s election address made no reference to it--and Mr. Shaw
did nothing to establish his Middle-Class Socialist Party.

The new Committee quickly settled down to work, but Mr. Wells was
already wearying of his role as political organiser. He was appointed
both to the General Purposes and the Propaganda Sub-Committees, but
after attending two meetings of the former, and none of the latter, he
resigned from both in October, and of the seventeen meetings of the
Executive Committee during its year of office he attended only seven.

In April, 1908, he was re-elected to the Executive, again fourth on the
poll, and Mrs. Wells who had not been a candidate before was also
successful. But in the following September he resigned his membership of
the Society, assigning as reasons "disagreement with the Basis which
forms the Confession of Faith of the Society and discontent with the
general form of its activities," together with a desire "to concentrate
on the writing of novels." He explained that "a scheme which proposes to
leave mother and child economically dependent on the father is not to me
Socialism at all, but a miserable perversion of Socialism." The letter,
printed in "Fabian News," goes on to refer to his objection to the "no
compensation" clause in the Basis (the real weakness of which is that it
refers hypothetically to a complete change of system and is never
applied to any particular case[38]), and added that the opportunity for
a propaganda to the British middle classes was now over. Mrs. Wells
retained her seat on the Executive Committee till March, 1910, and soon
after that date the connection of both of them with the Society
altogether ceased.

* * * * *

I have now traced the main stream of the subject of this chapter, though
a good deal remains to be said on other effects of the agitation. I
have indicated that the actual proposals made by the Special Committee
under the inspiration of Mr. Wells, in so far at any rate as they were
controversial or controverted, were futile or impossible, and neither
led, nor in my opinion could have led, to any benefit to the Society or
to its objects. But it must not be inferred from this that the
intervention of Mr. Wells, viewed as a whole, was of this character. He
is a man of outstanding genius, and in so far as he used his powers
appropriately, his work was of enormous value to Socialism; and his
energy and attractive personality added radian