BY THE WAY

Southland Times, Issue 20939, 23 November 1929, Page 13

BY THE WAY

PKOPHETS OF SOCIALISM

(By

Rowan.)

“Two typewriters with but a single tap” is how one of their kindliest admirers has described Lord and Lady Passfield, who speak of “we” and “us” as if they had long ceased to regard each other as individ,uals in the total submergence of themselves in their purpose. But what a tap! The vague aspirations of the early social workers, the unavailing protests that many have made regarding what-seemed to them the results of our modern industrial system, have been converted into real forces and concrete policies of the cumulative pressure of facts collected and presented by them. Indeed, it is claimed that they, more than any other two people in the realm, were responsible for the results of the last election. Sidney Webb and Beatrice, his wife, have dedicated more than forty years of their lives to pervading England with Socialistic doctrines, not in the fashion associated with Trotsky and his friends, but by a policy of gradually permeating society until almost unconscious unity in thought and action was established. They expounded and practised the method of moderation and information. With an unexampled industry

and gentleness that some have called superhuman and others devilish, they set out, to use their own words, to tell “capitalism plainly what history will think of it when all the demagogues of our day are dead”;

to “search into the facts of our social organization . . . devising and advocating measures by which the existing profitmaking system may be replaced with the least possible friction ... by a scientific reorganization of industry as a democratically controller! public service.” Soon Sidney Webb became, in the words of his friend and admirer, George Bernard Shaw, a “walking encyclopedia.” It was said that he had read every book in the London library, not to mention the library of the London School of Economics. His voracious reading was only equalled by his wife’s absorption. Wherever the Webbs moved a cloud of secretaries followed in their wake, collecting figures here, collating statistics there, forever piling up data to be later assembled and published. They ordered their lives with the scientific exactitude applied to amassing information, from the getting up in the morning and the ordering of their secretaries to the eating of their notoriously Spartan meals. They believed in personal influence and entertained extensively, in a spirit not less purposeful than that in which they took their after-lunch walk.

To-day at their house on Grosvenor Embankment, five minutes from the House of Commons, you would find, as ever, representatives of all phases of the business of running the Empire; you would hear discussed, examined and docketed for action statistical or otherwise social problems and political purposes; in short you would find a house full of active, important people in an atmosphere of much blue and white china, plenty of excellent prints and floors covered with most utilitarian matting. By personal influence the Webbs have recruited legions to the cause of : socialism, inspiriting the half-hearted, resolving the doubts of the uncertain, spurring and directing such as are already engaged in social investigations. ■

Undismayed, however, by the wits and superior to legend, Sidney and Beatrice Webb surged on, influencing ever more people, collecting ever more data; and from them flowed books on every possible and impossible social subject, and pamphlets and tracts which are used by economists and social reformers all over the world (Incidentally, they are the only authors outside Russia who are read with respect by the Blosheviki.) From the first issue in 1887 of his Fabian tract “Facts for Socialists” Mr. Webb and later his wife. became the. Socialists’ chief source of reliable information and logical argument in. support of socialism. The Webb method was subtler than argument and denunciation; for mere rhetoric they substituted facts and in the place of sentiment they put statistics. Their industry, increasing with the years, became proverbial. Such is Sidney Webb’s passion for facts and data that Mrs Webb, he says, has promised him that when he is old and bedridden he shall have for consolation the making of a subject catalogue for the British Museum Library. Now, back in England after their travels, the Webbs fell to counting up the members of Fabians in the new House of Commons, of whom there were many, and again they rejoiced; for Mr Webb, with his friend Shaw, had founded the Fabian group. This was but an incident in the Webbs’ career, something belonging to their youth. Yet, now that both were more than seventy years of age, Mr Webb was deciding to abandon the Parliamentary career for which he had partly forsaken statistics and the making of books. They were to devote their time to completing yet another book, finishing their days in the spirit they had begun. “Pro bono publico” is said to be inscribed inside their wedding ring. These were their plans for the future, when soon after they set foot in England, the ever dependable Sidney Webb, was sent for by the new Prime Minister, and came out of 10 Downing Street, virtually as the Right Hon. Lord Passfield, a peer of his Majesty’s Kingdom, appointed Secretary of State for the Colonies. And the reason? —The conventions of the constitution of Great Britain, which require that of the major offices of State at least four should be represented in the House of Lords, so that there shall be some one in that assembly to present the Ministerial view, propose the laws and statutes drawn up in the Commons. Otherwise the Lords, forbidden access to the other House, would be out of touch with the Commons; and Mr MacDonald would be in an- equally deplorable state since, outside of money bills, the Lords have the power of suspending for at least two years the passing of every bill proposed to them. The House of Lords notoriously does not breed supporters of Labour principle and outlook; just as the Labour party notoriously does not produce for that noble assembly. But Mr MacDonald must have peers in his support. Someone must make the sacrifice —preferably someone capable, having a certain culture and 'finesse, but having no children, for what Labour Minister wants children to inherit a title and swell the Lords? Hence Lord Passfield. His wildest admirers would not call Lord Passfield a personal adornment to the noble chamber in which he now sits. He was affectionately known as "Nanny” in the House of Commons by reason of. his small, soft voice, only heard with difficulty; his beard, his tiny, inconsiderable figure, as slight as it is small, and that way he has of seeming always to peer at you over his glasses, for he is very short-sighted. The years have not added to his stature and it is easy to recognize Shaw’s picture of him at the age of 21: “Small, pretty hands and feet, and a profile that suggested, on account of the nose and imperial, an improvement on Napoleon- III.” In contrast with her husband, Lady Passfield —though she prefers still to be called Mrs Webb—is tall, imposing, a strikingly handsome-looking woman, with magnificent dark eyes and hawk-like profile. Their mental qualities are also in'some respects amazingly different: he is the student, the

theorist, accurate, precise and, one suspects, paralyzed at the thought of action. She has ardour, a bold imagination and a swift, imperative sense of action. He is persuasive, purring and soft; she urges home her points with fire and animation.

Opposites were never more effectively reconciled to single action as in the Passfields, nor contrasts found more pointed. There is a difference in. their origin : Lady Passfield was born of the rich upper classes and she herself has told in “My Apprenticeship” her own story of breaking through restricting circumstances to engage in social reforms. Lord Passfield came neither from the rich nor the upper. He was born a cockney, and at 16 was a clerk in a colonial broker’s office in the city, later entering the Civil Service.