"TORY GOLD AT THE 1885 ELECTION.
"When I add that in 1885 we had only 40 members, you will be able to
form a sufficient notion of the Fabian Society in its nonage. In that
year there occurred an event which developed the latent differences
between ourselves and the Social-Democratic Federation. The
Federation said then, as it still says, that its policy is founded on
a recognition of the existence of a Class War. How far the fact of
the working classes being at war with the proprietary classes
justifies them in suspending the observance of the ordinary social
obligations in dealing with them was never settled; but at that time
we were decidedly less scrupulous than we are now in our ideas on the
subject; and we all said freely that as gunpowder destroyed the
feudal system, so the capitalist system could not long survive the
invention of dynamite. Not that we are dynamitards: indeed the
absurdity of the inference shows how innocent we were of any
practical acquaintance with explosives; but we thought that the
statement about gunpowder and feudalism was historically true, and
that it would do the capitalists good to remind them of it. Suddenly,
however, the Federation made a very startling practical application
of the Class War doctrine. They did not blow anybody up; but in the
general election of 1885 they ran two candidates in London--Mr.
Pages:
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62