working-men audiences received any allusions to Socialism, or any teaching founded on it, with more than assent, with enthusiasm rather. The definitely Socialist meetings, held under the auspices of our Edinburgh friends, were very successful, and the local Socialists are well satisfied with the result of the week.'
The Rev. Dr. John Glasse bore similar testimony in the pages of the Commonweal:
'The presidential address (to the Crafts section) by our comrade Morris drew the largest gathering of the week. Nothing could have been better than the effect produced, for the audience not merely admired its ability, but were moved by its reasoning. The most successful of all, however, were perhaps the lectures given to working men. They were led off by Morris and Crane, and finished by Walker and Sanderson. We were not only much gratified by the reception given to our comrades, but proud to think that they had been found most competent to address the workers on matters relative to their handicrafts.'
Such were the circumstances and nature of the alleged Socialist 'Conspiracy' that 'ruined the Art Congress,' and incidentally invested the Socialist agitation in Scotland with a modest glamour of intellectual prestige. It is now quite forgotten, I suppose, in the Socialist movement itself, but at the time it was a great windfall to us, 'the feeble band and few,' who were striving by means of our hoarse shoutings at forlorn street corners, and our lecturings in shabby out-of the-way halls, to rouse our million-fold fellow citizens from centuries of ignorance and prejudice, and persuade them that in our 'fantastic and impossible schemes' lay the only hope and means of the social redemption of mankind.
Thenceforth our propaganda was treated with greater respect by the public and the press. Our lecturers were invited to speak at public conferences and in the lecture-
