London:
George Standring, 8 & 9 Finsbury Street, E.C.
1884.
A MANIFESTO
THE FABIANS are associated for spreading the following opinions held by them and discussing their practical consequences.
That under existing circumstances wealth cannot be enjoyed without dishonour or foregone without misery.
That it is the duty of each member of the State to provide for his or her wants by his or her own Labour.
That a life interest in the Land and Capital of the nation is the birthright of every individual born within its confines and that access to this birthright should not depend upon the will of any private person other than the person seeking it.
That the most striking result of our present system of farming out the national Land and Capital to private persons has been the division of Society into hostile classes, with large appetites and no dinners at one extreme and large dinners and no appetites at the other.
That the practice of entrusting the Land of the nation to private persons in the hope that they will make the best of it has been discredited by the consistency with which they have made the worst of it; and that Nationalisation of the Land in some form is a public duty.
That the pretensions of Capitalism to encourage Invention and to distribute its benefits in the fairest way attainable, have been discredited by the experience of the nineteenth century.
That, under the existing system of leaving the National Industry to organise itself Competition has the effect of rendering adulteration, dishonest dealing and inhumanity compulsory.