[32] "The Fabian Society and the War: reply by the majority of the Executive Committee to the recent circular." (Circular on the referendum mentioned later.) Chapter VIII Education: 1902-5, and the Labour Party: 1900-15 Housing--"The Education muddle and the way out"--Supporting the Conservatives--The Education Acts of 1902 and 1903--Feeding School Children--The Labour Representation Committee formed--The Fabian Election Fund--Will Crooks elected in 1910--A Fabian Cabinet Minister--Resignation of Graham Wallas--The younger generation: H.W. Macrosty, J.F. Oakeshott, John W. Martin--Municipal Drink Trade--Tariff Reform--The Decline of the Birth-rate. The controversy described in the preceding chapter was not the only business that occupied the Society at the period of the South African War. Amongst minor affairs was a change of premises. The office first taken, in 1891, was at 276 Strand, in the island at that time formed by Holywell Street which ran between the churches of St. Clement Danes and St. Martin's in the Fields. At the end of 1899 the London County Council acquired the property for the Kingsway and Aldwych clearance scheme, and we found new quarters in a basement at Clement's Inn, a pleasant couple of rooms, with plenty of light, though sometimes maliciously misdescribed as a cellar. At the end of 1908 we removed into three much more spacious rooms at the same address, also in "a dismal basement," where we remained until in 1914 the Society rented a house at 25 Tothill Street, Westminster. Another undertaking was a conference on Housing. Although the first public effort of the Society was its conference at South Place Chapel in 1886, this particular form of propaganda has never commended itself to the Executive, chiefly no doubt because conferences, to which numerous representative persons are invited, are most useful for promoting moderate reforms which have already made themselves acceptable to the members and officials of local governing bodies. Such reforms the Fabian Society does not regard as its special business; it prefers to pioneer; it is true that it uses its machinery for spreading a knowledge of local government in all its forms, but that is mainly a matter of office routine. However, for once we took up an already popular proposal. The Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890 was an admirable measure, but it was hedged about with obstacles which rendered it very difficult to work in urban areas and virtually useless in rural districts. We had drafted an amending Bill for rural districts in 1895, which was read a first time in the House of Commons on the day of the vote on the supply of cordite, when the defeat of the Liberal Government led to the dissolution of Parliament.