The Fabian Society and British Socialism owe much to Mrs. Besant for the assistance she gave it during five important years. Her splendid eloquence, always at our service, has seldom been matched, and has never been surpassed by any of the innumerable speakers of the movement. She had, when she joined us, an assured position amongst the working-class Radicals in London and throughout the country; and through her Socialism obtained a sympathetic hearing in places where less trusted speakers would have been neglected. She was not then either a political thinker or an effective worker on committees, but she possessed the power of expressing the ideas of other people far better than their originators, and she had at her command a certain amount of political machinery--such as an office at 63 Fleet Street, and a monthly magazine, "Our Corner"--which was very useful. Her departure was a serious loss, but it came at a moment of rapid expansion, so rapid that her absence was scarcely felt.
On the Society itself the effect of the Essays and the Lancashire Campaign was considerable. As the Executive Committee report in April, 1891: "During the past year the Socialist movement has made conspicuous progress in every respect, and a constantly increasing share of the work of its organisation and extension has fallen to the Fabian Society." The membership increased from 173 to 361, and the subscription list--thanks in part to several large donations--from £126 to £520. Local Fabian Societies had been formed at Belfast, Birmingham, Bombay, Bristol, Huddersfield, Hyde, Leeds, Manchester, Oldham, Plymouth, Tyneside, and Wolverhampton, with a total membership of 350 or 400. The business in tracts had been enormous. Ten new tracts, four pamphlets and six leaflets, were published, and new editions of all but one of the old ones had been printed. In all 335,000 tracts were printed and 98,349 distributed. The new tracts include "The Workers' Political Programme," "The New Reform Bill," "English Progress Towards Social Democracy," "The Reform of Poor Law," and a leaflet, No. 13, "What Socialism Is," which has been in circulation ever since. It should be added that at this period our leaflets were given away freely, a form of propaganda which soon proved too expensive for our resources.