Webbs' White Gold

Not long ago, Secretary of State for the Colonies, J. H. Thomas, announced himself as an Imperialist when he said that the Government intended to do everything in its power to develop the Colonies and aid the Dominions to develop themselves. This streak of Imperialism, which once called forth scorn from Labor, was again manifested when the Government announced that it had no intention of surrendering the Sudan to Egypt (TIME, July 7).

The Sudan, apart from its strategical importance to Anglo-Indian communications, is abundantly watered by the tributaries of the River Nile. Its great plains are, by a combination of this fact and their geographical position, eminently suited to the raising of cotton. This caused that veteran Socialist-publicist, Sidney Webb, and his wife to become parties to the Government's Imperialist designs.

Mr. Webb, President of the Board of Trade and Member of the British Cabinet, recently affirmed the Government's intention not to quit the Sudan. To a Manchester audience, he spoke of the great possibilities of the economic development of that region and fired the imagination of his audience by referring to "COTTON: SUDANESE WHITE GOLD." He said that the Government was making great efforts to increase the cotton production of the Commonwealth, not only in the Sudan but in other British-African possessions and in India. He said that a Nation could prosper by the "smell of the market" and to make the odor appetizing he announced that he was setting up an inquiry "into conditions of industry, particularly with reference to the industries working for the export trade."

It must be noted that in Europe each nation is striving to develop itself as far as possible by increasing its supply of raw materials, with a view to becoming economically self-sufficient. The nations following this policy most vigorously are France and Britain.

...

Sidney Webb, a picturesque little man with a big beard, once a civil servant, was, with Bernard Shaw and Graham Wallace, one of the leading lights in the Fabian Society -organization of Socialism which has done much to develop the Socialist idea in Britain along eminently sound economic lines, and is responsible in no little part for the moderation displayed by British Socialists today. The members of this Society founded the celebrated London School of Economics, which is now one of the most important centres of economic teaching in the world.

Beatrice Potter was also an authority on Socialist economics before she married Sidney Webb in 1892. It is said that she married for her husband's ideas, but there seems to be no doubt that she is the cleverer of the two. She also had some money.

These two people were soon to become famous, chiefly for their exhaustive book, The History of Trade Unionism, which has been well received by all shades of political thought as an authoritative work. Their most recent book, The Decay of Capitalist Civilisation, did indeed meet with severe criticism and is unquestionably faulty -although a highly illuminative book. Again, they are probably the greatest authorities on municipal affairs in Britain and certainly the greatest Socialist-economists of their time. It is said of them that they have such a mastery of detail that they can quote from memory the export and import figures for any commodity in any given year.