I don't know that I would agree he is above James in "quality." Wells was of course great, but he also put out a lot of trash. James may have been the more limited of the two in tone, topic, and social politics, but his work is of a different caliber in terms of prose, complexity, and coherence.
Noted - like most writers his taste is not for everyone. There are a number of very detailed critiques of James, from his uncouthness to his "rangy, convoluted sentences that bear so unmistakably the hallmark of James".