Home » History » Modern British History » The Fabians and the British Empire, Part X

The Fabians and the British Empire, Part X

© Joseph Sramek

Round and Round Again: Fabian Thought on Imperialism, 1901-1914, Part 2

Though Chesterton was arguing along these lines, Joseph Chamberlain was crusading up and down the country on the virtues of an imperial tariff designed to bring the Empire closer together. The issue of tariff reform was not nearly as divisive as the Boer War but Fabians were nevertheless divided by it. Some Fabians such as Shaw were protectionists "right down to [their] boots" and supported protectionism as a policy that would eventually lead to socialism. [1] Others took the opposing point of view. Those who were against the Boer War were also against protectionism. This time, however, they had the support of several "imperialist" Fabians such as Sidney Webb, who refused to support the extreme of "food taxation." [2]

Though Webb was firmly an imperialist by 1904 and thus supported Chamberlain's reasons for tariff reform, he did not support the methods that would effect closer imperial union. In a lecture before the Fabian Society in June 1903, he doubted whether such a change was necessary and whether it would be the most efficient policy:

No such measure could stand the test of examination. There is nothing in our economic, industrial or fiscal situation that made it necessary, or even desirable, to revolutionize our fiscal system. The industrial prosperity of Great Britain and most of its dependencies during the past decade had been remarkably great and continuous. Whether compared with other times or with other countries, whether tested by industrial statistics or by social developments, the present condition of Great Britain is relatively good, and not bad. [3]

Rather than to engage in tariff reform, he asserted the real need for Britons to do was:

... to take care to render ourselves, and our whole population, ever more efficient, mentally and physically. No nation had anything to sell but the proceeds of the labor of its inhabitants; and the nation whose inhabitants were most efficient would inevitably get the largest share of the world's product, tariff or no tariff. [4]

Furthermore, even if tariffs led to greater efficiency, they were fundamentally unfair and would mean "trying to consolidate the Empire at the expense of degrading the Standard of Life of the half-starved laborers and sweated women-workers of our town slums." Webb concluded that the right fiscal policy would be one that:

... stimulated all classes to higher ideals and greater exertions; which raised the Standard of Life of the lowest grades; which imposed no hidden or unduly heavy economic burden; and which put that burden on the right shoulders. All these requirements were violated by fiscal protection. [5]

The copyright of the article The Fabians and the British Empire, Part X in Modern British History is owned by . Permission to republish The Fabians and the British Empire, Part X in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.