* * * * *

External events put an end to this period of quiescence, and the Society, which was often derisively regarded as expert in the politics of the parish pump, an exponent of “gas and water Socialism,” was forced to consider its attitude towards the problems of Imperialism.

War was declared by President Kruger for the South African Republic on October 11th, 1899.  Up to this point the whole of the Society, with very few exceptions, had scouted the idea of war.  “The grievances alleged, though some of them were real enough, were ludicrously unimportant in comparison with our cognate home grievances.  Nobody in his senses would have contemplated a war on their account,"[31] But when war had come the situation was entirely altered.  The majority of the Society recognised that the British Empire had to win the war, and that no other conclusion to it was possible.  Some of us had joined in the protest against the threat of war:  but when that protest was fruitless we declined to contest the inevitable.  A large section of the Liberal Party and nearly all other Socialists took another view.  They appeared to believe, and some of them even hoped, that the Boers might be successful and the British army be driven to the sea.  The I.L.P. regarded the war as a typical case of the then accepted theory of Socialism that war is always instigated by capitalists for the purpose of obtaining profits.  They opposed every step in the prosecution of the campaign, and criticised every action of the British authorities.

In this matter the left and right wings of the Fabians joined hands in opposition to the centre.  Members who came into the movement when Marxism was supreme, like Walter Crane, those who worked largely with the I.L.P., such as J. Ramsay Macdonald, S.G.  Hobson, and G.N.  Barnes (later M.P. and Chairman of the Labour Party), were joined by others who were then associated with the Liberals, such as Dr. F. Lawson Dodd, Will Crooks (later Labour M.P.), Clement Edwards (later Liberal M.P.), and Dr. John Clifford.  On the other side were the older leaders of the Society, who took the view that the members had come together for the purpose of promoting Socialism, that the question at issue was one “which Socialism cannot solve and does not touch,"[32] and that whilst each member was entitled to hold and work for his own opinion, it was not necessary for the Society in its corporate capacity to adopt a formal policy with the result of excluding the large minority which would have objected to whatever decision was arrived at.

The first round in the contest was at a business meeting on October 13th, 1899, when on the advice of the Executive the members present rejected a motion of urgency for the discussion of a resolution expressing sympathy with the Boers.