The History of the Fabian Society

by Edward R. Pease

For several years after this the Fabian Society did not greatly concern itself with the Labour Party. I attended the Annual Conferences and took a regular part in the work of the Executive Committee, but my colleagues of the Fabian Society as a whole showed little interest in the new body. In a sense, it was not in our line. Its object was to promote Labour Representation in Parliament, and the Fabian Society had never run, and had never intended to run, candidates for Parliament or for any local authority. We had made appeals for election funds on a good many occasions and had succeeded once or twice in collecting substantial sums, but this was a very different matter from accepting responsibility for a candidate and his election expenses. Therefore, for a good while, we remained in a position of benevolent passivity.

The Labour Representation Committee was founded as a Group, not as a Party, and one of the two members elected under its auspices at the General Election of 1900 ran as a Liberal. In 1903 it transformed itself into a Party, and then began the somewhat strange anomaly that the Fabian Society as a whole was affiliated to the Labour Party, whilst some of its members were Liberal Members of Parliament. It is true that the Trade Unions affiliated to the party were in the same position: their members also were sometimes official Liberals and even Liberal M.P.'s. The Labour Party itself never complained of the anomaly in the position of the Society or questioned its collective loyalty. And the Liberals in our Society never took any action hostile to the Labour Party, or indeed, so far as I know, supported any of the proposals occasionally made that we should disaffiliate from it. These proposals always came from "Fabian reformers," the younger men who wanted to create a revolution in the Society. And so little was their policy matured that in several cases the same member first tried to get the Society to expel all members who worked with any party other than the Labour Party, and a short time later moved that the Society should leave the Labour Party altogether. Or perhaps it was the other way round. Logical consistency is usually incompatible with political success: compromise runs smooth, whilst principle jams. But the lesser sort of critic, on the look out for a grievance, can always apply a principle to a compromise, point out that it does not fit, and that difficulties may arise. In the case in question they have in fact rarely arisen, and such as have occurred have been easily surmounted. It is not necessary to record here all the proposals put forward from time to time that the Society should disaffiliate from the Labour Party, or on the other hand, that it should expel, directly or indirectly, all members who did not confine their political activities to co-operating with the Labour Party. It may be assumed that one or other of these proposals was made every few years after the Labour Party was constituted, and that in every case it was defeated, as a rule, by a substantial majority.

The Labour Party won three remarkable victories in the period between the General Election of 1900 and that of 1906. In 1902 Mr. David Shackleton was returned unopposed for a Liberal seat, the Clitheroe Division of Lancashire; in 1903 Mr. (now the Right Hon.) Will Crooks, an old member of our Society, captured Woolwich from the Conservatives by a majority of 3229, amidst a scene of enthusiasm which none who were present will ever forget: and five months later Mr. (now the Right Hon.) Arthur Henderson, who later became a member of our Society, beat both Liberal and Tory opponents at the Barnard Castle Division of Durham.

When the election campaign of 1906 began the Labour Party put fifty candidates into the field and succeeded in carrying no fewer than twenty-nine of them, whilst another joined the party after his election. Four of these were members of the Fabian Society, and in addition three Fabians were successful as Liberals, including Percy Alden, then a member of our Executive Committee.

Whilst the election was in progress Mr. H.G. Wells began the Fabian reform movement which is described in the next chapter. At that time he did not bring the Labour Party into his scheme of reconstruction, but some of the members of his Committee were then ardent adherents of that party, and they persuaded his Committee to report in favour of the Society's choosing "in harmonious co-operation with other Socialist and Labour bodies, Parliamentary Candidates of its own. Constituencies for such candidates should be selected, a special election fund raised and election campaigns organised."

The result was that a resolution proposed by the Executive Committee was carried early in March, 1907, directing the appointment of a Committee to report on "the best means of promoting local Socialist societies of the Fabian type with the object of increasing Socialist representation in Parliament as a party co-operating as far as possible with the Labour Party whilst remaining independent of that and of all other Parties."

This, it will be observed, is a different proposition, and one which resulted in a lot of talk and nothing else. Bernard Shaw had the idea that there might be county constituencies in the South of England, where independent middle-class Socialists could win when Labour candidates had no chance. No such constituency has ever been discovered and the Fabian scheme has never even begun to be realised.

In January, 1908, the Committee's Report was considered and adopted, the important item being the decision to send a circular to every member inviting promises to an election fund of at least £5,000, contributions to be spread over five years. This ultimately resulted in promises amounting to £2637—a much larger sum than the Society had ever had at its command—and with this substantial fund in prospect the Society was in a position to begin the business of electioneering.

A favourable opportunity soon presented itself. A vacancy at the little town of Taunton was not to be fought by the Liberals, while the Conservative candidate, the Hon. W. (now Viscount) Peel, was a London County Councillor, bitterly opposed even to the mild collectivism of the London Progressives, Frank Smith, a member both of the Society and the London County Council, was willing to fight, the Labour Party Executive cordially approved, and the members promptly paid up the first instalment of their promises. The election cost £316, of which the Society paid £275, and although our candidate was beaten by 1976 votes to 1085, the result was not contrary to our anticipations.

During 1909 the Executive Committee resolved to run two candidates, both already nominated by the I.L.P., who willingly transferred to us the responsibility for their election expenses. W. Stephen Sanders had been third on the poll out of six candidates who fought in 1906 for the two seats at Portsmouth, and as he had polled 8172 votes, more than either Conservative, it was reasonably hoped that the Liberals would leave one of the seats to him. Harry Snell at Huddersfield was opposing both parties, but had a fair chance of winning. At the General Election of January, 1910, neither of these candidates was successful, Sanders, opposed by Lord Charles Beresford with an irresistible shipbuilding programme, only obtaining 3529 votes, whilst at Huddersfield Snell was second on the poll, but 1472 behind the Liberal. Elsewhere, however, the members of the Society did well, no less than eight securing seats, four for the Labour Party and four as Liberals.