But there
was a more practical bar. The Fabians were mostly civil servants or
clerks in private employ. The methods of agitation congenial to them
were compatible with their occupations: those of the Social Democrats
were not. Indeed in those days no question of amalgamation was ever
mooted.
But it must be remembered by critics that so far as concerns the Fabian
Society, the absence of identity in organisation has never led to such
hostility as has been common amongst Continental Socialists. Since the
vote of censure in relation to the "Tory Gold," the Fabian Society has
never interfered with the doings of its friendly rivals. The two
Societies have occasionally co-operated, but as a rule they have
severally carried on their own work, each recognising the value of many
of the activities of the other, and on the whole confining mutual
criticism within reasonable limits.
The second and chief reason for the success of the Society was its good
fortune in attaching to its service a group of young men, then
altogether unknown, whose reputation has gradually spread, in two or
three cases, all over the world, and who have always been in the main
identified with Fabianism. Very rarely in the history of voluntary
organisations has a group of such exceptional people come together
almost accidentally and worked unitedly together for so many years for
the furtherance of the principles in which they believed.
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