reported us.[13] Eighteen papers were read, two of them by members of Parliament, and most of the rest by well-known people.  William Morris and Dr. Aveling read papers as delegates from the Socialist League; the National Secular Society sent Mr. Foote and Mr. [John M.] Robertson,[14] the latter contributing a ‘Scheme of Taxation’ in which he anticipated much of what was subsequently adopted as the Fabian program; Wordsworth Donisthorpe took the field for Anarchism of the type advocated by the authors of ‘A Plea for Liberty’; Stewart Headlam spoke for Christian Socialism and the Guild of St. Matthew; Dr. Pankhurst dealt with the situation from the earlier Radical point of view; and various Socialist papers were read by Mrs. Besant, Sidney Webb, and Edward Carpenter, besides one by Stuart Glennie, who subsequently left us because we fought shy of the Marriage Question when revising our ‘Basis.’  I mention all this in order to show you how much more important this abortive Conference looked than the present one.  Yet all that can be said for it is that it made us known to the Radical clubs and proved that we were able to manage a conference in a businesslike way.  It also, by the way, showed off our pretty prospectus with the design by Crane at the top, our stylish-looking blood-red invitation cards, and the other little smartnesses on which we then prided ourselves.  We used to be plentifully sneered at as fops and arm-chair Socialists for our attention to these details; but I think it was by no means the least of our merits that we always, as far as our means permitted, tried to make our printed documents as handsome as possible, and did our best to destroy the association between revolutionary literature and slovenly printing on paper that is nasty without being cheap.  One effect of this was that we were supposed to be much richer than we really were, because we generally got better value and a finer show for our money than the other Socialist societies."[15]

Three members of Parliament, Charles Bradlaugh, William Saunders, and Dr. G.B.  Clark, took part.  The Dr. Pankhurst mentioned was the husband of Mrs. Pankhurst, later the leader of the Women’s Social and Political Union.

The reference in the foregoing passage to the report on “The Government Organisation of Unemployed Labour,” prepared concurrently with the organisation of the Conference, is by no means adequate.  The Report attracted but little attention at the time, even in the Society itself, but it is in fact the first typically Fabian publication, and the first in which Sidney Webb took part.  Much subsequent experience has convinced me that whenever Webb is on a committee it may be assumed in default of positive evidence to the contrary that its report is his work.  Webb however maintains that to the best of his recollection the work was shared between Podmore and himself, the simple arrangement being that Podmore wrote the first half and Webb the second.  The tract is an attempt