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
att