A t the time of writing nearly a dozen years have passed
since the Fabian Annual Meeting was told so sharply that
it was outrunning the constable and must take drastic measures
if it wished to survive--twelve years during which a great deal
has happened--and is still happening--to change the face of the
world and to make speculations about the future of countries as
a whole or of any particular institution more risky than ever
before. Generalisations about the recent past of the Fabian
Society, as of any other body, must therefore be very tentative
and made in acute consciousness that the time for real appraise-
ment is not yet; all that can be done is briefly to observe available
facts and tendencies.

Of the Society, it may be said that the extreme fears of 1948
were not realised. There was a sharp decline in membership,
which was not arrested until the mid-fifties; ¹ but this did not
produce any such immediate and obvious shrinkage as had taken
place in 1894 or 1915. The tortoise did not disappear into its
shell; the work went on. But the first few years were undoubtedly
a difficult time, and Andrew Filson, who succeeded Monck as
General Secretary from April 1947 to September 1949, when
Donald Chapman, the Research Secretary (later M.P.), took his
place, had an exceptionally depressing term of office. Not only
had he to carry out the economies ordered by the Annual
Meeting--always a hard task in a body whose efficiency depends
so much on the enthusiasm of its staff and of those immediately
associated with the day-to-day work; he had to do this on
a membership roll which was falling fast. This was not due

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