The History of the Fabian Society

by Edward R. Pease

In 1912 Clifford Allen of Cambridge formed the University Socialist Federation, which was in fact a Federation of Fabian Societies though not nominally confined to them. Mr. Allen, an eloquent speaker and admirable organiser, with most of the virtues and some of the defects of the successful propagandist, planned the foundations of the Federation on broad lines. It started a sumptuous quarterly, "The University Socialist," the contents of which by no means equalled the excellence of the print and paper. It did not survive the second number. The Federation has held several conferences, mostly at Barrow House—of which later—and issued various documents. Its object is to encourage University Socialism and to found organisations in every University. It still exists, but whether it will survive the period of depression which has coincided with the war remains to be seen.

Lastly, amongst the organs of Fabian activity come the London Groups. In the years of rapid growth that followed the publication of "Fabian Essays" the London Groups maintained a fairly genuine existence. London was teeming with political lectures, and in the decade 1889-1899 its Government was revolutionised by the County Councils Act of 1888, the Local Government Act of 1894, and the London Government Act of 1899 which established the Metropolitan Boroughs. Socialism, too, was a novelty, and the few who knew about it were in request.

Anyway even with the small membership of those days, the London Groups managed to persist, and "Fabian News" is full of reports of conferences of Group Secretaries and accounts of Group activities. In the trough of depression between the South African War and the Liberal victory of 1906 all this disappeared and the Group system scarcely existed even on paper.

With the expansion which began in 1906 the Groups revived. New members were hungry for lectures: many of them desired more opportunities to talk than the Society meetings afforded. All believed in or hoped for Mr. Wells' myriad membership. He himself was glad to address drawing-room meetings, and the other leaders did the same. Moreover the Society was conducting a series of "Suburban Lectures" by paid lecturers, in more or less middle-class residential areas of the Home Counties. Lectures to the Leisured Classes, a polite term for the idle rich, were arranged with considerable success in the West End, and other lectures, meetings, and social gatherings were incessant.

For co-ordinating these various bodies the Fabian Society has created its own form of organisation fitted to its peculiar circumstances, and more like that of the British Empire than anything else known to me. As is the United Kingdom in the British Empire, so in the Fabian movement the parent Society is larger, richer, and more powerful, and in all respects more important than all the others put together. Any form of federal organisation is impossible, because federation assumes some approach to equality amongst constituents. Our local societies, like the British self-governing Dominions, are practically independent, especially in the very important department of finance. The Groups, on the other hand, are like County Councils, local organisations within special areas for particular purposes, with their own finances for those purposes only. But the parent Society is not made up of Groups, any more than the British Government is composed of County Councils. The local Groups consist of members of the Society qualified for the group by residence in the group area; the "Subject Groups" of those associated for some particular purpose.

The problem of the Society (as it is of the Empire) was to give the local societies and the groups some real function which should emphasise and sustain the solidarity of the whole; and at the same time leave unimpaired the control of the parent Society over its own affairs.

The Second Annual Conference of Fabian Societies and Groups was held on July 6th, 1907, under the chairmanship of Hubert Bland, who opened the proceedings with an account of the first Conference held in 1892 and described in an earlier chapter. Fifteen delegates from 9 local and University Societies, 16 from 8 London Groups, 8 from Subject Groups, and 9 members of the Executive Committee were present. The business consisted of the sanction of rules for the Pan-Fabian Organisation.

The Conference of 1908 was a much bigger affair. A dozen members of the Executive, including Mr. H.G. Wells and (as he then was) Mr. L.G. Chiozza Money. M.P., and 61 delegates representing 36 Groups and Societies met for a whole-day conference at University Hall, Gordon Square. Miss Murby was chairman, and addressed the delegates on the importance of tolerance, an apposite subject in view of the discussion to follow on the proposed parliamentary action, especially the delicate issue between co-operation with the Labour Party and the promotion of a purely Socialist party. A resolution favouring exclusive support of independent Socialist candidatures moved by Mr. J.A. Allan of Glasgow received only 10 votes, but another advocating preference for such candidates was only defeated by 26 to 21. The resolution adopted left the question to be settled in each case by the constituency concerned. Another resolution directed towards condemnation of members who worked with the Liberal or Tory Party failed by 3 votes only, 17 to 20. In the afternoon Mr. Money gave an address on the Sources of Socialist Revenue, and a number of administrative matters were discussed.

The 1909 Conference was attended by 29 delegates of local and University Societies, and by 46 delegates from London Groups and from the parent Society. On this occasion a Constitution was adopted giving the Conference a regular status, the chief provisions of which required the submission to the Conference of any alteration of the Basis, and "any union affiliation or formal alliance with any other society or with any political party whereby the freedom of action of any society ... is in any way limited ... "; and of any change in the constitution itself. These are all matters which concern the local organisations, as they are required to adopt the Basis, or some approved equivalent, and are affiliated to the Labour Party through the parent Society. No contentious topic was on this occasion seriously discussed.

The Conference of 1910 was smaller, sixty-one delegates in all. Resolutions against promoting parliamentary candidatures and favouring the by this time vanishing project for an independent Socialist party obtained but little support, and the chief controversy was over an abstract resolution on the "economic independence of women," which was in the end settled by a compromise drafted by Sidney Webb.