ABSTRACT
I first met H. G. Wells in 1902 at a small discussion society created by Sidney Webb and by him christened “The Co-efficients” in the hope that we should be jointly efficient. There were about a dozen of us. Some have escaped my memory. Among those whom I remember, the most distinguished was Sir Edward Grey. Then there was H. J. MacKinder (afterwards Sir) who was Reader in Geography at the University of Oxford and a great authority on the then new German subject of geopolitics. What I found most interesting about him was that he had climbed Kilimanjaro with a native guide who walked barefoot except in villages, where he wore dancing pumps. There was Amory. And there was Commander Bellairs, a breezy naval officer who was engaged in a perpetual ding-dong battle for the Parliamentary representation of Kings Lynn with an opponent universally known as Tommy Bowles, a gallant champion of the army. Commander Bellairs was a Liberal and Tommy Bowles a Conservative; but, after a while, Commander Bellairs became a Conservative, and Tommy Bowles became a Liberal. They were thus enabled to continue their duel at Kings Lynn. In 1902 Commander Bellairs was half-way on the journey from the old party to the new one. And there was W. A. S. Hewins, the Director of the School of Economics. Hewins once told me that he had been brought 68up a Roman Catholic, but had since replaced faith in the Church by faith in the British Empire. He was passionately opposed to Free Trade, and was successfully engaged in converting Joseph Chamberlain to Tariff Reform. I know how large a part he had in this conversion, as he showed me the correspondence between himself and Chamberlain before Chamberlain had come out publicly for Tariff Reform.
