* * * * *
I will conclude this chapter with a short account of some of the
applications of Socialism to particular problems which were studied by
the Society in or about this period of its history.
In 1897 and 1898 a good deal of time was devoted to working out a scheme
for the municipalisation of the Drink Trade. This was before the
publication of "The Temperance Problem and Social Reform," by Joseph
Rowntree and Arthur Sherwell, in 1899, a volume which was the first to
treat the subject scientifically on a large scale. I took the lead on
the question, and finally two tracts were published in 1898, "Liquor
Licensing at Home and Abroad" (No. 85), giving a sketch of the facts,
and "Municipal Drink Traffic" (No. 86), which set out a scheme drafted
by me, but substantially modified as the result of discussions by the
Executive Committee and by meetings of members. This is one of the few
causes taken up by the Society which has made but little progress in
popular favour in the seventeen years that have elapsed since we adopted
it.
Old Age Pensions, proposed in 1890 by Sidney Webb in Tract 17, "Reform
of the Poor Law," was definitely advocated in Tract No. 73, "The Case
for State Pensions in Old Age," written in 1896 by George Turner, one of
the cleverest of the younger members. The Society did not make itself
responsible for the scheme he proposed, universal pensions for all, and
the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908 adopted another plan.
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