ABSTRACT
The campaign before the General Election of 1910 clearly indicated the necessity of defusing the Catholic anti-Socialist agitation, if working-class Catholics were to be won for Labour. The Catholic anti-Socialists, for their part, appeared reluctant to draw further attention to Socialism by debating Wheatley. The pamphlet, and an article outlining the history of the C. S. S. and printed in the Socialist Review, were Wheatley’s last major publications on Catholic Socialism. The Catholic Socialist Society was organized to propagate Socialism among Catholic workers who had been taught all their lives that private property and enterprise were sacred and Socialism damnable. Wheatley charged that the priest’s innuendoes were intended to discredit him with the Catholic working men by convincing them that he was well-paid to propagate Socialism. The demonstration itself, and the publicity attending it, momentarily renewed the discussion of Catholic Socialism in the West of Scotland.
