From this point onwards Mrs. Webb has been on the whole the dominant personality in the Society This does not necessarily mean that she is abler or stronger than her husband or Bernard Shaw.  But the latter had withdrawn from the Executive Committee, and the former, with the rest of the Old Gang, had made the Society what it already was.  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.  In April their action in publishing this “Special advice to members” without the consent of a members’ meeting was challenged, but the Executive Committee’s contention that it was entitled to advise the members, and that the advice given was sound, was endorsed by a very large majority.

At the Annual Meeting the Executive Committee, with a view to setting forth once more their reasoned view on a subject of perennial trouble to new members, accepted a resolution instructing them to consider and report on the advisability of limiting the liberty of members to support political parties other than Labour or Socialist, and on November 4th R.C.K.  Ensor on behalf of the Executive gave an admirable address on Fabian Policy.  He explained that the Society had never set out to become a political party, and that in this respect it differed in the most marked manner from most Socialist bodies.  Its collective support of the Labour Party combined with toleration of Liberals suited a world of real men who can seldom be arranged on tidy and geometrical lines.  This report was accepted by general consent, and in December, when Parliament was again dissolved, this time on the question of the Veto of the Lords, the Executive repeated their “Advice to Members” to vote for Liberals whenever no properly accredited Labour or Socialist candidate was in the field.