Some of us had joined in the protest against the
threat of war: but when that protest was fruitless we declined to
contest the inevitable. A large section of the Liberal Party and nearly
all other Socialists took another view. They appeared to believe, and
some of them even hoped, that the Boers might be successful and the
British army be driven to the sea. The I.L.P. regarded the war as a
typical case of the then accepted theory of Socialism that war is always
instigated by capitalists for the purpose of obtaining profits. They
opposed every step in the prosecution of the campaign, and criticised
every action of the British authorities.
In this matter the left and right wings of the Fabians joined hands in
opposition to the centre. Members who came into the movement when
Marxism was supreme, like Walter Crane, those who worked largely with
the I.L.P., such as J. Ramsay Macdonald, S.G. Hobson, and G.N. Barnes
(later M.P. and Chairman of the Labour Party), were joined by others who
were then associated with the Liberals, such as Dr. F. Lawson Dodd, Will
Crooks (later Labour M.P.), Clement Edwards (later Liberal M.P.), and
Dr. John Clifford. On the other side were the older leaders of the
Society, who took the view that the members had come together for the
purpose of promoting Socialism, that the question at issue was one
"which Socialism cannot solve and does not touch,"[32] and that whilst
each member was entitled to hold and work for his own opinion, it was
not necessary for the Society in its corporate capacity to adopt a
formal policy with the result of excluding the large minority which
would have objected to whatever decision was arrived at.
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