in,"
the last named an extraordinarily farsighted anticipation of the chief
reforms which were advocated with such vigour by the Liberal Party, and
indeed by all parties in the years preceding the great war. In the same
year his "State Control of Trusts" was published as Tract 124. As I have
before explained, a great part of the published work of the Society has
been prepared co-operatively, and in this process Mr. Macrosty always
took an active part. He had a considerable share in drafting the
innumerable documents issued in connection with the education
controversy, and indeed participated in all the activities of the
Executive until his retirement.

Scarcely less active was Joseph F. Oakeshott, who has been already
mentioned in connection with the Fellowship of the New Life. He joined
the Executive when it was first enlarged in 1890, and sat until 1902. A
Somerset House official, like Macrosty, he was strong on statistics, and
for many years he undertook the constant revisions of the figures of
national income, in the various editions of our "Facts for Socialists,"

His "Democratic Budget" (Tract 39) was our first attempt to apply
Socialism to taxation: and his "Humanising of the Poor Law" (Tract 54),
published in 1894, set out the policy which in recent years has been
widely adopted by the better Boards of Guardians.

John W. Martin sat on the Executive from 1894 to 1899, wrote Tract No.
52, "State Education at Home and Abroad" (1894), and did a lot of
valuable lecturing, both here and in America, where he married the
leading exponent of Fabianism and editor of a monthly called "The
American Fabian," and, settling in New York, has since, under the name
of John Martin, played a considerable part in the educational and
progressive politics of his adopted city.

* * * * *

I will conclude this chapter with a short account of some of the
applications of Socialism to particular problems which were studied by
the Society in or about this period of its history.

In 1897 and 1898 a good deal of time was devoted to working out a scheme
for the municipalisation of the Drink Trade. This was before the
publication of "The Temperance Problem and Social Reform," by Joseph
Rowntree and Arthur Sherwell, in 1899, a volume which was the first to
treat the subject scientifically on a large scale. I took the lead on
the question, and finally two tracts were published in 1898, "Liquor
Licensing at H