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Nov. 1, 1851.] Cft* jtfilfrgr. 10*3
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bor the early history <>r lli« Factory B...
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Socialism.—It appears to us that nothing...
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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.
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Social Reform. " Notes Of A Social Cecon...
f . and Robert Owen states that , during- the whole period of the experiment , he never once apr ~ A to a lawyer or a magistrate , nor was there a P leVaT punishment inflicted . The children hnfn within the establishment , and trained from infancy in the institution , were very superior to nthers 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 j vet from the beneficial results produced on the children and parents , and upon the establishment ffenerally , 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 " immense 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 se ( f-destruction . What were the pecuniary results of the exneriment ? A manufactory for spinning cotton , M . «» - ^ _ . 1 * . _ ll _ _— _ __ _ ^_ . the with in
* — and for making machinery , a new - stitution 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 wheliRobertO wen 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 oeconomists , 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 metalmoney system , proji ! s % afford no criterion of the amount of wealth produced ; for there may bo 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 Jilone being the primary means of production , is " the original purchase money which has heen 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 arc fitted ; I arn inclined to believe , that Competition must first destroy Monopoly , all political , religious , and social monopolies , ere it be superseded by a higher and unselfish principle of human action . " Men that arc great lovers of themselves waste the public ; " and the I'rs t lesson which should bo given to the young , ia to open their understandings to the fuct , that the precept which commands us to love our neigh-
Nov. 1, 1851.] Cft* Jtfilfrgr. 10*3
Nov . 1 , 1851 . ] Cft * jtfilfrgr . 10 * 3
Bor The Early History <>R Lli« Factory B...
bor the early history <> r lli « Factory Bill , hoc Robert ^ wen'a Letter in reply to the Deaa of York in tlic four-• fenth number of his " Journal . " t It was the only speculation in which Bentham ever » nade anything , nmi it proved eminently miccenaful . "tha KxHmincr . —Review of Romilly ' a Memoirs . I " It may doubted whether , comparatively Hpcakinfc , J » ore be not more profit to the country from horne-raeiiiK j |» n » from cotton wpiniiiii-f ! Both contribute to Jill the ^ xchc «| uer , the main point in modern Government . "—¦ L iiOMAa Wilson . $ Essays , No . IV . By Sti / aux Mim * .
Bor The Early History <>R Lli« Factory B...
hours 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 ex periment 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 ake at the society , to cbea . te a superior character , a superfluity op wealth , and a good government for all , amidst the 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 , erimes , punishments , pride , oppression , hatred , and all the innumerable evils of extreme poverty 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 civiliztd vvorld to force upon society this most desirable result . " The failure of the subsequent experiments , made bv the disciples of Robert Owen , are well known ;
artd the cause of their failure is satisfactorily explained b y 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 , thnt human character is determined roninly by external circumstances ; nml thut natural dispositions , and even established habits , may be e . isUy overcome . Accordingly , lie invited nil persons who approved of his scheme to settle at New Harmony ; but as those who acted on his invitation bad been trained in the selfish system , and were in many instances mere ignorant adventurers , they failed to act in accordance with the dictatesof the moral sentiments and intellect , and Mr . Owen ' s benevolent scheme proved completely unsuccessful . The establishment at Orbiston , in
Lanaikshire , set on foot ten ( twenty-five ) years ago by the admirers of that gentleman , fell closely under my personal observation ; and there the same 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 religious principle , excepting the vague idea of cooperation , were congregated in a large building ; they were furnished with the use of ' 270 acres ol arable land , and commenced the cooperative ; node
of life . But their labour being guided by no efficient direction or BliperinteiH ' nco , mid th < re being no habitual supremacy of the moral and intellectual powers among them , unimiiting each with u love of the public good , but the reverse , —the result wiih melancholy and speedy . Without in the least benefiting the operatives , the scheme ruined its philanthropic projectors , most of whom are now either in premature graves , or emigrants to distant lands ; while every htone which they reared has bueti razed to the foundation .
" Tho success of Mr . ltapp , at Harmony , show » that , whenever the animal propensities can bo controlled by tho strength of moral and religious principle , cooperation for the gencrtd welfare and a vast increase of luippiucss become possible . " * What will tho lunatics do with the convicts ?—W . C .
The Rappites , as well as the Shakers , hold all their 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 Happites " < Econorny , " 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 of 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 fifty 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 in 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 . But most of them recover .
The rule is , never to allow any bad habit to be considered incurable , and , therefore , it is cured . Noisv and destructive habi ts are eradicated . In feeding , they pass from the fingers to the spoon , and fi \ jm 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 , " and with careful training in good " habits . " W . C
Socialism.—It Appears To Us That Nothing...
Socialism . —It appears to us that nothing valid can be said against socialism in principle ; and that the attempts to assail it , or to defend piivate property on the ground of justice , must inevitably fail . The diatinction between rich and poor , so nightly connected , as it is with merit and demerit , or oven 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 . perfectlv just state of society ;
the present capricious distribution ol tho means ot life and enjoyment , could only bo defended as an admitted , imperfection , submitted to as an effect of causes in other respee . tH beneficial . Again , the moral objection to competition , as arming one liumiui 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 , by no means deserves tho disdain with which it is triiitod
by some of the adversaries of socialism , and among the rest , by Mr . Newrnun . Socialism as Jong ii . s it a . ttack . 8 the existing individualism , in easily triumphant ; it » weakness hitherto is in what it propo . ( s to substitute ; the reasonable objectioriH to nix iali-, 111 are altogether practical , oonnisting in difficulties to be surmounted , and in theiiiMwnicicncy of any sclicmo yet promulgated to provide agaiiiHt them ; tlicir removal must be n work of thought and discussion , aided by progressive experiments , mid by the gomial moral improvement ofmmihiwl , through good government and education . — From Westminster Review for October .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 1, 1851, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_01111851/page/15/
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