Mrs. Webb
brought a fresh and fertile mind to its councils. Her twenty years of
membership and intimate private acquaintance with its leaders made her
familiar with its possibilities, but she was free from the influence of
past failures--in such matters for example as Socialist Unity--and she
was eager to start out on new lines which the almost unconscious
traditions of the Society had hitherto barred.
* * * * *
The story of the Society has been traced to the conclusion of the
intervention of Mr. Wells, and I then turned aside to describe the
numerous new activities of the booming years which followed the Labour
Party triumph of 1906. I must now complete the history of the internal
affairs of the Society.
As a political body, the Society has usually, though not invariably,
issued some sort of pronouncement on the eve of a General Election. In
January, 1910, the Executive Committee published in "Fabian News" a
brief manifesto addressed to the members urging them to "Vote against
the House of Lords." It will be recollected that the Lords had rejected
the Budget, and the sole issue before the country was the right of the
House of Commons to control finance. Members were urged to support any
duly accredited Labour or socialist candidate; elsewhere they were, in
effect, advised to vote for the Liberal candidates.
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