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This section introduces a checklist that provides a comprehensive guide to the provincial newspaper press of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in Great Britain from 1893 to 1906. The first problem is to define an ILP newspaper. Newspapers have been included when it is certain that they were published by branches of the ILP or when it is reasonably certain that they were published in the interest of, and with the approval of, the local ILP. The overwhelming majority were published as the official organs of branches, but there are some doubtful cases. Neither the newspapers Pioneer nor the Socialist were actually published by the ILP but in each case the only socialist party or organization advertised in them was the local ILP and in the case of the Socialist, the paper and the local ILP shared the same address. Four were imprinted with the name of specific ILP branches, who had joined the scheme, and it must be assumed that the other two were also published on behalf of the local ILP branch. A number of local ILP newspapers may have escaped attention altogether. Whereas the majority of papers were periodicals, a small number were published for a specific purpose, such as an election, and there may have been many other similar ventures which did not attract the attention of librarians or the editors of other newspapers.

The article discusses the wages fund theory and popular influence of economists. Aside from discussions over technical aspects of the theory, economists as social scientists have always been concerned with public questions of their day. Although the wages fund is mainly of historical interest in economic theory, it has generally been supposed that it represented a subject on which professional economists made a contribution to public opinion of mid-nineteenth century Great Britain. Study of the views of great variety of individuals as presented in reports of a British Royal Commission in 1867-68 indicates that the discouraging conclusions of economists on the success or justice of trade-union action raise wages were not widely known. In the history of the development of economic theory it has been represented that this theoretical argument of the ranking economists was used by the general public to demonstrate the futility of strike action over wages. The author further discusses theory proposed by various economists and suggests that historians of economic thought have been wrong in ascribing to economists a leading influence on the popular opinion of mid-nineteenth century Great Britain in regard to trade unions and their efforts to raise wages.