in England as it has in other countries.  Conservatism is intelligible:  Socialism we regarded as entirely reasonable.  Between the two there seemed to be no logical resting place.  We had discovered long ago that the working classes were not going to rush into Socialism, but they appeared to be and were in fact growing up to it.  The Liberalism of the decade 1895-1905 had measures in its programme, such as Irish Home Rule, but it had no policy, and it seemed incredible then, as it seems astonishing now, that a party with so little to offer could sweep the country, as it was swept by the Liberals in 1906.  But nobody could have foreseen Mr. Lloyd George, and although the victory of 1906 was not due to his leadership, no one can doubt that it is his vigorous initiative in the direction of Socialism which secured for his party the renewed confidence of the country.

* * * * *

Twelve years later another attempt to get administrative reform from the Liberal Party was made on somewhat similar lines.  The party had taken office in December, 1905, and in the interval before the General Election of 1906 gave them their unprecedented majority, “An Intercepted Letter,” adopted at a members’ meeting in December, was published in the “National Review” for January.  It purported to be a circular letter addressed by the Prime Minister to his newly appointed colleagues, giving each of them in turn advice how to run his department.  In this case there was no necessity to suggest administrative reforms only.  The Liberals were certain of a majority, and they had no programme:  they were bound to win, not on their merits, but on the defects of their opponents.  The Letter, written by Webb in a rollicking style, to which he rarely condescends, touched on each of the great departments of Government, and advocated both the old policy of Trade Union hours and wages, for which the new Prime Minister had made himself in 1893 personally responsible, but also all sorts of progressive measures, graduated and differentiated income-tax for the Treasury, Compulsory Arbitration in Labour Disputes for the Home Office—­we discovered the flaw in that project later—­reform of Grants in Aid for the Local Government Board, Wages Boards for Agriculture, and so on.  A few weeks later the country had the General Election to think about, and the Letter was merely reprinted for private circulation amongst the members of the Society.  But we took care that the new Ministers read it, and it served to remind them of the demands which, after the election, the Labour Party, at last in being, would not let them again forget.

FOOTNOTES: 

[26] Bernard Shaw has sent me the following note on this paragraph:—­