sserts that the time had come to attempt the
formation of a middle-class Socialist Party. At the end three
resolutions were set out, which the Executive submitted to the Society
for discussion.

How much of personality, how little of principle there was in the great
controversy is indicated by the fact that Mrs. Bernard Shaw signed the
Special Committee Report, with the reservation that she also completely
agreed with the Reply. Mr. Headlam also was a party to both documents:
Mr. G.R.S. Taylor, alone of the three Executive members of the Special
Committee, supported the Report and dissociated himself from the Reply.
Of course the Executive Committee had to decide points in their Report
by a majority. That majority, in the case of the proposed revision of
the Basis, was, as already mentioned, one vote only. I did not concur
with the view expressed about the Labour Party, a body scarcely less
easy to be understood by an outsider than the Fabian Society itself: and
at that time I was the only insider on the Fabian Executive.

But the real issue was a personal one. The Executive Committee at that
time consisted, in addition to the three just named, of Percy Alden
(Liberal M.P. for Tottenham), Hubert Bland, Cecil E. Chesterton, Dr. F.
Lawson Dodd, F.W. Galton, S.G. Hobson, H.W. Macrosty, W. Stephen
Sanders, Bernard Shaw, George Standring, Sidney Webb and myself. Mr.
Alden was too busy with his new parliamentary duties to take much part
in the affair. All the rest, except of course Mr. Taylor, stood
together on the real issue--Was the Society to be controlled by those
who had made it or was it to be handed over to Mr. Wells? We knew by
this time that he was a masterful person, very fond of his own way, very
uncertain what that way was, and quite unaware whither it necessarily
led. In any position except that of leader Mr. Wells was invaluable, as
long as he kept it! As leader we felt he would be impossible, and if he
had won the fight he would have justly claimed a mandate to manage the
Society on the lines he had laid down. As Bernard Shaw led for the
Executive, the controversy was really narrowed into Wells versus Shaw.

The Report was sent to the members with "Fabian News" for December,
1906, and it was the occasion of much excitement. The Society had grown
enormously during the year. The names of no less than ninety applicants
for membership are printed in that month's issue alone. In March, 1907,
the membership was 126