The output of
tracts at this period was remarkable. In the year 1890-1, 10 new tracts
were published, 335,000 copies printed, and 98,349 sold or given away.
In 1891-2, 20 tracts, 16 of them leaflets of 4 pages, were published,
308,300 printed, and 378,281 distributed, most of them leaflets. This
was the maximum. Next year only 272,660 were distributed, though the
sales of penny tracts were larger. At this period the Society had a
virtual monopoly in the production of political pamphlets in which facts
and figures were marshalled in support of propositions of reform in the
direction of Socialism. Immense trouble was taken to ensure accuracy and
literary excellence. Many of the tracts were prepared by Committees
which held numerous meetings. Each of them was criticised in proof both
by the Executive and by all the members of the Society. Every tract
before publication had to be approved at a meeting of members, when the
author or authors had to consider every criticism and justify, amend, or
delete the passage challenged.
The tracts published in these years included a series of "Questions" for
candidates for Parliament and all the local governing bodies embodying
progressive programmes of administration with possible reforms in the
law--which the candidate was requested to answer by a local elector and
which were used with much effect for some years--and a number of
leaflets on Municipal Socialism, extracted from "Facts for Londoners.
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