for the community, we regarded
as the real and final remedy. But between the former, such as labour
bureaux, farm colonies, afforestation, the eight hours day, which
admittedly were at best only partial and temporary, and Socialism, which
was obviously far off, there was a great gulf fixed, and how to bridge
it we knew not. At last the Minority Report provided an answer. It was a
comprehensive and practicable scheme for preventing unemployment under
existing conditions, and for coping with the mass of incompetent
destitution which for generations had Been the disgrace of our
civilisation.

Into the details of this scheme I must not enter because it is, properly
speaking, outside the scope of this book. The propaganda for carrying
the Report into effect was undertaken by the National Committee for the
Prevention of Destitution, established by Mrs. Webb as a separate
organisation. The necessity for this step was significant of the extent
to which Socialism, as it crystallises into practical measures, invades
the common body of British thought. People who would not dream of
calling themselves Socialists, much less contributing to the funds of a
Socialist Society, become enthusiastically interested in separate parts
of its program as soon as it has a program, provided these parts are
presented on their own merits and not as approaches to Socialism. Indeed
many who regard Socialism as a menace to society are so anxious to find
and support alternatives to it, that they will endow expensive
Socialistic investigations and subscribe to elaborate Socialistic
schemes of reform under the impression that nothing that is thoughtful,
practical, well informed, and constitutional can possibly have any
connection with the Red Spectre which stands in their imagination for
Socialism. To such people the Minority Report, a document obviously the
work of highly skilled and disinterested political thinkers and experts,
would recommend itself as the constitutional basis of a Society for the
Prevention of Destitution: that is, of the condition which not only
smites the conscientious rich with a compunction that no special
pleading by arm-chair economists can allay, but which offers a hotbed to
the sowers of Socialism. Add to these the considerable number of
convinced or half-convinced Socialists who for various reasons are not
in a position to make a definite profession of Socialism without great
inconvenience, real or imaginary, to themselves,