by MacDonald ~nd Henderson, having a roster of officials about fifty percent Fabian, and the National Trade Union Club, having a Fabian Chairman and about a third of its officers Fabians, had come into existence in 1924 and 1930 respectively. Among other purposes, one was to give hospitality to' foreign visitors and to provi'de a place comparable to the hospices had by " our comrades on the continent." 19 16LYB (1931), p.9. '11 Ibid., p. 16. FN'boasted that seven Fabians were elected to the Labour Party Executive at the Brighton Conference, 1929: Ethel Bentham, Barbara Gould, George Dallas, Hugh Dalton, George Lathan, George Lansbury, Herbert Morrison. 18 Cf. Hamilton, Henderson, pp.277 £. 19 LYB (1931), pp. 24 and Z6.

460 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Once more the problems of India, 20 Egypt, and Singapore, harassed the Foreign Office. Again the Government inherited a half-formulated reparations plan; for, at the Kellogg Pact Con ference in Paris in 1928, suggestions had been put in motion for what turned out to be the. Young Plan of 1929. The Labour Party leaders were now openly francophile in contrast to the gallophobia of 1922-1924. 21 Empire Preference had been re jected by the Labour Government of 1924 22 but the Common wealth was slowly taking shape. Australia, for example, was able to assert her interest in decisions affecting herself by insisting upon the agreement to protect Singapore. The Labour Govern ment which had stopped fortification in 1924 now agreed to resume such-iri five years. 23 . Churchill's difference with Baldwin 20 Six out of sixteen British Round Table Conferees were Fabians: Oliver Stanley, Earl Russell, Lees-Smith, W. A. Jowitt, Henderson, Wedgwood Benn, besides MacDonald, Sankey, and Thomas.

21 Cf. Weir, Ope cit., p. 347. Weir's inculpation of MacDonald reveals some matters he was not concerned with but was in a position to be in formed upon : Henderson revealed that France was willing to earmark credits for rediscount to Britain to the amount of £20,000,000(Weir, Ope cit., p. 405) but Garvin had disclosed that France, seeking Germany's ruin, did not wish to lend gold which might be re-Ioaned to Germany (Weir, Ope cit., p. 403). Weir says that Harrison of the United States Federal Reserve Bank did not know England needed a loan. He implies that the Prime Minister used the urgent need of a loan and the "condition of the borrowing," i.e., cuts in extravagant or anomalous doles, to induce a state of affairs wherein the Cabinet would resign. Two points of extreme interest came to light: The Fabians had become positively francophile and they now exhibited the scantest concern for Briining's plight in Germany; Balfour judged that they, considered Hitler's movement to be fairly acceptable Socialism. Weir tells a sad story of the occasion when Snowden, at a seven-power monetary conference (July, 1931), was making a sympathetic plea for the German case (Briining was present) and MacDonald scribbled a note to Stimson indicating non-support of Snowden, who, at that table, was sarcastically referred to as U the member for Germany." (Weir, op., cit., pp.. 449 f.) The antagonism of Fabian Socialists (from whom Snowden was eccentric) and of Ramsay MacDonald toward the Centre in Germany, and their known anti-Catholicism cannot be overlooked. As to later evidence of their attitude toward Briining cf.

Hamilton, op. cit., pp. 413, 416, and 417. 22 Cf. Blanche E. C. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour (London: Hutchin son & Co.), 1936, p. 375. 23 Cf. LYB (1931), p. 493.

The Government of 1929-1931 461 over India parallels his position on "Chanak" in 1923. Again the Beaverbrook and Rothermere press' stoe,l with Churchill against his Party and drove the Tory leadership toward Labour on foreign issues.24 A parallel dynamism is seen in which the energy of Socialist-Labour contributed its peculiar impulsion to the fructifying of the Young Plan (paralleling Dawes'), the India Round Table Conference (paralleling the Commercial Treaty plans), and the post-crisis Commonwealth (paralleling Locarno). The description of this parallel dynamism lies .outside the scope of this study by reason of its time-span. The denouement came when MacDonald, in the crisis of 1931, formed what was really a Tory Government. Both Parties had succumbed to the orthodoxies of western European finance. For a moment a new idea vital with challenge had lighted the gloomy horizon; then it was gone and the "West " fell back on "gold and credit." The allegation of L. MacNeill Weir, who was MacDonald's Parliamentary Private Secretary, that MacDonald and Snowden faileJ to heed the suggestion of Garvin in The Observer that the war debt be converted and an unnecessary sink ing fund retired, while instead they sought economies in " cuts"

in " the dole" in order to force the Cabinet to resign may be con sidered spiteful, but it uncovers some pertinent facts. The fact that Fabian publicist~ offered no other solution to the fiscal prob lems than the old one leaves them without a position from which legitimately to inculpate their Prime Minister. 25 It ,vas the Fabian economist who wrote the report of "The Depression" in the LYB,26 who diverted the stream, as it were; and the dynamic of Western trade flowed back over its old channels, having been dammed up with" overproduction." The stricture of gold glutted goods in England and Germany, and clotted gold in America and France. Fora brief moment, the plight of the East, deprived of purchasing power by the loss of monetary status of silver, the medium of exchange of the millions, received consideration. The expressions of J. A. Hobson, J. F. Darling, and witnesses before an American Congressional Com2·4 Cf. Weir, op. cit., p. 292.

25 Ibid., pp. 416 and 427. 28 LYB (1931), pp. 93-109.

462 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 mittee on Banking and Currency regarding the revival of trade with the East, and the need for goods in India and China, for example, were approved and the remonetization of silver-plenti ful and too cheap only when treated as a mere commodity-almost fastened upon the Trade Union mind as the means to lift the floodgates of .exchange :-Suppose the .silver of India became money again and the Indian people could buy English goods and there are political possibilities-should call their enslaved souls their own when the gold-based power of native potentates should be reduced. The workingmen seemed on the point of demanding remonetization of silver. Then some one (probably Cole, who had published his ideas on credit) proposed that" credit,"· that is, paper money based on controlled gold (nationalized), would serve to give currency the need~d elasticity. N one of the arguments for this latter method adverted to the East. The switch was almost imperceptible. By devaluation the West reestablished circulation in the old knotted tangle of its economy. There was no further discussion of currency for India and China. The high adventurers of "Labour" had shrunk before a challenge too daring. 21 After all, there were forces becoming articulate in India and China which. any Party in power in England would need to control. 28 Having seen the historical setting into which they stepped and the block of stumbling upon which they fell, it seems almost to nlock them to review· the names of the men put forward by the brave Movement. The Cabinet was so much made up of Fabians 27 Cf. U The Causes of the Depression,"LYB (1931), p. 93.

28 It is running ahead of our story to recall here that the Economic Con ference of ·1931 proved abortive because the United States President was taught shortly after it opened that the only result could be the tying in of America with the U sterling bloc." The idea of the remonetization of silver was, with its Eastern implications, present in the conference. .It was not this idea which was rejected by the United States but the English adaptation of it: 1) nationalize-gold-and-credit, 2) allow the pound sterling thus devalued to seek its own level. (After dropping, it regained a steadily rising value.) At this conference, Senator Key Pittman of Nevada, whose only interest in silver was political and economic (he was a miner), allowed himself to be led into the U triumph" for silver which, although it cost the banking industry and the United States Treasury large sums, did not remonetize silver. Cf. B. M. Anderson, Ope cit., p. 359. Silver was re monetized, then "n~tionalized" after 1936, in the United States.

The Government of 1929-1931 463 that the report of the Society in the L YB ignored the. percentage in the Ministry and stressed the percentage of Fabians in the Parliamentary Labour Party. The Prime Minister, repudiated by the ILP and endorsed by the Labour Party Conference, counted on Herbert Morrison, the foe of Maxton and Wheatley,29 on Mrs. Hamilton, the writer, on William Leach, a Trade Unionist, and Walter Newbold, Fabian Pacifist,30 to support him. Three out of four here named were Fabians. Indeed, the lady M.P. from Scotland defended him well ir:tThe Clarion, and persistently pointed out. to the backbenchers that the Party was (t weakest in the technique of support." 31 Yet when he sent his Parliamentary .Private Secretary, L. MacNeill Weir, to three of the above-mentioned persons to sound them out upon the question of following him into the National Cabinet, they declined. This may have been due to the way the .matter was represented by Weir.

MacDonald had wanted Thomas to be head of the Foreign Office. Their mutual" Socialism" .had now a rightist basis, Trade Unionist for the most part. 32 But Henderson demanded and got the Foreign Office. Again Snowden was Chancellor of the Ex chequer, with Fabian Pethick-Lawrence for Financial Secretary.ss Fabian Hugh Dalton, along with Susan Lawrence of kindred experience in internationalism,34 came in·as Parliamentary Private Secretaries. Henderson came to the Foreign Office pledged to rec ognize and establish trade with Russia. 35 He had the assistance 29 Snowden, op. cit., p. 760. so Weir, Ope cit., p. 435. S1 Cf. The Clarion, 11:8 (August, 1930), 227. 32 Cf. Godfrey Elton (Baron), Life of James Ramsay MacDonald, 1866 1919 (London: Collins, 1939). This· author, like Clifford Allen, now Lord Allen, followed MacDonald in 1931. The Epilogue in Elton's Life is an encomium of MacDonald's peace efforts and successes on the Continent, not unmerited. Cf. Godfrey Elton, "No Alternative-Socialism or Radicalism'"

The Clarion, 11:2 (February, 1931),45 f. 33 Snowden, Ope cit., p. 760. M Fabians in international. activities included. A~ Fenner Brockway on the executive of the International (LYE [1931], 414), C. R. Buxton on the Committee for Minorities (ibid., 415), and on the International Advisory Committee of Socialist Women, Barbar'a Ayrton Gould. The ILP repre sentation in this sphere was the larger. 35 Hamilton, Henderson, pp. 311 £ and 309.

464 Fabianism tn the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 also of Fabian Drummond Shiels (at Geneva) and of Charles Buxton vvho was adept at .managing H the fussers." 36 Lord Ponsonby became Undersecretary of State for the Dominions. Ten out of twenty-one Undersecretaries of State were Fabians like C. G. Ammon for the Admiralty under A. V. Alexander, now a Fabian, and Ben Turner for Mines. The sinecure of Lord Privy Seal was given to ]. H. Thomas 31 with the understanding he was in charge of the works and production programs. Thomas "vas capable of the most understanding attitude toward men like Birkenhead, Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain. 38 He acquired the dubious assistance of another sinecure holder, the Chancellor for Lancaster, Oswald Mosley, whom Henderson dubbed" the rich young man" and who had for determined follower the liter ary light, John Strachey. On condition that he might be Sec~etary of State for Colonies, Sidney Webb became Lord Passfield and entered the House of Lords. He would be followed by Fabian Harry Snell,as Lord Snell. He joined Beatrice's one-time brother in-law, Parmoor, president of the Council and leader of the House, also Lord Arnold, Earl Russell, Lord De La Warr, Lord Pon sonby, Lord Marley, and later, Lord Noel-Buxton. Ten at least out of the seventeen Labour -Lords were Fabians. One was henceforth to belong to the Consultative Committee. This was Lord Snell, who also assisted Webb (Passfield) in the Colonial Office. An innovation designed to procure party discipline, at tendance records \vere kept to insure interest on the part of the Labour Lords in the fortnightly meetings of -the Parliamentary Labour Party. 39 36 Ibid., p. 278.

STSnowden, op. cit., II, pp. 765 and 776, is favorable to Thomas. 38 Thomas, Ope cit., pp. 229, 231, and 235. 39 Cf. LYB (1931), p. 216. The other Labour Lords were Kinnoul (George Harley Hay), a student of seventeenth century social agitation; Kirkley, created in 1930 (William Joseph Noble) of the Chamber of Ship ping of the United· Kingdom and of the Baltic and International Maritime Conference; Marks (Percy D'Evelyn Marks) of military precedents and now Paymaster Commander; Sanderson (Henry Sanderson Furniss), professor of economics of Ruskin College and member of the Central Executive. of the WEA, the author of a Memoir of C. S. Buxton and contributor to the Economic Journal; Kimberly (John Wodehouse) who seemed to take delight in his inconsistency by writing in Who's Who, as his sole claim to impor,;.

The 'Government of 1929-1931 465 To resume consideration of the Cabinet of 1929: Parmoor had for Parliamentary Private Secretary Fabian Arnold Forster; Lord Sankey was Chancellor. The legal team was completed by W. A. Jowitt, a Fabian, as Attorney General, treasurer of the ILP 40 and representative of the Socialist cooperatives and pro fessional societies in the Labour Party Executive; 41 and J. B. l\1elville, the~Fabian member from Gateshead who was Solicitor. The. Home Secretary was J. R! Clynes ,hose Trade Unionist mentality seemed to hold Socialism as a sort of Sabbath religion. He had not been distinguished of late by chairing Fabian lectures. His necessary presence in the Royal household on stated occasions was not calculated fo frighten his hosts. A Fabian of several years standing now was Secretary of State for India, Sir Wedgwood Benn. This appointment appeared to be exceptional for he was a newcomer to Labour, as Snowden believed; 42 but he had been associated with Fabians long before he joined the Labour Party. Tom Shaw was identified in the first Labour Cabinet. Like aynes, he must needs. be in the Ministry but it would seem his greatest effectiveness was the reassurance which his position as Minister for War might give to European Social ists. Fabian Lord Thomson, already a disillusioned observer of European politics in 1919, was Minister of Air. The Com missioner of Works was Fabian George Lansbury. Thomas 4:3 thought he was only a good propagandist but The Clarion always praised him for administrative work; for example, in his having Buckingham Palace cleaned up and procuring radios and central heating for the inmates of poor houses. A· Fabian was Minister for Health, Arthur Greenwood. Henderson advanced the appoint ment of Fabian Margaret Bondfield as Minister for Labour. 44 tance,. "owns about 11,200 acres." The newly created Lord Marley noted down his Fabian membership., He belonged to the Council of Magistrates Association and was treasurer of the Union of Democratic Control.

40 LYB (1931), p.21. W. A. Jowitt (now Chancellor) became a Fabian in 1929. Cf. FN, XLI:1 (January, 1930), where he expresses his joy at presiding at a meeting instead of remaining" an admiring member of the audience" as before. 41 Ibid., p. 13. 42 Snowden, Ope cit., p. 765. 4:3 Thomas, Ope cit., pp. 247 f. 44: Snowden, Ope cit., p. 759.

466 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Fabian Noel-Buxton, destined for the House of Lords, had for Parliamentary Private Secretary, Fabian Lord De LaWarr in the Ministry of Agriculture. The radical Socialist and Webb intimate, Charles Trevelyan, was Minister for Education;4,5 The Board of Trade was under Fabian William Graham. A. V. Alexander, the only link with Cooperators, now a Fabian, became First Lord of the Admiralty. Lees-Smith, a Fabian, had wanted this place 46 but, throufP the influence of Snowden, he was given instead the Postmaster Generalship.47 Lord Arnold, MacDonald's friend and the Paymaster General, also favored· Lees-Smith. As a young radical he had adhered to " Labour" in 1919 after break~ ing with his army precedents and going through Ruskin College. Snowden had characterized William Adamson as " an inept miner," when the latter had been Parliamentary Party leader.

Now he was Secretary of State for Scotland; the Undersecretary was Fabian Tom Johnston, founder and editor of Forward, who had long been a Trade Union leader as well asa professional publicist. F. O. Roberts who had been Minister for Pensions in 1924 held the same post in 1929. His position in the Movement was notable; he was Chairman of the National Labour Club 48 and a member of the Executive of the Trade Union Club honorary and social positions duly accorded a member of the Trade Union Section of the Executive of the Labour Party 49 who was an advisor for Defense in the special advisory section of the Party. The Minister of Transport was Herbert Morrison, one of the brilliant young group \vhose principles were still fluid and who troubled the calm of general gatherings ,vith their un answerable questions. Morrison had backed MacDonald when Bevin had demanded that the Conference go on record against taking office if able to command only a minority in Parliament. 5o 45 Cf. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 419, where he turned Moscow-ward after 1931.

Cf. also, Beatrice Webb, Our Partnership, p. 128, for his devotion to the Fabian" junta." Trevelyan followed the Webbs into the conceptual" new civilization," which th~y discovered in Russia. Cf. Samuel, op. cit., p. 346. 46 Snowden, op. cit., p. 765. 47 Ibid. 48 LYB (1931), p. 24. 49 Ibid., p. 13. One finds an embryonic organizational apparatus in Party and in TUC set up parallel with governmental apparatus in a State. 5Q Hamilton, op. cit., p. 260.

The Government of 1929-1931 467 He was also Henderson's man. 51 The great recruit of 1924, Haldane, was dead, but in the House of Commons Doctor Christopher Addison, newly converted to Labour, was rising in prestige under the guidance of Mary Hamilton and her good pen. He was among the four Ministers who, all Fabians, addressed the Conference presided over by Susan Lawrenc~ at Llandudno in 1930. The Webbs had tried to take in John Wheatley in 1924; now the MacDonald-Henderson-Morrisop influence resulted in the mistake of relegating" Boss" Wheatley to the obstreperous backbenches where, with Kirkwood, now on the National Ad ministrative Council of ILP,52 and with Jenny Lee, a Fifeshire miner's daughter (LL.D. from Edinburgh), together with a sharp young Welshman, Aneurin Bevan; as Snowden related, he per sistently "insulted" the Government. 53 The doomed John Scurr was Chairman of the Standing Committee of Housing-Arthur Greenwood's charge. Fabians L'Estrange Malone, Ernest Thurtle, and Chuter. Ede, the Surrey school· teacher and organizer of edu cators, were singled out for notice by Mrs. Hamilton; 54 and, impartially~ she mentioned Tom Dickson, former editor of. For ward, as one of the best speakers; also, pointedly, W. B. Taylor, of Wayland Smallholders Association, an agriculturalist. Before the term of office ended, readers noticed the na~es of Stafford Cripps, linked with land valuation .bills,55 and .Clement Attlee 51 Ibid., p. 266.

52 Along with the veterans, R. C. Wallhead and J. W. Moor, on this Council, there was the Fabian Fenner Brockway. Cf. LYB (1931), p. 21. 53 Snowden, op. cit., p. 759. Jenny Lee and Aneurin Bevan are now man and wife...•Re Scurr, cf. Oldmeadow, op. cit., p. 236. 04 The Clarion, 11:8 (August, 1930), 227. 55 Snowden, op. cit., p. 907. Snowden was amazed when Cripps became an U unconstitutional and· revolutionary Socialist." When. on October 27, 1932, Sir Stafford Cripps spoke on U Political Institutions," FN, XLIII :12 (December, 1932), and the "Transition to Socialism" (this series had been on "Transition "), he asked, "Can the forms of constitutional democracy be altered in time to be efficient instruments of the change· [to a Socialism not II without tears"] or must there be violence and disorder?" Parliamentary tradition once based upon smooth continuity of policy must now proceed by a series of "jerks." Delegating authority to the judiciary by Orders in Coun eil and Statutory Orders was not a proper expedient, said lawyer Cripps.

Administrative congestion from the growth of social services, for example, even a guillotine could not cope with. (This was after the crisis of 1931.) 468 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 rising to prominence. When Hartshorn died and Mosley re signed, Attlee became Chancellor· for the Duchy of Lancaster. It was almost an omen that the TUC man and Fabian, Ben Tillett, was the first Labour Party person elected in 1929. The Government's accomplishments 'were listed in the LYE of 1931.58 Sir Stafford disapproved of the slow process of legislation and the" gorgeous excrescence" of the. House of Lords which "under other administration [than Toryism] was an active enemy." Socialism was "essentially uni cameral." He advocated instead of the old "constitutional" methods of creating new peers or asking for dissolution and a .new election, further development of the new system recently discovered in the flexible constitu tionexemplified in the creation of the Tariff Commission. "Why not proceed further, on the same lines, by appointing an external body of Socialist experts, to suggest and deal with emergency measures?" The new arrangement which. he suggested was designed to "overhaul and speed up"

parliamentary machinery':.· Annual Financing and Planning Acts passed after only two Parliamentary "stages" rather than the old-fashioned four, to be worked out in detail by " Special Permanent Committees" utilizing the otherwise wasted abilities of private Members of Parliament. The transi tion might take years (working under this speed-up plan!), Parliament meantime becoming: an organ for expression of opinion, criticism of the administration,. control of the executive and-this is very significant-arbitra tion between producer and consumer. We see the tendency toward adminis trative statism and away from a rule of law. There is similarity of view with Cole and· Laski who demand the rule of "experts." There is to be found in the reports of Sidney Webb's visit to Soviet Russia a like notion of the movement forward toward Socialism by ~~ jerks." Gradualism was by now actually subject of debate, between A. E. Davies and E. F. Wise.

(Cf.FN, XLIV:6 [June, 1933]; Wise had had experience in Soviet bulk purchasing.) I t hinged upon the gradualism of stiffly graded taxes and the revolutionary seizing of. eight basic industries without compensation as advocated by the more· ardent Socialists and contemporary pamphleteers. Snowden should not have been amazed. McAlister Coleman, "Portrait of a Successful Sourpuss," The Progres sive VII (March, 1948), errs in saying Cripps was a Fabian only in the early days "when that· remarkable conglomeration of high pressure brain power was permeating the.·British middle-classes with refortnistic, Socialist ideas," pp. 11 f. Cripps is still a Fabian.Cf. almost any FN or Fabian Quarterly or Fabian Annual Report. 56 LYB (1931), pp. 198 f. Currently Day to Day Pamphlets, a series printed by Hogarth Press and the Fabian Society was circulating nine pamphlets four of· which dealt with Russia and had for authors Maurice Dobb, Aneurin Bevan, M.P., E. J. Strachey, .M.P., George Strauss, Parlia mentaryPrivate Secretary to Morrison, Minister of Transport, and C. M.

The Government of 1929-1931 469 It was a characteristic list interlarded with Socialist propaganda phrases, but it indicated the tendency of the Labour Party to end~avour to carry out election promises, especially those made to 'ade Unions: " Anomalies" of the 1925 Pensions Act were remo\ ~d; Russia 'was recognized despite continuous questioning regardil'g" Soviet propaganda; despite objection in the House of Lords, proof in cases not genuinely seeking work-" n.g.s.w." was left to the Labour Exchanges and allowances were raised while unemployment insurance was extended to fifteen-year-olds; a. coal bill carrying the "district levy" and the "spread-over" was adopted making the operation of these principles hinge upon agreement between the coal" owner Association and the Miners' Federation; the Naval Conference was held; unem ployment-the -cault, it was reiterated, of Capitalism-had been attacked by the Development Act, which created a Roads pro gram and allowed unemployment grants whereby a hundred thousand pounds had been expended in gas, electric and dock works-a fine program checked by· the depression ; educational measures taken to curtail the juvenile labor market "owing its cause to Capitalistic conditions of industry" had not yet taken effect; the. Economic Advisory Council, a means toward "public control and strengthening consumer power "had been devised; a Public Works Facilities bill had been passed; a Roads Traffic bill granted authority to municipalities to undertake developments without seeking special permission of Parliament each time, regu lated not speed limits but penalties for careless driving and made compulsory insurance. covering third parties; a land drainage plan which had originated in the House of Lords was credited to the Government; housing measures now were concerned not with building houses to let, save for small places for aged workers, but with slum clearance; in the armed services. the death penalty for offences was restricted to two categories; the India Round Table Conference had been held. Stymied still were school bills, the Washington Convention (eight-hour law), a bill to create a Con sumer Council and the Agricultural program. The interlarding of Lloyd. Cf. H. ].Laski, The Crisis and the Constitution (London: The Hogarth Press and the Fabian Society, 1932), flyleaf. Bevan's is the only name not easily identifiable as a Fabian. Like Citrine, he lectured at least once under Fabian auspices.

470 Fabianism in the Political Life of 13ritain 1919-1931 anti-Capitalistic sentiments in the account would seem protesting too much. Reforms like the above named ones could be attained by some great enthusiasm, some channelized proper indignation, some common impulsion fusing aroused public conscience. Many good people of England named this impulsion Socialism, and the spokesmen for Socialism called the enemy H Capitalism" -indis criminately; yet they meant by State-aided Capitalism to rule England. The Anglo-Christian mentality lent itself to Social Democracy as a restatement of its Protestantism; Fabian Socialism captured the force so lent to Socialism, to turn a social gospel into Stateless Socialism, eventually. These heavy implications lie in the list of reforms attempted by a Labour Government compiled by Fabians for the workmen's Labour Year Book. B. FABIAN REACTION TO THE GOVERNMENT'S FALL The collapse, when it came, served to clear the ideological air.

In sections of the socialist world disappointment early in 1931 started a rebound toward independence and away from political action. "Back to Robert Owen" and away from the Party, a .movement which had been· inculcated in 1917, was urged even in 1930 by a Fabian, W. Henry Browne. 51 Cooperatives, he said, were the proper means by which to H transmogrify the common life of all classes." This was also a reaction to ,the recurrent despairing suggestion of dictatorship. G. E. C. Catlin contributed to The Clarion" Mr. Wells Sees It Through," 58 in which he re iterated the appeal to " social control" and endorsed Wells' notion of the "priestly psychological attitude." When Clifford Sharp wrote " Parliament Vindicated" after· the Crisi~,he indicated the resolution of tension. In a· sense, he spoke-and with a Fabian voice-the mind of the electorate. The National Government had been given "a free hand, a blank cheque and a Socialist at its head" ; indeed. a mandate had been given by an electorate never so 'well educated. The best democracy on earth had given Mussolini and Stalin a "long fare\vell." The Bolshevi~s were shut up; the Fascists, dead. The" flappers" had voted with credit to them51 The Clarion,11:9 (September, 1930), 257.

58 The Clarion, IV:3 (March, 1931), 58. Catlin was then attached to Cornell University.

The Government of 1929-1931 471 selves. English prestige was mounting; the debt to the United States, reduced. Parliament could start all over again; the whips were meeting rebellion to party-line rule and that was a good sign. Between the anarchy of Owen and the dictatorship of Wells, Fabian Sharp pointed out a mesa. Even his colleagues suspected a mirage. This Fabian editor. of the NS, writing in T'he Clarion, reveals the line of thought by which, it is fair to say, Ramsay MacDonald might have expected to swing his old Party into line behind him. It carried Margaret Bondfie1d, Tom Johnston, Lord Sankey, J. H. Thomas, Clifford Allen and about ten others-never named; The Clarion indicated it were better not to name them, and to wait. The revealed thoughts of Henderson, Webb, Laski and L. Woolf, whom he cites, show that the Fabians decided upon the strategy of leaving him alone, party-less, as the "King's favorite." Their action in leaving him party-less put him ina position of inability to ask for a dissolution. That., as was established in 1923, was a Royal prerogative and would not be exercised while the large Government majority existed. 59 And they· had brought themselves face to face with a situation which enraged them, one in which the balance of power turned upon the will of the King, a Tory dic tatorship-and, after the election, one with a huge majority in Parliament.

In a further chapter we remark the gap in the line of thought noticeable in The Clarion when it changed over from praise and excuse to blame 0'£ MacDonald. Mrs. Hamilton was slow to change although Weir had warned her, Morrison; and Leech, befoFe the rest. The personal hostility of Webb was allowed to appear in his What Happened in 1931. At this point however it is appropriate to examine the expression of the leading ideologue, the mentor of The Clarion's editor, Professor Harold Laski, in The Crisis and The Constitution. 59 Cf. Laski, Crisis and The Constitution (London: Hogarth Press and Fabian Society, 1932), p. 36. Laski's analysis served to precipitate the constitutional question which, had it been more clearly grasped at the time the Party made its decision to expel MacDonald and his associates, might have changed their course. The course was set by Henderson and Webb, to save the Movement. Otherwise, the centrifugal elements would have flown oft-out of the Party.

472 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 The hint that it was the King who had " dished" the Socialists is not too faint to be perceptible as the cause of the professor's pique. The part played by the King had, he said, been" brilliantly concealed." Two elements stand out in Laski's acute analysis: 1) Socialism presupposes that people or parties do differ" about the foundation of society" and are not " fundamentally at one." In other words, Socialists assume an inherent inability of " the invest ing class" to act under any other impulsion than the profit motive. That their savings might contribute to national assets is, on Laski's part, inconceivable; Laski assumed absolutely that no motive of national interest could balance the profit motive in the Tory Party bound together by property interest alone. He silently equated Capitalism with Nationalism when he endorsed that global anomy whereby the" sovereign State ... would necessarily disappear."

Such a disappearance would be "obvious commonsense". even though it would "demand an interference with the motive of private profit so vast as to be incompatible with the survival of a Capitalist society." 60 2) For "Labour" to achieve Socialism means, Laski said, civil war ultimately, because, until a " new meta physic" is developed regarding the function of the King, his pre rogative will always provide for conservatism an escape from that Socialism which aims to eliminate the " investing class." Laski adduced SOlne data from \vhich he concluded that the "con stitutionality" of Party rule' was demonstrably an accretion of custom of comparatively recent origin. He alluded to Lord Bute and the YoungerPitt as historical" favorites" and found it neces sary to re-examine Coke's phrase which termed the King a " digni fied hieroglyphic." Civil war, then, is the only resort of 60 Ibid., p. 41. The King, of course, symbolizes that fundamental agree ment about the foundation of society which Professor Laski denies. The present writer's definition of "sovereignty" is consonant with that of Pius XII Christmas Allocution 1944 and embraces that" autonomy," independ ence" and "interdependence". which Maritain would substitute fo:r "sovereignty." Exaggerated" sovereignty" results from loss of the Natural Law basis of society. "The natural law is mo.re than a negative norm, more than a frontier closed to the infiltration of positive legislation, and more thana simple technical adjustment to contingencies ... [it is] the soul of positive legislation ... gives it its form, its meaning, its life." Cf. Pius XII Address, loco cit., saying who shall have "the last word" for the State and speak for the Country in Ca.tholic Mind (July 1951) p. 460£.

The Government of 1929-1931 473 H Labour" which may have won a " mandate" which the Monarch negates. Laski used the words of Leonard Woolf to confirm the finding that this H precedent might he developed so that the Crown could be used to break do\vnthe democratic system of Party Gov ernment, and to introduce . . . a system not materially different from a dictatorship." 61 Professor Laski's comments confirm the deductions made so far by this study: 1) Trade Unionists are not primarily interested in politics. Yet the fact that their former "distinctive monopoly" of hiring halls and mutual insurance have been usurped by the social service state, make it necessary they shoulq. be political and should develop It institutions" to assist the Party toward the realization of Socialism. Unions exhibit a deplorable lack of a Socialist mentality, according to Laski. 2) Socialism involves acceptance of the Balfour-Bagehot proposition that basic conflict 81 Laski, The Crisis and The Constitution, p. 35. Professor Laski responded to a query from this student, which had been based upon a review in FN, one which had compared Laski's idea of "revolution" with that of Berdyaev, that the comparison was odious; that Berdyaev was a poor Marxist and a mystic while Laski was a neo-Marxist and no mystic (he was an atheist) ; that he "believed in revolution". if by that was meant, 1776, 1789, 1848, and 1917. (This writer protests the inclusion of 1776 in this list.) Laski had approved the general trend in 1929: Parliament was no longer an organ of authority, but" an organ of registration of the Cabinet." His own criticism of the House of Lords had not advanced beyond that of Bentham and Bagehot. He would allow it to fall into desuetude while increasing the function of Commons to include two formulas, a formula for international cooperation replacing state sovereignty, and a formula for swift readjustment toward decentralization in domestic politics. He would begin increasing the respectability of private. members by givingthem powers to hold "Hearings" _II the system. which had worked so well in Massachu setts." The" good," he said, in politics is "the satisfaction of the maximum demands of the people" and toward this he advocated "the German plan."

The system of checks and balances must be eliminated, said the professor. One fears the safeguards of democracy, long treasured, yield to "unity." It is surely unnecessary to point out why the expressions of the years under study are said to be marked by the attack on Democracy. As to the" German plan," cf. FN, XL :12 (December, 1929). One recalls Ben Turner's experience at a Socialist international meeting in Germany where soldiery sat glowering from the platform and heated discussion between Lancashire and Yorkshire men caused the Conference to be per emptorily closed. C£. Turner, Ope cit., p. 155.

474 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 between two Parties which differ about the nature of. the founda tions of society is necessarily revolutionary. Tempted to affirm his revolutionary Marxism, Laski twice put aside the thought but ended by advising Labour that without the "new metaphysic" regarding the King's function, and without acceptance of Socialism by all of society, they had best prepare themselves for the neces sary struggle to ensue upon their winning a majority Govern ment-civil war if the King made use of the precedent of 1931; revolution if the Tories resorted to economic sabotage, or both. He recalled, as in his letter to this student, 1789, 1848, 1917 omitting, in this connection, 1776. Three conclusions observed in many other aspects of this in vestigation again· confront the reader of this highly representative Fabian: 1) The Fabian-fronted Party calling itself Labour was not sure it wanted Socialism; 2) the third Party had destroyed the element best suited to the expression of democracy-a two-Party system where fundamentals are accepted by all and methods or character-coloring form the area of debate; 3) the politicizing of social elements had usurped the place in ethics and conscience, ,of religion. This had created a sec.ular religion. The objectives of this "third Party" were unattainable unless religious fervor evoked the" courage at all costs" to carry it beyond the" mere conquest of a majority."

Keith Feiling 62 reveals the part Neville Chamberlain played in the formation of the National Government. The Conservatives and Liberals who rejected MacDonald's Cabinet's last proposals convinced the Prime Minister it was his duty to avoid the imminent financial crash. MacDonald was also convinced he must split the I"abour Party and go on with the Labour Moderates (suppose Webb· and Laski and Henderson had agreed to do so). When Chamberlain suggested a National Government MacDonald had proffered help but had refused to join and" I intervened," wrote Chamberlain; "had he considered,. that though not commanding many votes· in the House, he might· command. support in. the country . . . had 'he considered the effect on foreign opinion? " Again, Chamberlain \vrote in his diary, Truly the Conservative Party is a wonderful embodiment 62 Feiting,op. cit., pp. 192 f.

The G.overnment of 1929-1931 475 of good sense, patriotism, and honesty. What would have been the astonishment of the Socialist executive, if it could have overheard the Conservative executive agreeing to allow the man who had all his life opposed them, now to have the credit of carrying out their own policy just when the whole country has come round to it. His point of vantage is at least as good as Laski's. It is certain that though a segment of the Parliamentary Labour Party enter tained a devotion to the national interest like that of the Tories as here described, it was not a segment of workable size, as Mac Donald discovered. 63 No one would have been able to discover the real reason for MacDonald's dilemma except for the existence of a periodical which reflected very faithfully the destructive criticism of the Government by Socialists, some of whom demanded "Socialism in our time," many of whom were doubtful of the advisability of the Labour Party's assuming Government, all of whom felt the Movement was more important than the Party, none of whom had any fiscal principles beyond destructionism.

C. The Clarion POSITION AND THE WEBB ANALYSIS A Socialist organ, The Clarion,64 nicknamed from its history 8S As early as December, 1930 (Jhe Clarion, 11:12, p. 352), Barbara Shaw, much macarized cartoonist, depicted "A Christmas Party at the House." Baldwin as "Gandhi" pats the head of Simon, Snowden reads Churchill's Life with the author, and Lloyd George dances with Thomas (wearing ermine), a bald Jewish character embraces an owlish-looking Webb (waving li, the White Paper "). In the center, MacDonald woos a shy, long-haired figure labelled ILP. The college professor's mortarboard appears in the left background (Trevelyan). In the right background, a woman's figure (Mrs. Bondfield) wields a broom and kettle. It was pro phetic : Nearly a year before the denouement, theN ational Government solution was so imminent that a cartoonist projected it. 64; The investigator is the recipient of a very kind and informative letter from Mr. Ernest Davies, M.P., dated January 21, 1950. It was from him the information about Mr. Stevens came. In general, the column, "Our Point of View," was attributable to Mr. Stevens or to both the editors, and ,e Our Reporter's Note Book" was always written by Mr. Davies. It is most interesting to learn that Mr. Davies, now an M.P., resigned from the Fabian Executive in 1940 to enter the BBC and that Mr. Stevens is now Press Officer for the Federation of British Industries. A Fabian still, he is, as Mr. Davies writes, politically inactive. As has been stated, Alderman 476 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 " The Old Expirer," in its prime had bugled" Boots! Spurs! " and sent its fellowship far afield on bicycles. These" Clarionettes "

carried pr~paganda and met at .stated times on picnics. "Merrie England" seemed their motto and seasoned their methods. Founded by Robert Blatchford, The Clarion had stood for the ILP kind of Socialism, exclusive of the Clydesider element. It might have been omitted e?tirely from mention in this study except for the fact that from 1929 to 1931 it was the voice of Fabian-Socialist criticism of the Government. It was edited, with the assistance of Fabian Tom Groom, by Ernest Davies, the son of the arch-Fabian Alderman A. E. Davies, and by the former's friend Mr. F. L. Stevens, a Fabian too. Over fifty percent of the aggregate of its contributors and all its staff were active Fabians. Individual issues show a higher percentage of Fabian contributors. Mac Donald's name always headed the list thereof up to August, 1931; but nothing from his pen appeared from 1929 to 1931. Lord Passfield was reported to be happy in the Colonial Office.65 No writing of his appeared but Mrs. Webb's plan for Parliamentary reconstitution was printed in The Clarion. The Parliamentary situation was reported by Mrs. Mary Agnes Hamilton; the. inter national situation by C. Delisle Burns; and other Fabians Marion Phillips, Lord Ponsonby, George Lansbury, J. D. Beres ford, Bertrand Russell, Cole, Shaw, the Davies, father and son, ~ Josiah Wedgvvood, Mrs. Webb, Hamilton Fyfe, Norman Angell, Harold Laski, H. W. Nevinson, Lord Snell, Arthur Greenwood, Vera Brittain, Maurice Dobb, J. M. Kenworthy (an officer in A. E.Davies, L.C.C., in a very kind letter to this investigator, said the NS could be considered a Fabian organ. Since the NS (cf. Pease, op. cit., p. 227) developed a character of its own, it need not be exhaustively nor exclusively used as a source especially after 1924. It was not a Fabian organ but an organ of political Fabianism. It was in no way an organ of the Labour Party. Professedly, that was the Daily Herald, which was also the organ of political Trade Unionism. The Clarion supplies much Fabian source material for the period 1929-1931.

65 Mrs. Cole in her Beatrice Webb draws attention to the fact that he was very unhappy about the Palestine imbroglio which he was obliged to handle. Webb's years in the House of Lords, according to Shaw, were the only years Sidney Webb ever wasted. Cf. Sidney and Beatrice Webb, The Truth About Soviet Russia, with a preface on theWebbs by Bernard Shaw (London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1942), p. 13.

The Government of 1929-1931 477 H. M.'s Navy), Oliver Baldwin (Stanley Baldwin's son), H. C. Laycock,Norman Tiptaft, G. E. G. Catlin (then of Cornell University), Virginia Woolf, Ed Carpenter, Wickam Steed, Fenner Brockway,66 Chuter Ede, Fitzwater Wray (Kuklos) and J. B. Priestley-were frequent contributors. There were no Fabians, as far as can be known, in the list of the " Old Fellowship" recalled in an account of a "Clarion Reunion." 61 That occasion was the fortieth anniversary of Blatchford's foundation of The Clarion. Mr. Davies and Mr. Stevens rescued the publication from expiring in 1929 and made a Fabian voice of it from 1929-1931, although it kept the ILP feeling and the merry spirit given it by Blatchford. In May of 1931,68 " Our Proletarian Contributors," under" Our Reporter's Note Book," made a very feeble attempt to override the objection some persons had made that there were too many of the intelligentsia writing for The Clarion. He boasted that he himself was a " proletarian" because he had once worked in Woolworth's and swept snow in New York. Then he listed four names, P.

Gibbs, H. Fyfe. (the only Fabian), L. Britton (who had an article in the current Clarion on "ragamuffins" and was once a raga muffin himself), T. Horsley (who had once, Davies said, been a tramp). Then the reporter praised the ILP backbencher, Max ton, an anti-Fabian Socialist, said he made a good chairman, had a quick mind.69 The names of Gibbs, Britton, and Horsley were not featured again in connection with contributions to The Clarion, however. Later, Maxton is reported to have lectured to the 66 The Clarion, I :7, 11.S. (July, 1929), listed women in the Parliamentary Labour Party: Ethel Bentham, M.D., Marion Phillips, D.Se. Margaret Bonfield, Susan Lawrence, Mary. A. Hamilton, Mrs. Picton-Turberville, Cynthia Mosley, Jenny Lee, Ellen Wilkinson. They were all Fabians except Clydesider Jenny Lee, the youngest and a H revolutionary," who was intro duced by Bob Smillie and Jimmy Maxton. The Clarion, 23, n.s. (March, 1929),3.

61 The Clarion, 111:9 (September, 1931), 275. Alex Thompson mourned the deaths of two Fabians, the "motherly" Marion Phillips and the "modest, gentle" Graham in The Clarion, III :12 (December, 1931), 30. He attributed their deaths to II ministerial responsibility." They were, indeed, estimable characters deeply devoted to a cause they deemed a crusade. 68 The Clarion, 111:5 (May, 1931), 131. 69 Ibid.

478 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Fabians though he was apparently not (t at home" among the re spectable.upper middle class who disagreed with his finding £410s a week enough to live on.10 There were fewer old Fabian names thereafter until "The Crisis" followed by the reorganization under the title,N ew Clarion. Then they were all back. " Crisis!. " shouted the editor, now Mr. Stevens, in September, 1931 :" Think it over with the most brilliant and authoritative writers of the day." There were few names of non-Fabians of any note save Gals worthy-and later Fabian lists include him.71 Throughout the months one followed in The Clarion the activi ties of leaders in the Labour Party in Parliament everyone a Fabian: Morrison, Graham, Attlee, Cripps, Bevin, Johnston, Dal'ton, Shinwell, Mosley, Lansbury. There was· a tendency to slight MacDonald and make up for it by praising his daughter, Ishbel.

In ." Veteran Fabians," the Reporter said the Fabian lecturers numbered six who were past seventy years of age,·that Laski was but half Shaw's age and Ishbe1 MacDonald a splendid foil for the latter's perennial lecture.12 There was a tendency also not to. give the emphasis to European politics which marked the NS, although The Clarion never took the focus off Russia, and C. Delisle Burns contributed a League's-eye'view of Europe, monthly. The Clarion writers tended to find fault with the mere liberalism of Snowden; and H Uncle Arthur" Henderson, though always praised, was not idolized, exactly. They showed perfect respect for Margaret Bondfield· (there was only silence regarding her following Mac Donald. in 1931); 13 also, they evinced ana'fIectionate disrespect 70 The Clarion, 111:4 (April, 1931), 99. 'T1 As to Tom Williams,H. M. Tomlinson, M.P. (formerly of the staff of the Nation and Athenaeum), Alexander Thompson (long a faithful I.L.P.

writer), and Tom Shaw, the writer has not been able, to find them listed among Fabians on election or .lecture lists in FN. The only other sour~e is in obituary notices. Mr. Ernest Davies wrote that all connected with the management were Fabians. 72 The Clarion,11:7 (July, 1930), 195. 13 The Lord Chancellor, Lord Sankey, was chairman when Laski spoke the week after Cole. The Clarion prophesied in 1931 that Sankey alone of all those fourteen who followed MacDonald into the NationalGovernment would be readmitted to the Party. Cf." Our Reporter's Note Book," The Clarion, 111:10 (October, 1931), p. 283. The rest were to be4~'excom.. municated,"

The Government of 1929-1931 479 for the "Old Gang," 74 casting aspersion, as we noted,· upon, the senility' of lecturers on Fabian platforms. Nevertheless, every matter of" importance regarding the 'Fabian Society was reported; for example, Cole's return, Mosley'sdefection,75and the organiz .. ing 'of new groups.76 Fabian lectures were reported also, closely if not verbatim. The editors proposed Fa.bians, Herbert Morri~ son, H. B. Lees-Smith,Harry Snell or"Tom Johnston to replace Vernon Hartshorn who had died, and to replace the deC&ased Fabians, ,Lord Russell and James Stewart, whose deaths it re ported in {( Ave AtqueVale." 77 "Fabians to the Rescue," 78 was one caption. It asked for a revival of the Research Bureau because Labourites had been im pressed with .the Liberal economists' reports given in Liberal Labour conferences. And it argued against Cole's leaving politics for journalism. It also chided Bertrand Russell for undermining his hearers' faith in Democracy in his Kingsway Hall Lectures.

The Reporter complained likewise of Shaw's attack on Democracy but there was never any complaint about Laski's utterances. When comparing "the Don" and "Adonis "-The Clarion's compari son-the editorial critic preferred Laski to Cole, finding" a spiritual quality" in the former's "academic mind." Again, in " Fabians Resolve the Crisis," 19 it announced sixty Fabians ready to teach and'study in Frensham' Heights School in Surrey. This school 74, The" Reporter," Ernest Davies, wrote of seeing Sidney Webb, now Lord Passfield, "trying his hand" at square dancing at a Fabian Summer School, in ,a paragraph where he complained ot ,Passfield's becoming too dignified now to lead the singing, at a meeting. The ILP Socialist spirit demanded a Quaker simplicity in Socialists. 15 Cf. The Clarion, 111:4 (April, 1931), 99. E. Davies reported the New Party's debut and how the Trade Unions saved the Labour Party (no credit was given them) by Ernest Bevin's refusal to split his Movement consisting of 4,000,000Trade Unionists. ,He prevented their following Mosley.

78 The Clarion, 111:7 (July, 1931). The Reporter noted" Zip," the Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda embodying Cole's idea to spread Socialism (a Wellsian echo). It created an implement for "Loyal Grousers," as" Francis Meynell termed them. Amongst them (cf; her Grow ing Up Into Revolution, p. 139), was Margaret Cole. (Francis Thompson was sheltered by the Meynell family.) 71 The Clarion, 111:4 (April, 1931), 103. 78 The Clarion, II :11 (November, 1930),311. 79 The Clarion, 111:9 (September, 1931),.255.

480 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 would present new aspects and would exhibit no monotony since Lord Passfield was lecturing. Clarion announced also that the opponents ·of the National Government would conduct ·the Kings way Hall lectures on "Capitalism in Dissolution," listing Barbara Wootton, A. E. Davies, Norman Angell, S. K. Ratcliffe, H. J. Laski, and" of course" G.B. Shaw. 80 Books written by Fabians Were reviewed and given good notices. So few were the reviews each month-three at'most-that the selec tion represented a large measure of editorial responsibility. Samples of these reviews show an almost pedagogical tendency and reveal a quality of thought peculiarly Clarion-Socialist, as if using Fabians-to develop the ILP mentality. For example: Bruce Ironsides, revie\ving Tawney's Equality, said that like Wallas' Acquisitive Society, it was an indictment. It was time, he said, for a restatement of Socialist· aims, " spiritual ends"; and it was "only obstinacy" to urge that all that was required now was "machinery to bring [Equality] about.

11 &1 It may be observed, sympathetically, that the quest of Socialism was for a means of perfecting man to enable him to perfect the machine. They wanted a religion without theology. W. H. Warburton's History of Trade Union Organisation in the North Staffordshire Potteries bore an introduction by Tawney. It was reviewed by Fabian Josiah Wedgwood who hastened to " explain" the slowness of unionization in his inherited business. 82 It was simply a business with a tradition. Its heir seemed to be truckling a bit to Trade Union opinion outside his plant. The editor spoke of "iconoclasts" in reviewing Fabian Pethick-Lawrence'sThis Gold Crisis in which a condition of low and falling prices, as a monetary not an economic phenomenon, was blamed for the crisis. . With too much being produced there was too little gold to move it far enough; so the consequent glut 80 One recalls George Lansbury's remark that Tchitcherin reminded him of "our own" Fabians, the Webhs, Shaw, Wells, and Haldane: "Nobody can ever know as much as they do, he as wise as they look, or at least try to make us believe they are," -and a page or two further on he asked Lenin to employ the Webbs at teaching administration. Lanshury, op. cit., pp. 240 243.

81. The Clarion, 111:3 (March, 1931). 82 The Clarion, 111:4 (April, 1931), 102.

The Government of 1929-1931 481 ruined prices. The Clarion· found Norman Angell's Can Govern ment Cure Unemployment?, which was done in collaboration 'with Harold Wright, valuable for a transition period; but the work was weighed and found wanting for being Liberal and not Socialist. He found little wrong with Lord Melchett's similar Why the Crisis; but he recommended reading Das Kapital in place of any of these treatments of the economic crisis. It would seem to have been a proper place to urge that "devaluation" which· later, after it was successfully employed by the National Govern ment, was claimed as an idea original with the LabourParty.83 Again, an editor credited Ben Tillett whose memoirs he reviewed as " Adventures of an Agitator," with making the Labour Party Socialist. 84 The notion that there might have been a Labour Party which was not Socialist was never contemplated by Fabians. To have made the acknowledgment that, whereas" worker-hood" is an attribute of social man, to politicize " labor" is to postulate a total or .universal belief and to necessitate the ultimate rule of one Party, was unthinkable.

The resemblance of Cole's Gold, Credit, and Employment to the Liberal platform, which advocated keeping gold and credit at home, was not underlined by the editor who reviewed it.. Cole did not advocate devaluing the pound, the" external" value of which he found too high, although a year later Fabians Bevin and Citrine 85 did so as leaders of the TUGC. This received no emphasis in The Clarion until after the crisis. Cole merely suggested restricting the use of gold to the domestic economy.B6 83 It was Trade Unionists Bevin and Citrine who were credited with having suggested it. 84. The Clarion, III :11 (November, 1931),320. 85 Citrine lectured under Fabian auspices in August, 1933. Cf. FN, 44 :8. He and Bevin had to belong to a Socialist society in order to take their places on the International. Bevin was one of the reorganizers after 1936, having gone far left after 1931, and turned back. The mentality of the two men is u Trade Unionist" but one cannot state that their philosophy is unspoilt by a Socialism the basis of which they would find more difficult to learn than the economics of which at first they were innocent.

86 The Clarion, 11:9 (September, 1930), 263. The Fabian commentator was not averse to remarking in another connection that Cole repeated him self for the hour following his half-hour exposition of his subject. Cf. The Clarion, 1:11, n.s. (November, 1929), 5. It is traceable to ennui no 482 Fabianism in thePolitjcal Life of Britain 1919-1931 Mrs. Webb·was .. allowed by the· reviewer, Thompson, to evaluate Fabian Wickham Steed's Life Under the Soviets and, by empha sizing the patronage given to opera in Moscow,81 to increase the illusion· as.' to cultural gro\vth in all Russia. ss This is notable as doubt that no one has been found to observe that Cole arrives at the already accepted compromises of "pure" Socialist principle with political or economic realities by the verbose process of higgling over distinctions. Compare his Fabian Tract, Labour's Second Term, a comment on the draft II Labour Believes in Britain" (written for the Fabian Society and offered for discus sion to the Labour Movement), with F. A. Cobb, M. P., The Art of the Possible in FN, 60:3 (March, 1949). Both agree on the compromises with Capitalism necessary under the circumstances. Cobb defines " Socialism" as democratic socialism dependent upon" the acceptance of the common good motive" and states that we must accept and use the motive of self-interest until we generate a new one. Cole defines Socialism as a "way of life," a life of equality (admitting inequality of brains and authority, denying only the advantage to be gained from birth or riches). Both aim at controlling the Trade Unions: Cole by a vision of utopia; Cobb by realism, recognizing that a programme which will not II harness to the national effort those forces which are prevalent in this country today [profit motivated] ... will not work." Both try to placate the sentimental SoCialist: Cobb in the Party; Cole in himself. It is interesting that Cole calls Keynesian liberalism and· State Planning II bastard socialism," p. 7. His·patent motivation is vote getting-defining theory. .A very interesting parallelism exists in the programme adaptation of 1929, 1945, 1950:-Each time compromise set back the objec tives consonant with their higher ideology and set forth for immediate attempt social service aspects and vote-getting measures. The study of these parallels would be rewarding. In any case, Chairman Cole's performance has what Mr. Laski would call II the single merit" of clarifying the Socialism from which deviation is measured.

87 The British Broadcasting System· was approved by P. R. Leslie who wrote a monthly column on it. "Dictation for Demos" was one telling title. Leslie agreed to the appointment of Sir John Keith as II dictator" especially since he would have the cooperation of Mrs. Hamilton and C. Delisle Burns. Cf. The Clarion, 11:3 (March, 1930),34. He approved the control and liked Bartok, Stravinsky and Honegger-although ... he favored less of pseudo-religious atmosphere on Sundays. The underlying reason for the good press for BBC was thatMr~. Snowden headed it until after the National Government came to power. Once in 1931, the Oxford Labour Club· asked why the Government had no money to. subsidize the Schneider Trophy contest but did subsidize· opera, and the Reporter, Davies, wrote that the answer was U Mrs. Snowden." Cf. The Clarion, III :4 (April, 1931), 99. ' 88 Cf. Margaret Cole, II Beatrice Webb," Fabian Quarterly, 38 (July, 1943), The Government of 1929-1931 483 having transpired before her visit to Moscow. It is quite· possible Beatrice and Sidney saw the duchy of Moscow as an England and the twenty-two Soviet Socialist Republics, if they thought of them at all, as colonies.

Fabian Vera Brittain reviewed Divorce As I See It, a symposium in which three Fabians, B. Russell, H. G. Wells, and Rebecca West, collaborated with Fanny Hurst, Warwick Deeping, Leon Feucht~ wanger, Andre Maurois and Noel Douglas. The lady reviewer wrote H The Elect Consider Divorce" and deplored that the H in junction" ofa " teacher" of H 30 A.D.;" an era when women were unprotected. in the scheme of civilization, should influence the Catholic Church which " still" forbids divorce.89 The editor commented on the Labour Party's Local Government Handbook saying that Socialists· would only waste their time being town or borough Councillors. Yet Lansbury and the Fabians believed in permeating all councils. Lansbury's life illustrated time and again the efficacy within a committee of one or two Socialists \vho were well primed as to rules of order. 90 The new 1-4, where she expatiates upon the "thrill" that was theirs-the Webbs', the Coles', and Shaw's-at the sight of the new society they saw rising under the one-party· system of new civilization in Soviet Russia " after planning began."

89 The Clarion, 111:9 (September, 1930), 296. With assent to his advocacy of making· open questions "the superiority of exclusiveness in love," or " that it ·is a good thing for children to be brought up by their parents," "bristles with valuable ideas" was the reviewer's comment upon Russell's frank acceptance of extra-marital freedom and birth-control. Under the newly emergent State seen by Russell, "economic utility of fathers will entirely disappear." ·This was durin~ the years when there was marked advance in the activities of the Women's Group and Mary Agnes Hamilton, M.P., remarked that morality was" breaking away from artificial standards," and sexual relationships were to evolve a "code to be derived from equitable community relationships." She hoped for the emergence of the new com munity from out of the "unregulated State," and by a new moral standard -whatever that might mean.

" Motherly" Marion. Phillips had reviewed it less enthusiastically, with some incertitude in The Clarion, 11:1 (January, 1930), 22. To the question "Is Bertrand Russell Right?" she answered, no; but her reason for the negative was materialistic: Let there be a morally stronger and less selfish race which has achieved economic·freedom, before law and the barrier of custom be let down. Socialists, we see, insisted upon the perfectibility of man. 9'0 The Clarion, 111:3 (March, 1931). This kind of permeation furnished 484 Fabian,ism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 view represents the fact that the work of local permeating had been fruitful and was hardly needed now that Fabians held Whit~ hall and Westminster. Under· the caption, « The Struggle in Local Government," A.E. Davies reviewed Robson's The De velopment of Local Government: Whether in developing municipal banks, or the beauty of municipalities or parksides, all England lagged behind Europe. Every Fabian knew from the constant repetition in the FN that since 1923, Robson had headed the Local Government Bureau of the Society and edited Local Government News which had steady, if-very slowly increasing, sales. Now the editor drew attention to the fact that for any positive progress to be n1ade by a local governn1ent a special Act of Parliament was necessary. European cities were far in advance with schemes for municipal banks and civic development. The" Clarionettes "

seemed unaware that American cities, or counties, or states build bridges, roads, or banks without national legislation or special act of Congress. When Laski came to evaluate Machiavelli by Ettore Janni he was illuminating: "Socialists have still ,to make up their minds about the place of moral obligation in politics." Concerning" the limits of practical statesmanship," Laski wrote, " a brief period of responsibility would make [the idealist who shudders at the prag matic "Prince"] more tender to Machiavelli's stark realism . . . [being] not. . . [yet]. willing to condone. . . he would [not] be so anxious to condemn." 91 The characteristic balance, of " condone" and "condemn" must leave the disciple's will para lyzed. Yet Laski remained the accepted n1entor of the young editors, Stevens and Davies. The Cla'rion therefore appears as much the organ of Fabianism as the appropriated nest of yesteryear appears the natural habitat the pattern for Shaw's" democratising democracy." Some anti-communists imitate the cell-idea or the cadre system of penetration. Committee-wise permeation by an elite and permeation of the masses by cadres when this is done by religion and Charity (Le., the gift of Love of God-and-man and God's presence in souls by Grace) is something vastly different in fact and in effect from such permeation done by a Party. The Party borrows the trappings of religion. It must. Charity is dynamic and creative. The Party dicta tes a plan.

91 The Clarion, 11:9 (September, 1930), 263.

The Government of 1929-1931 485 of that subject of many a motet in once Merrie England, the cuckoo. Editors, contributors, and news-names were all Fabian. The books selected for review bore the Fabian message warped to the ILP masthead: A doubtful position on political morals and princely politics; a very useful criticism of the unprogressive atti tude of civic executives; the countenancing of an ignorant view point on marriage, birth control and divorce; the half-instructed feeling toward Russia; the vague shapes of new fiscal principles, partly Keynesian liberalism, partly anti-rentier, which groped toward the realism of too little"" gold"; the truckling to Trade Union opinion; the arguing as to whether the machinery ofParlia mentary procedures and franchise would suffice or whether instead of working on improving the "machine" they should not "restate" their" aims." 92 ' The important contribution of The Clarion to the ~listory of the period was the unconscious but thoroughgoing exposition of the conflict among the segments of " the Movement." The Party and the Government, the Trade Unions and the intellectuals, the social Socialists and the political-Socialists, anarchistic-Socialists and dictator-Socialists, the emergent planning groups and the secret catastrophic connivers, the over-bold theorizers in the economic field and the realistic con1promisers. Conflict focused itself in a fiscal problem.

Mr. VVebb, now Lord Passfield,93 told What Happened in 1931, 92" Aims" were well restated in early 1950 by Cobb and Cole. Since their objective to be realized presupposed perfected· man and a society con vinced of the desirability of seeking the "common good U and organized under the dictates of social justice, both aim-staters lowered their sights to U compromise," awaiting the consummation of human perfection, with Capitalism. They had arrived at something Thomas Aquinas found to be common knowledge and summarized before A.D. 1274. Cf. Cobb, "The Art of the Possible," FN, 60:3 (March, 1949). Cobb accepts the profit motive for the time being-men being what they are, whereas Cole in Labour's Second Term, Tract 273, 1950, rejects as "bastard socialism" either Reform or Planning. 93 Cf. Snowden, op. cit., p. 927. Just before the denouement, Lord Passfield and Mrs. Webb called on Snowden to request his cooperation in their new scheme: Snowden to become a peer so Passfield could retire; Parmoor to surrender the leadership of the House of Lords to Snowden. The latter declined.

48D Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 a teview of which is in order that we may understand the data gleaned from The Clarion 'leading up to the Crisis of 1931 and beyond. Webb was fully aware of·the conflict of the segments, but he fairly ignores it. Such conflict had a real function ill; the Long View. By studying what Webb wrote, the reader may be enabled to discover why he' wrote it, -·outside of the aim to " dish" MacDonald. W'ebb 94 found MacDonald' sNational· Government, elected by sixty-nine percent of the voters, tObe a. Party Dictatorship. (There had'Deen cast six·· million votes for Labour, electing about nine percent of the Parliament.) We learn from him that the Labour Party~ .as :"blind " as any other, had "special difficulties"; .not having a majority it was unable to obtain" closure." The Labour Cabinet had been overworked; the Prime Minister himself lacked time for social intercourse with the members of the Party. 95 ·\Vebb worked off his wrath in non-sequiturs about the way a National Government came about. Despite his saying that Mac Donald "alone" knew the steps in advance, he·outlined the history of the rise of the idea ofa National Government. Itwas designed, he said, to absorb the Opposition. The Opposition he characterized as part of that" mystic entity" known as the British Constitution.

Passfieldgave three sources for the idea ofa NationalGovern ment: 1) Garvin of The Observer had suggested a National Gov ernment because the Labour-Liberal majority in Parliament would not accept his tariff scheme.96 2) In June, 1931, it "was said 94 Cf.W~at Happened in 1931: A. Report. (London: Fabian Tract 237, 1932). That-Webb thought, or said, that-MacDonald alone knew. all the de velopment·.in advance-the formation· of the National.Government, and the hastily produced Election-and that he promised to answer how this " states man" managed it, what caused the landslide, what significance it would have on. the world., is 'at least naive: Baldwin was the real ruler of England. The b,lindest spot in Webb's account deals with the King's part. ,,95The:prime Minister, Webb said, came to spend his "scanty leisure" in "less disagreeable" company. Cf. ibid., p. 4. Webb's words of studied politeness grow in potency from. apologetic disparagement to personal remarks of the most objectionable sort based on judgment of motive. Cf.

ibid., p. 4. $J6.Webb saidAhe rejectipn of the Tariff in 1923 was "decisive." That the vote on the platforms was "decisive" is highly 'disputable, in the light of this investigation.

The Government of 1929-1931 487 privately" there would .be a .. National·. Government by September. 3) Empire preference~ H food taxes," tariffs .against "dumping" from Russia, the United States, and the Argentine; the demands of "agriculturalists," produced the secret impulsion. toward·. a National Government. 97 The reader should bear in mind that underlying Webb's. criticism of the fiscal basis of the Labour Government's failure. in 1931was the fact known. to him. and to the Partyintellectua1s.that when they were taking over the· Government in 1929 .without any of the reluctance shown in 1924, they were inheriting a depression. It was known in April of 1928 that "trade disturbances and un employment" in America caused" anxiety" to. which." nothing in recent· history [was] comparable." 98 On page three, the former Minister for the Colonies said taxa tion was, in 1~30-1931, "colossaL" On page five, he accuses Snowden of ineptitude for his not having greatly increase,d taxa tion. He said the Budget of 1931 was a "faulty "budgetto be excused by reason of Snowden's. illness.99 Webb admits: that it was no longer necessary to maintain" certain .cash balances " with which Snowden had helped balance outgo, and that the policy of borrowing to cover the Unemployment Insurance Fund was begun by. the previous Government. Webb said the Hoover. Moratorium cost the Government eleven million pounds ; but Mr. Churchill writes 10Q that Germany's payment was never put into the Ex chequerbut was forwarded directly to America,· England thus. act ing as America's collector.

97 Webb wrote that" dumping" by the Soviet was" no more than'the competition of cheaper commodities." Appar~ntly, he iritendedby· polite definition to render it more palatable. 98 N S,. XXX (April· 7, 1928), 814. 9~TheClarioneditor said, "Mr. Snowden's Third Budget is nota S9cial ist ·budget/' 111:5 (May, 1931), 130. W~bb's revelation was, of course"polit ical assassination; Snowden shortly sent notice to his manager that he would not run again. Mr. Snowden considered Webb his friend. The Webbs'had asked Snowden ·toaccept· a· peerage and to replace Webb numerically in ,·the House of Lords.· Snowden refused. because he. wanted ., to .finish the work begun on the Budget problems. Passfieldoffered Snowden Pannoor's .position of leadership. Snowden assented only to a future arrangement to resign from the Chancellorship and take the Colonial Office (Webb's) without going into the House of Lords. Cf. Snowden, op. cit., ~I,· p. 927.

1'00 Churchill, The Gathering Storm, pp. 24 f.

488 Fabianism.in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Webb unfairly averred that the existence of the Liberal Party alone prevented MacDonald from "cutting out" of the" body politic" a " large proportion of the electorate," by suddenly cutting certain recipients of aid off the payroll. (A cut of ten percent in a situation where prices were extremely low would not amount to " cutting off the payroll"; but the franchise is still related to in come in England.) Also, Webb stated for a fact something which no other source ;declares, namely, that the May Committee, invented by Liberals with Tory assent, was created for the purpose of find ing means to cpt public expenditure. But Webb put two things together, the puplic 11ay Report which caused a clamor in the Press for reduction in taxation, and the private warning by the Bank of England to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Ex chequer concerning the alarming drain of gold which created the demand for "cutting" expenditures or the dole. A few dozen financial houses were under stringency to render back to foreign governments, bankers and "merchants," accumulated short-term deposits to the estin1ated amount of four hundred million pounds.

Most of these funds had been loaned out to similar businesses in "various continental countries" and it was difficult or impossible to recall them without destroying Austrian and German credit. The London houses were solvent but had to borrow gold from the Bank of England which held it only to back fiduciary notes. The Bank of England borrowed gold from New York and Paris, then in August it advis~d H.M.'s Government either to borrow gold or to declare a moratorium on gold payments. That this latter proposi tion if carried out would destroy British credit was a common opinion. New . York demanded a restoration of confidence by Britain's balancing the budget with support of Parliament and the Opposition, and by cutting expenditures in Unemployment Insur ance. The Cabinet had already decided to do both these things, Webb says, "by additional taxation and by making any prudent economies"; nevertheless it refused to accede to what MacDonald was to term the" condition of the borrowing "-cuts in unemploy Inent insurance.lo'l When t~e Cabinet resigned, everyone expected to find a Bald\vin Government on the morrow.

1'01. Evidently it was due to the publishing of the American demand that the consent to make economies followed Cabinet refusal to do so. MacDonald The Government of 1929-1931 489 The chagrined Lord Passfield alleged that the eventuation was MacDonald's work; alone he had" staged" the H drama." Never theless, Webb repeated the current saying that the King devised the National Government. 102 The Parliamentary Labour Party, unlike the Conservative and Liberal Parties, refused endorsement and somewhat gradually adopted the attitude of finding MacDonald's action a betraya1.103 That the flight of gold, caused by fear that runs might occur abroad, now persisted is made by Lord Passfield to appear part of MacDonald's treachery .. In four weeks, Britain "went off gold," and business began to improve. Webb said MacDonald had "threatened" that credit would pe ruined if the Government should go off gold. The Clarion did not at first state that it was MacDonald who had " threatened" but the Press; and that by so doing, the Press had put it over on both sides, Tories and Labour .104 Noone on the Labour side even urged the gold embargo. Cole had written a bit about economi~ing with it but like those of Pethick-Lawrence his writings on this point were not promulgated among the Labour and Socialist faithful. Webb re lated the beneficent effects, however: A fillip to exports of textiles and an echoing effect on other export markets.

How Henderson developed an Opposition and so destroyed the reality of a National Government, according to Webb's definition of it, is set forth in What Happened. Despite opposition the " Economies Bill" was passed embodying recommendations of the May Report for cuts in teachers', policemen's, and civil servants' salaries in their respective departments by'" orders in council." Webb said that this Government by "ministerial fiat" was a potentiality which" may, one day, be made use of for a much greater revolution' in due course of law.' " 105 told Weir the whole Cabinet favored cuts until TV C intervened; but Hender son denied this (Weir, Ope cit., p. 395). 1()2 Snowden, Ope cit., II, pp. 879 f, tells of MacDonald's conferences all through 1930 with Liberal leaders to achieve a national (non-Party) policy on unemployment. Baldwin had refused to attend, but it Was sufficient that Chamberlain knew and cooperated.

1~3 The Clarion failed to register this opinion in September. It was rising in October and became bitter only after Election in November. 1~4 The simple political expedient of using Brer Rabbit's implorations against being cast into the" brier patch" never dawned on the Socialists. 1~5 Webb, ap. cit., p. 10. Lord Passfieldmust. have forgotten that Sidney 490 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 When Webb intended to 'upbraid theN ational Government for holding a.n Election (as promised) and for the way the Election was conducted, he adtnitted perforce that their method of coping with" the Crisis "had been a success,.' "The Crisis had been sur mounted," economies,;effected, the Budget balanced by taxation. He ended by saying this National Government was now a Con servative Government (it could be nothing else since' Labour went into' "'O,pposition)'; that MacDonald·· has been embraced by the rentier class as part of their ",last ditch " defense of themselves.

Then Webb made a revealing survey of the wreckage of Labour in politics. Labour had benefited ···.£rom a good shock and some pruning. The Labour Party had been " prematurely born' into governmental life"'; its M.P.'s had been" injuriously affected" by what were only" accidental successes." They had not the talent to govern arid some of them exhibited a habit of mind of being in opposition. The Party should proceed now with education and not commit itself . tdany save general principles; keep up a steady stream of propa ganda for one project at a time and develop friendly social intercourse among themselves. Webb demanded that officers "'consult" with the Party ; yet he proclaimed that the Party had no:talents " in this generation of mediocrities." .:Having merely remarked the dissension in the Party, Webb betook himself with Beatrice' to Russia, but not until after the Scarborough Party Conference. He could not ,help ·knowing there was an irremediable reason for the Party's failure to unify its sec tions'.' Mrs. Cole tells of the Webbs' disappointment in the Labour Patty and their predilection, long since conceived, for an " Order"

-the " Jesuit" system, the' One-Party, the Samurai (she thinks Webb had advocated advancing the Liberal reforms' o£1906 by administrative procedures, by-passing Parliament, also, and that Fabian W. A. Robson envisioned':administrativb boards which should develop a judicial mentality evolved'ffom administrative regulation. Dr. Heintich Bruning wrote, in a letter to this/student, dated December 5, 1950, "The present Lord President of .the Council, Mr. Morrison, has introduced a; motion' askitlg Pariiament to authorize legislation by orders-in council in all matters' in'the' interest of the country.' That would have been irtlpossmte in Germany [befote Hitler's Enabling Aet] ... The confusion in regard to law and· administrative orders has become'a tragedy, ··today in England as well as! in this country."

The Governmentaf 192~-+1931 Wells must have smiled}, which"Beatrice 106 especially delighted in finding in Russia. Mrs. Cole does not underscore as she should the fact that they found what they,looked :io~ ;~epattern layuin outline in their minds. But she intimates as.much itl expressing mild surprise that Beatrice did ,not avow her errors regaxding Russia as she "has done, regarding, woman.s.u.ffI'age.lP1 Distinctly the Webbs decided, to dish" MacDonald and to ch!lstise the rarty, while Hender~on, to hold the Party together, led ,Opposition but remained loyal to MacDonald and worked, with •• him in Geneva on international business, in the ensuing years. His was the only yote agaitl§texpelling MacDonalq frqm,the Pa,r~y. We. must :indict the Webbs for, not 'stfl,titJg the reason for the unsta~le equilibrium in the Party. "We must i1}dict them as well for ,MacDonald's ruin in the., eyes, of the Pa'rty~ If the Trade Unions had" a generation;; before,,'gpneQnI,their indicated path toward support of individual Liberal candidates, syphoning: " socialistic" or well-rounded refornl,measures into the.' Liberal programme; 'if, ,MacDonald, "'~s, 'the tend~~cy'wasfo.tLabour leaqers t9 drift' into ,orthodox ,Liberalism, had ,been 'l~t alone, honestly :tS? be.embracedby"theoIQ.:LiberalP~rty ~svsual1y happened, [the .sq~.Clbblingheretics of .Socialism ,vould',not have gained~uch, ,:leverage.108 ;', MacDonald was a really, •• superior man.

Let it be admitted he possessed the faultsof,hisenv~r()n,mrnt; but he would not have had to smash the hopes" of thou~ands of wor shipful followers whom he .himgelf had"led. ipto the morass o~' an ;: _-' :.~: ." : " . _~. "i.-. ':., - , --".-"'.. ~ 1~6From t1le time of his returri to Fa1>ianism, (~.•D. H. Coleurg~,d "a sYstem of "Labour Corps" and Shawa~etted him directly. " .\' ,'., ! .' 101 Margaret Cole, Beatrice Webb, p.158. Cf. 'a:lso, Mrs. Cole,Groiving UP Into Revolution, p.98: "'Again and again during the twenties l;j • Beatrice told me that what Britain and the world nee~~dwasa new Dedicated Order [sic] §omething like the;~6dety of Jesus.'~. ,Mrs~ ~ole says'Jpose who joined the Comll1:unists"felt, as Catholics fe~l,tpe need of some hp,1"l1an authority, [sic I] to' explain, interpret and guide!' ' Mrs. Cole says' Beatrice felt this' way' and that Socialists who became Communist' felt this way-,,-the nee<:J..,forgui?ance and proddi~g-yet ,~he excoria~~s the Labour Party (not mentioning the Fabian" pub1icist~ thereof) for m~1<i~g ~ the League of)'"outh " ask Mamma" for guidance on all political issu~$. ,.

1~8 Cf. Churchill, op. cit., p.T9~ Baldwin was the r~l. ruler of;England f rorn 1922to 1937; he kept MacDonald on his TOI:Y lef(and separat~(r£rom but harnessed to NeviUe Chamberlain on his liberal 'right. ' 492 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Experiment, had he not been taken in by the Webbs and the Fabians, if he had not been captivated by the idea of politicizing the Trade Unions and penneating with Socialism and a One-Party mentality all who worked in any ,vay. The Experiment had to fail because its basic ordering was unnatural. To indict is not to judge. There follo\vs a description of the conflicts indicated so passingly by Lord Passfield. We may place ourselves upon the scene exactly where Webb stood if we avail ourselves of the leverage given by Mrs. Cole's description of it, made available in her Growing Up Into Revoltttion. 109 The Labour Party had succeeded in presenting itself (a) to the Tories and the floating voter as incompetent weak lings in the field of finance, and (b) to the extreme left as tools in the grip of a wicked and anti-social force called "the City" and " W'all Street." (The Webbs, now in the process of conversion to the U.S.S.R., agreed \vith both opinions,more or less.) But we of S.S.I.P. [and also of the N .F.R.B. founded by Cole in 1931 when many Zips went into the Socialist League] did not realize how big the disaster was, we were so profoundly relieved to be rid of MacDonald at last; and we observed that the .Parliamentary Party, all save a not particularly distinguished handful [let the reader judge] .was holding together under the leadership of Hende~son [who was to vote against expelling Mac Donald] and Lansbury.l1O " What happened in 1931 " was that the Webb-Shaw team went to Russia and the Henderson-MacDonald machine turned again to E,urope. Doubt became certainty about the futility of the inevita bility of grachialness. The lightning of crisis had revealed the chasmic difference behveen Conservatism and Revolution; but those \vho took the high road to Russia and those who took the low road to'ward Europe \vere Socialists in search of Socialism and their paths were destined to re-unite. Shaw was correct: They had to be Communists.

109 Cf. M. Cole, Growing Up Into Revolution, p. 155. Mutual friends believe the title should be "Growing Out of Revolution." But the write.r is inclined to take it at its face value or else to consider it from a semantic viewpoint, meaningless. 110 Ibid. Interpolation and comment exactly marked according to author's conditions.