ment. They were prepared to welcome expansion, but they pointed
out that the handsome offices proposed must be produced by the large
income and not the income by the handsome offices. A publishing business
on the scale suggested could not be undertaken by an unincorporated
society; moreover, at present the Society had not sufficient income to
pay its officials at the market rate, or to keep out of debt to its
printer. They agreed that the Executive Committee should be enlarged,
but recommended twenty-one instead of twenty-five members; and that the
three proposed sub-committees be appointed, but of seven members each
instead of three. The project of triumvirates they could not endorse,
both for other reasons and because all the leading members of the
Society refused to serve on them, while the essence of the scheme was
that the triumvirs should be the most influential members of the
Society. The abolition of the old-fashioned restrictions on admission to
membership was approved, but not the proposal for a fixed subscription
payable on an appointed date. The Executive Committee did not object to
the proposed new Basis as a whole (and in fact it is on record that its
adoption by the Executive was only lost by 7 votes to 6); but considered
that passages were open to criticism and that the time and effort
necessary for carrying through any new Basis, so worded as to unite
practically the whole Society, would be better spent in other ways. A
Socialist weekly would be valuable, but it would not replace "Fabian
News," which was required for the internal purposes of the Society, and
capable journalists like Mr. Wells himself preferred the publicity of
the "Fortnightly Review" and "The Times," to the "Clarion" and the
"Labour Leader." The Reply goes at great length into the difficulty of
forming a Socialist Party, and into the composition and policy of the
Labour Party, all admirably argued, but just a little unreal; for
Bernard Shaw has never quite understood the Labour Party which he did so
much to create, and at the same time he is thoroughly convinced that he
sees it as it is, in the white light of his genius. Permeation is
described, explained, and defended--the Special Committee had suggested
rather than proposed, in scarcely more than a sentence, that the policy
be abandoned--and it is announced that as long as the Executive was
unchanged there would be no reversal of the political policy of the
Society. Finally the Reply a