ies, and other education
controlled and subsidised by Town and County Councils, was disastrous,
the more so since a recent legal decision (the Cockerton case) had
restricted the limits of School Board education more narrowly than ever.

All sorts of projects might have been proposed for solving these complex
difficulties, projects drafted in the interests of the Church or the
Nonconformists, the voluntary schools or the schools of the local
authorities: but, in fact, the scheme proposed by Mr. Balfour followed
almost precisely the lines laid down in our tract, which was published
in January, 1901, and of which 20,000 copies were quickly circulated.

At the Annual Meeting in May, 1901, a resolution was adopted, in spite
of the vigorous opposition of Mr. Headlam, welcoming the Government Bill
and suggesting various amendments to it. This Bill was withdrawn, to be
reintroduced a year later as the Education Bill, 1902, which ultimately
became law. This measure was considered at a meeting in May, 1902, and a
long series of resolutions welcoming the Bill and advocating amendments
on eighteen different points was carried in spite of vigorous
opposition. Nearly all these amendments, the chief of which was directed
to making the Bill compulsory where it was drafted as optional, were
embodied in the Act.

Our support of the Conservative Government in their education policy
caused much surprise and attracted not a little attention. We had been
suspected by other Socialists, not without excuse, of intrigues with the
Liberals, and our attack on that party in 1893 was made exclusively in
the interests of Labour. Now when Liberals and Labour were united in
denouncing the Government, when Nonconformists who had deserted
Liberalism on the Home Rule issue were returning in thousands to their
old party, the Fabians, alone amongst progressives (except of course the
Irish, who were keen to save the Roman Catholic schools), supported the
Government in what was popularly regarded as a reactionary policy. Time
has vindicated our judgment. The theological squabbles which occupied so
much of the energies of the School Boards are now forgotten because the
rival sects are no longer represented on the Education Authorities, that
is, the town and county councils. Education has been secularised in the
sense that it is no longer governed by clerics, and though some Liberals
now desire to carry Mr. Balfour's policy still further, the Liberal
Party in