Chapter III - The Fabian Leadership of Labour in Opposition

CHAPTER III THE FABIAN LEADERSHIP OF LABOUR IN OPPOSITION, 1922 A. SOME UNDERLYING CONSIDERATIONS The most important fact about the Government of 1922 is that it produced the election of 1923 which gave the ••. forces called " Labour" political experience and served to release the impasse in Europe. ·The event synchronized with the European dynamic in such a way as to. raise doubt that it was merely fort~itous that England had a Labour. Government.during nine months of 1924. The elected Tory' regime of 1922 was balked by Opposition which was a new thing, "Labour," and not a mere second. party in basic agre~ment but at .oddson detail; this new Party had· an ideological .core which faced the problems· of trade with post Versailles Europe from a viewpoint which.might be called " inter national." This special differ~nce between "Labour" and any other merely political party was something not easily, seen, since the Opposition was controlled. from within by the Asquith Liberals. Nevertheless'las Tories contemplated the Opposition they discerned in it two elements at work and interacting upon each other, the inteUigentsiaof the Labour Party andthe work..; ing men.

Labour elements divided in another way, too: Fabian Socialism vs Clydeside. Socialism; but this segmentation was criss-cros'sed by Fabians found on both sides wherever ILP (a Socialist society and not properly a party) extended itself. The criss-cross was the means of ILP's demise, as the sequel shows. To politicians seeing from the Tory viewpoint, and taking note of the· Asquith dilemma, it"was. becoming clear as 1923 dawned. that Fabian permeation was constructing a " Party." out of incongruous parts, something which presented. the asp~c( of a real political party at home, and .. Which would be acceptable to the Left· abroad, even as the .harbinger of such.... ti4ings as the Dawes plan, upon which Fabians, especially those whose· .heads were in the Keynesian 107 108 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 clouds of the Royal Economic Society, agreed along with the Tories.

In presenting the following picture of Labour in Opposition it is intended to point out the two extremes in the Party, Fabian Socialism and Clydeside Socialism and in between the ILP which Fabianism permeated and liquidated, first as a· political then even as a Socialist society, ~hi1e it tamed the Clydesiders who would have been what they v/ere regardless of being Socialists or of vot ing Labour. These were persons who accepted the promise if not the discipline which the rising Labour Party offered through Fabian spokesmen. They were to express their disappointment more vocally than other disappointed persons. They were not subdued in 1924, nor in 1931. A good bit of detail follows regarding differ ences in the Labour Party and is given in order to show the im pression a Tory Government received. At the end· of this period comes a mysterious episode; Baldwin precipitated an election no one wanted and one of which Labour did not care to accept the results. If the decision so to proceed came to Baldwin from the facts of the condition and ideological burden of Labour, that condition and ideological burden is indicated in the following presentation. We should see, as the Bonar Law'-Baldwin Ministry sa\v, the Fabians en1erging to articulate the Party, revise the type of men holding offices, mark out the lines of leadership of oppo sition, and reach out to discipline the ideological pursuits; while they themselves were approaching a brand of Socialism acceptable to "respectable" persons and fully "rescued from the barri cades." 1 Regardless of its "acceptability," even of its nearness to a Christian idea in some points of its philosophy, Fabians in sisted on the name of Socialism for their" spirit." 2 1 Cf. Shaw, "Postscript" in Fabian Essays, Jubilee Edition, p. 207.

2 There stood a direct rejection of the use of the terms Socialist and " social democracy" in Pope Leo's Graves d? Communi of 1901 and it was to be reiterated while describing this apparent" acceptability·" by Pius Xl's Quadragesimo Anno in 1931. Cf. Christian Democracy (New York: Paulist Press, 1941), p. 6, and On Reconstructing the Social Order (Washington, D. C.: NCWC, 1942), p. 40. When Socialism has refined its definition of itself to the point where between Socialism and Christianity there lies only the difference of the philosophic concept regarding the relation of men to society, having forsworn the class-war and the denial, of the right to own The Fabian Leadership of Labour in Opposition, 1922 109 B. MACDoNALD ACCEPTED: CLYDESIDERS PLACED UNDER TUTELAGE It is necessary to show how Fabians were constrained' to .take MacDonald for leader . We see them suggesting realignments of parties-then in coalition-and trying to get rid of the It tired"

leadership of trade unionists.. Fabian determination met its match in the Glasgow and Clydeside backers of MacDonald; but eventually Fabianism prevailed by assuming the direction of MacDonald. In the' ensuing section are noted, first, the circum stances surrounding the selection of Ramsay MacDonald as leader; second, the uneasiness which MacDonald's supporters caused Fabians; third, .the opposition within the Opposition, made up of characters quite different from typical English socialists. Some differences between Fabians and Clydesiders lay in the area of religious and economic ideals. The Clydeside socialists represented a type destined for oblivion under the sway of Fabian socialism, but the uneasines& they created was to be an important factor in the future collapse of Labour. It is as im portant to distinguish between Fabian socialism and Oydeside socialism as to distinguish between Fabianism and 'continental Christian socialism, or between Fabianism and Communism.

Fabianism insists upon its own view of It social democracy." (The word It insist" recurs in their literature.) To Inake sure all those who were designated "Labour" came under their aegis, the Fabian intellectual leadership not only had to extract the Labour Party from coalition but had to assert its predominance over the rival socialist society, ILP, which·had made Labour's history since 1893. In ·ILP were mixed many socialists who were also Fabians, and a group of working men and skilled crafts111enfrom the Beardmore works on the Clyde River in Scot land. The latter boasted of MacDonald's fellowship and insisted on his claim to leadership. First of all, seeking to differentiate the old parties, the New Statesman 8 explained the coalition's longevity with a rhetorical property, then, said the Pope, let Socialists become Christians; let not Christians become Socialists. 8 NS, 20 (October 14, 1922), 33.

110 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919.....1931 question: "Why should the panic, stricken puppets in Parliament hasten their return to political oblivion?" Editorially, the N S encouraged party differentiation: "Destroy parties and you get the profoundly irresponsible legislature we have at present." This was a, recital of political science, made only for pragmatic pur poses; it was not indicative of the actual Fabian dilemma-its inherent drive toward an Order while it sought to make a Party. The N S was not sure that an electio~ was then in the making; but it pointed out to all that the ground-swell of Labour was detect able, that "tired" Labourites should be replaced, and that its choice for leader was Henderson. The next issue 4:' noted the resignation of this H worst of all possible governments" and the inevitabi1~ty of a general election, prophesying that no political party w9uld achieve a majority. Coalition, theNS declared, had led to futility but te coalescence" would be necessary in the new Parliament. It was already foreseen that a Lab-Lib Government must, procure Clydeside cooperation. In the next Parliament Labour would be 'stronger; its defeated H intellectuals "-" a de plorable term" -would be elected. But," its rank and file will still consist ... of overworked Trade Union officials, [possessed nonetheless of] as much real ability as any other party in the house." Actually this term" intellectual" was not obnoxious to Fabians and the rating of ability of Trade Union leaders was lowered in Socialists' regard by this estimate. To be as able as any other party was not, in Fabian estimation, to be very able.

The term "overworked" applied equally to Fabians, yet their present exercise was but' preparing them to assume charge in Parliament. The leadership, according to the NS, should be accorded Mr. Arthur Henderson, the former Wesleyan Minister, now the party builder, a Fabian and internationalist. Even Lloyd George, NS recalled, had acknowledged Henderson's prestige by quoting him on reparations. The Prime 'Minister's "inimitable impudence-" in making use of Henderson's hedged words "restitution for devastation and wrong doing outside legal war fare" (italics inserted)-was cleverly used by the NS, to point up its own candidate for Party and Opposition leadership 5 while the 4: NS, 20 (October 21, 1922),61. 5 NS, 19 (June 3, 1922), 224.

The Fabian Leadership of Labour in Opposition, 1922 111 particular citation served to forecast and smooth over a difference. of opinion on reparations in Labour's ranks. Henderson and MacDonald differed openly on this point. But now Henderson failed of reelection to Parliament, so the Fabian hope to have Clynes replaced by Henderson was deferred. With congratula tions to the Party along with the reminder that the business of Opposition was opposing, the N S accepted the handsome ILP backed MacDonald, whose opponent had been the unprepossessing Mr.Clynes 6 who had headed the Party in the years of Mac Donald's eclipse as a pacifist. Forthwith NS declared the House of Commons had been " d~ad," dead for eight years. The challenging editor expected signs of life to emanate from the Labour leader ship. This was but making the best of things, for Fabians did not like MacDonald personally-even though, apart from his pacifism, he was then a Fabian in all but membership in the society. The undesirable feature for the N S editor lay in the fact that at the time McDonald's socialism was in apparent harmony with that of Glasgow; also in that the ILP attachment to him was deeply senti mental.

Anyone reading NS or Fabian News must. have received a marked impression that the Labour leadership was ill at ease, and was fighting an inner force. The pressing for a real Opposition represented, of course, the beginning of a new urgency for the reviving, of independent activity, not of Labour members of Par liament indeed, but of the Labour Party in Parliament. There was little place for the free play of individual talents. Save in the outstanding cases of Henry' Slesser , Josiah Wedgwood, and Lord Mamhead, 7 there must be no solo work; and Glasgow had a solo group. As matters had stood since 1903 the Cabinet wa$ a eNS, 20 (November 25, 1922), 221. It.is fairly certain Baldwin and Bonar Law were aware of the Labour ground-swell. It was predictable that the head of the first war coalition, Asquith, would lead his liberals in support rather of Labour than of conservative elements. One real needo£ the country was the reestablishing of a balanced and steady trade with Europe. Fabians who were closer to these above-named leaders than Clydesiders saw that MacDonald'~ was the charactermost acceptableto them. Hendersonalways had trouble getting himself elected. Politicians of both sides took into con sideration personality, appearance, and sentiment.

7 Cf. Slesser, op. cit'l 143-153.

112 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 dictatorship which obtained from the Party in Parliament ratifica tion of its actions. For Labour to form such a cabinet there was ; as yet no unaninlity as to leaders; neither ,vas there yet a Party agreed upon Socialism. Not only did the Clydesiders dissent from the Party, the leaders in the political branch dissented from each other, as a glance at the state of affairs between MacDonald and Snowden sho\vs. The conflict of personalities between MacDonald and Snowden made the ascendency of the former politically reasonable. Clyde sider David Kirkwood describes in My Life of Revolt 8 the ten sion between Mr. MacDonatd and Mr. Snowden, while he shows in every line the insistence of the Scottish Socialists upon "their man's" primacy in Labour politics. _Both were then members of ILP although they were not on speaking terms with each other.

l\1acDonald was more Fabian than Snowden, who nevertheless was a closer friend to the Webbs and also to the Buxton, Scurr, and Cripps families. MacDonald was in all but name and privi lege a peer. This comes out in the description of his relations with the sardonic Snowden. Kirkwood had seen the " incorrupt ible Democrat" who was Snowden (later a viscount) behave with silent animosity toward his leader, one who remained a commoner to the end, although he was one whom peers considered "one of us." Kirkwood who recotded the denouement of their unhappy alliance, in 1932, saw that both these leaders had a wider outlook than most of the Party leaders or any of the Trade Union 8 David Kirkwood, M.P., J.P., My Life of Revolt (London: Harrap and Company, 1935), p. 218. Reluctantly, the ILP, that of Scotland especially, had laid aside" pure socialism" for political action; but it had kept its radical objectives, which became well illustrated in Kirkwood's life. These objectives were the immediate and particular interests of Glasgow and the Clyde men.

These men, born in the ship and munitions building towns and bred to the machines, were perfectionists as engineers, and fundamentaiists as to human rights. They insisted upon the recognition of free manhood in each laborer, and were adamant in the pursuit of independent and frugal economic security for their families-not for a "proletariat." An examination of Kirkwood's principles shows they. believed in "vocational" ordering and collaboration of capital and labor at the shop level. The British Trade Unions, which they distrusted, exemplified a class-strata where the workers were bound together by a single interest, the economic, and now were becoming politicized under Fabian guidance.

The Fabian Leadership of Labour in Opposition, 1922 113 politicians; also, that within both minds Trade Union sensibilities and ILP principles clashed. Yet the fervent Clydesider never disputed the right of .MacDonald to· political ascendency. or the right of Snowden to leadership in finance. It was a quasi-religious attitude which induced Clydesiders' adherence to MacDonald and .acceptance of Snowden. They were the. Christian Socialists of Great Britain. MacDonald's was a quasi-religious Socialism and he had a talent for political oratory which he often exercised in a pulpit. Snowden was likewise a man of evangelical Socialist convictions, which he had developed while working in temperance societies. He retained throughout his life a candid detestation of Trade Unionism. 9 ILP did not hold this against him-a .significant point. (In 1929 it was prin cipally the trade unions who backed MacDonald.) While Mac Donald was an ex-member of the Fabian Society,l° Snowden was not very active in it after the war--owing to his poor health-but he expressed· admiration for the Society and presided as chairman at lectures under their auspices.l1 His monetary principles, Fabian in every characteristic, were based on the idea that wealth was expropriation and he professed to believe that taxes· should be imposed for· " reform"; but his later budgets were to be such that they might have been written by members of the Royal Economics Society,12 a point in which again he represented the Fabian rather than the Clydeside-ILP attitude. In most respects Snowden should have been t~e chosen leader; save for his terseness of speech and impatience with folly he might have been.

In any case, he did not have the European contacts which Hender son and MacDonald enjoyed. It ,vas Philip Snowden who later revealed that a bargain had been made between MacDonald and Henderson. When the former should become Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour 9 Cf. Snowden, Autobiography) I (London: Nicholson and Watson, 1934), p. 534. Snowden traces the rise of the socialistic Labour Party to the old temperance societies. 10 Mrs. Webb for one thought it well; for he could act better in a larger sphere. Cf. Our Partnership, pp. 188 and 192 f. 11 FN) XXXIV:2 (February, 1923). 12 Cf. Snowden, Labour and National Finance (London: Leonard Parsons, 1920).

114 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919--1931 Party, the latter would become Secretary of the Party outside Parliament, the post carrying with it the Secretaryship of the International. 13 This was so much more important to Fabians fighting the Third International for a world ascendency of Social Democracy that acceptance of MacDonald as Parliamentary leader was but a small sacrifice. Besides, the Webbs saw in MacDonald the natural figurehead. Glasgow-born Mary Agnes Hamilton, who wrote an adulatory biography of MacDonald in 1929, considers that it was Henderson who reconstituted the leadership of MacDonald. Henderson recognized the need to free MacDonald's name from the obloquy his pacifism had earned. Thus also he would bring the men of Clyde' into the Party orbit. These had soured toward Henderson. when he had come to Glasgow with' Lloyd George to enforce the Munitions Act, an occasion when·he had exhibited no real grasp of their problems. Henderson, although he warned the Clydesiders that they would regret selecting MacDonald as leader,' himself set an example of great loyalty. He repudiated MacDonald only when he lay dying, in' 1935. Mrs. Hamilton once heard him say he would have been willing to play second fiddle to. MacDonald all his life. Although ILP Kirkwood was even then disgusted with the fact that MacDonald, afte-r the war, had harangued Soldiers Sailors-and-Workmen's Councils in a manner to out-Bolshevik the Bolsheviks, he conceded that as of 1922 "we· were MacDonald's men." The "Bolshevik" ferment passed away, but it is very possible that Henderson foresaw the break up of the Party or that MacDonald threatened it if he were not chosen leader. Once chosen, MacDonald was gallantly supported by the NS.

In the same' week that it accepted MacDonald with such grace as it could muster, the NS brought avery valuable analysis of the political situation to its readers, thereby providing Tory and Liberal readers with a good picture of the political field Labour sought to invest. It also accounted succinctly for the selection of MacDonald as leader of the Opposition: 14 It was' demanded by ILP. It was a· fact that Labour had succeeded best where its candidates had had the most clear-cut policy, and that was in ILP 13 Cf. Snowden, An Autobiography, l,p. 220. '1~ NS, 20 (November, 1923), 222.

The Fabian Leadership of Labour in Opposition, 1922 115 strongholds. The NS might have added that these were in indus trial sections economically depressed· and politically· problematical. It would not have been wise to point out the work of Fabians like Ben Tillett and Ben Turner, Pethick-Lawrence or· the Scurrs, the Clarion writers, and all the "Northern" Fabians in ILP who spoke for this "clear-cut policy." The ILP wanted Scotsman MacDonald as a leader, the N S stated, not Clyneswho had not of late been so active as MacDonald in the ILP. Labour members would never, said the N S, have elected MacDonald head of the Party in place of Clynes except for the fact that the ILP de manded recognition on account of its election successes. The NS, having consented to reject a "tired" Trade Unionist in favor of an ILP Socialist, now had to divest the latter of his ILP-ism. The Scottish ILP-ers appreciated the consistency with Socialist principles which MacDonald's pacifism had demon strated. Now NS would wipe out this record: "The election showed that the chasse aux renards is over. The pacifists have come back to Parliament, and their leader is the leader of the Opposition." The motivation for the use of the near-epithet " pacifist" is discernible. It served as a warning to ILP. Paci fism was unpopular and Fabians had a good record for war service. It is. patent that the Fabians, knowing their history, ex pected recalcitrance from the ILP men of Glasgow who had shown they were independent thinkers. Equally important was .their already acknowledged success in. elections. The only Clyde sider who was not elected, Rosslyn Mitchell, who later defeated Asquith at Paisley, was but narrowly defeated by Bonar Law in central Glasgow. To dub them "pacifist," as the NS did, was to seek to induce their aspiring to a more popular mode of behaviour.

Pease, writing in February 1922, inFN, said: The anti-militarism of the Socialist International Congress has never rung quite true. It was based on the thoroughly unsound contention that all modem wars have been instigated by capitalists with a view to profit.15 Obviously bringing the ILP into line, Pease said that the public 15 E.R.P. (reviewer), "]. Keir Hardie: A Biography by William Stewart," FN~ XXXIII:2 (February, 1922). .

116 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 had cOllte.tothink of ILP as pacifist first and Socialist secondarily. It is easily·.seen that Fabians had much to do if they were to rectify SoCialist thinking on international relations, and they were beginning on the ILP. Thus, by a clever use of what is today called " smear" technique, the N S, which professed to desire that people would not take ILP members for wicked pacifists, intended by calling attention to the record to place the Clydesiders under tutelage. Tutelage was not confined to the group. Beginning with the campaign of 1922, MacDonald had for amanuensis one of the most perfectly cast Fabians, Herbert Morrison, and the story of the young Morrison's service to MacDonald in campaigns and policy making has never been written. It forms the direct link with the Fabian Society.i6 So Clydesiders elected MacDonald as leader of the Parlia mentary Lab.our Party and the Opposition. Yet followers of Snowden and the Trade Union men had stood by Clynes; and social relations among divisions of the Labour Party were markedly antagonistic. It was not merely a token of self-sacri ficing fidelity that Clynes, replacing the absent MacDonald, pre sided at the Party's night rally follo,ving the caucus. MacDonald had appeared distinctly in ill-health before the balloting; but he rallied remarkably and thre~ off· every appearance of depression .immediately he was chosen. No one reports ill-health as the reason for his nonappearance. Some of his Scotch supporters who professed great simplicity of life and evaded social contacts were absent. His absence was conspicuous but eloquent of his dilemma: His more ardent supporters would be absent; his tem-.

porarily silent critics would be in charge of proceedings. He must in future placate the sedate and wise and not alienate his intractable friends. Kirkwood's group would have been unbear ably uncomfortable ,vith Fabians managing them.17 In any case, Clynes could pull more groups together by a COlnmon denominator than MacDonald; the " Little Piecer " could include in his follow16 Cf. Hamilton, Henderson, pp. 200, 262, 266. 17 Ellen Terry had been invited by Shaw to come to London where she would be "rich with Mrs. Webb to arrange you!" Cf. Hamilton, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, p. 267. Mrs. Webb was managing M.P.'s wives and others in her Half-Circle Clubs which were designed to inculcate Society manners. Ibid., p. 268.

The Fabian Leadership of Labour in Opposition, 1922 117 ing the Fabian ILP section as well as the trade unionists; and even though London Fabians thought him inept, they respected him. MacDonald stayed away; yet he was no longer an ILP man, even though they did not denounce him .formally until 1928. Herbert Morrison who wrote his election speeches and election eered at his elbow had already built a bridge for him out of Soldier-and-Worker-Councils to a Socialism acceptable to Fabians. From a classification of Labour members of Parliament, we see the narrow crevasses of Party sectionalism which MacDonald's Government would one day fail to bridge. Battle lines were drawn in Parliament where there were ten Fabians; some of them ILP, also. These, with. their backs to the obstreperous Clyde siders, who called themselves ILP and were counted as " Labour," seemed to fear they were associated with Communists; whereas only a few, like Gallacher, were really" Bolsheviks." The strategy of the intellectual Party management was to draw as many ILP-ers toward their point of view as possible. As if for a game of " dare-base" the teams separated.- The Fabian managers had already taken the first "prisoner," MacDonald.

To examine the Fabian-managed side: The Fabians were found among the one hundred and forty-two new members (there had been only seventy-eight Labour members in the last Parliament) making up a Labour Party in Commons, which also included four Cooperators and four converted Liberals. Among the two dozen new Labourites, these last converts to Labour along with six pacifists, now reappearing, had been Members before the war. This meant heightened convictions, less resistant radicalism, and l110re parliamentary skill at the Party's service. There was a size able group of forty-seven miners, of whom only two were Liberals. There were thirty-two members of ILP claiming ad herents in the political hinterlands. This meant there were votes to be gained by skillful handling. Metal workers and a few from the less skilled workers were to be found. The "intellectual" section (we use the quotation marks as the N S did) had'" grown considerably"; professional men included ... three K.C.'s, two doctors, two ministers of religion, three professors, and six or so other teachers. At least four of the Labour members are employers.

118 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 (Of course, the N S did not list Fabians as such.) Debating ability was ample. The Fabian editor saw a challenge in the presence of so many· ILP members and his observation served as a warning against divisiveness; for he recalled in monitory wise the "Parliamentary incapacity" of the Labour group in the former Parliament, and remarked that the few" intellectuals" formed a well-knit and experienced group, .each member of which had a wide following. He was suggesting something which we examine here more specifically-the picture of the intelligentsia (Fabian) against the rest, and their striving to bring the rest under Party discipline. Early Fabian interest in medical, aaministrative, journalistic, educational, industrial, tnilitary, agricultural, ethical, and organizational lines was represented by these Fabians in Parliament. Only one of the Fabian M.P.'s was not in the current Who's Who, D. Adams. As Councillor, he had made a study of the medical profession or at least had made a speech upon it? re lationship to rate-paying hospitals.I 8 Clement Attlee, then Mayor of Stepney, was a lecturer in social science at the London School of Economics. He had joined the Fabians and the ILP in 1908, and was now' to be parliamentary private secretary to MacDonald.

Noel-Buxton, son of Sir Thomas F. Buxton, third Baronet, had travelled \vith his brother (C. R. Buxton, who married a daughter of Sir Gladwyn Jebb, "vas later a Fabian and an M.P., also) into the Far East and Russia, and had changed from Liberal to Labour Party in his 1910-1918 term in Parliament. William Graham, a Scot, had been in Parliament also since 1918. An economist-journalist, student of forensic medicine and administra tive la"v, he had taught WEA classes. He was destined to do yeoman service in the treasury department. Arthur Greenwood, also an econon1ist and \VEA lecturer, was secretary to the Labour Party Advisory Con1mittee (1920-1921) and a member of the "Whitley Committee." George Lansbury, editor of the Daily Herald, a national Labour paper, was a member of ILP, had worked on Poor La"T reform (" signed the Minority Report" was a badge of honour), had served on the LCC.19 Henry Snell, a son '18 FN, XXXIII:9 (September, 1922).

19 One of his daughters was Mrs. Ernest Thurtle. Thurtle had been in Parliament before, was not reelected in 1922, but came back in 1929. His The Fabian Leadership' of Labour in Opposition, 1922 119 of agricultural workers, had gone to Parliament in 1920, and had been in LCC since 1919. He was a member of the Executive Committee of both the Labour Party and Fabian Society and a prime mover in American as well as British Ethical Societies. 20 James Stewart was a Glasgow Town Councillor, the only one who was both Clydesider and Fabian. He ,vas identified as a barber and in his capacity of Councillor, was a " Tribune of the People." Ben Tillett, ILP as ,veIl as Fabian, had been instrumental in amalgamating Dock, Wharf, and Riverside unions with the General Workers' Union of Great Britain and Ireland; later, with the Transport workers. He had strong views on the Ruhr ques tion and on Russia. He had lately advocated internationalizing the Ruhr when the Party's policy was averse to it; and the NS had then insisted that labor spokesmen's H reports," if they in volved the Party, should be edited.21 He was secretary of the Political and International Departments of the Union. The "International Department" "vas probably the reason for his being a Fabian. He had to belong to a socialist society in order to be admitted to the Labour and Socialist International. Other ,vise he was hardly one with whom an Aylmer Maude, a Percival Chubb, a St. John Ervine, or a Bertrand Russell associated. A member of LCC, he was the historian of Dock and Transport workers movements. Sidney Webb,22 having been elected from a coal mining district where he had campaigned with" research" for implement by getting out a brochure on the story of coal, was by this time Lecturer (honorary) in Political Economy at the City of London College and at the Working l\1en's College, also Professor (honorary) of Public Administration in th~ London School of Economics, and an unpaid member of the Faculty and Board of chief interest was" Military discipline and Democracy." And he was Lon don agent for The Nation (U.S.).

20" Recreations: none," in Who's Who, indicates much. A stern puritanism followed many of these English Socialists out of the non-conformist chapels which they abandoned. Cf. Lord Henry Snell, Men, Movements and Myself (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1936), especially "Religion: Doubts and Appreciation," pp. 126-135. Snell professed atheism. 21 Cf. NS,20 (April 21, 1923),33. 22 Cole once said, "The worst of Webb is that he is permanent." Camille Huysmans called him" L'eminence grise." Cf. Beatrice Webb, Our Partner ship (London: Longmans Green and Company, 1948), p. 7.

120 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 Studies in Economics of London University. He had served up to 1921 on the Central Committee on the Profiteering Act. Webb, inaudible when he read a speech, was highly articulate on. many issues. He had already built his monument in better than bronze in London town. Mrs. Hamilton writes of . .~. the creation of that great network of civic services in London, which are now taken for granted by Lon doners, few of whom realize how much of their daily comfort and convenience they owe to him, how much of the opportunities available to their children. 23 Henderson and other prominent Labourites who had been de feated in the general election won in by-elections and returned to Parliament. With this leadership, Fabianism possessed inner contacts with the Independent Labour Party, a voice in the Trade Unions Council (Tillett), and a mouthpiece in the Workingmen's Educa tional Association; and it piped back into the Parilamentary Labour Party the ideas given fluency in the London School of Economics. Besides the Parliamentary foothold, Fabians of Sidney Webb's Progressive Party had a special place in the gov ernment of London. This made for greater prestige for those in Parliament and increased the inferior feeling ind·uced in Clyde siders. Even ILP Lansbury attested that the Webbsalways gave the impression no one could possibly be as wise as they appeared to be. Fabians had long been prominent on the LCe, e.g., Alder man A. E. Davies, Herbert Morrison, H. Snell. In April, 1922, a "d,isappointing" election in London saw only the Fabians Susan Lawrence and H. Snell of the Labour Party, and S. D.

Headlams and W. J. Pincombe of the Progressives, elected to the London County Council (LCC), together with the Alderman, A. E. Davies and G. M. Gillett. A typical example of political pene23 Hamilton, Sidney and Beatrice Webb (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1933), p. 111. Webb had done all these things in the days when he did not believe in the politicizing of trade unions and cooperatives only in sectional organizations and municipalization. He then had his .own little splinter party, the Progressives, in London. Its story prefigures the Liberal Party of New York, one of whose chairmen (for Queens) is Mark Starr, whose Fabian pamphlet, Labour Politics in U.S.A. (London: Fabian Publications and Victor Gollancz, 1949), bears a prefac~ by Margaret Cole.

The Fabian Leadership of Labour in Opposition, 1922 121 tration: A Fabian, Mrs. Walter Baker, was appointed Justice of the Peace for London County.24 Into this Fabian company MacDonald passed. He was to remai.n ill-at-ease among them. He continued to be the idol of the Clydebank hustings until 1927. But his radical connections with ILP had already been cut. With out being a Fabian he was henceforth to do the work of Fabians. Because it will delineate the effect of Fabianism on the idealism of ILP and the devices. by which the Party was recruited, to the disillusionment of some H sentimental Socialists," some space· is given here to the group from Glasgow: A description of the group serves to elucidate Fabianism by contrast, and to demon strate the .fate of a local group of Socialists which does not fall into English-directed stratification. The Clydebank men of ILP, although given a fearsome reputation as "Communists," or as " pacifists," were really. only laboring men, highly intelligent and specially skilled. Once, faced as tvey believed with a menace to their freedom, they fought against Lloyd George's Munitions Act; now they faced a n1enace to their craft and livelihood in shut downs and unemployment. They were fighting not for their.

" men" like Trade Union leaders, but for their fellows. Kirk wood, the typical one, had been a socialist ever since. reading Bellamy's Looking Backward, in 1892, and he had ioined ILP because, after some efforts to get results on the purely social level, he had become convinced of the need for political action. He, like. his fell0 \VS, set his face as a most hard rock against making a profession of Trade Union leadership and against accepting the rewards thereunto appertaining. His position, as go-between and trouble-shooter in the Beardmore works at Parkhead, outside Glasgow, stemming from his office as head of a shop steward union, created, and furnished for us, a near-ideally complete picture of the participation of labor in management. When Sir William Beardmore, owner of the vast Clydeside foundries, ship yards, and munitions works, being ill-advised, forbade Kirkwood's free access to his office or to any place other than Kirkwood's 24 FN, XXXIII:4 (April, 1922). In the 1920's the names of at least 23 Justices of the Peace occur in FN lists of whom a few may be listed here: David Adams, Maurice Eschwege, George Thomas, G. Burgneay, George M.

Gillett, Henry J. May, Lilian Dawson, Marion Phillips, Mrs. C. D. Rackam, A. G. Walkden.

122 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 own shop, it brought on the strike for which Kirkwood was arrested. At that time he pleaded successfully with certain groups, like the electricians, to return to work lest harm come to the machinery by their absence. When, later, Tom Gallacher, the" one unbending Communist in Scotland," proposed ousting Beardmore and replacing 'him with Kirkwood, it was the latter's turn to denounce such aproceclure and to exemplify what Kirk wood considered the genuine Socialistic ordering in contrast to a Communistic proletarian ordering. He states on this occasion very clearly his belief in management's right to manage and the owner's right to render economic decisions. He himself repre sented the ideal shop-steward. (The reader will need to recall the type when the discussion of Fabian attitudes toward certain Fabian writings comes up in the 1929~1931 period.) He was un ashamed of his station and unwilling to cross social lines while dealing rightfully with economic matters. Once, when Henderson and Lloyd George, among others in ~ delegation, invited Kirk \vood to jQin them at dinner, Beardmore remarked in effect: " He won't go to dinner with you; he won't even take a cigar from me." It is easily see,n this type of Labour Party politician was different from and a problem to the Fabian intelligentsia. Yet the votes of Kirkwood's fellows, even more than their acqui escence, were definitely needed to constitute a Parliamentary Labour Party.

The group as described individually. by Kirkwood, who empha sizes his own ebullience, raucousness, and rough fair-play, com prised John vVheatley, a "Catholic Socialist," cool and fearless, a born intellectual leader; James Maxton of the" wooing" voice, saint-and-martyr, and political gipsy-all things for all his fellows; (( Jimmy" Stewart, small, sober-the barber-tribune of Glasgow (listed asa Fabian) ; Neil MacLean, full of fire without fury; Tom Johnston, his head full of facts; 25 George Hardie, the brother of the founder of ILP, an engineer-chemist; George Buchanan, a pattern maker known to poverty ; James Welsh, a miner and poet whose tnaiden speech described, although without rancour, the glorious scene in the House of Lords the day ~f 25Johnston was to rise to fame in MacDonald's Government of 1924 and 1931 and to stand by him after the debacle of 1931. After 1924, he is listed as a Fabian. Cf. Mrs. Cole, Growing Up Into Revolution, p. 62, for the present day description of Kirkwood.

The Fabian Leadership of Labour in Opposition, 1922 123 convening Parliament in contrast with the depressing scenes of economic decay that very day. upon the banks of the Clyde; John Muir, 26 heroic and a gentleman; " Bob" Smillie, representing an English constituency, an Irishman reared in Scotland, who later, because he feared he might compromise his principles, refused a Cabinet position, when his fellow Clydesider, Wheatley, became Minister of Health to stand the gaff for the Party in the matter of housing. Smillie and Wheatley came near being invited to become Fabians, as the record of reports on lectures indicates. Johnston did become a Fabian. Wheatley, Maxton, Johnston and Kirkwood were free of British Trade Union influence such as Scotsmen mistrusted. "Breathing the noble spirit of the Cove nant" expressed in the 124th Psalm, these men held a formal religious dedication service before their departure, with their sworn principles inscribed like a testament, for London and Parliament. 21 Distinguished by a strong religious bent and a sense of brotherhood, they were teetotalers and non:.smokers, and, for Scotsmen, tolerant on religious· matters. Kirkwood, Maxton, Stewart, Johnston, and Muir had been in jail during the war not for pacifism! The eleven had met together frequently for months before the election discussing· the" ifs " of parliamentary contingencies. 28 They adopted Parnell's and O'Connell's tactics, and made themselves very obnoxious to those Fabian leaders who hated "scenes." Their chief weapon was the It scene." It is simply wrong to call them either Bolsheviks or " pacifists."

In My Life of Revolt, Kirkwood gives the platform they espoused. It had few marks of their peculiar Socialism and primi tive "I<eynesianism" but in it the straightforwardness of their characters stood clear. The economic proposals in. it were to form the point of division between their uncompromising attitude and Fabian policy. In contrast with Fabian irenicism they were absolutely opposed to ,var indemnities and German reparations. 26 He, a single man, had gone to prison for a seditious publication during the war rather than expose the responsible man who had a family. 21 Kirkwood, op. cit., p. 192. Emanuel Shinwell was associated with them at this time. Cf. Ibid., p. 171. He is found in the Fabiansectorwith Mosley, later. At present, Kirkwood is a Privy Councillor, along with Buchanan, and is one of the mellowest members of the House of Commons, according to Mrs. Cole. 28 Kirkwood, op. cit., pp. 188 if.

124 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 These things threatened their jobs. Along with urging "houses suitable to enshrine the spirit of home" they advocated' means " to .purge industry of the curse of unhealthy workshops, restore wages to the level of adequate maintenance, eradicate the cor rupting effect of monopoly and avarice," and to charge social benefits to " those best able to bear it." 29 Although they seemed to confuse graduated income taxes and excess profits taxes, they declared that they intended to conquer unemployment by the Capital Levy. The Levy, inculcated by Webb, Pethick-Lawrence, Dalton and others, was now, in 1922 and 1923, to be evaded as poor politics. The straightforward ones did not understand. Their economic precepts were simply expressed: . . . everyone is afraid to spend, rich and poor. They are banking their money instead of spending it. . . . We could spend thousands of millions in a war, and if an other war broke out we should do it again. Why not spend money in a war against poverty? After the Napoleonic Wars there was a shortage. The trouble then· was scarcity. Today the trouble is abundance .

. . . [The workers demand] power to buy back what is produced. 80 They should be credited with an early advertence to " abundance" as an element in the economic dilemma: But they were not com mitted to the abolition of Capitalism. In Kirkwood's words, speaking of the softening of class lines: This improvement [the nearer approach of the artisan to the middle class which does not stop at' clothes, houses, food, and entertainment; and the fact that class distinc tions were fast losing their importance as social criteria] has taken place in the capitalistic society.... I have never accepted the theory of a "dying Capitalism." [Yet that very year there was a Fabian lecture series on " Dying Capitalism."] So long as a capitalist society can adjust its laws and its conventions to meet the developing sense of justice and reason of the people, it will con tinue. . . . In fact, capitalism is surviving only in the measure of its acceptance of a Socialist outlook.31 29 Kirkwood, Ope cit., pp. 192 f.

3'0 Ibid., pp. 259 f. (A conversation with the Prince of Wales which Kirk wood reported.) 81Ibid., p. 266. This was not Socialism nor Social Democracy. It had no The Fabian Leadership of Labour in Opposition, 1922 125 It is clear he did not endorse the aim of those advocates of the Capital Levy who' marked the employer and rentier class for ex tinction. Clydesiders were not root and branch anti-capitalists. The Labour men believed, said Kirkwood, in the British people.32 They expected opinion to support their cause, and looked for fair play even when they were stubborn, as often they were, according to Kirkwood's autobiography. Political action was secondary with them. They thought in terms of a societary impulsion~ Democracy as a way of living, not as a political system. They had convictions about the Capital Levy much as it was inculcated by Snowden and Pethick-Lawrence. They stood for it even while Fabians were for dropping it as a matter of expediency; 33 when, for example, Clifford Sharp authored the article on "Labour Finance" which straddled the issue: Wise, or not, he wrote, the Capital Levy should be studied not indignantly condemned; but it would not work without psychological preparation and the consent of the business community, nor without the support of the leading banks, .against the determined opposition of the City, not· even if passed by five hundred M.P.'s. The Scotsmen must have seemed impervious to reason or immune to nuance, when Mostyn Lloyd contributed "The Capital Levy and the Level of Prices," which ran counter to the loyally held views of the northerners: As a chief issue in the General Election, Lloyd said, there' could hardly be a"f worse subject." (Clearly, the Labour Party was then meet ing terrible criticism of a plank' in their platform better forgot ten in days of industrial depression and times of amorphous party formation.) Bonar Law, Lloyd said, appealing to the central Glasgow constituencies, had admitted favoring it in 1917 :andhe was now calling it "lunacy." Mr. Lloyd hoped the banks ~rould not be too tardy in recognizing the need to control inflation as they affinity to preachments of Marx, Buonarroti, or Babeuf. It embodied much Christian sociality. Cf. Harold Laski, The Socialist. Tradition in the French Revolution (London: Fabian· Society and Allen and Unwin, 1930), a Fabian pamphlet which searches out secular socialism from the skein of social thought.

82 In 1945 the Conference Program was. entitled, Labour Believes in Britain. 38 Cf. "Labour Finance," NS,20 (November 4, 1922), 129.

126 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 had retarded the arrival of " dear money" to head off the boom of 1919. "The City" had then opposed" the only possible means by which the postwar boom could have been prevented from get ting out of hand." Labour must needs drop the issue but others might be found to adopt it: . . . The Capital Levy may prove to be the quickest way of stabilizing prices in this country· and preparing. the way for the restoration of a. free gold market. We believe the banks will sooner or later endorse it as a sound and necessary remedy. It will not be imposed by a Labour Government, for the probability is that a Con servative or Liberal Government will have been forced to adopt it before a Labour Government comes into po,ver.34 The Clydesiders were behind the times. They were marked for isolation in the impotency of mere protest; while in the cleavage between its intellectuals and its workingmen lay the cause of ILP'S eventual disappearance.

The Fabian view of the levy was sophisticated beyond any of the conceptions of ILP of Clydeside, for whom the levy suggested itself sin1ply as a means of war against unemployment. Fabians saw it as a means of state finance which, they. averred, would spare industry some.of the heavier burdens of surtaxes or ,vould spare the lower middle classes some income taxes; meanwhile it should take from the wealthy not their surplus but their capital. It had been reported in June, 1922, that FabianPethick-Lawrence (ILP), introducing Fabian Hugh Dalton at an Essex Hall lecture in March, had said Labour alone had "a practical proposal for remedying the present state of affairs"; and that was the Capital Levy, upon which Dalton lectured. Dalton was then reported to have said the levy, .falling mostly upon 300,000 wealthy people, would have two effects neither of which, being doctrinaire and class-conscious concepts, characterized Clydeside ideology: First, "removal of the psychological obstacles which prevent all from doing their best and, secondly, a large sum of money would be re leased for social expenditure." It should be observed that these objectives lay outside the announced purpose of war-debt payment as \Vebb explained it, and .beyond the Clydebank purpose of financing industrial development for employment and security.

34:NS,20 (November 11,1922),167 f.

The Fabian Leadership of Labour in Opposition, 1922 127 It can be concluded that when the Fabian publicists dropped the Capital Levy from the campaign platform in November, besides running counter to the socialists of the Beardmore works, they betrayed other Fabians, like Dalton and Pethick-Lawrence, and minimized their own major premises. They preserved for · English ends, the appeal to ,class feeling which such discussions stirred up. Pethick-Lawrence and Dalton remained with the com promising Fabians; the workingmen clung to their principles and stood apart, to demonstrate that the Clydesiders' attitude toward class, was one of preferring their own. Yet the control of the semantics of the Capital Levy gave Fabian control over the ob streperous and sentimental socialists, while it brought ILP intel lectuals into the English camp. In the ascendency of Fabianism, ILP was submerged. Class forged the irenic Fabian attitude into a polky-socialism eventually. The leader whom Fabians were constr~ined to accept was to be repudiated by ILP, but when the debacle of 1931 came, it was not to be caused by the men of Clyde, but by· men. of the " Socialism now" school. The collapse evoked from a leading Oxford-type Fabian the exclamation that some Fabians were so glad " to get rid of MacDonald" that the extent of the damage done the Labour movement escaped their early notice.

In spite of jettisoning a major plank, Labour did not expect to capture the Government so early as it did. Snowden thought it would take a decade. How then could a desperate party man like that head of a shattered Liberalism, Asquith, schooled in knowl edge of Fabian technique, fail to note the chink in Labour's armour? He held the balance of power in the Opposition and he could envision-as doubtless some Tories envisioned-the ad vantage to orthodox politics to be gained by bringing to a pre mature accession to power the new force in politics, Labour. Before coming to this story, however, there is more to be said of the new Opposition. We have seen the success of Fabians in compassing an intra-party force. C. FABIANS AND THE OTHERS IN OPPOSITION In November, 1922, Fabians expected only a short-lived Parlia ment. And they laid plans for a Lab-Lib Opposition, in spite of the opposition of Socialist purists. _ Actually, they won enough 128 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 seats to constitute the· Opposition without Liberal help. In any case, the Society was discovered to be in a position of great power in the Party itself and in. relation to the national equilibrium, at a culminating point in pern1eation.

The Fabian Executive in April, 1923,35 was a list of now familiar names: W. J. Bassett-Lowke (who ran advertisements in the N S for handsome model railway locomotives), Mrs. A. E. Corner vice Clement Attlee( resigned), A~ E. Davies, LCe (who wrote" The City" in each NS issue}, Mrs. Boyd Dawson (who wrote as an authority on cooperatives), Dr. F. Lawson Dodd (secretary of the Fabian Society) ; also, the niece of Mrs. Sidney Webb, Mrs. Barbara Drake (educationist and organizer, the historian of women's Trade Union movements), Dr. Letitia Fair field (a name faithfully recurrent), F. W. Galton (he was trained in Fabian research while acting as a secretary to Mrs. Webb), Dr. L. Haden Guest, Hubert Humphreys, H. L. Laski, Miss A. Susan Lawrence,LCC (a spirited organizer, she had been jailed in Poplar), CaptainC. M. Lloyd (a stalwart of the N S out of whom the spirit had been crushed by too· many meetings, according to Mrs. Cole), J. H. Macrae-Gibson (the authority on Whitley Councils seen from within) replacing Chiozza-MoneY,resigned; and the list included Professor Edith Morley, Edward R. Pease, S. K. Ratcliffe, Harry Snell, M.P., LCC., R. H. Tawney, Sidney Webb, M.P., and ·Mrs. Sidney Webb. A b.usy Fabian of the Executive Committee, Mrs. Corner, for example, was chairman of the Fabian Women's Group, member of the Fabian Nursery Executive, had served on the standing Joint Committee of Women's Industrial .Organizations; and the significance of these penetrating connections is obvious, and characteristic: This lady, from. three vantage points in Fabianism-the organizational, the Women's, the Youths'-touched every outside association for bet tering women's industrial status. She almost symbolized the Fabians' work of bringing the new electorate-the women-into the Labour Party and making them Socialists. No workingmen were on the Fabian Executive.

To complete the setting showing the position of the leaders of H.M.'s loyal Opposition, it is notable-and Fabians observed it35FN, XXXIV:4 (April, 1923).

The Fabian Leadership of Labour in O'pposition, 1922 129 that there were four Cooperators among the Labourites. In an early chapter, the philosophy by which the cooperatives were warped into the Party' was discussed. Here it is a' question of warping into the Party the social segment represented by four Cooperative Party men listed as "Labour." The Society had, as we· have seen before, a plan for Cooperatives too. But it did not envision a Cooperative Party. In 1922, Sidney and Beatrice Webb had brought out their book, The Cooperative Movement, which was reviewed in Fabian News and, as we have seen, by Pigou in the Economic Journal. Fabianism's examination and categorizing of any movement meant, inevitably, the attempt to politicize it. The CWA was a rising social movement to be cap tured for the Labour Party and permeated with Socialism. The Fabian reviewer, W. A. Robson, like Pigou, a member of the Royal Society of Economics, threw light upon the internal im pulsion of the Webb book on Cooperation, naming it the drive for "a larger development" to be made possible for the life of the whole body of its members rather than a "purely materialistic [sic] organisation based on an indirect form of economic self..

interest." In other words, they should be Socialistic and par ticipate in political action within' the larger Party. (Contemporary N S editorials remarked upon the unattractive appearance of co operative stores, the dusty jam jars in poorly. arranged shelves, the cheap, ugly boots.) Robson thought that the Webbs intended to complete their bookshelf on the New Order by linking the Trade Union movement with the Cooperatives, "particularly as regards the use of Direct Action"; he showed how they. warned the Cooperatives of their faults at the same time that they made " devastating" reply to the Guild Socialists. The only great diffi culty was pointed out by the reviewer with humor: the "hired man" (wage maker) had to become " self-conscious" and acquire " a clear vision of the part to be played by each in the manifesta tions of democratic self-government." So, .Robson remarked, we had but to wait for the "hired man " and what-should-be would evolve from what was.36 This reviewer's humorous criticism was as reverent nevertheless as Pigou's if somewhat sharper: By about the middle of the volume the paraphernalia is prepared and the stage is set for one of those remarkable 38 It is unnecessary to make a comprehensive examination of the Coopera130 Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain 1919-1931 feats of political legerdemain which we have now learned to expect from Mr. and Mrs. Webb wherever the most exciting democratic institutions are produced as though by magic from utterly unpromising material. 31 W. A. R.'s review was as hilarious as a Shaw play. It is sig nificant that he stated positively that the Webbs were not sure whether the Cooperative movement could be linked into the "larger development" by voluntary conviction or by a policed welfare state. He hoped that in any case the Webbs had seen to it that none of the "developments" crossed each other, for example, Trade Unions and Peasant Cooperatives. (As has been said, they omitted consideration of the Irish and Continental co operative systems.) Six meetings were announced following the appearance of the printed handbook on the cooperative movement which its authors vvould explain at each meeting. Represented as part of the attack on unemployment, .such activity had its political uses. In the first Labour Cabinet, the leader of the Cooperators, A. V. Alexander, was Mr. Webb's Parliamentary Private Secretary. The four Cooperators were the object of more Fabian attention, propor tionately, than the forty-"seven miners.

So we see the formation of the ranks of Opposition. As to that which was opposed, the N S listed the year's problems ina dreary Christmas editorial: " Cannes, Genoa, . . . Anatolia . . . Chanak ... unemployment." To be discussed in the following Chapter,. the list shows a preoccupation with Continental problems. Under tive system. By using the comments of Robson, an eminent economist, it is possible to learn the method by which the Webbs approached cooperativism with· the purpose of warping it into the Party. The position of communal charity or mutual self-help in Cooperatives, the original spiritual factor, is replaced by a new" spiritual" element, political democracy. 31 FNI XXXIII:6 (June, 1922). We have remarked this phenomenon of Webb thought patterns, above. Robson's corroboration is valuable. Again, here is a Fabian criticizing the pontiffs of Fabianism. Pease had pointed out the anthropomorphism employed in their propaganda (the term 4C the Capi.

talists" used undifferentiatedly); now Robson marks their philosophical legerdemain; we have noted in another place their writing" history" from a priori philosophy, or wishful thinking, especially in their treatment of the Trade Unionism of the 1920's.

The Fabian Leadership of Labour in Opposition, 1922 131 " unemployment" there was to go on and on the search and research for a principle controlling full employment in total in'dustrial democracy. Even the agitation of research offered a springboard into power. Only the Kirkwood backbenchers, because theirs was a little world, clung to a "capital levy," ,the need for purchasing power and spending to dissolve overpro duction, and the urgency of increasing production. The rest, politicians of both camps, the electorate, and the mongers of Socialist philosophy had uses for "unelnployment." And the Webbs, with prescience if not with wisdom (which would have devised a radical correction like Benedictinism with its agri cultural-liturgical solution and would have sought means of giving purchasing power to Oriental masses to encourage British produc tion) , were to state this very clearly, but not until 1928, when commenting on the liquidation of the antique, if not ancient, Poor Law.

Labour in Opposition took N S advice and did a good bit of " opposing" so that the "Cannes, Genoa, Chanak" formula was significant of the helplessness of the Tory Government at the moment 'when relief \vas coming to Europe in the shape of the Dawes plan, and \vhen there was needed a voice of assent to rise on the Left.' It is possible that Tories saw the rift in Labour's ranks. (Certainly the dialectical Labour Party arguments had given European Socialists, and others, a chance to draw their own conclusions. ) The Opposition of 1922 had a record on Ireland, on France, on Germany and on Russia which showed the "Cannes, Genoa, Chanak, unemployment" formula to be a taunt about clumsy politics. The injection of the word "unemploy ment" could only bring to Conservative minds the thought of' the "root of unrest." The phrase did not mean "the cause of unrest." It n1eant that a growing force was, from beneath the surface of the political life of Britain, undermining the founda tions of order as Conservatives knew it. To the problem of " un employmen~" and "unrest," Socialists answered "nationali sation." No such response could rise \vithout raising another on the Continent. The public silence of Fabians concerning the Orient was eloquent.