e
Commune of Paris was the only method by which their policy could
prevail. The Fabians realised from the first that no such revolution was
likely to take place, and that constant talk about it was the worst
possible way to commend Socialism to the British working class. And
indeed a few years later it was necessary to establish a new
working-class Socialist Society, the Independent Labour Party, in order
to get clear both of the tradition of revolutionary violence and of the
vain repetition of Marxian formulas. If the smaller society had merged
itself in the popular movement, its criticism, necessary, as it proved
to be, to the success of Socialism in England, would have been voted
down, and its critics either silenced or expelled. Of this criticism I
shall have more to say in another place.[16]

But there was another reason why this course would have been
impracticable. The Fabians were not suited either by ability,
temperament, or conditions to be leaders of a popular revolutionary
party. Mrs. Besant with her gift of splendid oratory and her long
experience of agitation was an exception, but her connection with the
movement lasted no more than five years. Of the others Shaw did not and
does not now possess that unquestioning faith in recognised principles
which is the stock-in-trade of political leadership:[17] and whilst Webb
might have been a first-class minister at the head of a department, his
abilities would have been wasted as a leader in a minority. But there
was a more practical bar. The Fabians were mostly civil servants or
clerks in private employ. The methods of agitation congenial to them
were compatible with their occupations: those of the Social Democrats
were not. Indeed in those days no question of amalgamation was ever
mooted.

But it must be remembered by critics that so far as concerns the Fabian
Society, the absence of identity in organisation has never led to such
hostility as has been common amongst Continental Socialists. Since the
vote of censure in relation to the "Tory Gold," the Fabian Society has
never interfered with the doings of its friendly rivals. The two
Societies have occasionally co-operated, but as a rule they have
severally carried on their own work, each recognising the value of many
of the activities of the other, and on the whole confining mutual
criticism within reasonable limits.

The second and chief reason for the success of the Society was its good
fortune in attachin