Into the details of this scheme I must not enter because it is, properly speaking, outside the scope of this book.  The propaganda for carrying the Report into effect was undertaken by the National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution, established by Mrs. Webb as a separate organisation.  The necessity for this step was significant of the extent to which Socialism, as it crystallises into practical measures, invades the common body of British thought.  People who would not dream of calling themselves Socialists, much less contributing to the funds of a Socialist Society, become enthusiastically interested in separate parts of its program as soon as it has a program, provided these parts are presented on their own merits and not as approaches to Socialism.  Indeed many who regard Socialism as a menace to society are so anxious to find and support alternatives to it, that they will endow expensive Socialistic investigations and subscribe to elaborate Socialistic schemes of reform under the impression that nothing that is thoughtful, practical, well informed, and constitutional can possibly have any connection with the Red Spectre which stands in their imagination for Socialism.  To such people the Minority Report, a document obviously the work of highly skilled and disinterested political thinkers and experts, would recommend itself as the constitutional basis of a Society for the Prevention of Destitution:  that is, of the condition which not only smites the conscientious rich with a compunction that no special pleading by arm-chair economists can allay, but which offers a hotbed to the sowers of Socialism.  Add to these the considerable number of convinced or half-convinced Socialists who for various reasons are not in a position to make a definite profession of Socialism without great inconvenience, real or imaginary, to themselves, and it will be plain that Mrs. Webb would have been throwing away much of her available resources if she had not used the device of a new organisation to agitate for the Minority Report ad hoc.

Many Fabians served on the Committee—­indeed a large proportion of our members must have taken part in its incessant activities—­and the relations between the two bodies were close; but most of the subscribers to the Committee and many of its most active members came from outside the Society, and were in no way committed to its general principles.

For two whole years Mrs. Webb managed her Committee with great vigour and dash.  She collected for it a considerable income and a large number of workers:  she lectured and organised all over the country; she discovered that she was an excellent propagandist, and that what she could do with success she also did with zest.

In the summer of 1911 Mr. and Mrs. Webb left England for a tour round the world, and Mrs. Webb had mentioned before she left that she was willing to be nominated for the Executive.  At the election in April, 1912, whilst still abroad, she was returned second on the poll, with 778 votes, only a dozen behind her husband.