All this concern in local administration did not interfere with the interest taken by the Society in parliamentary politics, and one illustration of this may be mentioned.  The Liberal Party has a traditional feud with Landlordism, and at this period its favourite panacea was Leasehold Enfranchisement, that is, the enactment of a law empowering leaseholders of houses built on land let for ninety-nine years, the common practice in London, to purchase the freehold at a valuation.  Many Conservatives had come round to the view that the breaking up of large town estates and the creation of numerous freeholders, would strengthen the forces upholding the rights of property, and there was every prospect that the Bill would be passed.  A few hours before the debate on April 29th, 1891, a leaflet (Tract No. 22) was published explaining the futility of the proposal from the Fabian standpoint, and a copy was sent to every member of Parliament.  To the astonishment of the Liberal leaders a group of Radicals, including the present Lord Haldane and Sir Edward Grey, opposed the Bill, and it was defeated by the narrow majority of 13 in a house numbering 354.  A few years later the proposal was dropped out of the Liberal programme, and the Leasehold Enfranchisement Association itself adopted a new name and a revised policy.

But the main object of the Fabians was to force on the Liberal Party a programme of constructive social reform.  With few exceptions their members belonged or had belonged to that party, and it was not difficult, now that London had learned the value of the Progressive policy, to get resolutions accepted by Liberal Associations demanding the adoption of a programme.  Sidney Webb in 1888 printed privately a paper entitled “Wanted a Programme:  An Appeal to the Liberal Party,” and sent it out widely amongst the Liberal leaders.  The “Star” and the “Daily Chronicle” took care to publish these resolutions, and everything was done, which skilful agitators knew, to make a popular demand for a social reform programme.  We did what all active politicians in a democratic country must do; we decided what the people ought to want, and endeavoured to do two things, which after all are much the same thing, to make the people want it, and to make it appear that they wanted it.  The result—­how largely attributable to our efforts can hardly now be estimated—­was the Newcastle Program, reluctantly blessed by Mr. Gladstone and adopted by the National Liberal Federation in 1891.[28]

The General Election of 1892 was anticipated with vivid interest.  Since the election of 1886 English Socialism had come into being and Trade Unionism had been transformed by the rise of the Dockers, and the other “new” unions of unskilled labour.  But a Labour Party was still in the future, and our Election Manifesto (Tract 40), issued in June, bluntly tells the working classes that until they form a party of their own they will have to choose between the