asses that they could create their own party if they cared
as much about politics as they cared for horse-racing (football was not
in those days the typical sport); and it concludes by advising them to
vote for the better, or against the worse, man, on the ground that
progress was made by steps, a step forward was better than a step
backward, and the only thing certain is the defeat of a party which
sulks and does not vote at all. The Manifesto was widely circulated by
the then vigorous local societies, and no doubt had some effect, though
the intensity of the antipathy to Liberal Unionism on the one side and
to Home Rule on the other left little chance for other considerations.

Six members of the Society were candidates, but none of them belonged to
the group which had made its policy and conducted its campaign. In one
case, Ben Tillett at West Bradford, the Society took an active part in
the election, sending speakers and collecting L152 for the Returning
Officer's expenses. Of the six, J. Keir Hardie at West Ham alone was
successful, but Tillett did well at West Bradford, polling 2,749, only a
few hundred votes below the other two candidates, and preparing the
field for the harvest which F.W. Jowett reaped in 1906.

The result of the election, which took place in July, was regarded as a
justification for the Fabian policy of social advance. In London, where
Liberalism was strongly tainted with it, the result was "as in 1885,"
the year of Liberal victory, and the only Liberal seat lost was that of
the President of the Leasehold Enfranchisement Association! In the
industrial cities, and in Scotland, where Liberalism was still
individualist, the result was rather as in 1886, when Liberalism lost.
In London also "by far the largest majorities were secured by Mr. John
Burns and Mr. Keir Hardie, who stood as avowed Socialists, and by Mr.
Sydney Buxton, whose views are really scarcely less advanced than
theirs."[29]

I have pointed out that Fabian policy began with State Socialism, and in
quite early days added to it Municipal Socialism; but in 1888 the
authors of "Fabian Essays" appeared to be unconscious of Trade Unionism
and hostile to the Co-operative movement. The Dock Strike of 1889 and
the lecturing in London clubs and to the artisans of the north pointed
the way to a new development. Moreover, in the summer of 1892 Sidney
Webb had married Miss Beatrice Potter, author of an epoch-making little
book, "The Co-operat