It was said at the time, and has constantly been alleged since, that the Society had voted its approval of the South African War and had supported imperialist aggression and anti-democratic militarism.  As will be seen from the foregoing, no such statement is correct.  A vote on the policy of the Government would have given an overwhelming adverse majority, but it would have destroyed the Society.  In early days we had drawn a clear line between Socialism and politics:  we had put on one side such problems as Home Rule and Church Disestablishment as of the nature of red herrings, matters of no real importance in comparison with the economic enfranchisement which we advocated.  In the early eighties Parliament spent futile and fruitless months discussing whether Mr. Bradlaugh should take the oath, and whether an extension of the franchise should or should not be accompanied by redistribution.  We wanted to make the working classes pay less attention to these party questions and more attention to their own social conditions.  We thought, or at any rate said, that the Liberal and Conservative leaders kept the party ball rolling in order to distract the workers from the iniquity of the distribution of wealth.  We insisted that Socialism was an economic doctrine, and had nothing to do with other problems.  Later on we realised that the form of government is scarcely less important than its content:  that the unit of administration, whether imperial, national, or local, is germane to the question of the services to be administered; that if the governmental machine is to be used for industry, that machine must be modern and efficient:  and that in fact no clear line of distinction can be drawn between the problems of constitutional structure which concern Socialism and those, if any, which do not concern it.  In the case of the South African war it was mainly the instinct of self-preservation that actuated us; it is certain that any other decision would have destroyed the Society.  The passions of that period were extraordinarily bitter.  The Pro-Boers were mobbed and howled down, their actions were misrepresented, and their motives disparaged:  they retaliated by accusing the British troops of incredible atrocities, by rejoicing over every disaster which befell our arms, and by prophesying all sorts of calamities however the war ended.  There was never any question of the Society issuing a pronouncement justifying the war.  Only a very few of our members went as far as that.  But many others, all or nearly all who were now beginning to be called the “old gang,” on whom from first to last the initiative and stability of the Society has depended, would have declined to be associated with what they regarded as the anti-patriotic excesses of certain of the Liberals, and would have resigned their membership, or at any rate their official positions in the Society, had it adopted at that time the same policy as the I.L.P.  Happily tolerance prevailed, and although an attempt was made to get up a big secession, only about fifteen members resigned in a group when the result of the poll was declared.  These, however, included a few important names, J. Ramsay Macdonald and J. Frederick Green, of the Executive Committee, George N. Barnes and Pete Curran, future Labour Members of Parliament, Walter Crane, H.S.  Salt, Mrs. J.R.  Macdonald, and Mrs. Pankhurst.