Eastbourne Sanitary Steam Laundry Company told his shareholders on 25th January, 1897, that "the new Factory Act prevented the hands working so long as they used to do, and the directors had been obliged to provide machinery to enable them to do the work in less time."* It is only the stupidity of many laundry proprietors which prevents them from perceiving how beneficent is the compulsion of the law, even from the purely business standpoint. To quote Miss Paterson once more, "The maximum of inconvenience and confusion seems to be reached in many of these cottage homes, in which the structure also involves methods of working so extravagant that the unnecessary expense could only be disregarded in a business so profitable as laundry work. The little dark, narrow entrance passage blocked continually by baskets and heaps of soiled linen, the dark kitchen wash-house crowded with machinery, with proper lighting, ventilation and means of removing steam almost impossible to secure, the condition of flooring required by the Act, only obtained by constant mending, all these tend to delay work and workers and so increase the cost of the business."+ In fact, the sympathy of the public for the poor widow has been exploited for the benefit of proprietors who do not even know their own business, and the British housewife's laundry bill is run up to maintain a cruel and wasteful system. It is time that an end were put to such a state of things in the name alike of humanity and of business common-sense. "Quoted from "Industrial Democracy," by S. and B. Webb, p. 727. AUTHORITIES. Annual Reports of H. M. Chief Inspector of Factories, 1895-1901. Law and the Laundry," Nineteenth Century, February, 1897. Report of Industrial Law Committee on Laundries. "What can be done by Legislation to Improve the Conditions of Laundries?" Women's Industrial News, December, 1900. Dangerous Trades, edited by T. Oliver; Murray, 1902. 255. Trade journals. Laundry Record, etc. Secretary, at the Fabian Office, 3 Clement's Inn, London, W.C. FABIANISM AND THE EMPIRE: A Manifesto. FABIAN ESSAYS IN SOCIALISM. (35th Thousand.) Tracts, each 16 to 52 pp., price 1d., or 9d. per doz., unless otherwise stated. Leaflets, 4 pp. each, price 1d. for six copies, 1s. per 100, or 8/6 per 1000. The Set of 85, 3s.; post free 3/5. Bound in Buckram, 46; post free for 55. Boxes for set, 1s., post free 1s. 3d. I.-On General Socialism in its various aspects. TRACTS.-107. Socialism for Millionaires. By BERNARD SHAW. 79. A Word of Remembrance and Caution to the Rich. By JOHN WOOLMAN. 78. Socialism and the Teaching of Christ. By Dr. JOHN CLIFFORD. 87. The same in Welsh. 42. Christian Socialism. By Rev. S. D. HEADLAM. 75. Labor in the Longest Reign. By SIDNEY WEBB. 72. The Moral Aspects of Socialism. By SIDNEY BALL. 69. Difficulties of Individualism. By SIDNEY WEBB. 51. Socialism: True and False. By S. WEBB. 45. The Impossibilities of Anarchism. By BERNARD SHAW (price 2d.). 15. English Progress towards Social Democracy. By S. WEBB. 7. Capital and Land. 5. Facts for Socialsts (8th edn. revised 1899.) LEAFLETS-13. What Socialism Is. 1. Why are the Many Poor? 38. The same in Welsh. 11.-On Application of Socialism to Particular Problems. TRACTS.-112. Life in the Laundry. 110. Problems of Indian Poverty. By S. S. THORBURN. 106. The Education Muddle and the Way Out. 98. State Railways for Ireland. 88. The Growth of Monopoly in English Industry. By H. W. MACROSTY. 86. Municipal Drink Traffic. 85. Liquor Licensing at Home and Abroad. By E. R. PEASE. 84. Economics of Direct Employment. 83. State Arbitration and the Living Wage. 80. Shoplife and its Reform. 74. The State and its Functions in New Zealand. 73. Case for State Pensions in Old Age. By G. TURNER. 67. Women and the Factory Acts. By Mrs. WEBB. 50. Sweating: its Cause and Remedy. 48. Eight Hours by Law. 23. Case for an Eight Hours Bill. 47. The Unemployed. By J. BURNS, M.P. LEAFLETS.-89. Old Age Pensions at Work. 19. What the Farm Laborer Wants. 104. How Trade Unions benefit Workmen. III.-On Local Government Powers: How to use them. TRACTS.-III. Reform of Reformatories and Industrial Schools. By H. T. HOLMES. 109. Cottage Plans and Common Sense. By RAYMOND UNWIN. 105. Five Years' Fruits of the Parish Councils Act. 103. Overcrowding in London and its Remedy. By W. C. STEADMAN, L.C.C. 101. The House Famine and How to Relieve it. 52 pp. 76. Houses for the People. 100. Metropolitan Borough Councils: their powers and duties. 99. Local Government in Ireland. 82. Workmen's Compensation Act: what it means and how to make use of it. 77. Municipalization of Tramways. 62. Parish and District Councils. 61. The London County Council. 55. The Workers' School Board Program. 54. The Humanizing of the Poor Law. By J. F. OAKESHOTT. LEAFLETS.-81. Municipal Water. 68. The Tenant's Sanitary Catechism. 71. Same for London. 63. Parish Council Cottages and how to get them. 58. Allotments and how to get them. FABIAN MUNICIPAL PROGRAM, FIRST SERIES. London's Heritage in the City Guilds. Municipalization of the Gas Supply. Municipal Tramways." The Scandal of London's Markets. A Labor Policy for Public Authorities. SECOND SERIES (Nos. go to 97). Municipalization of the Milk Supply. Municipal Pawnshops. Municipal Slaughterhouses. Women as Councillors. Municipal Bakeries. Municipal Hospitals. Municipal Fire Insurance. Municipal Steamboats. Each Series in a red cover for 1d. (9d. per doz.); separate leaflets, 1/- per 100. IV.-On Books. 29. What to Read on social and economic subjects. 4th edition, enlarged and re-arranged. 6d. net. V.-On General Politics and Fabian Policy. 108. Twentieth Century Politics. By SIDNEY WEBB. 70. Report on Fabian Policy. 41. The Fabian Society: its Early History. By BERNARD SHAW. VI.-Question Leaflets, containing Questions for Candidates for the following bodies:-20, Poor Law Guardians. 24, Parliament. 25, School Boards. 26, Londen County Council. 27, Town Councils. 28, County Councils, Rural. 56, Parish Councils. 57, Rural District Councils. 59, Urban District Councils. 102, Metropolitan Borough Councils. OK BOXES lent to Societies, Clubs, Trade Unions, for 6s. a year, or 2.6 a quarter ted by G. Standring, 7 Finsbury St., London, E.C., and published by the Fabian Society, 3 Clement's Inn, Strand, London, W.C. THE Fabian Society is indebted to the Trustees of William Morris for permission to include the following paper in its series of Tracts. It was written for delivery as a spoken address to the members of the Hammersmith Socialist Society in 1893. By that time Morris had acquired an intimate knowledge of the attempt to organize Socialism in this country which began in the early eighties. He had himself undertaken and conducted that part of the experiment which nobody else would face: namely, the discovery and combination, without distinction of class, of all those who were capable of understanding Equality and Communism as he understood it, and their organization as an effective force for the overthrow of the existing order of property and privilege. In doing so he had been brought into contact, and often into conflict, with every other section of the movement. He knew all its men and knew all their methods. He knew that the agitation was exhausted, and that the time had come to deal with the new policy which the agitation had shaken into existence. Accordingly, we find him in this paper doing what he could to economize the strength of the movement by making peace between its jarring sections, and recalling them from their disputes over tactics and programs to the essentials of their cause. The Socialist agitation in Morris's time had divided itself into three clearly defined sections. His own section, organized as The Socialist League, broke down because there was only one William Morris. Those who combined any real understanding of his aims or his view of our commercial civilization with high personal character and practical ability were too few and far between to effect a political revolution. The other two sections survived. One of them, the Social-Democratic Federation, concerned itself very little with Morris's fundamental conceptions of Equality, Communism, and the rediscovery under Communism of Art as "workpleasure." It set itself frankly to organize the proletariat as a single class for the purpose of wresting the material sources of production from the hands of the proprietary class; or, in the well worn phrases of the older Social-Democrats, to make the workers "class-conscious" of themselves, and to organize "the class war." The third section was the Fabian Society, which aimed simply at the reduction of Socialism to a constitutional political policy which, like Free Trade or Imperial Federation or any other accepted parliamentary movement, could be adopted either as a whole or by instalments by any ordinary respectable citizen without committing himself to any revolutionary association or detaching himself in any way from the normal course of English life. The Fabian project was, of course, enormously more acceptable to a timidly Conservative nation than its two rivals. It also called for a good deal of administrative knowledge and parliamentary ingenuity, and so selected automatically for its membership the politically clever and officially experienced Socialists. It is not sur |