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Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources: Intended to Illustrate a Short History of England
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Historical SummaryThe socialistic movement on the Continent was early directed into revolutionary channels indicated by such writings as the Communist Manifesto. In England influences of a more moderate and evolutionary type prevailed, especially those directed by the Fabian Society, founded in 1883, and by the Independent Labor party, organized a decade later — the former consisting largely of intellectuals, the latter largely of manual workers. The three following documents consist of extracts from the official programs of these organizations in 1903, together with a statement by a prominent member of the Fabian Society describing the peaceful, evolutionary methods characteristic of English socialism.
R. C. K. ENSOR, Modern Socialism, pp. 358–359. London, 1904. World History 474. The "Basis" of the Fabian Society (1903)
The Fabian Society consists of Socialists.
It therefore aims at the reorganization of society by the emancipation of land and industrial capital from individual and class ownership, and the vesting of them in the community for the general benefit. In this way only can the natural and acquired advantages of the country be equitably shared by the whole people.
The Society accordingly works for the extinction of private property in land and of the consequent individual appropriation, in the form of rent, of the price paid for permission to use the earth, as well as for the advantages of superior soils and sites.
The Society, further, works for the transfer to the community of the administration of such industrial capital as can conveniently be managed socially. For, owing to the monopoly of the means of production in the past, industrial inventions and the transformation of surplus income into capital have mainly enriched the proprietary class, the worker being now dependent on that class for leave to earn a living.
If these measures be carried out, without compensation (though not without such relief to expropriated individuals as may seem fit to the community), rent and interest will be added to the reward of labour, the idle class now living on the labour of others will necessarily disappear, and practical equality of opportunity will be maintained by the spontaneous action of economic forces with much less interference with personal liberty than the present system entails.
For the attainment of these ends the Fabian Society looks to the spread of Socialist opinions, and the social and political changes consequent thereon. It seeks to promote these by the general dissemination of knowledge as to the relations between the individual and society in its economic, ethical and political aspects.
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Chicago: "The Basis of the Fabian Society (1903)," Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources: Intended to Illustrate a Short History of England in Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources: Intended to Illustrate a Short History of England, ed. Edward Potts Cheyney (1861-1947) (Boston: Ginn, 1935, 1922), 797. Original Sources, accessed May 11, 2025, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=L1VRV1LTZ9N6YRV.
MLA: . "The "Basis" of the Fabian Society (1903)." Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources: Intended to Illustrate a Short History of England, in Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources: Intended to Illustrate a Short History of England, edited by Edward Potts Cheyney (1861-1947), Boston, Ginn, 1935, 1922, page 797. Original Sources. 11 May. 2025. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=L1VRV1LTZ9N6YRV.
Harvard: , 'The "Basis" of the Fabian Society (1903)' in Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources: Intended to Illustrate a Short History of England. cited in 1922, Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources: Intended to Illustrate a Short History of England, ed. , Ginn, 1935, Boston, pp.797. Original Sources, retrieved 11 May 2025, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=L1VRV1LTZ9N6YRV.
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