As the outcome of certain private experiences, the moral of which was pointed by discussion with Mr. and Mrs. Webb, the present writer in 1902 put before the Fabian Society a paper on Administrative Areas,[22] in which he showed clearly that the character and efficiency and possibilities of a governing body depend almost entirely upon the suitability to its particular function of the size and quality of the constituency it represents and the area it administers. This may be stated with something approaching scientific confidence. A local governing body for too small an area or elected upon an unsound franchise _cannot_ be efficient. But obviously before you can transfer property from private to collective control you must have something in the way of a governing institution which has a reasonably good chance of developing into an efficient controlling body. The leading conception of this Administrative Area paper appeared subsequently running through a series of tracts, _The New Heptarchy Series_, in which one finds it applied first to this group of administrative problems and then to that.[23] These tracts are remarkable if only because they present the first systematic recognition on the part of any organized Socialist body of the fact that a scientific reconstruction of the methods of government constitutes not simply an incidental but a necessary part of the complete Socialist scheme, the first recognition of the widening scope of the Socialist design that makes it again a deliberately constructive project.[24] [22] See Appendix to _Mankind in the Making_. (Chapman and Hall, 1905.) [23] 1. _Municipalization by Provinces._ 2. _On the Reform of Municipal Service._ 3. _Public Control of Electric Power and Transit._ 4. _The Revival of Agriculture: a National Policy for Great Britain._ 5. _The Abolition of Poor Law Guardians._ Others to follow. (Fabian Society, 1905-6.) [24] This generalization is a sweeping one, and would need, were one attempting to give more than a very broad impression of the sequence of Socialist ideas, considerable modification. Such earlier tracts as _The New Reform Bill_, _Facts for Londoners_, _Facts for Bristol_, dealt mainly with the question of machinery.