W. Macrosty and one or two others. Finally a rejoinder
by the signatories of the first circular was issued in the course of the
poll which extended over nearly a month. The membership at the time was
about 800, of whom 50 lived abroad, and in all only 476 votes were cast,
217 in favour of a pronouncement and 259 against.

It was said at the time, and has constantly been alleged since, that the
Society had voted its approval of the South African War and had
supported imperialist aggression and anti-democratic militarism. As will
be seen from the foregoing, no such statement is correct. A vote on the
policy of the Government would have given an overwhelming adverse
majority, but it would have destroyed the Society. In early days we had
drawn a clear line between Socialism and politics: we had put on one
side such problems as Home Rule and Church Disestablishment as of the
nature of red herrings, matters of no real importance in comparison with
the economic enfranchisement which we advocated. In the early eighties
Parliament spent futile and fruitless months discussing whether Mr.
Bradlaugh should take the oath, and whether an extension of the
franchise should or should not be accompanied by redistribution. We
wanted to make the working classes pay less attention to these party
questions and more attention to their own social conditions. We thought,
or at any rate said, that the Liberal and Conservative leaders kept the
party ball rolling in order to distract the workers from the iniquity of
the distribution of wealth. We insisted that Socialism was an economic
doctrine, and had nothing to do with other problems. Later on we
realised that the form of government is scarcely less important than its
content: that the unit of administration, whether imperial, national, or
local, is germane to the question of the services to be administered;
that if the governmental machine is to be used for industry, that
machine must be modern and efficient: and that in fact no clear line of
distinction can be drawn between the problems of constitutional
structure which concern Socialism and those, if any, which do not
concern it. In the case of the South African war it was mainly the
instinct of self-preservation that actuated us; it is certain that any
other decision would have destroyed the Society. The passions of that
period were extraordinarily bitter. The Pro-Boers were mobbed and howled
down, their actions were misrepresented, and thei