e, can always apply a
principle to a compromise, point out that it does not fit, and that
difficulties may arise. In the case in question they have in fact rarely
arisen, and such as have occurred have been easily surmounted. It is not
necessary to record here all the proposals put forward from time to time
that the Society should disaffiliate from the Labour Party, or on the
other hand, that it should expel, directly or indirectly, all members
who did not confine their political activities to co-operating with the
Labour Party. It may be assumed that one or other of these proposals was
made every few years after the Labour Party was constituted, and that in
every case it was defeated, as a rule, by a substantial majority.

The Labour Party won three remarkable victories in the period between
the General Election of 1900 and that of 1906. In 1902 Mr. David
Shackleton was returned unopposed for a Liberal seat, the Clitheroe
Division of Lancashire; in 1903 Mr. (now the Right Hon.) Will Crooks, an
old member of our Society, captured Woolwich from the Conservatives by a
majority of 3229, amidst a scene of enthusiasm which none who were
present will ever forget: and five months later Mr. (now the Right Hon.)
Arthur Henderson, who later became a member of our Society, beat both
Liberal and Tory opponents at the Barnard Castle Division of Durham.

When the election campaign of 1906 began the Labour Party put fifty
candidates into the field and succeeded in carrying no fewer than
twenty-nine of them, whilst another joined the party after his
election. Four of these were members of the Fabian Society, and in
addition three Fabians were successful as Liberals, including Percy
Alden, then a member of our Executive Committee.

Whilst the election was in progress Mr. H.G. Wells began the Fabian
reform movement which is described in the next chapter. At that time he
did not bring the Labour Party into his scheme of reconstruction, but
some of the members of his Committee were then ardent adherents of that
party, and they persuaded his Committee to report in favour of the
Society's choosing "in harmonious co-operation with other Socialist and
Labour bodies, Parliamentary Candidates of its own. Constituencies for
such candidates should be selected, a special election fund raised and
election campaigns organised."

The result was that a resolution proposed by the Executive Committee was
carried early in March, 1907, directing the app