gnified its administrative
difficulties, and generally encouraged the duchesses and farmers who
passively resisted it; but their endeavour to defeat the Bill was a
failure.

It may be too soon to be confident that the policy of the Society in
this matter was wrong. But the Trade Unions are stronger than ever: the
Friendly Societies are not bankrupt: the working people are insured
against sickness: and anybody who now proposed to repeal the Act would
be regarded as a lunatic.

* * * * *

Meanwhile the withdrawal of some of the older had by no means satisfied
the younger generation, and during the autumn of 1911 a Fabian Reform
Committee was constituted, with Henry H. Slesser as Chairman, Dr. Marion
Phillips as Vice-Chairman, Clifford Allen as Secretary, and fifteen
other members, including Dr. Ethel Bentham, who, like Mr. Slesser, was a
member of the Executive. Their programme, like that of Mr. Wells,
included a number of reforms of procedure, none of them of much
consequence; and a political policy, which was to insist "that if
Fabians do take part in politics, they should do so only as supporters
of the Labour Party."[41] The campaign of the Committee lasted a year,
and as usual in such cases led to a good deal of somewhat heated
controversy over matters which now appear to be very trivial. It is
therefore not worth while to recount the details of the proceedings,
which can be found by any enquirer in the pages of "Fabian News." Two of
the leaders, Dr. Marion Phillips and Clifford Allen, were elected to the
Executive at the election of 1912, and some of the administrative
reforms proposed by the Committee were carried into effect. The
Reformers elected to fight the battle of political policy on point of
detail, until in July, 1912, the Executive Committee resolved to bring
the matter to an issue, and to that end moved at a members' meeting:
"That this meeting endorses the constitutional practice of the Society
which accords complete toleration to its members; and whilst reaffirming
its loyalty to the Labour Party, to which party alone it as a society
has given support, it declines to interfere ... with the right of each
member to decide on the manner in which he can best work for Socialism
in accordance with his individual opportunities and circumstances." (The
phrase omitted refers to the rule about expulsion of members, a
safeguard which in fact has never been resorted to.) An amendm