I do not mean that the founders of the three societies entertained
mutual antipathies or personal jealousies to the detriment of the
movement. I do mean that each group preferred to go its own way, and saw
no sufficient advantage in a common path to compensate for the
difficulties of selecting it.
In a former chapter I have explained how a movement for a form of
Socialist Unity had at last almost achieved success, when a new factor,
the European War, interposed. After the war these negotiations will
doubtless be resumed, and the three Socialist Societies will find
themselves more closely allied than ever before. The differences of
policy which have divided them will then be a matter of past history.
The differences of temperament matter less and less as the general
policy becomes fixed, and in a few years the old leaders from whose
disputes the general policy emerged must all have left the stage. The
younger men inherit an established platform and know nothing of the
old-time quarrels and distrusts. They will come together more easily. If
the organised propaganda of Socialism continues--and that perhaps is not
a matter of certainty--it seems to me improbable that it will be carried
on for long by three separate societies. In some way or other, in
England as in so many other countries, a United Socialist organisation
will be constituted.
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