The Executive Committee transmitted the Special Committee's Report to the members of the Society accompanied by a Report of their own, drafted by Bernard Shaw and incomparably superior to the other as a piece of literature.[36]
The reply of the Executive Committee began by welcoming criticism from within the Society, of which they complained that in the past they had had too little. An opposition, they said, was a requisite of good government. They were prepared to welcome expansion, but they pointed out that the handsome offices proposed must be produced by the large income and not the income by the handsome offices. A publishing business on the scale suggested could not be undertaken by an unincorporated society; moreover, at present the Society had not sufficient income to pay its officials at the market rate, or to keep out of debt to its printer. They agreed that the Executive Committee should be enlarged, but recommended twenty-one instead of twenty-five members; and that the three proposed sub-committees be appointed, but of seven members each instead of three. The project of triumvirates they could not endorse, both for other reasons and because all the leading members of the Society refused to serve on them, while the essence of the scheme was that the triumvirs should be the most influential members of the Society. The abolition of the old-fashioned restrictions on admission to membership was approved, but not the proposal for a fixed subscription payable on an appointed date. The Executive Committee did not object to the proposed new Basis as a whole (and in fact it is on record that its adoption by the Executive was only lost by 7 votes to 6); but considered that passages were open to criticism and that the time and effort necessary for carrying through any new Basis, so worded as to unite practically the whole Society, would be better spent in other ways. A Socialist weekly would be valuable, but it would not replace "Fabian News," which was required for the internal purposes of the Society, and capable journalists like Mr. Wells himself preferred the publicity of the "Fortnightly Review" and "The Times," to the "Clarion" and the "Labour Leader." The Reply goes at great length into the difficulty of forming a Socialist Party, and into the composition and policy of the Labour Party, all admirably argued, but just a little unreal; for Bernard Shaw has never quite understood the Labour Party which he did so much to create, and at the same time he is thoroughly convinced that he sees it as it is, in the white light of his genius. Permeation is described, explained, and defended—the Special Committee had suggested rather than proposed, in scarcely more than a sentence, that the policy be abandoned—and it is announced that as long as the Executive was unchanged there would be no reversal of the political policy of the Society. Finally the Reply asserts that the time had come to attempt the formation of a middle-class Socialist Party. At the end three resolutions were set out, which the Executive submitted to the Society for discussion.
How much of personality, how little of principle there was in the great controversy is indicated by the fact that Mrs. Bernard Shaw signed the Special Committee Report, with the reservation that she also completely agreed with the Reply. Mr. Headlam also was a party to both documents: Mr. G.R.S. Taylor, alone of the three Executive members of the Special Committee, supported the Report and dissociated himself from the Reply. Of course the Executive Committee had to decide points in their Report by a majority. That majority, in the case of the proposed revision of the Basis, was, as already mentioned, one vote only. I did not concur with the view expressed about the Labour Party, a body scarcely less easy to be understood by an outsider than the Fabian Society itself: and at that time I was the only insider on the Fabian Executive.
But the real issue was a personal one. The Executive Committee at that time consisted, in addition to the three just named, of Percy Alden (Liberal M.P. for Tottenham), Hubert Bland, Cecil E. Chesterton, Dr. F. Lawson Dodd, F.W. Galton, S.G. Hobson, H.W. Macrosty, W. Stephen Sanders, Bernard Shaw, George Standring, Sidney Webb and myself. Mr. Alden was too busy with his new parliamentary duties to take much part in the affair. All the rest, except of course Mr. Taylor, stood together on the real issue—Was the Society to be controlled by those who had made it or was it to be handed over to Mr. Wells? We knew by this time that he was a masterful person, very fond of his own way, very uncertain what that way was, and quite unaware whither it necessarily led. In any position except that of leader Mr. Wells was invaluable, as long as he kept it! As leader we felt he would be impossible, and if he had won the fight he would have justly claimed a mandate to manage the Society on the lines he had laid down. As Bernard Shaw led for the Executive, the controversy was really narrowed into Wells versus Shaw.
The Report was sent to the members with "Fabian News" for December, 1906, and it was the occasion of much excitement. The Society had grown enormously during the year. The names of no less than ninety applicants for membership are printed in that month's issue alone. In March, 1907, the membership was 1267, an increase of nearly 500 in two years.
The discussion was carried on at a series of meetings held at Essex Hall, Strand, under the chairmanship of Mr. H. Bond Holding, on December 7th and 14th, 1906, and January 11th and 18th, February 1st and March 8th, and also at the Annual Meeting for 1905-6, held on February 22nd, 1907. The series was interrupted for the London County Council Election on March 2nd, in which many of the members were concerned.
With a view to a "Second Reading" debate the executive Committee had put down a general resolution that their report be received, but Mr. Wells did not fall in with this plan, and the resolution on the motion of Bernard Shaw was adopted without discussion. On the first clause of the next resolution, instructing the Executive to submit amendments to the Rules for increasing their number to twenty-five, Mr. Wells, acting for himself, moved an amendment "approving the spirit of the report of the Committee of Enquiry, and desiring the outgoing Executive to make the earliest possible arrangements for the election of a new Executive to give effect to that report." His speech, which occupied an hour and a quarter and covered the whole field, would have been great if Mr. Wells had been a good speaker. Written out from notes, it was printed in full by himself for circulation amongst the members, and it is vigorous, picturesque entertaining, and imaginative, as his work always is. But it delivered him into the hands of his more experienced opponents by virtually challenging the society to discard them and enter on a regenerated career under his guidance. It was a heroic issue to force; and it was perhaps the real one; but it could have only one result. The discussion was adjourned to the 14th, and at 9 o'clock on that evening Bernard Shaw replied on the whole debate. His main proposition was that, as the amendment had been converted by Mr. Wells' printed and circulated speech into a motion of want of confidence, the leaders of the Society must and would retire if it were adopted. They were willing to discuss every point on its merits and to abide by the decision of the Society, but they would not accept a general approval of the Committee's Report as against their own when it implied an accusation of misconduct. In the course of the speech Mr. Wells pledged himself not to retire from the Society if he was defeated; and at the end of it he consented to withdraw his amendment. Bernard Shaw's speech, probably the most impressive he has ever made in the Society, was delivered to a large and keenly appreciative audience in a state of extreme excitement. A long report pacifically toned down by Shaw himself, appears in "Fabian News" (January, 1907). It succeeded in its object. The Executive Committee welcomed the co-operation of Mr. Wells; the last thing they desired was to drive him out of the Society, and whilst they could not accept his report as a whole, they were willing to adopt any particular item after full discussion. There is no doubt that they would have won if the amendment had gone to a division, but they were only too glad not to inflict a defeat on their opponents.
The next episode in the debate requires a few words of introduction. The Society had always been in favour of votes for women. A proposition in the Manifesto, Tract No. 2, published as early as 1884, states that "men no longer need special political privileges to protect them against women," and in all our publications relating to the franchise or local government the claims of women to equal citizenship were prominently put forward. But we had published no tract specially on the subject of the Parliamentary Vote for Women. This was not mere neglect. In 1893 a committee was appointed "to draw up a tract advocating the claims of women to all civil and political rights at present enjoyed by men," and in March, 1894, it reported that "a tract had been prepared which the Committee itself did not consider suitable for publication." Later the Committee was discharged, and in face of this fiasco nothing further was done.
Mr. Wells took a strong view on the importance of doing something in relation to women and children, though exactly what he proposed was never clear. He offered to the Society his little book on "Socialism and the Family," subsequently published by Mr. Fifield, but the Executive Committee declined it precisely because of its vagueness: they were not disposed to accept responsibility for criticisms on the existing system, unless some definite line of reform was proposed which they could ask the Society to discuss and approve, or at any rate to issue as a well-considered scheme suitable for presentation to the public.