The year 1911 saw the formation of the Joint Standing Committee with the I.L.P., and this is a convenient place to describe the series of attempts at Socialist Unity which began a long way back in the history of the Society. For the first eight years or so of the Socialist movement the problem of unity did not arise. Until the publication of "Fabian Essays" the Fabian Society was small, and the S.D.F., firm in its Marxian faith, and confident that the only way of salvation was its particular way, had no more idea of uniting with the other societies than the Roman Catholic Church has of union with Lutherans or Methodists. The Socialist League was the outcome of an internal dispute, and, if my memory is correct, the S.D.F. expected, not without reason, that the seceders would ultimately return to the fold. The League ceased to count when at the end of 1890 William Morris left it and reconstituted as the Hammersmith Socialist Society the branch which met in the little hall constructed out of the stable attached to Kelmscott House.
In January, 1893, seven delegates from this Society held a conference with Fabian delegates, and at a second meeting at which S.D.F. delegates were present a scheme for promoting unity was approved. A Joint Committee of five from each body assembled on February 23rd, when William Morris was appointed Chairman, with Sydney Olivier as Treasurer, and it was decided that the Chairman with H.M. Hyndman and Bernard Shaw should draft a Joint Manifesto. The "Manifesto of English Socialists," published on May 1st, 1893, as a penny pamphlet with the customary red cover, was signed by the three Secretaries, H.W. Lee of the S.D.F., Emery Walker of the H.S.S., and myself, and by fifteen delegates, including Sydney Olivier and Sidney Webb of the F.S., Harry Quelch of the S.D.F., and the three authors.
Like most joint productions of clever men, it is by no means an inspiring document. The less said, the less to dispute about, and so it only runs to eight pages of large print, four devoted to the evils of capitalism, unemployment, the decline of agriculture, and the ill-nurture of children, and the rest to remedies, a queer list, consisting of:—
An eight hours law.
Prohibition of child labour for wages.
Free Maintenance for all necessitous children (a compromise in which Fabian influence may be traced by the insertion of the word "necessitous").
Equal payment of men and women for equal work.
(A principle which, whether good or bad, belongs rather to individualism than to Socialism: Socialism according to Bernard Shaw—and most of us agree with him—demands as an ideal equal maintenance irrespective of work; and in the meantime payment according to need, each to receive that share of the national product which he requires in order to do his work and maintain his dependents, if any, appropriately.)
To resume the programme:—