On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
ut- and Robert Owen states that , during the whole period of the experiment , he never once apnlied to a lawyer or a magistrate , nor was there a single legal punishment inflicted . The children born within the establishment , and trained from infancy in the institution , were very superior to others of their own class . They were well educated at an expense to the parents of three pence a month , and to the Company of £ 2 a-year , for each child ; Vet from the beneficial results produced on the children and parents , and upon the establishment generally , no part of the capital invested " was employed so well or so profitably . " Indeed , the amount of wealth and happiness hourly sacrificed
by society from neglect or ignorance of the " imrnense power , for good or for evil , of the application of the science of the influence of circumstances , " in the formation of human character , far exceeds any estimate that will be made by " irrational " minds . The loss in the creation of wealth , from this cause alone , is beyond calculation ; and society , from being ignorant of its own creative power , is daily committing the most lamentable self-destruction . What were the pecuniary results of the experiment ? A manufactory for spinning cotton , and for making the machinery , with a new
institution for the formation of character , consisting of two extensive buildings , had been erected and completely furnished ; a costly apparatus for teaching , by sensible signs as well as by books , had been supplied at a cost to the Company of £ 1200 a year : a large outlay had been made in the village ; and , in addition to this expenditure , £ 7000 had been paid in wages to the workers during four months of the American embargo , when the price of cotton was too high for any manufacturer to use it , and when no work , except the necessary cleaning of the standing machinery , was performed . The hours of working were also reduced to ten and
a half * per day , and for thirty years all the hands were regularly paid their wages without any reduction . Yet when all these expenses were covered , five per cent per annum was paid for the use of the capital employed , and there still remained a surplus profit among the partners , exceeding three hundred thousand pounds .-f At the commencement of the experiment , the people were miserable and in debt ; but when Robert Owen retired , they were well lodged , well fed , and well clothed , their children well educated , and yet the parents had placed savings in his hands to the amount of £ 3000 , which were repaid before he quitted New Lanark .
The statement of the amount of profits will , probably , satisfy the ignorant and vulgar commercial mind , and these ceconomists , who estimate gold as real or certain , and all other things as nominal , or uncertain wealth . " But the truth is , that £ 300 , 000 of profit might have been made , either with a very partial and limited production of real wealth , or with a very large creation of it . " Under the metalinoney system , profits \ afford no criterion of the amount of wealth produced ; for there may be great profits made , and little or no real wealth created , and no profits made , and yet great wealth produced .
In the midst of superabundant wealth for all , there is an apparent excess of population ; one of the monstrous anomalies of modern society : Labour alone being the primary means of production , is " the original purchase money which has been paid for everything ; " § yet capital , which , " strictly speaking , has no productive power , " has a monopoly of profits ; and , while the industrious workers and wealth producers may starve , or be gaoled off in Irish workhouses , drones of the social hive are living , perhaps , in luxury and idleness . But while
ignorance prevails , and the selfish faculties predominate , individualism is the only system for which men thus organized are fitted ; I am inclined to believe , that Competition must first destroy Monopoly , all political , religious , and social monopolies , * re it be superseded by a higher and unselfish principle of human action . " Men that are great lovers of themselves waste the public ; " and the first lesHon which should be given to the young , ^ to open their understandings to the fact , that the precept which commands us to love our
neighbours as ourselves , is actually written in our constitutions , and must be practically realized before the world can become prosperous and happy . I have endeavoured to select the most important of the social and scientific results obtained by Robert Owen from his experiment at the mills of New Lanark ; " but such establishments and inventions have been multiplying in a continually increasing ratio in Great Britain ; " so that the artificial labour-power which has been obtained from mechanism and chemistry is now estimated as equal to the manual power of from six to ten hundred millions of full-grown men , well trained to work most obediently , and without requiring profits , wages , food , or clothing , or support of any kind ,
excepting fuel and oil , and a comparatively few men , women , and children—slaves , to keep them ( the machines ) clean and attend to them . These mechanical and chemical slaves are multiplying rapidly over the civilized world , and daily superseding , more and more , the necessity of human slaves ; and it would be a legitimate application of the principles of the political oeconomists to say that it is full time that " these latter were killed off" ( like the Irish peasantry , by the land-jobbers and monopolists ) , " to save the expense of keeping them in idleness or out of mischief , for living slaves cannot be idle and at the same time harmless ; and to maintain and keep them in order is both expensive and troublesome .
" The most ample means ahe at the control of society , to create a superior character , a superfluity of wealth , and a good government for all ,
AMinSTTHE MOST DESIRABLE EXTERNAL CIRCUMSTANCES , AND ARRANGEMENTS CALCULATED TO PERMANENTLY unite all ; and yet these lunatics * will continue to employ measures , at an enormous and continually increasing expense , directly calculated to perpetuate ignorance , poverty , repulsive feelings , crimes , punishments , pride , oppression , hatred , and all the innumerable evils of extreme poyerty coexisting with
EXTREME RICHES . " Can the means be found to enable man to know himself , his past ignorance and errors , and to become a Rational being and a wise example to other animals ? Happily for the human race , events are now in rapid progress throughout the civilized world to force upon society this most desirable result . " The failure of the subsequent experiments , made by the disciples of Robert Owen , are well known ;
and the cause of their failure is satisfactorily explained by Dr . George Coombe . They arose from an imperfect knowledge and appreciation of human nature , and of the moral and physical laws- by which it is governed—the perfect man being necessary to the perfect state , as Plato clearly perceived—his Republic being a development of the analogy between the two . In his Lecture on the future condition of Society , Dr . Coombe -says : —
" The leading principle of Mr . Owen is , that human character is determined maii . ly by external circumstances ; and that natural dispositions , and even established habits , may be easily overcome . Accordingly , he invited all persons who approved of his scheme to settle at New Harmony ; but as those who acted on his invitation had been trained in the sol fish , system , and wore in many instances mere ignorant adventurers , they failed to act in accordance with the dictatcsof the moral sentiments and intellect , and Mr . Owen's benevolent scheme proved completely unsuccessful . The establishment at Orbiston , in
Lanarkshire , sot on foot ten ( twenty-five ) years ago by the admirers of that gentleman , fell closely under my peruonul observation ; and there the sains disregard of the principles of human nature and the results of experience , was exhibited . About three hundred , persons very imperfectly educated , and united by no great moral or rcligiouH principle , excepting the vague idea of cooperation , were congregated in a large building ; they were furnished with the use of ' 270 acres of arable land , and commenced the cooperative mode
oflife . 3 Jut their labour being guided by no efheient direction or Kiiperinteiit '" nee , and tin re being no habituixl supremacy of the moral and intelleel mil powers among them , animating each with a love of tin ; public good , but the rovcr . sc , — the result , was melancholy and speedy . Without in the least , benefiting the operatives , the Hcheme ruined its philanthropic projectors , 'most of whom are now either in premature graves , or emigrants to distant lands ; while every stone which they reared bus been razed to the foundation .
" The HuceuHB of Mr . Rapp , at Jlarmoiiy , hIiows that , whenever the animal propensities can bo controlled by the strength of moral and religious principle , cooperation for the general welfare and a vast increase of happiness become possible . " * What will the lunatics do with the convicts ?—W . C .
The Rappites , as well as the Shakers , hold all tbeir property in common , and . enforce celibacy ; but Miss Martineau observes , that " whatever they have peculiarly good , among them is owing to the soundness of their ceconomical principles ; whatever they have that excites compassion , is owing to the badness of their moral arrangements ; " and Mr . Silk Buckingham , in speaking of the Rappites " ( Economy , " says : — " They have completely proved by their success the soundness of the principle , that cooperation in society insures the most equitable mode of distribution , and the largest share nf enjoyment for all . " The Rappites are organized into one body by a constitution grounded on the thirty-second verse of the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles : —
" And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul . Neither said any of them that aught of the things he possessed was his own , but had all things in common . " The miserably paid working clergymen of the Establishment ought to press this text upon the attention of the bench of episcopal monopolists , who , seem to think
that" Too much tender mercy ' s cruel . " "William Coningham . Postscript . —In a large house , an Asylum , at Highgate , there is a family , all of whom , except the attendants , are idiots . In 1847 , twenty-five were unable to walk ; one hundred and fourteen unable to feed , dress , or take care of their person : twenty epileptic ; twelve paralyzed ; sixty-eight dumb ; and twenty-five under nine years of age . We learn from the Report of 1851 , that six have been taught
to walk , and fourteen much improved who had a crippled use of their limbs . Twenty-seven who were dumb are beginning to speak ; forty-eight have been taught to feed and dress themselves , and to observe cleanly habits ; twenty-three have been taught to read ; twenty-seven to write ; eleven to cipher ; sixteen to draw . Some are taught music , nearly all singing , nearly all are in drilling or gymnastic classes . Ninety can attend with propriety on domestic , and about fift y can attend on public worship , and have pleasure in so doing .
We might challenge any private school , says the Report , to show greater attention to time , place , method , and authority ; and all this is secured without correction . In nothing- are they at first more deficient than \ n good habits . Some scream , bark , dance nervously , mope , beat themselves , or destroy everything within their reach . All are wilful and unruly ; and most of them debased by disagreeable habits . Hut most of them recover .
The rule is , never to allow any bad habit to be considered incurable , and , therefore , it is cured . Noisy and destructive habits are eradicated . In feeding , they pass from the fingers to the spoon , and from the spoon to the knife and fork . They cultivate good behaviour and mutual kindness ; and learn to respect , what , is due , to themselves from . others , and what from themselves to others . Thus we . find that idiots become , ' ¦' rational" under
favourable " circumstances , " ami with careful training in good " habit ?; . " YV . (' . Socialism .- —It appears to us that , nothing valid can be said against socialism in mineple ; and that lh < s attempts to assail it , or to defend piivato property on the ground of justice , must inevitably Tail . The distinction between rich and poor , so slightly connected
as it is with merit , and demerit , or even with exertion and want ; of exertion in the individual , is obviously unjust ; such a feature ; could not be put into the rudest imaginings of a perfectly just , state ; of soeietv ; the present eapiicious distribution of the means of life and enjoyment , eould only be defended as an admitted imperfection , submitted to as an effect , of causes in other respects benc-lieial . Again , the moral objection to competition , an arming one human being against another , making the good of each depend upon evil to others , making all who have anything to gain or lose , live as in the midst of enemies , l >) n <> means deserves the disdain with which it i « mated by some of the adversaries of . socialism , and among the rest , by Mr . Newman . Socialism an long as ' <• attaekH the existing iinlividiialisin , i . s easily
triumphant ; its weakness hidnilo is in what it propose to substitute ; the reasonable . «! , j .-elio ,. s to « oc , a !« ,. » are altogether practical , . ¦ o . ^ . ll . ing " « d ' Hicultjes ,,, i . i i ; .. ( he insull cicncv of an v fccheniu be surmounted , and in lii < m .-nun . u y . y yet promulgated to p . ovid ,. agamn them ; their removal must he . i work of thought and discussion aided by progress , " ve experiment , and by the gene . ul I 11 OIU , il , , 1 (( ven 1 ent ( ) flMaukn 1 d , hrou .. . h ; i M , od government and education . - I ' rum \ V < : st minuter hvoicw Jot October .
Untitled Article
I Nov . 1 , 1851 . ] ' tR f ^ C % tat ttt > 1043
Untitled Article
* l '' or the early history of the Factory Hill , sec Robert Owcu ' h Letter in reply to the Dean of York in the fourteenth number of his " Journal . " t It was the only Hpcculnlion in which Heiitham oycr rnndc anything , and it proved eminently Hiiceetiuful . " — 1 'ho Examiner . — Review of Homilly ' s Memoirx . . I " It may doubted whether , comparatively speaking , there be not mure profit to the country from home-racing than from cotton Hpinning ! Hotli contribute to fill the ¦ Kxclu-quttr , the main point in modern Government . "illOMAH WlI . SON . \ Essays , No . IV . By 8 tua . ht Mn , r ,.
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 1, 1851, page 1043, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1907/page/15/
-