APPENDIX
I
THE 'COMMONWEAL'
MORRIS undertook the editorship of the Commonweal with great reluctance, and only because there was no one else who had the time or capacity for the work who could be entrusted with it. Besides, as he knew that he would have to be financially responsible for the paper, it was, of course rather important, in view of the laws of sedition and libel, that he should have control of its contents. He had stipulated that his editorship would chiefly be of a figure-head character, and that the bulk of the technical and drudgery work should be put on the shoulders of the sub-editor, who would be paid for his services.
Dr. Aveling was appointed sub-editor in the first instance, but was asked to resign after a year or so, and H.H. Sparling was appointed in his place. David Nicol became sub-editor in 1889.
The first number of the Commonweal appeared in February 1885, and the last number under Morris' editorship in August 1889. It was continued, as I have recorded elsewhere, as an Anarchist journal for one or two years afterwards, latterly as a monthly, but dwindled into obscurity.
The loss on running the Commonweal was always heavy, and had to be met by Morris out of his own purse. In one of his letters to me in 1888, I think, he estimated the circulation of the paper then at 2800 copies, and the
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