Meanwhile the withdrawal of some of the older had by no means satisfied the younger generation, and during the autumn of 1911 a Fabian Reform Committee was constituted, with Henry H. Slesser as Chairman, Dr. Marion Phillips as Vice-Chairman, Clifford Allen as Secretary, and fifteen other members, including Dr. Ethel Bentham, who, like Mr. Slesser, was a member of the Executive. Their programme, like that of Mr. Wells, included a number of reforms of procedure, none of them of much consequence; and a political policy, which was to insist "that if Fabians do take part in politics, they should do so only as supporters of the Labour Party."[41] The campaign of the Committee lasted a year, and as usual in such cases led to a good deal of somewhat heated controversy over matters which now appear to be very trivial. It is therefore not worth while to recount the details of the proceedings, which can be found by any enquirer in the pages of "Fabian News." Two of the leaders, Dr. Marion Phillips and Clifford Allen, were elected to the Executive at the election of 1912, and some of the administrative reforms proposed by the Committee were carried into effect. The Reformers elected to fight the battle of political policy on point of detail, until in July, 1912, the Executive Committee resolved to bring the matter to an issue, and to that end moved at a members' meeting: "That this meeting endorses the constitutional practice of the Society which accords complete toleration to its members; and whilst reaffirming its loyalty to the Labour Party, to which party alone it as a society has given support, it declines to interfere ... with the right of each member to decide on the manner in which he can best work for Socialism in accordance with his individual opportunities and circumstances." (The phrase omitted refers to the rule about expulsion of members, a safeguard which in fact has never been resorted to.) An amendment of the Reformers embodying their policy was defeated by 122 to 27 and after the holiday season the Reform Committed announced that their mission was accomplished and their organisation had been disbanded[42].
"Fabian Reform" embodied no new principle all through the history of the Society there had been a conflict between the "constitutional practice" of political toleration, and the desire of a militant minority to set up a standard of party orthodoxy, and to penalise or expel the dissenters from it.
The next storm which disturbed Fabian equanimity involved an altogether new principle, and was therefore a refreshing change to the veterans, who were growing weary of winning battles fought over the same ground. In order to explain this movement it is necessary to describe a new development in the work of the Society.
In the autumn of 1912 Mrs. Webb came to the conclusion that the work of the National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution could not be carried on indefinitely on a large scale. Reform of the Poor Law was not coming as a big scheme. It was true that the Majority Report was almost forgotten, but there appeared to be no longer any hope that the Government would take up as a whole the scheme of the Minority Report. It would come about in due time, but not as the result of an agitation. The National Committee had a monthly paper, "The Crusade," edited by Clifford Sharp, a member of the Society who came to the front at the time of the Wells agitation, had been one of the founders of the Nursery, and a member of the Executive from 1909 to 1914. In March, 1913, Bernard Shaw, H.D. Harben, and the Webbs, with a few other friends, established the "New Statesman," with Clifford Sharp as editor. This weekly review is not the organ of the Society, and is not in any formal way connected with it, but none the less it does in fact express the policy which has moulded the Society, and it has been a useful vehicle for publishing the results of Fabian Research.
Fabian Research, the other outgrowth of the Committee for the Prevention of Destitution, was organised by Mrs. Webb in the autumn of 1912. Investigation of social problems was one of the original objects of the Society and had always been a recognised part of its work. As a general rule, members had taken it up individually, but at various periods Committees had been appointed to investigate particular subjects. The important work of one of these Committees, on the Decline of the Birth-rate, has been described in an earlier chapter. Mrs. Webb's plan was to systematise research, to enlist the co-operation of social enquirers not necessarily committed to the principles of the Society, and to obtain funds for this special purpose from those who would not contribute to the political side of the Society's operations.
The "Committees of Inquiry" then formed took up two subjects, the "Control of Industry" and "Land Problems and Rural Development." The latter was organised by H.D. Harben and was carried on independently. After a large amount of information had been collected, partly in writing and partly from the oral evidence of specialists, a Report was drafted by Mr. Harben and published first as a Supplement to the "New Statesman" on August 4th, 1913, and some months later by Messrs. Constable for the Fabian Society as a half-a-crown volume entitled "The Rural Problem."
In fact there is a consensus of opinion throughout all parties on this group of questions. Socialists, Liberals, and a large section of Conservatives advocate Wages Boards for providing a statutory minimum wage for farm labourers, State aid for building of cottages and a resolute speeding up in the provision of land for small holdings. The Fabian presentment of the case did not substantially differ from that of the Land Report published a few months later under Liberal auspices, and our Report, though useful, cannot be said to have been epoch-making.
Meanwhile the Enquiry into the Control of Industry was developing on wider lines. The Research Department set up its own office and staff, and began to collect information about all the methods of control of industry at present existing as alternatives to the normal capitalist system. Co-operation in all its forms, the resistances of Trade Unionism, the effects of professional organisations, such as those of the Teachers and of the Engineers, and all varieties of State and Municipal enterprise were investigated in turn; several reports have been published as "New Statesman" Supplements, and a volume or series of volumes will in due time appear.
The problem of the Control of Industry had become important because of the rise of a new school of thought amongst Socialists, especially in France, where the rapid growth of Trade Unionism since 1884, combined with profound distrust of the group system of party politics, had led to a revival of old-fashioned anarchism in a new form. Syndicalism, which is the French word for Trade Unionism, proposes that the future State should be organised on the basis of Trade Unions; it regards a man's occupation as more vitally important to him than his place of residence, and therefore advocates representation by trades in place of localities: it lays stress on his desire, his right, to control his own working life directly through his own elected representatives of his trade: it criticises the "servile state" proposed by collectivists, wherein the workman, it is said, would be a wage-slave to officials of the State, as he is now to officials of the capitalists. Thus it proposes that the control of industry should be in the hands of the producers, and not, as at present, in the hands of consumers through capitalists catering for their custom, or through co-operative societies of consumers, or through the State acting on behalf of citizens who are consumers.