r Party, mainly formed of Trade Unionists, nor of
Mr. Lloyd George and the policy he represents: he assumed that the rich
would grow richer and the poor poorer; that Liberals would unite with
Tories, as they have done in Australia, and would be confronted with a
Socialist Party representing the dispossessed. Possibly the developments
he sketches are still to come, but that is a matter which cannot be
discussed here.

* * * * *

I can find no trace in the records of the Society that the first success
of their publication occasioned any elation to the Essayists, and I
cannot recollect any signs of it at the time. The Annual Report mentions
that a substantial profit was realised on the first edition, and states
that the authors had made over the copyright, "valued at about L200," to
the Society; but these details are included in a paragraph headed
"Publications," and the Essays are not mentioned in the general sketch
of the work of the year.

In fact the obvious results of the publication took some months to
materialise, and the number of candidates for election to the Society
showed little increase during the spring. It is true that great changes
were made in the organisation of the Society at the Annual Meeting held
on March 28th, 1890, but these were in part due to other causes. The
Executive Committee was enlarged to fifteen, and as I happened to be
available I was appointed paid secretary, half time, at the modest
salary of L1 a week for the first year. The newly elected Executive
included the seven Essayists, Robert E. Dell, now Paris correspondent
for several journals, W.S. De Mattos, for many years afterwards an
indefatigable organiser for the Society, and now settled in British
Columbia, the Rev. Stewart D. Headlam, Mrs. L.T. Mallet, then a
prominent member of the Women's Liberal Association, J.F. Oakeshott, of
the Fellowship of the New Life, and myself.

The lectures of the early months of 1890 were a somewhat brilliant
series. Sidney Webb on the Eight Hours Bill; James Rowlands, M.P., on
the then favourite Liberal nostrum of Leasehold Enfranchisement (which
the Essayists demolished in a crushing debate); Dr. Bernard Bosanquet on
"The Antithesis between Individualism and Socialism Philosophically
Considered"; Mrs. Besant on "Socialism and the School Board Policy"; Mr.
(now Sir) H. Llewellyn Smith on "The Causes and Effects of Immigration
from Country to Town," in which he dispro