Educate, Agitate, Organize Library Editions: Political Science Volume 59

One Hundred Years of Fabian Socialism

Patricia Pugh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135025373
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This volume describes the way in which the Fabian Society works, the distinctive contributions of individuals to that work, the structure they have built and the methods they have evolved to facilitate their labours. Some Fabians are dedicated to shaping economic and social policies, speaking or writing about them and devising the political strategy by which they may be put into practice. The author consulted original material which was available for the first time which has augmented former descriptions of the society and placed incidents in a new setting.

1

Foundation and Basis

‘We had with considerable courage set out to reconstruct society, and we frankly confessed that we did not know how to do it.’

Edward Pease, in his History of the Fabian Society, thus described the intentions and feelings of its founders in 1884.¹

Today, perhaps more easily than at other times, we can understand why the Fabian Society began as and when it did why the group of young men and women who met in Edward Pease’s lodgings in Osnaburgh Street in London felt the need to create an organization to help reconstruct society on more morally acceptable lines. The climate of opinion in Britain during the 1960s and 1970s was very similar to theirs, with young people becoming politically aware, dissatisfied with materialist attitudes, suspecting the inventions of their expanding world were not being used for the benefit of the many but for the enrichment of the few. Then, as now, groups of young people dropped out to form communities in which they tried to turn back to nature and live on the products of their own manual labour. They pooled their resources and educated their children themselves. Then, as now, such communes constantly came to grief, lost members and were revived by the few who remained. Then, as now, the young sought spiritual leaders: in the 1870s some chose William Morries; the more politically austere chose Karl Marx; others followed the teaching of Henry George and believed that a single land-tax was the panacea for all social ills; still others were attracted by the views of Thomas Davidson, who returned from America to preach that a man must first reform himself before he tried to reconstruct the world he lived in. The Tractarian Movement, or Oxford Movement, had been based on a related idea within the context of the established Church; few of the young of the 1880s were satisfied by liturgical reforms, though some took part in its work for the poor in the London slums. On the whole, the Oxford Movement was felt to belong to the older generation. Darwin’s theory of evolution had undermined paternalism and encouraged the idea that people had a right to expect continual improvement. Comte’s organic interpretation of society supplemented this view. Man had only to give evolution a nudge in the social, economic and political spheres for the lot of all to be radically improved. Progress was the mantra of the time. The Fabian Society was founded in order to discover not only the answers to the moral questions raise by this revolution in thought but also practical solutions to the economic and social evils of the day.

The story has been told many times, with a little added in each telling, of how the young stockbroker, Edward Pease, invited some friends to meet in his rooms to discuss Davidson’s ideas after hearing him lecture on his philosophy. They decided to create a Fellowship of the New Life to help them reshape their own lives and become a more valuable part of society. Pease, discontented with his work in the City, was already a dedicated joiner – or founder – of associations. At the very first meeting on 23 October were Pease’s cousins, Emily and Isabella Ford, and their close friend Frank Podmore with whom he had founded the society for Psychical Research.²

Pease, though not entirely convinced by its manifesto, Socialism Made Plain, had already joined the Democratic Federation as well as the Progressive Association which advocated moral awakening as the foundation for social and political reform. He therefore invited the three Federation leaders, Henry Champion, J.L. Joynes and R.P.B. Frost to meet his Progressive friends, Podmore and Percival Chubb and discuss the New Life proposals.³ Chubb brought along his cronies, Maurice Adams and Percival Pullen and the Ford girls introduced a small family group consisting of an architect called Robins, his wife and daughter, together with a widow, Mrs Hinton, and a Miss Hadden. Fascinated by Davidson’s ideas about free development of human faculties and education of children in a caring environment, they dreamed of a Utopian community.

A part from wanting to get to know each often better, the participant had not to read Davidson’s paper on the New Life and consider a constitution for a fellowship. A tentative conclusion was reached that, they would like to live in a community, but it would have to be urban, in which each would follow his or her own vocation but their combined efforts would be directed towards providing a worthy education for the young and self-sufficiency. Although they were not aware of it, this project was essentially introspective. From the minutes it is not clear whether they sought to learn form the mistakes of others when they decided to ask Dale Owen, the daughter of Robert Owen, to address their next meeting on his experiments at New Harmony in America.

A fortnight later some of them met again, joined by the journalist Hubert Bland and Havelock Ellis, neither of whom had been able to accept the former invitation. In spite of objections to this formality, a draft constitution was presented, already much discussed and revised. Each clause whas again dissected and discussed at such length that no vote was reached, but all agreed: ‘That an association be formed whose ultimate aim should be the reconstruction of Society in accordance with the highest moral possibilities’.⁴

Obviously, no constitution could be drawn up by seventeen people, some of them nominally anarchists, all wanting their views incorporated in full. A group of five were detailed to redraft the second constitution defining the Fellowship’s attitude towards a competitive’ economy, but all that could be agreed was that the Fellowship should recognize that the competitive system was not working and that society must be reconstructed morally. They decided a collection should be taken at their fortnightly meetings in lieu of any fixed subscription and the subject for discussion at the next announced. It was all very nebulous, but by the third meeting their numbers had doubled and thirty people crowded into Pease’s rooms. The dichotomy between the practical men and the unworldly searchers for a new way of life now became evident. One side regarded the statement:

The members of the Society assert that the Competitive System assures the happiness and comfort of the few at the expense of the many, and that Society must be reconstructed in such a manner as to secure the general welfare and happiness

as too materialistic. Their beliefs led to even more discussion and to the proposal that:

The Society consist of those alone who are willing to devote themselves to the best of their abilities to the amelioration of the condition of Man, and who will work together for mutual benefit and help towards the eradication of selfishness and the introduction of the New Life.

Another section of the group was looking for more practical ways to set about reshaping society and put their ideals and aspirations to work. They agreed that the spirit of brotherly love, justice and equality was needed, but short of reviving the French Revolution, they also wanted something to do, not just feel and think. Yet another committee was delegated to settle this point.

It met at the house of Dr Burns-Gibson, then leader of the more spiritual section. He declared that his group would not join the Fellowhip if his own amendments to the disputed statement were not accepted. They tried to draft another resolution but when this and the resulting amendments were put to the meeting on 6 December such all that could be decided was to reconsider the whole question at the next meeting. Most rejected the doctor’s resolution because it expressed such idealistic and abstract aims that many generations could pass before society would be regenerated by living the simple life. It seemed as though the new movement might never be formed.

However, the new year brought new resolutions, this time framed by Frank Podmore and circulated before the meeting on Friday 4 January 1884, so that all could come with ideas clear and proposals well considered. Podmore suggested that they call themselves the Fabian Society after Quintus Fabius Cuncatator

a Roman general of the third century BC who, he alleged, adopted the strategy in the war against Hannibal of undermining the enemy by mobile guerilla skirmishes, denying them the opportunity for a pitched battle and delaying full-scale confrontation long after his colleagues would have plunged into the fray, all in order to select the most effective moment for launching his own, fully prepared attack.

After admitting that they could only hope to ‘help on’ the reconstruction of society, they were at last able to determine their first practical steps. Under Podmore’s proposals, meetings for discussion and reading of papers were to be held, but Fabians were also to become deeply involved in the society they so greatly deplored, not merely indulge in pleasant cultural activity and mutual moral improvement. He proposed not just to set an example but to investigate those conditions which so repelled them and publish the results and conclusions. By ten votes to four the spiritually inclined were defeated and a pattern was set for the work of the Fabian Society which has continued, with timely modifications and expansions, for a hundred years. The new Society agreed that, as well as preparing and discussing papers, members should report to meetings what they had learned of social conditions. Some would then be delegated to attend meetings where those matters were being discussed, not only to learn and report back but also to disseminate Fabian views. Information on social needs and developments could be culled from newspapers and current literature to supplement their direct investigations. Those who balked at this down-to-earth design withdrew to form their own Fellowship of the New Life. Some, like Chubb, became members of both societies for a while. The practical men remained and appointed Hubert Bland, Frank Keddell and Frank Pod- more as an executive committee for the first three months. After a collection was taken the Society was launched on 13/9d.

Fabians expected political measures and economic reforms to bring about their desired social reconstruction. Some went to a lecture by Henry George on land reforms, some to a conference of the Democratic Federation. At a members’ meeting on 25 January 1884 they reported back on them and listened to J. Glade Stapleton’s review of social conditions and means of reconstruction and development. In February, Podmore explained Fabian aims more fully and the Reverend W.A. Macdonald those of the Democratic Federation. After a hot debate the audience agreed with Bland that though the Federation seemed to be doing a good job, some phrases and statements in its literature were not at all acceptable. Obviously they would have to produce their own pamphlets and the infant Society acquired a committee to organize publication ‘whenever occasion might arise’. Immediately it received a diatribe from the Society’s sole working-class member, W.L. Phillips, a house-painter. It was unsuitable for publication so the whole Society worked over it sentence by sentence until it was fit to print as the first Fabian penny tract, Why Are the Many Poor?, of which 3000 copies were printed. Three were sent to each member for distribution, the rest sold like religious tracts. Meanwhile members were seeking out other groups and organisations interested in the same problems, wherever their professional concerns might take them. The pattern was established: observe, collect facts, discuss and publish.

People attracted by the Society wanted to know exactly what it stood for before joining. A printed card stating the Basis upon which they proposed to act was handed to all prospective members. Election to the Society entailed signed acceptance of the Basis. Since friends of Fabians in the provinces and overseas quickly became interested they agreed to allow persons known to existing members to become corresponding members if duly nominated and seconded. The first two elected thus were Dr David de Jong of Cologne and Norah Robertson who lived in Vienna. Strict rules of procedure at meetings were drawn up.

Before the year was out Tract No. 1 had to be reprinted. The publication committee, on which sat Edith Nesbit, the novelist wife of Hubert Bland, decided to print 5000 copies of their second tract, A Manifesto, by George Bernard Shaw. Supplies disappeared fast, as they were rashly generous. When the Scottish Land and Labour League asked for tracts to distribute at a rally it was sent 500 of each. But this was good publicity.

At most memberss’ meetings papers were read which either tentatively examined the ways in which socialism could be introduced into Britain or reviewed current financial and economic theories. Already the Fabians had convinced themselves that they were socialists, although very few of them had read any socialist literature and fewer had any knowledge of economics. Rowland Estcourt must have bored everyone with two papers containing a mass of figures delivered at successive meetings, but no-one would admit it. Bernard Shaw made his first appearance at the second of these meetings and so was in no position to show the speaker the error of his ways. This kind of Utopianism made its last appearance when Shaw mischievously introduced a Fifth Monarchy man into a meeting in summer 1886, by which time they had alredy abandoned all ideas of a commune in Chile or the Argentine.⁵ Fabians were confident enough of having something worth revealing to the world that Bland’s proposal to launch a series of autumn lectures in 1884 was enthusiastically adopted and volunteers to speak were many.

Shaw’s imprint on the Society fast showed itself in the second Tract which was imbued with his characteristic sentence rhythm and balance. The Society was indeed fortunate in attracting an active member who could epigramatically declare that: ‘under existing circumstances, wealth cannot be enjoyed without dishonour, or foregone without misery’, and that the state had been divided into hostile classes ‘with large appetites and no dinners at one extreme, and large dinners and no appetites at the other’.

Even so, the society did not really know where it was going. Fabians were doing no more, in the first year, than look around, strike a few attitudes and declare half assimilated aspirations and intentions. Outsides became intrusted when they advocated nationlization of land as a means of guataling everyone an equal share in the wealth of the nation, for land then was synonymous with wealth, when they proposed state intervention in industry on a competitive but non-profit-making basis, direct taxation, provision of a liberal education for all, equal political rights for both sexes and the abolition of hereditary honours, and when they stated that they would rather face a civil war than another century of suffering such as that of the industrial revolution.⁶ The suffering of industial workers was the root of the Society’s foundation. But the Society might have disintigated if, in its second year, some members had not begun investigating the causes and effects of the pervading social misery.

Few of them were qualified for such work. They numbered no economists nor even practising politicians. The nearest they came to scientific observation of social problems was journalism, for several of them were struggling writers. Sidney Webb was still studying for an external law degree while working as a residential clerk at the Colonial Office. He had not even met Beatrice Potter, his future wife and collaborator. She, at least, had embarked on a study of social conditions, observing different social strata while doing voluntary work with the Charity Organization in Soho and staying incognito with distant members of her family engaged in the weaving trade in Bacup. Webb, however, knew Shaw, both being members of the Zetetical, Society, a junior branch of the Dialectical Society. There they could discourse on political and economic theories, illustrating their points with what they knew of the social scene from precarious nositious in the lower middle classes. Shaw had become a journalist and unsuccessful novelist after several years in humble, clerkly positions. Hubert Bland, who induced Shaw to join the Society, was also a journalist, relying on Shaw’s introductions for contacts in the newspaper world.⁷ Bland, had spent his childhood in more comfortable circumstances, the son of a self-made shipping merchant, but after losing his money through the defection of a business partner he experienced the same insecurity. For long periods his wife kept the family by writing children’s books and by the genteel drudgery open to impecunious ladies. For these spinners of words socialist had to be approached through pamphlets and lectures, not revolutionary action. They all enjoyed converting others, but initially their socialism was a feeling, not a reasoned doctrine. In the words of Shaw they were ‘communicative learners’.⁸

Marx died the year before the Fabian Society was founded. Towards the end of its first year the Executive Committee decided to learn someting of his philosophy. An opportunity arose with the election of Mrs Charlotte Wilson, and ardent anarchist, to the Executive. She explained to the Fabians what anarchism meant to her and persuaded her friends to read together and analyse Marx’s Capital, then available only in French or German. Years later, Shaw recounted vivid memories of her readng it aloud and the vigorous disputes that followed. Within weeks of her arrival Bland, in a paper on revolutionary prospects, maintained that revolution on the French pattern was improbable in Britain.

Members were getting to know each other but they realized they were still unsure of the facts underlying their arguments. There was no ready source of reference for those w ho w ished to prove the need for reconstruction. Accordingly, Charlotte Wilson, who had time on her hands as the wife of the affluent stockbroker Rowland Estcourt, and a Miss Edwards were asked to study the working of the Poor Law. The pamphlet was never finished, but their labour was not wasted. Their material was used by an Executive subcommitte which produced a report, The Government Organisation of Unemployed Labour, in June 1886.⁹ The first committee had lacked Webb’s fantastic ability to suck the essence of a goverment paper and present facts and figures as matters for quick reference and easy digestion; Webb had only been elected to the Society two months after the original work began. It was at the next meeting after the report was commissioned that he was invited to read ‘The way out’, his first paper to a members’ meeting. The Fabians instantly decided they wanted to hear mo...