Part 11 (1/2)

the last named an extraordinarily farsighted antic.i.p.ation of the chief reforms which were advocated with such vigour by the Liberal Party, and indeed by all parties in the years preceding the great war. In the same year his ”State Control of Trusts” was published as Tract 124. As I have before explained, a great part of the published work of the Society has been prepared co-operatively, and in this process Mr. Macrosty always took an active part. He had a considerable share in drafting the innumerable doc.u.ments issued in connection with the education controversy, and indeed partic.i.p.ated in all the activities of the Executive until his retirement.

Scarcely less active was Joseph F. Oakeshott, who has been already mentioned in connection with the Fellows.h.i.+p of the New Life. He joined the Executive when it was first enlarged in 1890, and sat until 1902. A Somerset House official, like Macrosty, he was strong on statistics, and for many years he undertook the constant revisions of the figures of national income, in the various editions of our ”Facts for Socialists,”

His ”Democratic Budget” (Tract 39) was our first attempt to apply Socialism to taxation: and his ”Humanising of the Poor Law” (Tract 54), published in 1894, set out the policy which in recent years has been widely adopted by the better Boards of Guardians.

John W. Martin sat on the Executive from 1894 to 1899, wrote Tract No.

52, ”State Education at Home and Abroad” (1894), and did a lot of valuable lecturing, both here and in America, where he married the leading exponent of Fabianism and editor of a monthly called ”The American Fabian,” and, settling in New York, has since, under the name of John Martin, played a considerable part in the educational and progressive politics of his adopted city.

I will conclude this chapter with a short account of some of the applications of Socialism to particular problems which were studied by the Society in or about this period of its history.

In 1897 and 1898 a good deal of time was devoted to working out a scheme for the munic.i.p.alisation of the Drink Trade. This was before the publication of ”The Temperance Problem and Social Reform,” by Joseph Rowntree and Arthur Sherwell, in 1899, a volume which was the first to treat the subject scientifically on a large scale. I took the lead on the question, and finally two tracts were published in 1898, ”Liquor Licensing at Home and Abroad” (No. 85), giving a sketch of the facts, and ”Munic.i.p.al Drink Traffic” (No. 86), which set out a scheme drafted by me, but substantially modified as the result of discussions by the Executive Committee and by meetings of members. This is one of the few causes taken up by the Society which has made but little progress in popular favour in the seventeen years that have elapsed since we adopted it.

Old Age Pensions, proposed in 1890 by Sidney Webb in Tract 17, ”Reform of the Poor Law,” was definitely advocated in Tract No. 73, ”The Case for State Pensions in Old Age,” written in 1896 by George Turner, one of the cleverest of the younger members. The Society did not make itself responsible for the scheme he proposed, universal pensions for all, and the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908 adopted another plan.

In 1899 and 1900 we devoted much time to the working out of further schemes of munic.i.p.alisation in the form of a series of leaflets, Nos. 90 to 97. We applied the principle to Milk, p.a.w.nshops, Slaughterhouses, Bakeries, Fire Insurance, and Steamboats. These were written by various members, and are all careful little studies of the subject, but they were not issued in a convenient form, and none of the schemes advocated has yet been generally carried out.

The Tariff Reform agitation could not pa.s.s unnoticed, and for a time Bernard Shaw showed a certain inclination to toy with it. A tract advocating Free Trade was actually set up, but got no further. Finally Shaw drafted ”Fabianism and the Fiscal Question An Alternative Policy”

(Tract 116), which we adopted with practical unanimity, though it was the occasion of the resignation of Graham Wallas.

It was perhaps the least successful of the many p.r.o.nouncements written by Bernard Shaw on behalf of the Society. A subtle and argumentative criticism of Mr. Chamberlain's policy on one side and of the Free Trade rejoinder on the other is neither simple nor decisive enough for the general reader: and the alternatives advocated--reorganisation of the consular service in the interests of export trade, free ocean transit for the purpose of consolidating the Empire and nationalisation of railways as a necessary corollary together with improved technical education--were too futurist, and appealed directly to too small and conservative a cla.s.s, to attract much attention in the heat of a vital controversy. The writer had no antic.i.p.ation of the triumph of Liberalism, then so near, and Evidently expected that Mr. Chamberlain would carry the country for his policy. The tract was also issued in a s.h.i.+lling edition on superior paper with a preface by the author, and it is the only one of his publications which has failed to sell freely.

At this period we had a number of Committees appointed to investigate various problems, and one of them, which had for its reference the Birth-rate and Infant Mortality, produced a report of more that temporary significance. When the Society was formed the Malthusian hypothesis held the field unchallenged and the stock argument against Socialism was that it would lead to universal misery by removing the beneficent checks on the growth of population, imposed by starvation and disease upon the lowest stratum of society. Since the year 1876 the birth-rate had declined, and gradually the fear of over-population, which had saddened the lives of such men as John Stuart Mill, began to give way to the much less terrifying but still substantial fear of under-population, caused either by race degeneracy or race suicide. At that period the former of the two was the accepted explanation, and only by vague hints did scientific statisticians indicate that there might be or perhaps must be something else than ”natural” causes for the decline.

To the Society it seemed an all-important question. Was our race to perish by sterility, and if so, was sterility due to wealth and luxury or to poverty and disease? Or was the cause of the decline a voluntary limitation of families? We determined, as a first step, to form some sort of statistical estimate of the extent of voluntary restriction. We thought, and, as the event proved, thought rightly, that our members would be willing to a.s.sist us in this delicate enquiry. They were a sample of the population, selected in a manner which bore no sort of relation to the question at issue, and if we could get returns from them indicating their personal practice in the matter, we might have some clue to the facts. It turned out that the result was far more startling and far more conclusive than we suspected.

In November, 1905, carefully drafted enquiry forms were sent out to all members of the Society except unmarried women, so arranged as to allow exact answers to be given to the questions without disclosure of the name or handwriting of the deponent. Of the 634 posted 460 were returned or accounted for, and only two members signified objection to the enquiry. After deduction of bachelors and others not relevant, we obtained particulars of 316 marriages. I prepared an elaborate statistical report, which showed that in the period 1890-1899 out of 120 marriages only 6 fertile marriages were recorded in which no restriction had been adopted. This was the first and possibly is the only statistical enquiry yet made on the subject, and although the number of cases was minute in proportion to the population, the evidence afforded by that sample was sufficient to be conclusive, that at any rate a cause, and probably the chief cause, of the fall in the birth-rate was voluntary limitation of families.

The method of publication presented some difficulty, and finally it was decided, in order to secure the most generally impressive publicity, to ask Sidney Webb to collect the other available evidence and to make an article out of the whole, to be published over his name. It appeared as two special articles in ”The Times” for October 11th and 18th, 1906, and was subsequently reprinted by us as Tract 131, ”The Decline of the Birth-rate.”

Other Committees at this period discussed Agriculture, Poor Law, Local Government Areas, Public Control of Electricity, and Feeding of School Children. Reports on all these subjects were issued as tracts, some of which have been mentioned already in connection with their authors, H.W.

Macrosty and Hubert Bland, whilst others will be referred to in a future chapter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a copyright photograph by Lambert Weston and Son, Folkestone_

H.G. WELLS, IN 1908 At the door of his house at Sandgate]

FOOTNOTES:

[33] Born 1865. Clerk in the Exchequer and Audit Dept. 1884, a.s.sistant Director of the Census of Production 1908. Author of ”Trusts and the State” (1901) and ”The Trust Movement in British Industry” (1907).

Chapter IX

The Episode of Mr. Wells: 1906-8

His lecture on administrative areas--”Faults of the Fabian”--The Enquiry Committee--The Report, and the Reply--The real issue, Wells v. Shaw--The women intervene--The Basis altered--The new Executive--Mr. Wells withdraws--His work for Socialism--The writing of Fabian Tracts.

The long controversy introduced by Mr. H.G. Wells attracted much public attention to the Fabian Society, added greatly to its numbers, and for a time made it more of a popular inst.i.tution than it had been before or has been since. But, in fact, its main permanent interest arises from the persons who played the leading parts. The real question at issue was one neither of Socialist theory nor of Socialist policy. In so far as these entered in, Mr. Wells preached to willing listeners, and the only difference of opinion was as to the relative stress to be laid on particular points. When the episode was over, the chief change made in Fabian policy was one which Mr. Wells did not initiate, and which as soon as it was actually adopted he virtually repudiated.[34] The substance of the controversy was whether the members desired to hand over their Society to be managed by Mr. Wells alone, or whether they preferred to retain their old leaders and only to accept Mr. Wells as one amongst the rest.

Mr. Wells became a member in February, 1903, and in March gave his first lecture to the Society on a very technical subject, ”The Question of Scientific Administrative Areas in Relation to Munic.i.p.al Undertakings,”