“Mr Webb, like most Fabian Socialists, is cultured, persuasive, smooth-spoken. In the gentlest words possible he has pronounced the failure of trade unionism. We can be grateful to him for his exposure of its vices.”
+ − Sat R 129:412 My 1 ’20 900w
“‘The history of trade unionism’ might easily have been a very great work; even as it stands it possesses high merit; but its partisanship divests it of authority, and the reader must be continually on his guard lest he accept its statements without independent evidence of their truth.”
+ − Spec 124:621 My 8 ’20 850w Springf’d Republican p8 My 1 ’20 180w
“I cannot feel that even the Webbs have been able to achieve the same objectivity in dealing with the almost contemporary records as they did with earlier data and still it is of more value to have their original great work brought up to-date than it would be to obtain a separate narrative covering only recent industrial history.”
+ − Survey 44:313 My 29 ’20 480w The Times [London] Lit Sup p126 F 19 ’20 40w
“It remains unchallenged, after a generation not by any means barren in books on industrial affairs, as the standard work on the rise and development of trade unions. It is a pity that the greater part of the section given to the railway trade unions in the new edition should be too biased to be historical.”
+ − The Times [London] Lit Sup p206 Ap 1 ’20 600w
“A vital change is to be noted in his viewpoint. A quarter of a century ago he wrote primarily as a scholar, though from a frankly avowed moderate socialist standpoint. Now he writes, equally frankly, as an avowed political partisan, as a statesman of the Labor party. Despite all this Mr Webb’s analysis of the present labor and political conditions in Great Britain is invaluable. It is not difficult, after his bias is once known, to allow for his prejudices.” W: E. Walling
+ − Yale R n s 10:220 O ’20 800w