t genius among the long list of respectable
dullards who have addressed us, never got beyond this absurd little
group.

[27] Tract 41. "The Fabian Society," p. 18.

[28] Bernard Shaw has sent me the following note on this point:--

The exact facts of the launching of the Newcastle Program are these.
Webb gave me the Program in his own handwriting as a string of
resolutions. I, being then a permeative Fabian on the executive of the
South St. Pancras Liberal and Radical Association (I had coolly walked
in and demanded to be elected to the Association and Executive, which
was done on the spot by the astonished Association--ten strong or
thereabouts) took them down to a meeting in Percy Hall, Percy Street,
Tottenham Court Road, where the late Mr. Beale, then Liberal candidate
and subscription milch cow of the constituency (without the ghost of a
chance), was to address as many of the ten as might turn up under the
impression that he was addressing a public meeting. There were certainly
not 20 present, perhaps not 10. I asked him to move the resolutions. He
said they looked complicated, and that if I would move them he would
second them. I moved them, turning over Webb's pages by batches and not
reading most of them. Mr. Beale seconded. Passed unanimously. That night
they went down to The Star with a report of an admirable speech which
Mr. Beale was supposed to have delivered. Next day he found the National
Liberal Club in an uproar at his revolutionary break-away. But he played
up; buttoned his coat determinedly; said we lived in progressive times
and must move with them; and carried it off. Then he took the report of
his speech to the United States and delivered several addresses founded
on it with great success. He died shortly after his last inevitable
defeat. He was an amiable and worthy man; and the devotion with which he
fought so many forlorn hopes for his party should have earned him a safe
seat. But that debt was never paid or even acknowledged; and he felt the
ingratitude very keenly.

[29] "Fabian News," August, 1892.

Chapter VII

"Fabianism and the Empire": 1900-1

The Library and Book Boxes--Parish Councils--The Workmen's
Compensation Act--The Hutchinson Trust--The London School of
Economics--Educational Lectures--Electoral Policy--The controversy
over the South African War--The publication of "Fabianism and the
Empire."

The next few years were devoted to quieter work than tha