George Bernard Shaw, his life and works; a critical biography (authorized) . e generalship of this movement was undertakenchiefly by Sidney Webb, who played such bewildering con-juring tricks with the Liberal thimbles and the Fabian peas,that to this day both the Liberals and the Sectarian So-cialists stand aghast at him. It was exciting whilst itlasted, all this * permeation of the Liberal party, as itwas called; and no person with the smallest political intelli-gence is likely to deny that it made a foothold for us inthe press and pushed forward Socialism in municipalpolitics to an extent wh
George Bernard Shaw, his life and works; a critical biography (authorized) . e generalship of this movement was undertakenchiefly by Sidney Webb, who played such bewildering con-juring tricks with the Liberal thimbles and the Fabian peas,that to this day both the Liberals and the Sectarian So-cialists stand aghast at him. It was exciting whilst itlasted, all this * permeation of the Liberal party, as itwas called; and no person with the smallest political intelli-gence is likely to deny that it made a foothold for us inthe press and pushed forward Socialism in municipalpolitics to an extent which can only be appreciated bythose who remember how things stood before our cam-paign. When we published * Fabian Essays at the endof 1889, having ventured with great misgiving on a sub-scription edition of a thousand, it went off like smoke;and our cheap edition brought up the circulation to abouttwenty thousand. In the meantime, we had been crammingthe public with information in tracts, on the model of ourearliest financial success in that department, namely, Facts 116. THE SOCIALIST. From a photograph taken in July, 1891. [Facing /. lit; THE FABIAN SOCIETY for Socialists, the first edition of which actually broughtus a profit—the only instance of the kind then known. Inshort, the years 1888, 1889, 1890 saw a Fabianboom. . .* In the Political Outlook, last of the Fabian Essays, HubertBland wisely predicted that the moment the party leaders hadunmasked the Fabian designs, they would rally round all theinstitutions the Fabians were attacking. They might eitherput off the Fabians by raising false issues, such as LeaseholdsEnfranchisement and Disestablishment of the Church, or, inorder to defeat the Fabian candidates, coalesce with their rivalsfor office—just as, for example, the Republicans and Democratsunited in the defeat of Henry George for mayor of New YorkCity. In less than two years, Blands prediction was Sidney Webb sought to force to political action a
Size: 1392px × 1795px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidgeorgebernardsha00hend