We did not at the time repudiate Mr. Wells’ dictum:  indeed we adopted his policy, and attempted the making of Socialism on a large scale.  No doubt there is a certain ambiguity in the word “Socialists.”  It may mean members of Socialist societies, or at any rate “unattached Socialists,” all those in fact who use the name to describe their political opinions.  Or it may merely be another way of stating that the existing form of society can only be altered by the wills of living people, and change will only be in the direction of Socialism, when the wills which are effective for the purpose choose that direction in preference to another.

Mr. Wells himself described as a “fantastic idea” the notion that “the world may be manoeuvred into Socialism without knowing it”:  that “society is to keep like it is ... and yet Socialism will be soaking through it all, changing without a sign,"[56] and he at any rate meant by his phrase, “make members of Socialist societies.”

The older and better Fabian doctrine is set out in the opening paragraphs of Tract 70, the “Report on Fabian Policy” (1896).

“THE MISSION OF THE FABIANS

The object of the Fabian Society is to persuade the English people to make their political constitution thoroughly democratic and so to socialise their industries as to make the livelihood of the people entirely independent of private capitalism.

The Fabian Society endeavours to pursue its Socialist and Democratic objects with complete singleness of aim.  For example:—­

It has no distinctive opinions on the Marriage Question, Religion, Art, abstract Economics, historic Evolution, Currency, or any other subject than its own special business of practical Democracy and Socialism.

It brings all the pressure and persuasion in its power to bear on existing forces, caring nothing by what name any party calls itself or what principles, Socialist or other, it professes, but having regard solely to the tendency of its actions, supporting those which make for Socialism and Democracy and opposing those which are reactionary.

It does not propose that the practical steps towards Social Democracy should be carried out by itself or by any other specially organised society or party.

It does not ask the English people to join the Fabian Society.”

In old days acting on this view of our “mission” we deliberately allowed the Society to remain small.  Latterly we tried to expand, and in the main our attempt was an expensive failure.  The other Socialist bodies have always used their propaganda primarily for recruiting; and they have sought to enlist the rank and file of the British people.  In this they too have substantially failed, and the forty or fifty thousand members of the I.L.P. and B.S.P. are roughly no larger a proportion of the working class than the three thousand Fabians are of the middle