POWER AND IDEOLOGY
253
he knew about such matters. Mackinder, needless to say, was a
prominent Liberal: he succeeded Hewins as Director of the London
School of Economics.
What did the Liberal Imperialists and their Fabian allies believe?
In 1911 H. G. Wells drew a malicious portrait of them in his
New
Machiavelli,
where the group appears as the "Pentagram Circle." He
makes the point that they thought war with Germany was inevitable, as
indeed they did. There was a sub-division between Conservative pro–
tectionists and Liberal free-traders, but as for defending the Empire
against all comers they were in agreement (except for Bertrand Rus–
sell, who resigned from the club after a violent argument with Sir
Edward Grey, later Liberal Foreign Secretary, on the issue of military
alliances against Germany). Next, they had little use for democracy.
On this most of them accepted Sidney Webb's view that it was a
sham. Lastly, they thought that to become competitive, Britain would
have to adopt certain German institutions: notably social insurance
for the working class, conscription for the army, and the German educa–
tional system, which Haldane thought was superior to the British and
should be treated as a model. In order to attain these ends they were
prepared to spend more money than financial orthodoxy in those pre-
1914 days thought reasonable. Wells, who in 1911 stressed that the
"Pentagram" was "very keen on miliJ:ary organization," also noted
that "they were disposed to spend money much more generously on
education and research of all sorts than our formless host of Liberals
seemed likely to do." The Webbs, who stood at the center of this
circle (which
intN
alia
included a Morgan partner and various Con–
servative journalists and politicians, some of them future Cabinet
Ministers), supplied the intellectual rationale for much of this agita–
tion. Their private thoughts ran to confident forecasts that the corning
war with Germany would necessitate a planned economy, hence Fabian
direction and a measure of socialization: in which, however, they were
largely disappointed so far as the
first
of the two German wars was
concerned.
Bertrand Russell in his reminiscences (1956) has confirmed the
essential accuracy of Wells's account, with special reference to the
group's philosophical acceptance of the corning military showdown. "All
the members except Wells and myself were imperialists and looked
forward without too much apprehension
to
a war with Germany"
(Portraits from
Memory,
p. 77). On this issue Wells later joined the
majority and became a notable exponent of the Wilsonian "war to
end war" doctrine. This is relevant for an understanding of the Liberal
