lation for the tract was easily
secured. Thousands of working-class politicians read and remembered it,
and it cannot be doubted that the "Plan of Campaign for Labour," as it
was called, did much to prepare the ground for the Labour Party which
was founded so easily and flourished so vigorously in the first years of
the twentieth century.

At this point the policy of simple permeation of the Liberal Party may
be said to have come to an end. The "Daily Chronicle," under the
influence of Mr. Massingham, became bitterly hostile to the Fabians.
They could no longer plausibly pretend that they looked for the
realisation of their immediate aims through Liberalism. They still
permeated, of course, since they made no attempt to form a party of
their own, and they believed that only through existing organisations,
Trade Unions on one side, the political parties on the other, could
sufficient force be obtained to make progress within a reasonable time.
In one respect it must be confessed we shared an almost universal
delusion. When the Liberal Party was crushed at the election of 1895 we
thought that its end had come in England as it has in other countries.
Conservatism is intelligible: Socialism we regarded as entirely
reasonable. Between the two there seemed to be no logical resting place.
We had discovered long ago that the working classes were not going to
rush into Socialism, but they appeared to be and were in fact growing up
to it. The Liberalism of the decade 1895-1905 had measures in its
programme, such as Irish Home Rule, but it had no policy, and it seemed
incredible then, as it seems astonishing now, that a party with so
little to offer could sweep the country, as it was swept by the Liberals
in 1906. But nobody could have foreseen Mr. Lloyd George, and although
the victory of 1906 was not due to his leadership, no one can doubt that
it is his vigorous initiative in the direction of Socialism which
secured for his party the renewed confidence of the country.

* * * * *

Twelve years later another attempt to get administrative reform from the
Liberal Party was made on somewhat similar lines. The party had taken
office in December, 1905, and in the interval before the General
Election of 1906 gave them their unprecedented majority, "An Intercepted
Letter," adopted at a members' meeting in December, was published in the
"National Review" for January. It purported to be a circular letter