Within only a few weeks after the outbreak of war in October 1899, Fabians began to debate what the Society’s response to the war should be. Several members such as Sydney Olivier, S.G. Hobson, Ramsay MacDonald and Emmeline Pankhurst wanted the Society to issue a strong condemnation of the war whereas Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Bernard Shaw and Hubert Bland wanted the Society to take an abstentionist position. Less than two weeks after the war began, Olivier wrote to Edward Pease, Secretary of the Society, in strong terms, concluding that if the Society did not act immediately, it would suffer from dry rot and then there would be "no further reason for its separate existence." [1] Four days later, Hobson wrote to Olivier complaining that Fabians were "ceasing to be feared and are only respected as amiable and harmless students of certain restricted phenomena." [2]
Yet, there was serious concern by many within the Society that if the Society took a strong position on the war, it would serve to seriously divide and potentially destroy it. Writing to Olivier sometime in mid-October, Bland wrote,
- It looks as though you (Olivier) and I and the remnant of the Old Gang... would have to make one more big fight to secure the Society’s usefulness in the future, a usefulness which will be entirely crippled if we throw ourselves dead athwart the Imperialists, or any other, strong stream or tendency. As we cannot break up these streams, but only be broken up by them, we should try... to direct them. We may possibly be able to do for "sane" imperialism what we have already done for "sane" socialism.[3]
Nevertheless, despite this desire on the part of several imperialists such as Bland and others to avoid a clash, the anti-imperialist members of the Society insisted on debating the issue.
Before the Boer War broke out, the Fabian Society had planned a lecture series during 1899-1900 on imperialism. The first lecture of the series was given on November 24, 1899 by Frederick Whelen, an imperialist member of the Executive Committee. He began by discussing the lack of political rights for the Uitlanders in South Africa and how this related to the present crisis. Refuting the claim made by many pro-Boers that concern about the rights of Uitlanders was really secondary to capitalist desires to take over the gold and diamond mines, he contended that they were "genuine and legitimate grievances" that were part of the larger conflict between the seventeenth century demands of the Boers on the one hand and the much more modern British demands on the other. [4] Rather than "harping upon the past," Whelen argued that Fabians needed to “look forward” and realize that
