Recollecting the Webbs
offer a footnote to your review of Mrs. Cole's symposium on pcatrice and Sidney Webb. It comes from the campaign conducted by the Webbs forty-odd years ago to expound the purpose of their own minority report of the Poor Law Commission. I was then Warden of the Edinburgh University Settlement, and it fell to my lot to take the chair for Mr. and Mrs. Webb in turn (two or three meetings apiece) in the Music Hall, Edinburgh. Beatrice Webb was supreme in the art of awaken- ing her audience and holding their interest by her discourse ; but the spell was broken when she came to the task of answering questions. In this she was careless, off hand, contemptuous of the honest doubts of her hecklers. Not so Sidney! He failed to hold his audience by his lecture ; in fact he bored them. But he knew exactly what was in the minds of questioners and led them to a real appreciation of the matter in hand. In the result, eatrice's brilliance faded, but Sidney's candour and competence had a
lasting effect.—I am, &c., A. F. WHYTE. The Athenaeum, Pall Mall, S.W.:
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