corporate capacity did little:
but the members are reported as taking part in local elections, County
Council, School Board, and Vestry, in the meetings of the London Liberal
and Radical Union, the National Liberal Federation, the Metropolitan
Radical Federation, the Women's Liberal Federation, and so on. This was
the year of the first London County Council Election, when the
Progressive Party, as it was subsequently named, won an unexpected
victory, which proved to be both lasting and momentous for the future of
the Metropolis. The only overt part taken by the Fabian Society was its
"Questions for Candidates," printed and widely circulated before the
election, which gave definiteness and point to the vague ideas of
Progressivism then in the air. A large majority of the successful
candidates had concurred with this programme. A pamphlet by Sidney Webb,
entitled "Wanted a Programme," not published but printed privately, was
widely circulated in time for the meeting of the National Liberal
Federation at Birmingham, and another by the same author, "The Progress
of Socialism," stated to be published by "the Hampstead Society for the
Study of Socialism," is reported as in its second edition. This pamphlet
was later republished by the Fabian Society as Tract No. 15, "English
Progress Towards Social Democracy."

Mrs. Besant and the Rev. Stewart Headlam, standing as Progressives,
were elected to the School Board in November, 1888, when Hubert Bland
was an unsuccessful candidate.

Finally it may be mentioned that a Universities Committee, with Frank
Podmore as Secretary for Oxford and G.W. Johnson for Cambridge, had
begun the "permeation" of the Universities, which has always been an
important part of the propaganda of the Society.

At the Annual Meeting in April, 1889, the Essayists were re-elected as
the Executive Committee and Sydney Olivier as Honorary Secretary, but he
only retained the post till the end of the year. I returned to London in
October, was promptly invited to resume the work, and took it over in
January, 1890.

In July another important tract was approved for publication. "Facts for
Londoners," No. 8 in the series, 55 pages of packed statistics sold for
6d., was the largest publication the Society had yet attempted. It is,
as its sub-title states: "an exhaustive collection of statistical and
other facts relating to the Metropolis, with suggestions for reform on
Socialist principles." The latter were in no