This Little Band of Prophets, by Fremantle

[p018] Fabians Anne Fremantle, This Little Band of Prophets. Allen & Unwin. 28s. Just about a hundred years ago a book was published in Chicago with the title Free Love: or Socialism Ex- posed. Americans who tend to equate Socialism with marital infidelity will have their prejudices reinforced by Mrs. Fremantle’s work, which was first published, I believe, as a paper- back in the United States. Indica- tions of the book’s intended primary audience are provided by its scrupu- lous translation of references to British money into American terms (at the artificial rate, for all periods of history, of four dollars to the pound) and by the description of William Morris as ‘the British Walt such a book would hardly be worth icing in this country if it had not, for some unaccountable reason, been taken up by Messrs Allen and U nwin, the publishers of the present edition of Fabian Essays, who describe Mrs. Fremantle’s book as a ‘political his- tory’ which ‘no student of the origins of Left-wing thought in this country can ignore’. It is true that there is a need for a scholarly study of Fabianism to supplement the history of the Society written 45 years ago by its secretary, Edward Pease. A careful analysis of the Fabian contribution to political and economic theory and to the evg- lution of politics and government is overdue: in some respects, _ it would substantially reduce the claims made by its highly articu- late protagonists such as the Webbs and Bernard Shaw. Mrs, Fremantle’s book unfortun- ately does not satisfy this need in the slightest. Since she is interested only in gossip, she is not concerned about accuracy, and she is prepared to tely upon any source on information, whether it be the boastful exaggera- tions of an early member of the society or the sweeping generaliza- tions of a hostile observer such as Sister Patricia McCarran, the daughter of the late Senator McCar- ran, whose thesis on the Fabians was published by the Catholic Univers- ity of America. It must be admitted, however, that when Mrs. Fremantle is quoting from some source the errors do not come quite as thick and fast as when she is constructing her own narrative. She has no clear idea of who were Fabians and who were not—among those whom she claims for the Society in its early years being Bel- fort Bax, the well-known Marxist authority, and H. H. Champion, who was always a critic of the Society which he described as ‘the Micaw- ber Club’. Later on in the book, Mrs. Fremantle’s description of the Left Book Club as ‘a very Fabian venture’ would raise a chuckle from Harry Pollitt, if not from Victor Gollancz. One of the main problems of Fabian history is to try and deter- mine how much the Society and its members influenced the early devel- opment of the Labour Party. Here Mrs. Fremantle can give no help whatsoever, as she does not under- stand the components of the Labour movement at the time. She refers to the TUC throughout as the ‘Trades Union Council’; she mixes up Con- gress meetings with Labour Party conferences; and at one point she tells us that the trade union leaders were all Marxian Socialists until they were ‘saved’ by (of all things) the Taff Vale Case. The early Fabians, and particularly Autumn Books the Webbs and Graham Wallas, made important contributions not only to political theory and practice, but also to historical studies. It is an un- merited misfortune that has befallen them to have their ‘story’ told by Mrs. Fremantle. HENRY PELLING. Empire and Labour Bernard Semmel, Imperialism and Social Reform: English Social-Im- perial Thought, 1895-1914 Allen and Unwin, 28s. The title of this book is of obvious interest to the student of modern British political history, and it at once raises a number of interesting questions. How far was the Social- ist moyement diverted from its true aims at the beginning of the century, or weakened in its strength, by the existence of the Empire and by the attractions of Imperialism? Did Tory Imperialists deliberately use social reform policies as a bait to win working-class support for their poli- cies? And what, in any case, were the main purposes of Imperialism at the time? For many years the best narrative of British history in the period with which Mr. Semmel is concerned has been Elie Halévy’s History of the English People: Epilogue, in two volumes, one of which is subtitled Imperialism and the Rise of Labour. {t is a pity that Mr. Semmel does not in fact succeed in taking us very much further than Halévy. His book, which really consists of a series of essays on particular imperialist thinkers (including Robert Blatch- ford and the Fabians as well as Joseph Chamberlain, Milner, Mac- kinder, etc.), might be regarded as

[p019] 98 an appendix to Haléyy rather than a more penetrating examination of the Problems that are mentioned above, This is not to deny that the book has its merits, There js a useful study of the Tariff Reform League, ests which provided its main 5 Unfortunately, suggestions vague in character and it is clear that Mr. Semmel has not got down to detailed enquiry based on Original sources, In treating the Socialist Writers of the period Mr, Semme! also shows Serious weaknes. es. He has quite an interesting account of the ‘Co-effici- €nts’, the sroup collected at the begin- ning of the century by the Webbs to discuss Problems of national and im- Pperial Organization; but he has not taken the trouble to find what light is thrown on their activities by the Webb papers or other unpublished documents now available. He is also inclined to Push his arguments too far, maintaining without reasonable evidence given that the Fabians were more interested in imperialism than in social reform, It is also extraordinary that Mr. Semmel should not bother to discuss such leading Protagonists of Social- ism as Hyndman and Champion, interest in imperialism was especially strong and—in Hyndman’s least—especially important for the development of British Marx- i » Neither of these men get more than a mention in the book, Champion being incorrectly described as a union leader, The study of modern British his. tory is not pursued so intensively in this country that we should be other than grateful for the fact that Ameri ean scholars take an interest and much of the work recently pub lished by Americans has been of high quality, But although Mr, Semmel’s work is readable (and will probably be well reviewed in this country on that account) one is bound to fee! that it could have been very much better than it is, Few sources are used other than those which were ayail- able to Halévy; and although the preface of the book is written from “London, November, 1959, no men- tion of works relevant to the subject which haye appeared in the last half- dozen years is to be found either in the body of the book or in the bibli- Ography. A somewhat unexpected LABOUR REVIEW —October-November, 1960} A discussion of Fascism in the con- and the Socialist revolution in) Ps cluding chapter makes the error of Britain, la Supposing that Oswald Mosley was a Alasdair Macintyre contributes age 2" Cabinet Minister: and it requires essay on the theme that reason cagh th more than a moment's thought to tule the world, provided man turng te? realise what Organization the author in the direction pointed by Hegelj : 's referring to under the guise of and Marx rather than in the directiogh il ‘Union of Democratic “Action * of mechanical materialism, with jtgy 51 Columbia University, where Mr. notion of a determined history standg Semmel has been studying, has done ing over against man himself. They li betier for us in the past. criticism of leading philosophical & HENRY PELLING. and sociological schools from thigy = viewpoint is useful, and MacIntyre) “a claims that the outstanding intelle. vi . tuals in hilosophy and psycholo, 2 Sire Unknown (Wittgenstein and Freud) are in effect A ointing in the same direction ag 4