ained no more than 8 at each election. All this time
the Progressive Party in the County Council, which came into office
unexpectedly after the confused election in 1889 when the Council was
created, maintained itself in power usually by overwhelming majorities,
obtained at each succeeding triennial elections in the same
constituencies and with substantially the same electorate that returned
Conservatives to Parliament.

In the early nineties the Liberal and Radical Working Men's Clubs of
London had a political importance which has since entirely disappeared.
Every Sunday for eight months in the year, and often on weekdays,
political lectures were arranged, which were constantly given by
Fabians. For instance, in October, 1891, I find recorded in advance
twelve courses of two to five lectures each, nine of them at Clubs, and
fifteen separate lectures at Clubs, all given by members of the Society.
In October, 1892, eleven courses and a dozen separate lectures by our
members at Clubs are notified. These were all, or nearly all, arranged
by the Fabian office, and it is needless to say that a number of others
were not so arranged or were not booked four or five weeks in advance.
Our list of over a hundred lecturers, with their subjects and private
addresses, was circulated in all directions and was constantly used by
the Clubs, as well as by all sorts of other societies which required
speakers.

Moreover, in addition to "Facts for Londoners," Sidney Webb published in
1891 in Sonnenschein's "Social Science Series" a volume entitled "The
London Programme," which set out his policy, and that of the Society, on
all the affairs of the metropolis. The Society had at this time much
influence through the press. "The London Programme" had appeared as a
series of articles in the Liberal weekly "The Speaker." The "Star,"
founded in 1888, was promptly "collared," according to Bernard Shaw,[27]
who was its musical critic, and who wrote in it, so it was said, on
every subject under the sun except music! Mr. H.W. Massingham, assistant
editor of the "Star," was elected to the Society and its Executive
simultaneously in March, 1891, and in 1892 he became assistant editor of
the "Daily Chronicle," under a sympathetic chief, Mr. A.E. Fletcher.

Mrs. Besant and the Rev. Stewart Headlam had been elected to the London
School Board in 1888, and had there assisted a Trade Union
representative in getting adopted the first Fair Wages Clause in
Co