Will Crooks was victorious by 236 votes, but Harry
Snell failed to reduce the Liberal majority. Elsewhere members of the
Society were very successful. In all eight secured seats for the Labour
Party and four for the Liberals, amongst the latter Mr. (now Sir) L.G.
Chiozza Money, then a member of the Executive Committee.
This brings the electoral record of the Society up to the present time,
except that it should be mentioned that Mr. Arthur Henderson, M.P., who
became a member of the Society in 1912, was in 1915 both Secretary of
the Labour Party Executive and Chairman of the party in the House of
Commons, until he relinquished the latter position on joining the
Coalition Cabinet as Minister for Education, being thus actually the
first member of a Socialist society to attain Cabinet rank in this
country during his membership.
During these later years the Fabian Society with its increased numbers
was entitled to several delegates at the annual conference of the Labour
Party, and it frequently took part in the business by putting motions or
amendments on the agenda paper. All talk of forming a Fabian Socialist
Party had died away, and the Executive Committee had shown itself far
more appreciative of the importance of the Labour Party than in earlier
years. I continued to represent the Society on the Executive Committee
until the end of 1913, when I retired, and the new General Secretary, W.
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