¹ Beatrice Webb, reported in Everyman, 16 Jan. 1930.

² 1993 saw the publication of two major studies of Laski, Isaac Kramnick and Barry Sheerman, Harold Laski: a life on the left (London) and Michael Newman, Harold Laski: apolitical biography (London).

³ Max, Beloff, ‘The age of Laski’, Fortnightly Review, 06 1950, CLXVII (1002), 378–84.Google Scholar

⁴ Aside from Wright's study and his article, ‘Guild socialism revisited’, Journal of Contemporary History, I (Jan. 1974)Google Scholar, and Barker, R. S., ‘Guild socialism revisited?’, Political Quarterly, XVI (1975)Google Scholar, the only other in-depth analysis of Cole in the last twenty years is Carpenter's, L. P.G. D. H. Cole: an intellectual biography (Cambridge, 1973)Google Scholar. Margaret, Cole's biography, The life of G. D. H. Cole (London, 1971)Google Scholar is a valuable and open account of Cole the man; Ben, Pimlott (ed.), The political diary of Hugh Dalton 1918–40, 1954–60 (London, 1986)Google Scholar and Margaret, Cole (ed.), Beatrice Webb's diaries 1924–32 (London, 1956)Google Scholar are also useful in this respect. Ben, Pimlott, Labour and the left in the 1930's (London, 1977)Google Scholar contains some helpful insights into the activities of Cole in the 1930s and Elizabeth, Durbin, New Jerusalems (London, 1985)Google Scholar is informative for Cole's economic influence on the left. Geoffrey, Foote'sThe Labour party's political thought: a history (London, 1985)Google Scholar provides a good overview of Cole's long-term ideological significance.

⁵ Professor Max, Beloff, review of ‘G. D. H. Cole’ in Encounter, Feb. 1972Google Scholar; Monica, Foot, review in Books and Bookmen, May 1972.Google Scholar

⁶ See for example, Marquand, D. in The Guardian, 9 Oct. 1971Google Scholar; Michael, Foot, The Evening Standard, 5 Oct. 1971Google Scholar and Asa, Briggs, The Times Higher Educational Supplement, 26 Nov. 1971.Google Scholar

⁷ For a taste of Cole's enormous bibliography see Wright, G. D. H. Cole and Margaret Cole, G. D. H. Cole.

⁸ Unfortunately it has proved to be impossible to quantify sales figures for Cole's work since none of the publishing records appears to have survived. However, there is little doubt that Cole sold many thousands of copies to a wide readership. Through his journalistic activities in a very great number of journals and newspapers, particularly The Daily Herald (which became the first daily in the world to reach a circulation of two million in 1933) and The New Statesman, together with the large number of popular detective stories which he wrote with his wife, Cole became a household name from the 1930s.

⁹ Cole, G. D. H., ‘Why I am a Socialist’, Aryan Path, Feb. 1930Google Scholar, subsequently reissued as one of a collection of essays entitled Economic tracts for the times (London, 1932).Google Scholar

¹⁰ We still unfortunately await a comprehensive study of this much overlooked socialist theory; the best available treatment aside from Wright is to be found in Foote, G., The Labour party's political thought (London, 1985), pp. 102–25.Google Scholar

¹¹ See Tawney, R. H., The acquisitive society (London, 1921)Google Scholar, which incorporates a number of guild socialist ideas, most notably the idea of functional democracy; Ramsay, MacDonald, Socialism: critical and constructive (London, 1921)Google Scholar and Sidney and Beatrice, Webb, A constitution for the socialist commonwealth of Great Britain (London, 1920)Google Scholar endorsed the need for the decentralization of power in a socialist society.

¹² See Cole, M., G. D. H. Cole, pp. 120–3.Google Scholar

¹³ Beatrice Webb's diary, 17 May 1924, Passfield papers, British Library of Political and Economic Science.

¹⁴ Beatrice Webb's diary, 5 Sept. 1926, Passfield papers.

¹⁵ Cole, M., G. D. H. Cole, p. 162.Google Scholar

¹⁶ See uncredited article ‘Trade unionism and the future’, The New Statesman, 15 Sept. 1928.Google Scholar

¹⁷ ‘Trade unionism and polities’, The New Statesman 22 Sept. 1928, pp. 721–2Google Scholar. The Mond-Turner talks have correctly been singled out by historians as innovatory for they represented the first occasion on which trade unions and employers met to discuss issues which were wider than wages and hours. The Cook–Maxton manifesto had condemned these talks on the grounds that they were collaboration with the class enemy.

¹⁸ ‘The Labour party and the nation’, The New Statesman, 13 Oct. 1928.Google Scholar

¹⁹ ‘Trade unionism and the Labour party’, The New Statesman, 17 April 1929.Google Scholar

²⁰ Cole, G. D. H., The next ten years in economic and social policy (London, 1929), p. 157.Google Scholar

²¹ Cole, G. D. H., The next ten years, pp. 416–22.Google Scholar

²² Wright, A. W., G. D. H. Cole, pp. 119–22.Google Scholar

²³ Cole, , The next ten years, p. 17.Google Scholar

²⁴ ibid. pp. 19–20 and 160.

²⁵ ibid. pp. 164–70.

²⁶ ibid. ch. XV, ‘Local government’.

²⁷ ibid. p. 46.

²⁸ In an attempt to revitalize their flagging fortunes, the Liberal party led by Lloyd George had set up an industrial inquiry in 1928 composed of politicians and economists which resulted in the famous ‘Yellow book’ or Britain's industrial future, a grandiose scheme for government intervention in the economy. Cole differed from most of their suggestions in that he wanted the scope of intervention to be much wider and to be aimed at a redistribution of wealth.

²⁹ Cole, , The next ten years, p. 50.Google Scholar

³⁰ ibid. pp. 49–65.

³¹ ibid. pp. 55–64.

³² For a typical union response to the idea of the national labour corps see the review of The next ten years in the Cotton Factory Times, 3 Jan. 1930.

³³ The next ten years, pp. 226–42.

³⁴ ibid. pp. 219 and 74.

³⁵ ibid. p. 242.

³⁶ ibid. pp. 130–56.

³⁷ ibid. pp. 32–5 and 108–9.

³⁸ ibid. pp. 178–88.

³⁹ Cole, M., G. D. H. Cole, p. 165.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ See, for example, reviews in Glasgow Forward, 10 Aug. 1929; The Miner, 1 Jun. 1929 and Cotton Factory Times, 10 Jan. 1930.

⁴¹ See Labour Monthly, Jul. 1929; Hugh, Gaitskell in Highway, Nov. 1929Google Scholar, and Harold, Laski, ‘If G. D. H. Cole were premier’, New Leader, 7 Jun. 1929.Google Scholar

⁴² Beatrice, Webb, Fabian News, Dec. 1929.Google Scholar

⁴³ Marquand, D., Ramsay MacDonald (London, 1977), p. 485.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Cole, M., G. D. H. Cole, p. 167.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ ‘The two problems of unemployment’, The New Statesman, 30 Mar. 1929.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ ‘Second thoughts on the election’, The New Statesman, 8 Jun. 1929.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ ‘Mr Thomas's task’, The New Statesman, 15 Jun. 1929.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ ‘Mr Thomas's plans’, The New Statesman, 13 Jul. 1929.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ ‘The Government's housing policy’, The New Statesman, 20 Jul. 1929.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ For an indication of the form which the articles took see ‘Work or doles’, The New Statesman, 5 Oct. 1929Google Scholar; ‘The cure for unemployment’, Everyman, 10 Oct. 1929Google Scholar; and the King's Norton Labour News, Oct. 1930.

⁵¹ ‘Evidence of G. D. H. Cole to committee on vagrancy, ministry of health’, 18 Feb. 1930, Oxford, Nuffield College, Cole papers, GDHC/F5/2.

⁵² ‘Memorandum of evidence submitted to the royal commission on unemployment insurance’ Mar. 1931, Cole papers, GDHC/F5/3.

⁵³ Susan, Howson and Donald, Winch, The economic advisory council 1930–9 (Cambridge 1977), p. 42.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ ‘How I would relieve unemployment’, Everyman, 3 Jul. 1930.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ ‘The school age’, The New Statesman, 27 Jul. 1929Google Scholar and ‘Do the working classes want the Bill?’, The Schoolmaster and Woman Teachers' Chronicle, 13 Mar. 1930Google Scholar, Cole papers, GDHC/A1/24.

⁵⁶ The minister for education, Sir Charles Trevelyan, ran into many obstacles, principally the demands of the religious bodies who expected the government to meet the cost of the extra year's tuition in the church schools. The bill was finally defeated in March 1931 by an amendment moved by one of the government's own M.P.s, John Scurr, a catholic, and resulted in Trevelyan's resignation.

⁵⁷ ‘The government and the mines’, The New Statesman 26 Oct. 1929Google Scholar, and ‘Miners' wages’, 23 Nov. 1929.

⁵⁸ ‘The Coal Bill’, The New Statesman, 21 Dec. 1929.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ ‘The old year and the new’, The New Statesman, 4 Jan. 1930.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ The increasingly overwhelmed Thomas was transferred to the dominions office in June 1930, and MacDonald announced that he personally would assume responsibility for solving the ‘baffling’ problem of unemployment.

⁶¹ See Howson, and Winch, , The economic advisory council, p. 39Google Scholar and ‘The ghost that walks’, 15 Mar. 1930.

⁶² Cole, M., G. D. H. Cole, p. 168Google Scholar; correspondence Cole and MacDonald 10–27 Dec. 1929 Public Record Office (P.R.O.), MacDonald papers, 30/69/672.

⁶³ King's Norton Labour News, Jul. 1930, Cole's papers.

⁶⁴ ibid. Margaret Cole unfortunately sheds little light upon the reasons for Cole's change of mind; he had told MacDonald on 4 Dec. 1929 that he was reluctant to give up his position at Oxford and felt that he had insufficient income to allow him to become an M.P. Cole's own papers contain little personal information and few references to Mosley at this juncture. It is clear that Cole wished to have nothing to do with Mosley as soon as he started campaigning against the Labour party from Dec. 1930; his letter to Beatrice Webb 9 Dec. revealed that he refused to sign Mosley's manifesto which he saw as a ‘conspiracy against the government’, Passfield papers II/4. Yet it is possible that Margaret Cole passes swiftly over Mosley and does not allude to her husband's connections earlier in 1930 with a man who, when she was writing, was still ‘beyond the pale’.

⁶⁵ Cole, M., G. D. H. Cole, p. 175.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Cole to Beatrice Webb, 9 Dec. 1930, B.L.P.E.S., Passfield papers, II/4.

⁶⁷ Handwritten article, undated, c. 1928, Cole papers, GDH/A1/43.

⁶⁸ Cole wrote a number of articles on the subject of this generational divide; see, for example, ‘The new world and its challenge’, Everyman, 2 Jan. 1930Google Scholar and ‘How things have changed’, 9 Jan. 1930.

⁶⁹ Cole, M., G. D. H. Cole, p. 175.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ B. Webb to Cole, 17 Feb. 1931, Nuffield College, Fabian society papers, J9/1, fo. 15.

⁷¹ See for example Fabian society papers, J6/4, newspaper cuttings 5 Mar. 1931 from World Press News and The Times, 15 Jun. 1931; Cole, M., G. D. H. Cole, pp. 177–8.Google Scholar

⁷² Cole to MacDonald, 9 Dec. 1930, P.R.O., MacDonald papers, 30/69/1175.

⁷³ MacDonald to Captain E. N. Bennett, Labour M.P., 8 Aug. 1931, MacDonald papers, PRO 30/69/1176. Bennett had written to MacDonald to ask him whether he should take part in the activities of the N.F.R.B. and the prime minister gave the bodies his reluctant blessing.

⁷⁴ N.E.C. minutes, Labour party archive, National Museum of Labour History, Manchester.

⁷⁵ Covering letter with rules for new members of S.S.I.P., 1931, GDHC/D4/2.

⁷⁶ Report of meeting 10 Jun. 1931, Fabian society papers, J2/3.

⁷⁷ Cole's tremendous enthusiasm is apparent both from Margaret Cole's account of the foundation of the two bodies, G. D. H. Cole, pp. 174–82 and from Cole's letter to B. Webb, 9 Dec. 1930, Passfield papers, II/4.

⁷⁸ Such was the severity of his illness in June that there seemed to be a genuine possibility that he would not recover; yet, in characteristic fashion, he refused to allow it to affect his work; Margaret Cole paints a vivid picture of her husband in his hospital bed surrounded by charts and diagrams, feverishly working away at what was to become British trade and industry (London, 1932)Google Scholar, Cole, M., G. D. H. Cole, p. 186.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ A. W. Wright's criticism of Robert, Skidelsky, Politicians and the slump: the second labour government 1929–1931 (London, 1967)Google Scholar in G. D. H. Cole, pp. 185–6.

⁸⁰ See ‘The economic council’, The New Statesman, 8 Feb. 1930.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Cole, Gold, credit and employment. This suggestion does strike one as somewhat economically flawed; it would seem at this juncture that Cole was not prepared to accept the logical conclusion of his argument, namely that Britain should abandon gold together.

⁸² See Howson, and Winch, , The E.A.C., pp. 34–5.Google Scholar

⁸³ ibid. 25 Jul. 1930, p. 1.

⁸⁴ ibid. 31 Oct. 1930, p. 1.

⁸⁵ ‘Gold and the world trade crisis’, New World, Jun. 1931, pp. 1–2Google Scholar, Cole papers, GDHC/A1/12; notes for lectures on the economic situation, May–Jun. 1931, Cole papers, GDHC/E1/5, pp. 53–5.

⁸⁶ ‘Money, wages and expansion’, The New Statesman and Nation, 18 Jul. 1931Google Scholar (The New Statesman had merged with The Nation in early 1931); see also Daily Herald, Cole's assessment of Macmillan report, 15, 17 and 20 Jul. 1931, p. 8, p. 6 and p. 6 respectively.

⁸⁷ ‘Britain's economic future’, The New Statesman and Nation, 22 Aug. 1931.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ For a comprehensive account of the 1931 crisis see Andrew, Thorpe, The British general election of 1931 (Oxford, 1991)Google Scholar and Philip, Williamson, National crisis and national government: British politics, the economy and the empire 1926 to 1932 (Cambridge, 1992).Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Cole, M., G. D. H. Cole, p. 189.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ ‘The old Labour party and the new’, The New Statesman and Nation, 14 Nov. 1931.Google Scholar

⁹¹ ‘Socialism – 1932 edition’, The Clarion, undated article, Cole papers, GDHC/A1/59.

⁹² ‘The old Labour party and the new’, New Statesman and Nation, 14 Nov. 1931.Google Scholar

⁹³ ‘A socialist view’, The Economist, 17 Oct. 1931.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ For the classic Labour discourse on these lines see Sidney, Webb, ‘What happened in 1931: a record’, The Political Quarterly, Mar. 1932.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ ‘Was it a banker's conspiracy?’, The New Statesman and Nation, 29 Aug. 1931.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ ‘Some essentials of socialist propaganda: a tract for the times’, Fabian tract, Apr. 1932, p. 7.

⁹⁷ ibid.

⁹⁸ Cole, , The intelligent man's guide through world chaos (London, 1932), pp. 611–12.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ The majority of the members of the late cabinet had been defeated and Labour had been reduced to a rump of 46 seats.

¹⁰⁰ ‘Some essentials of socialist propaganda’, pp. 4–5.

¹⁰¹ ibid. p. 17.

¹⁰² The intelligent man's guide, p. 612.

¹⁰³ S.S.I.P. 1931 general election policy statement, Fabian society papers, J2/6.

¹⁰⁴ ibid. pp. 612–16.

¹⁰⁵ ‘The method of social legislation’, ch. xiv of Economic tracts for the times (London, 1932)Google Scholar, originally published in the Institute of Public Administration Journal, Jan. 1931.

¹⁰⁶ See Cole papers, GDHC/D4/1.

¹⁰⁷ Memorandum c. 1932, Cole papers, GDHC/D4/5.

¹⁰⁸ The intelligent man's guide, pp. 612–13.

¹⁰⁹ Annual report of S.S.I.P. for the year ending Mar. 1932, Cole papers, GDHC/D4/4.

¹¹⁰ ‘A Labour programme of action’, Fabian society papers, J13/1.

¹¹¹ See Cole, , A history of the Labour party, pp. 283–4Google Scholar and correspondence Cole to Pritt, 19 Sept. 1932, Bevin to Cole 24 and 29 Sept., Cole papers, GDHC/D4/8.

¹¹² For a detailed, if a little jumbled, account of the activities of N.F.R.B. in the 1930s see Elizabeth, Durbin, New Jerusalems: the Labour party and the economics of democratic socialism (London, 1985).Google Scholar

¹¹³ Wright, A. W., ‘Guild socialism revisited’, Journal of Contemporary History, 1 (1974), 166.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ Cole tried to convince himself and his readership in the late 1940s and 1950s that he had never fundamentally deviated from guild socialism; in the introduction to Communism and social democracy, vol. IV, Part 1, p. 10 in his A history of socialist thought (London, 1958)Google Scholar he claimed that ‘I was –and I remain – a Guild Socialist’. As we have seen this was a convenient distortion of his 1930s collectivist period.