ome and Abroad" (No. 85), giving a sketch of the facts,
and "Municipal Drink Traffic" (No. 86), which set out a scheme drafted
by me, but substantially modified as the result of discussions by the
Executive Committee and by meetings of members. This is one of the few
causes taken up by the Society which has made but little progress in
popular favour in the seventeen years that have elapsed since we adopted
it.

Old Age Pensions, proposed in 1890 by Sidney Webb in Tract 17, "Reform
of the Poor Law," was definitely advocated in Tract No. 73, "The Case
for State Pensions in Old Age," written in 1896 by George Turner, one of
the cleverest of the younger members. The Society did not make itself
responsible for the scheme he proposed, universal pensions for all, and
the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908 adopted another plan.

In 1899 and 1900 we devoted much time to the working out of further
schemes of municipalisation in the form of a series of leaflets, Nos. 90
to 97. We applied the principle to Milk, Pawnshops, Slaughterhouses,
Bakeries, Fire Insurance, and Steamboats. These were written by various
members, and are all careful little studies of the subject, but they
were not issued in a convenient form, and none of the schemes advocated
has yet been generally carried out.

* * * * *

The Tariff Reform agitation could not pass unnoticed, and for a time
Bernard Shaw showed a certain inclination to toy with it. A tract
advocating Free Trade was actually set up, but got no further. Finally
Shaw drafted "Fabianism and the Fiscal Question An Alternative Policy"
(Tract 116), which we adopted with practical unanimity, though it was
the occasion of the resignation of Graham Wallas.

It was perhaps the least successful of the many pronouncements written
by Bernard Shaw on behalf of the Society. A subtle and argumentative
criticism of Mr. Chamberlain's policy on one side and of the Free Trade
rejoinder on the other is neither simple nor decisive enough for the
general reader: and the alternatives advocated--reorganisation of the
consular service in the interests of export trade, free ocean transit
for the purpose of consolidating the Empire and nationalisation of
railways as a necessary corollary together with improved technical
education--were too futurist, and appealed directly to too small and
conservative a class, to attract much attention in the heat of a vital
controversy. The writer had no antic