uffragettes and Trade
Unionists was the only method of progress. The "Daily Herald," a
newspaper started by a group of compositors in London, was acquired by
partisans of this policy, and as long as it lived incessantly derided
the Labour Party and advocated Women's Franchise and some sort of
Syndicalism as the social panacea. Moreover a variant on Syndicalism, of
a more reasoned and less revolutionary character, called "Guild
Socialism," was proposed by Mr. A.R. Orage in the pages of his weekly,
"The New Age," and gained a following especially in Oxford, where Mr.
G.D.H. Cole was leader of the University Fabian Society. His book on
Trade Unionism, entitled "The World of Labour," published at the end of
1913, attracted much attention, and he threw himself with great energy
into the Trade Union enquiry of the Research Department, of which his
friend and ally, Mr. W. Mellor, was the Secretary. Mr. Cole was elected
to the Executive Committee in April, 1914, and soon afterwards began a
new "Reform" movement. He had become a prophet of the "Guild Socialism"
school, and was at that time extremely hostile to the Labour Party.
Indeed a year before, when dissatisfaction with the party was prevalent,
he had proposed at a business meeting that the Fabian Society should
disaffiliate, but he had failed to carry his resolution by 92 votes
against 48. In the summer of 1914 however he arrived at an understanding
with Mr. Clifford Allen, also a member of the Executive, and with other
out and out supporters of the Labour Party, by which they agreed to
combine their altogether inconsistent policies into a single new program
for the Fabian Society. The program of the "several schools of thought,"
published in "Fabian News" for April, 1915, laid down that the object of
the Society should be to carry out research, that the Basis should be
replaced merely by the phrase, "The Fabian Society consists of
Socialists and forms part of the national and international movement for
the emancipation of the community from the capitalist system"; and that
a new rule should be adopted forbidding members to belong to, or
publicly to associate with, any organisation opposed to that movement of
which this Society had declared itself a part. The Executive Committee
published a lengthy rejoinder, and at the election of the Executive
Committee a few weeks later the members by their votes clearly indicated
their disapproval of the new scheme. At the Annual Meeting