ces with much less coercive interference than the present system
entails."

From these extracts it will be seen that the Manifesto, drafted by
William Morris, but mutilated and patched up by the other two, bears the
imprint neither of his style, nor that of Shaw, but reminds one rather
of mid-Victorian dining-room furniture, solid, respectable, heavily
ornate, and quite uninteresting. Happily there is not much of it!

Unity was attained by the total avoidance of the contentious question of
political policy. But fifteen active Socialists sitting together at a
period when parties were so evenly divided that a General Election was
always imminent could not refrain from immediate politics, and the
S.D.F., like many other bodies, always cherished the illusion that the
defeat of a minority at a joint conference on a question of principle
would put that minority out of action.

Accordingly, as soon as the Manifesto had been published resolutions
were tabled pledging the constituent societies to concentrate their
efforts on Socialist candidates accepted as suitable by the Joint
Committee. On this point the Fabian Society was in a hopeless minority,
and an endless vista of futile and acrimonious discussions was opened
out which would lead to unrest in our own society--for there has always
been a minority opposed to its dominant policy--and a waste of time and
temper to the delegates from our Executive. It was therefore resolved at
the end of July that our delegates be withdrawn, and that put an end to
the Joint Committee.

The decision was challenged at a members' meeting by E.E. Williams, one
of the signatories of the Joint Manifesto, subsequently well known as
the author of "Made in Germany," and in some sense the real founder of
the Tariff Reform movement; but the members by a decisive vote upheld
the action of their Executive.

Four years later, early in 1897, another effort after Unity was made. By
this time Morris, whose outstanding personality had given him a
commanding and in some respects a moderating influence in the movement,
was dead; and the Hammersmith Socialist Society had disappeared. Instead
there was the new and vigorous Independent Labour Party, already the
premier Socialist body in point of public influence. This body took the
first step, and a meeting was held in April at the Fabian office,
attended by Hubert Bland, Bernard Shaw, and myself as delegates from our
Society. The proposal before the Conferen