rd Shaw's speech, probably the most
impressive he has ever made in the Society, was delivered to a large and
keenly appreciative audience in a state of extreme excitement. A long
report pacifically toned down by Shaw himself, appears in "Fabian News"
(January, 1907). It succeeded in its object. The Executive Committee
welcomed the co-operation of Mr. Wells; the last thing they desired was
to drive him out of the Society, and whilst they could not accept his
report as a whole, they were willing to adopt any particular item after
full discussion. There is no doubt that they would have won if the
amendment had gone to a division, but they were only too glad not to
inflict a defeat on their opponents.

* * * * *

The next episode in the debate requires a few words of introduction. The
Society had always been in favour of votes for women. A proposition in
the Manifesto, Tract No. 2, published as early as 1884, states that "men
no longer need special political privileges to protect them against
women," and in all our publications relating to the franchise or local
government the claims of women to equal citizenship were prominently put
forward. But we had published no tract specially on the subject of the
Parliamentary Vote for Women. This was not mere neglect. In 1893 a
committee was appointed "to draw up a tract advocating the claims of
women to all civil and political rights at present enjoyed by men," and
in March, 1894, it reported that "a tract had been prepared which the
Committee itself did not consider suitable for publication." Later the
Committee was discharged, and in face of this fiasco nothing further was
done.

Mr. Wells took a strong view on the importance of doing something in
relation to women and children, though exactly what he proposed was
never clear. He offered to the Society his little book on "Socialism and
the Family," subsequently published by Mr. Fifield, but the Executive
Committee declined it precisely because of its vagueness: they were not
disposed to accept responsibility for criticisms on the existing
system, unless some definite line of reform was proposed which they
could ask the Society to discuss and approve, or at any rate to issue as
a well-considered scheme suitable for presentation to the public.

The new Basis proposed by the Special Committee declared that the
Society sought to bring about "a reconstruction of the social
organisation" by

_(a)