had been formed, Oxford had more than doubled its membership to 13, but only five other societies were in existence.  By the following year a revival had set in.  W. Stephen Sanders, at that time an Alderman of the London County Council, who had been a member of the Society since 1890 and of the executive Committee since 1904, was appointed Organising Secretary with the special object of building up the provincial organisation.  By 1910 there were forty-six local societies, and in 1912 the maximum of fifty was reached.  Since then the number has declined.  These societies were scattered over the country, some of them in the great cities, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield, and so on:  others within hail of London, at Croydon, Letchworth, Ilford:  others again in small towns, Canterbury, Chelmsford, Carnarvon:  another was at Bedales School, Petersfield, run by my son and his schoolfellows.  The local societies formed at this period, apart from the University Societies, were in the main pallid reflections of the parent Society in its earlier days; none of them had the good fortune to find a member, so far as we yet know, of even second-class rank as a thinker or speaker.  One or two produced praiseworthy local tracts on housing conditions and similar subjects.  They usually displayed less tolerance than the London Society, a greater inclination to insist that there was but one way of political salvation, usually the Labour Party way, and that all who would not walk in it should be treated as alien enemies.  If Socialism is only to be achieved by the making of Socialists, as Mr. Wells announced with all the emphasis of a rediscovery, no doubt the local societies achieved some Socialism, since they made some members.  If Socialism is to be attained by the making of Socialist measures, doubtless they accomplished a little by their influence on local administration.  Organisation for political work is always educative to those who take part in it, and it has some effect on the infinitely complex parallelogram of forces which determines the direction of progress.  Possibly I underestimate the importance of local Fabian Societies; there is a school of thought, often represented in the Society, which regards the provinces with reverent awe—­omne ignotum pro magnifico—­as the true source of political wisdom, which Londoners should endeavour to discover and obey.  Londoners no doubt see little of organised labour, and even less of industrial co-operation:  the agricultural labourer is to them almost a foreigner:  the Welsh miner belongs to another race.  But the business men, the professional class, and the political organisers of Manchester and Glasgow have, in my opinion, no better intuitions, and usually less knowledge than their equivalents in London, and they have the disadvantage of comparative isolation.  London, the brain of the Empire, where reside the leaders in politics and in commerce, in literature, in journalism and in art, and which consequently attracts the young men who