of Economics. He joined the Independent Labour Party and, in 1894, the Fabian Society, travelling extensively around Britain to lecture on socialist topics with speakers including Ramsay MacDonald and Bruce Glasier. Snell also lectured for the British South Place Ethical Society (eventually becoming President) and its American counterpart. Snell stood unsuccessfully in Huddersfield as a candidate for the Labour Party in January and December 1910 and 1918. He was elected to the London County Council in 1919, serving until 1925, and became Member of Parliament for Woolwich East, the seat formerly held by Will Crooks, at the 1922 General Election, being re-elected in 1929. In late 1929, Snell was appointed to the Shaw Commission, which had been set up to investigate Arab uprisings in Palestine. When the Commission published its findings in March 1931, Snell delivered a Minority Report, disagreeing with the Commission's recommendation that Jewish immigration and land purchase be curtailed. Snell also dissented from the Commission's claims that Palestine was overcrowded, agreeing with reports published two years earlier that had found the area to be under-populated and greatly under-cultivated. He described the impact of Jewish immigration as having raised the standard of living for Arab workers, and asserted that the Commission was wrongly and dangerously encouraging the view that immigration was a menace to Arabs and threatened their economic future. Following this, Snell became a strong supporter of Zionism. From 1931 to 1932, he served as President of the British Ethical Union (now known as Humanists UK), an organisation promoting humanism as a non-religious basis for morality. Snell was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1930 Birthday Honours. House of Lords Snell resigned his seat in the Commons in 1931, to make way for George Hicks, a leading member of the Trades Union Congress, and was raised to the peerage as Baron Snell, of Plumstead in the County of Kent, on 23 March 1931. Ramsay MacDonald made him Under-Secretary of State for India and, upon the formation of the National Government a few months later, asked Snell to continue in this role. However, Snell refused, choosing to remain loyal to the Labour Party. In the Lords, he spoke on agricultural issues, with particular concern for rural workers, and on foreign affairs, and was a member of the British Institute of Parliamentary Affairs and the Empire Parliamentary Association. He was also appointed