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 JAN 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBfjARV 
 
 3 1924 092 563 570 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924092563570 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF CO-OPERATION 
 
 IN ENGLAND; 
 
 ITS LITEEATUEE MD ITS ADYOCATES. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEOEGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. 
 
 Our greatness will appear 
 Then most conspicuoas^ -when great things of small, 
 Useful of hurtful, prosperous of adverse 
 We can create, — ^Milton. 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 TEE PIINEER PEEIIl-1812 TO 1844. 
 
 LONDON : 
 TEUBNEE & CO., 67 AND 59, LUDGATE HILL. 
 
 1875. 
 
 r 
 
 it; 
 
,'0 
 
 ( ( 
 
 PRINTED BT THE 
 
 NOETH OP ENGLAND CO-OPEEATIVE PRINTING SOCIETY, 
 
 BALLOON STREET, MANCHESTER. 
 
 ,1,1 :ii^>i(Ki 
 
TO 
 
 WENDELL PHILLIPS, 
 OF ameeica: 
 
 A OOUNTBT 
 
 WHERE WHAT IS NEW IS WELCOME; 
 
 WHERE WHAT IS TRUE EXPANDS : 
 
 TO HIM 
 
 WHOSE INTREPID ELOQUENCE, 
 
 CONFRONTING DANGEROUS MAJORITIES, 
 
 ANIMATING FORLORN HOPES, 
 
 HAS EVER BEEN GENEROUSLY EXERTED 
 
 ON BEHALF OF THE SLAVE, BLACK OR WHITE, 
 
 IN BONDAGE TO PLANTER OR CAPITALIST ; 
 
 THIS HISTOEY OF THE PIONEER PEEIOD 
 
 OF CO-OPBKATION IN ENGLAND 
 
 IS INSCRIBED 
 
 IN GRATITUDE AND REGARD 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. 
 
CONTENTS— VOL. I. 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. PAGB. 
 
 Natube of Co-ofebaiiok 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Evil Days Befoee it Began 7 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Uiopianisis who led to it .' 22 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 How Co-opeeation itself began. 1810 — 1820 52 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Chaeacteb of its Discovbbee 71 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 His Appeal to the People 88 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The Enthusiastic Pebiod. 1821—1830 103 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Device of Labobe Exchanges 156 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The Socialistic Pebiod. 1831—1844 175 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 The Lost CoMMnsiiiBg 250 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Peincipal Advebsabies 322 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Eably Advocates 845 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 POBGOTTEN WoEKEKS 397 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 My purpose has been to write an account of the origin 
 and growth of Co-operation — of the literature which 
 fostered it — of the persons who aided it — ^the principles 
 which directed it, and the promise it implies of the 
 ultimate re-organisation of labour. To this end I have 
 sought, as was befitting such an undertaking, the 
 co-operative assistance of all informed persons, both in 
 England and America, saying to them that any books, 
 pamphlets, rules, placards, papers, letters relating to 
 the early or out-of-the-way history of the co-operative 
 movement, I should be glad to hear of, to borrow, or to 
 buy. My desire was to be told of articles in reviews 
 or periodicals about it — of sermons preached against it, 
 and of anything having the flavour of preservation in it 
 which might have been said upon the subject. Also, 
 any noteworthy recollections of early meetings for pro- 
 m.oting it — if those possessing them would be at the 
 trouble to write out particulars for me, many or few, in 
 any terms or in any way. I sought the names of 
 persons who took part in founding the early stores, or 
 who were prominently identified with Co-operation as 
 promoters, managers, committee-men, advocates, lec- 
 turers, or in any distinguishable way connected with it 
 
Vm PREFACE. 
 
 in any place. I asked for remarks or speeches of theirs 
 that had any quality in them— particulars of what 
 ultimately became of the persons themselves ; references 
 to correspondences in old local newspapers, and other 
 imaginable kinds of relevant facts. Moreover, I 
 desired that none who could do me the service of 
 sending me any information would assume that I might 
 know what they knew. I wanted to be sure that I 
 knew it, and trusted none would suppose some one else 
 had given me the same information, as the result of 
 such supposition would prevent me knowing many 
 things of interest. It was said of Hume that his 
 "History of England" would have been more accurate 
 but for the obligation he was under of sometimes 
 imagining his facts, from the difficulty of navigating 
 his portly person to the other end of his sofa, where the 
 means of their identity lay. For myself, being as lithe 
 as an Indian and resilient as an American, I might be 
 depended upon to get at any fact which came within 
 reasonable distance of me. 
 
 Of a subject so large and a story so long I have 
 obtained — if not all the facts — at least as many as wiH 
 serve to give the reader a substantial idea of the adven- 
 tures and vicissitudes of co-operators and their cause. 
 
 Besides relating the origin and progress of Co-opera- 
 tion, my wish has been to give some particulars of the 
 persons who made the movement — it being not enough 
 to treat Co-operation merely as a bale of cotton, and 
 discourse of its fineness, its repute, and value in the 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 market. It concerns the reader to know who were 
 the artificers of the ultimate fabric ; what were its pat- 
 tern and colour, its texture and durability. 
 
 Narrators sometimes miss their way, because those 
 who could direct them fear to pester them with sugges- 
 tions- But it is no mean benefit to a writer to be beset 
 by suggestors. Many counsellors bring no perplexity, 
 provided an author takes his own wilful way in the end; 
 and he takes it with many advantages, who has his eyes 
 well open, knowing all that can be said of the subject 
 in hand. The purpose of a narrator may die of con- 
 trariety of ideas, and his mind be carried away in the 
 whirlwind of various opinions ; but such mild whirlwinds 
 as prevail ia these days ought not to be fatal to an 
 historian, whose real perU is that he may paralyse his 
 readers by tameness, or kiU them by monotony. There 
 are persons who have a well-founded terror of making 
 suggestions. We have ministers of state who teach 
 that persons with ideas are to be distrusted, and it is 
 not certain that it is safe for anyone with "notions" in 
 his mind to go about certain Government departments 
 now. Co-operators, however, belong to a very different 
 school. They discovered all they know of self-help by 
 self -thinking; and it came to pass that my application 
 for facts was not unsuccessful, and many co-operative 
 "notions" have been "thankfully received" by the 
 undersigne'd. 
 
 In some cases, however, information transmitted has 
 not been very apparent, though worth all the trouble 
 
PEEFACB. 
 
 of deciphering, the writing being of a kind almost to 
 defy that operation. All penmen are not gifted. A 
 bird pattering out of an ink pot over a page would be 
 a rival writer to some correspondents, who seem the 
 natural and ready-made secretaries of Secret Societies, 
 since no expert of the most suspicious Government 
 known would be able to make much out of their cali- 
 graphy. 
 
 It has, however, occurred to so many correspondents, 
 as it did to Lord Palmerston, that the purpose of writing 
 is to be read, and that what is to be readable must be 
 intelligible, and they have practised the unappreciated 
 art of plainness to my great profit. My letter of enquiry 
 inserted in the New York Tribune brought more com- 
 munications from that wide-a-wake land than Great 
 Britain furnished. No case of any indecipherable 
 caligraphy arose in American letters ; they make things 
 pretty plain out there. 
 
 The facts of this co- operative story are intended to 
 be comprised in two moderate sized volumes, and to 
 include all characteristics of the subject calculated to 
 give the reader a practical insight of it. Where this 
 explanation may seem not to account for omissions, or 
 suggestions rejected, the reader must ascribe the error 
 to that opinionativeness, phrase-love, and general self- 
 contentedness, with which nature indulgently endows 
 'some writers in lieu of other gifts. 
 
 While sitting at the Bolton Congress of 1872, and 
 seeing with the mind's eye the old familiar faces flitting, 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 as it were, round the hall — the faces which have gone, 
 as Bamford expresses it, through the " Pass of Death," 
 and greet us no more — watching the vacant places 
 (growing more numerous every congress) of those who 
 bore the heat and burden of the unregarded day of 
 Co-operation — whose buoyant, cheery voices we shall 
 never hear again — whose tireless energy we have for 
 ever ceased to know — I desired, more than before, to 
 write some history of that new power of industry which 
 will grow mightier year by year, before the night cometh 
 when no man can work. How I have acquitted myself 
 of my task the reader who has the courage to make the 
 attempt can now judge. 
 
 G. J. H. 
 
 Newcastle Chambers, 
 
 Essex Street, Temple Bar, London. 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 
 
 For loans of Works of reference my acknowledgments are due to Wm. 
 Henry King Spark, of SMrsgil Park, Penrith, for a valuable collection of 
 books in his possession, collected, bound, and annotated by Francis Place. 
 Save for the discerning foresight and interest of Mr. Place in the welfare of 
 the working people, many of the most remarkable facts concerning their 
 social and political life would be now unknown; also to Mr. Thomas 
 Allsop, of Redbill ; Mr. Truelove, of London; Mr. David Crossley, of 
 Brighouse; Mr. Melsom, of Liverpool; Mr. George Simpson, of Prospect 
 House, Mottram; Mr. E. B. Keed, senr., of Winlaton; and Mr. Henry 
 Slatter, of Tunbridge Wells, for the use of volumes, pamphlets, and papers 
 iUuBtrative of my subject. 
 
HISTORY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 Early Co-operative terms. 
 
 CHAPTER I. - 
 NATURE OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Distribution should undo excess, 
 
 And each man have enough. — King Lear, 
 
 It is the duty of him who pleads a cause, or sohcits the 
 attention of the public to any subject, tc state distinctly 
 what the subject is — if he knows it ; so that those who 
 confer upon him the favour of their attention at the 
 outset may possess the means of deciding whether or 
 no they will continue it. I will therefore state definitely 
 what kind of Co-operation it is whose wild origin, fluc- 
 tuating fortunes, unexpected and amazing growth, I 
 propose to trace. 
 
 Mr. Furnivall could tell all about the origin of the 
 term Co-operation and when it first crept into language. 
 I find less of it than I expected in quarters in which I 
 have looked. ' ' The Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, ' ' 1845, 
 says the French have the word co-operer, the Spaniards 
 co-operar, the Italians co-operare, the Latin co-operare, 
 and derive it from co- and operari, which simply means 
 to work, — to labour together, to endeavour for some 
 common purpose. Sir Thomas More, speaking of the 
 Sacrament, mentions that " in certain respects it doth 
 nothing work, nor is no cause thereof nor co-operdt 
 thereto." The next writer is Crashaw, who, in his 
 " Sacred Poems," uses the word in another form : — 
 
 Bring all the powers of praisj 
 Your provinces of well united worlds can raise. 
 Bring all your lutes and harps of lieav'n and earth, 
 Whate'er co-operates to the common mii-th. 
 
HISTORY OF CO-OPEBATION. 
 Common ideas of Co-operation. 
 
 Hammond, in his published " Sermons," was, so far 
 as I am aware, the first to use the word in the form with 
 which we are now so famUiar. He says, " Men will see 
 the original of all the wealth, all that is worthy to be 
 called such, either mediately or immediately from God ; 
 immediately without any co-operation of ours." HoUand, 
 in his " Plutarch," makes a quotation from Timotheus, 
 the poet, in which a form of the word which has never 
 come into use is employed : — 
 
 Both boldness stout and fortitude, 
 
 With mental discipline, 
 In war, which are co-operant, 
 
 With virtue doth combine. 
 
 In Boyle's Life there is given a pretty instance of the 
 personal form of the term : " And the success wUl per- 
 haps invite many more to be co-operators with the truth." 
 Co-operation, in the social sense of the word, is a 
 new power of industry, constituted by the equitable 
 combination of worker, capitalist, and consumer, and a 
 new means of commercial morality, by which honesty is 
 rendered productive. It is the concert of many for 
 compassing advantages impossible to be reached by 
 one, in order that the gain made may be fairly shared by 
 all concerned in its attainment. Prom the commence- 
 ment of human society Co-operation has been common 
 in the sense of two or more persons uniting to attain an 
 end which each was unable to effect singly, the benefit, 
 however, always accruing to the stronger. As society 
 grew, crowds were coerced into acting together by then- 
 sagacious masters, when king or chief had his own way 
 with any profitable result ; in modern days the capitaHst 
 has had it. It is still common to regard the labourer as 
 being under great obligation by being supplied with the 
 bare wages of subsistence, while he aids in creating or 
 augmenting the wealth of his employer. This is concert 
 of labour, but it is the mere concert of compulsion 
 and necessity, disguised under a loose use of the term 
 
NATURE OP CO-OPERATION. 
 Co-operation defined — its animating principle. 
 
 " Co-operation." The workman, under this kind of 
 Co-operation, lives under the tyranny of profits, main- 
 tained by force, and only tempered by the sympathy 
 of the kind-hearted rich, by the pride of patronage, by 
 the master's fear of discredit among his neighbours, or 
 dislike of dissatisfaction among those he employs, or 
 the dread of resentment arising from individual monopoly 
 of mutually earned profits. The Co-operation of later 
 days, of which I purpose to write the history in England, 
 begins in mutual help, with a view to end in a common 
 competence. A co-operative society commences in per- 
 suasion, it proceeds by consent, it accomplishes its end 
 by common efforts, it incurs mutual risks, intending that 
 all its members shall mutually and "proportionately share 
 the benefits secured. The equality sought is not a mad 
 equality of 
 
 Equal division of unequal earnings,* 
 
 but that just award of gains which is proportionate to 
 work executed, to capital subscribed, or custom given. 
 There is equality under the law when every man can 
 obtain justice, however low his condition or small his 
 means ; there is equality of protection when none may 
 assault or kill the humblest person without being made 
 accountable ; there is civil equality when the evidence 
 of all is valid in courts of justice, irrespective of specu- 
 lative opinion ; there is equality of citizenship when all 
 offices and honours are open to merit ; there is equality 
 of taxation when all are made to contribute to the support 
 of the state according to their means ; and there is 
 
 • As Ebenezer Elliott maliciously wrote in the amusing epigram, whicli 
 I have heretofore quoted as the best description in our language of what 
 communism is not. Elliott first repeated it to me amid the charming 
 hedgerows, where he wrote his song of " The Wonders of the Lane " : — 
 
 Vfhat is a Communist ? One who hath yearnings 
 
 For equal division of unequal earnings. 
 
 Idler or bungler, or both, he is willing 
 
 To fork out his penny and pocket yoiu' shilling. 
 
HISTORY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 Ajicient and various forms of Co-operative Industry, 
 
 equality in a co-operative society, when the right of 
 every worker is recognised to a share of the common 
 gain, in the proportion to which he contributes to it, in 
 capital, or labour, or trade — by hand or head ; and this 
 is the only equality which is meant, and there is no 
 complete or successful Co-operation where this is not 
 conferred, and aimed at, and secured. Co-operation, 
 after being long declared innovatory and impracticable, 
 has been discovered to be both old and various. Mr. 
 John Macdonell counts Jacob tending Laban's* flocks 
 as a very early co-operator, he being a servant directly 
 interested in the profits of his master. Mr. Nasse has 
 shown that there existed agricultural communities in 
 Europe in the Middle Ages, and that there was a co- 
 operative use of land in England which it would be 
 deemed revolutionary to propose now. It is remembered 
 now that Greek sailors in the Levant, American sailors 
 engaged in the whale fishery and China trade, the 
 Chinese traders in Manilla, the Cornwall lead miners, 
 and the lead and copper miners of Flintshire and 
 Cumberland, have long been either equal or partial par- 
 ticipators in profits. The Metayer systemt is a familiar 
 illustration with political economists. A modern author, 
 who has written with remarkable impartiahty and 
 discernment of the actual views of social theorists, has 
 said that "the words Co-operation and Co-operative 
 have been used by communist writers to denote that 
 part of their system according to which all the members 
 of a community are to work together for the common 
 benefit, instead of working, as at present, each on his 
 
 * "Survey of PoKtical Economy." Chap, xv., p. 213. 
 
 t "The principle of the Metayer system is that the labourer, or peasant, 
 makes his engagement directly with the landowner, and pays, not a fixed 
 rent, either in money or in kind, but a certain proportion of the produce, 
 or rather of what remains of the produce, after deducting what is considered 
 necessary to keep up the stock. The proportion is usually, as the name 
 imports, one-half ; but in several districts in Italy it is two-thirds.— MiZZ 
 " Political Economy," People's Edition, p. 183. 
 
NATtJEE OP CO-OPEEATION.. 
 Co-operation Belf-addiag and independent. 
 
 own account."* This definition is in the line of truth, 
 and goes forward some distance upon it. It is not 
 necessary here to define Co-operation in determinate 
 detail, it is enough to describe its general spirit as a 
 theory of labour, and its general aim as an industrial 
 force. The practical definitions of it which have been 
 from time to time devised, and its progressive methods 
 of procedure, wiU be the subject of another chapter. 
 
 The distinction of co-operators is that they set the 
 example of work purposeful, cheerful, hopeful, success- 
 ful, for the workers. What mostly existed before their 
 time was simply labour disliked-:— people doing reluctantly 
 what they were obliged to do. Co-operation turned 
 toU into industry, which is labour animated. Industry 
 means men working willingly, busily, knowing the 
 reason why — no apathy, no idling, no bungling, no 
 evasion of duty ; because the profit of each is in pro- 
 portion to his work, and is secured to him. Co-operation 
 proposes that, in aU new combinations of labour-lender 
 and capital-lender, the produce of profits shall be dis- 
 tributed, in agreed proportion, over aU engaged in 
 creating the profit. Co-operation means concert for the 
 diffusion of wealth. It leaves nobody out who helps to 
 produce it. Those who do not know this do not under- 
 stand Co-operation ; those who do know it and do not 
 mean it are traitors to the principle. Those who mean 
 it and do not take steps to secure it, or are silent when 
 others evade it, or do not advocate it and insist upon it 
 always, and insist upon it openly as the impassable 
 principle of industrial justice, are unseeing, or sUly, or 
 weak, or cowardly. It is thus that Co-operation supple- 
 ments Political Economy by organising the distribution 
 of wealth in the near^JEuture. It touches no man's 
 fortune ; it seeks no^plunder ; it causes no disturbance 
 in society ; it gives' no trouble to statesmen ; it enters 
 
 * Ciiarles Morrison, " Latour and Capital," p. 111. 
 
HISTOEY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 Its Characteristics— Industry and Participation. 
 
 into no secret associations; it needs no trades union to 
 protect its interests; it contemplates no violence; it 
 subverts no order; it envies no dignity; it accepts no 
 gift, nor asks any favour ; it keeps no terms with the 
 idle, and it will break no faith with the industrious. It 
 is neither mendicant, servile, nor offensive ; it has its 
 hand in no man's pocket, and does not mean that any 
 hands shall remain long or comfortably in its own ; it 
 means self-help, self-dependence, and such share of the 
 common competence as labour shall earn or thought can 
 win. And this it intends to have, but by means which 
 shall leave every other person an equal chance of the 
 same good. 
 
 The one new, distinct, and hopeful thing visible in 
 English society is, that a considerable portion of the 
 working class have taken social affairs into their own 
 hands, and prove equal to the management of them. 
 Their creed is industry without exceptions, without 
 patronage, and without abstraction of its gains, other 
 than that which parliamentary government may require. 
 This was the earliest creed of Co-operation ; it has been 
 its continuous creed, it is its present creed, as will 
 appear as this history proceeds. In England, where 
 even paupers — at least among the honest poor — ^have 
 always regarded relief, whether indoor or outdoor, a 
 degradation, no industrial movement could grow which 
 was not thus defiant as against charity or dependence. 
 This self-reliance is the characteristic of Co-operation, 
 which has the sagacity to see that industry, which 
 creates all wealth, can retain its own by taking all who 
 will labour with it into partnership. And this is the 
 reason of that silent march of Co-operation" which few 
 have noticed, and whose future progress none can 
 measure. 
 
THE EVIL DAYS BEFORE IT BEGAN. 
 Spirited treatment of the Poor in former times. 
 
 CHAPTEE 11. 
 THE EVIL DAYS BEFORE IT BEGAN. 
 
 Defend me, therefore, Common Sense, say I, 
 
 From reveries so airy — ^from the toil 
 
 Of dropping buckets into empty wells, 
 
 And growing old in drawing nothing np. — Cowper. 
 
 Matters were at a very bad pass — as they had often 
 been before — ^with the working people in England when 
 Co-operation began. Some of their melancholy advisers 
 used to entertain them by publishing, in pamphlets 
 addressed to them, a certain statute of Edward VI., 
 which set forth in its preamble "that partly by the 
 foolish pity and mercy of them which should have seen 
 godly laws executed" the poor and unemployed had 
 become troublesome : and therefore, in order that godli- 
 ness might do its duty to society, it was enacted that — 
 " If any person shall bring to two justices of peace any 
 runagate servant, or any other which liveth idly or 
 loiteringly by the space of three days, they shall cause 
 that idle and loitering servant or vagabond to be marked 
 with a hot iron on the breast with the mark of V, and 
 adjudge him to be slave to the same person that brought 
 him for two years after, who shall take the said slave 
 and give him bread, water or small drink, and refuse him 
 meat, and cause him to work, by beating,_ chaining, or 
 otherwise, in such work as he shall put him unto, be it 
 never so vile : and if he shall absent himself from his 
 said master, by the space of fourteen days, then he shall 
 be adjudged by two justices of peace to be marked on 
 
HISTORY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 Governing Classes who knew their minds. 
 
 the forehead, or the ball of the cheek, with a hot iron, 
 •with the sign of an S, and further shall be adjudged to 
 be slave to his said master for ever." 
 
 In the days when this Act was passed, it was easy to 
 see that gentlemen knew what they were about ; and at 
 the beginning of this century there were worthy and 
 worshipping persons, who regretted, as many do still, the 
 decay of vigour in the governing classes. After this 
 period statutes grew sentimental. What they had come 
 to in 1822 Francis Place has recorded.* In that year a 
 poor farrier had travelled from Alnwick, in Northumber- 
 land, to London in search of work. On the same day a 
 shopman to a grocer — long out of employ — arrived 
 penniless from Shropshire. Both had come up to 
 London, that Mecca of knavery and poverty, as well as 
 of genius ; and met, companions in destitution, in the 
 pens of Smithfield market, where they ventured to think 
 they might be allowed to sleep in the bed of beasts. 
 They were seized by the police, and taken before a 
 magistrate of the city. Both begged to be discharged, 
 and promised to make their way home in the best way 
 they could ; but to this humble request the magistrate 
 would not accede. He said "he was of opinion that 
 the prisoners were not justified in coming to town 
 without any prospect before them, for they must have 
 known that, in the present state of trade, no one would 
 take them in, nor would any one be justified in taking 
 in a perfect stranger ; but whether their conduct arose 
 solely from ignorance or not he considered was imma- 
 terial ; the magistrates could not know the minds of the 
 prisoners, and could make no distinction." 
 
 The lord mayor agreed with the alderman on the 
 bench who had delivered this decision, and who consulted 
 him in this case. " The city magistrates," the mayor 
 said, " wish it to be known in the country at large that in 
 
 • " Principles of Population." 
 
THE EVIL DATS BEFORE IT BEGAN. 
 Whig services to working people. 
 
 future they should feel themselves bound to send all to 
 hard labour for the term enacted (which was not less 
 than one, and as much as three months), whether they 
 were actuated by a vicious spirit of vagabondage, or 
 with whatever professed object or speculation they came 
 to town. In short, they would put the law in full force 
 against all who could not prove reasonable assurance or 
 certainty of employment as their motive for coming to 
 London." Here the utmost that degenerate executors 
 of the law could do was to warn farriers and shopmen 
 unable to obtain employment in their own parish that 
 they must stay there and die. No slavery threatened 
 them, no hot iron discomforted them or disfigured- 
 them, and if they kept from tramping they might perish 
 without being kicked. This showed a frightful growth of 
 humanitarian tenderness, and suggested that the French 
 Eevolution had demorahsed our rulers. 
 
 The Tories of that time, who were above all weakness 
 of feeling for the people, escaped the infection of sym- 
 pathy ; but the Whigs certainly manifested a mitigated 
 recognition that the working wanderers had some 
 interests of their own in the state, if they only knew 
 what they were, and had a right to mend their condition 
 if they only knew how. 
 
 In 1825 a dinner was given to Joseph Hume, M.P., 
 in Edinburgh, on which occasion Francis Jeffrey made 
 a speech in favour of the combination of workmen. How 
 many persons spoke does not appear from any report 
 accessible, but the substance of Mr. Jeffrey's speech 
 occupies twenty-three pages octavo. Judging from the 
 facility, prolixity, and persistence with which some 
 Scotch bailies who come to England on deputations 
 to ministers address them, beyond anything which 
 Englishmen ever attempt,* this dinner may have lasted 
 
 • A Scotch deputation to Downing-atreet, headed by a lord provost 
 of Edinburgh, first caused me to notice this. He was a man of solid 
 
10 histohy op co-operation. 
 
 Working people before they became a Class. 
 
 a week. The purport of Mr. Jeffrey's speech was to 
 explain the impertinent toast, "Freedom of Labour," 
 which was expressed as follows: "Freedom of Labour. 
 But let the labourer recollect that in exercising his own 
 rights he cannot be permitted to violate the rights of 
 others." This was a defence, accompanied by _ what 
 sounded like a lecture and a reprimand. It indicated 
 the monitorial tone which these defenders of the working 
 class felt themselves able to take. It was certainly 
 generous of Francis Jeffrey, himself a Whig reviewer, 
 to speak at all in defence of combination of the 
 workmen ;* but at that time, and for years after, it 
 was a perilous business for the labourer to attempt to 
 unite, or to be known to be friendly with those who 
 counselled him to unite, against his employer; and 
 some more gracious way might have been adopted of 
 warning him not to abuse the power he dare not use. 
 The main thing, however, to observe is that the senti- 
 ment in its admonitory portion had no application to 
 the largest number of the most active agitators of the 
 working class — ^the co-operators — who never made any 
 attempt, directly or indirectly, to -violate the rights of 
 others. 
 
 We have got so far now that homilies are read to us 
 against cultivating class feeling and encouraging the 
 people to regard themselves as a separate class. In the 
 days of which I write, it was a great point to get them 
 to understand that they were a class at all. No law 
 recognised them as a class, having either claims or 
 
 repute, of humble origin, with the credit not only of ability, but of good 
 sense. He had been kept some years out of his well-earned dignity 
 . because he was suspected of writing the " Vestiges of the Natural Histoiy 
 of Creation" (it being unlawful to consider creation natural) ; yet I saw 
 him fasten on a prime minister, who, though he had a great majority at 
 his back, and was overdue on the Treasury bench, "could not extricate 
 himself from that pertinacioas Scotch detainer. 
 
 • The Combination Laws were repealed the year before the speech — 
 1824. 
 
THE EVIL DAYS BEFORE IT BEGAN. 11 
 
 The nnweloome appearance of Malthas. 
 
 Kuman feelings; but merely as a number of disagreeable, 
 insubordinate persons who wanted more wages, thought 
 they ought to have political rights, even asked for 
 education, and who needed most the watchful eyes of the 
 magistrate, the clergyman, the overseer, and the parish 
 constable. At that time a very uncomfortable monitor 
 of the people existed, who attracted a large share of 
 attention in his day, and who gave the poor a "bit of 
 his mind," which they have not forgotten yet — the Eev. 
 Thomas Eobert Malthus. This is what he said to them, 
 in deliberately chosen sentences, and in large type : — 
 " There is one right which a man has been generally 
 thought to possess, which I am sure he neither can or 
 does possess — a right to subsistence when his labour 
 will not fairly purchase it."* "I firmly believe," he 
 says, " that such persons, by the laws of nature, which 
 are the laws of God, have no claim to support." Only 
 the rich had the right to live. The poor existed alone 
 by sufferance or charity. Nor was this the language of 
 some obscure theorist. Malthus had the ear of legisla- 
 tors, and he wrote for them ; and this is what he said to 
 them: "As a previous step to alteration in the poor- 
 law, which would contract or stop the increase of the 
 relief to be given, it appears to me that we are bound 
 in justice and honour formally to disclaim the right of 
 the poor to support." "To this end," he continues, "I 
 should propose a regulation to be made declaring that 
 no child born from any marriage, taking place after the 
 expiration of a year from the date of this law, and no 
 illegitimate child born two years from same date, should 
 ever be entitled to parish assistance. "+ 
 
 This language struck the poor as an outrage on 
 household life. It brutalised the purest feelings of 
 domesticity. It punished even marriage offspring with 
 starvation — it denied the right of the children to live. 
 
 • Essays. Vol. III., p. X54. t Essays. Vol. III. 
 
12 HISTOEY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 The dreary days of indigence. 
 
 Next to the terror of machinery by the poor operative, 
 and not less than it, was the terror of population by the 
 political philosopher, and many of them ventured to 
 recommend to the poor expedients for limiting the 
 offspring which made parents slaves and filled the 
 streets with criminals and paupers. Yet such was the 
 insolence of opinion in those days, that everybody who 
 thought parental precaution a duty was assailed by 
 every form of speech in which outrage could be expressed. 
 Nevertheless this question concerned none but the poor. 
 Yet they were to be coerced by opprobrium into supplying 
 offspring to be ground up alive in the miU of capital, or 
 be cast aside when the labour market was glutted, to 
 faU into the hands of a constable or the overseer. Let 
 unthinking or unknowing people, who talk of the "good 
 old days which are gone," understand that there never 
 were any good days for the poor. There has always 
 been a golden age for opulence, but no age save a 
 desolate one for indigence. It is difficult in these times, 
 when partial knowledge has mitigated the anger of 
 misery, to estimate the intensity of that rage against 
 the rich which the ignorant and hungry felt half a 
 century ago. Things then were generally unpleasant to 
 the poor, even in the pulpit, where all men are told they 
 may confidently look for humility, or at least civil treat- 
 ment. The St. Augustine tone prevailed in the churches. 
 Piety was not only dogmatic, it was insolent. It dictated 
 to men their beliefs. The struggling, whom it could 
 not help — the miserable, whom it could not save, it 
 interdicted from thinking for themselves. The workman 
 was regarded as holding his soul imder a ticket-of-leave 
 from the churches ; and men of free thought in religion, 
 or poKtics, or science were treated as a criminal class. 
 Common men were the vassals of the crown, the prey 
 of the priests, the property of the taxgatherer. They 
 bled for the king, they bowed before the clergy, theytoiled 
 for the pension list. The crown took their bodies — the 
 
THE EVIL DAYS BEFOKE IT BEGAN. 13 
 
 Bradford bretuks out into verse. 
 
 mitre their souls — the state their means. They lived in 
 ignorance, they laboured without reward, and, what is 
 worse, many of them had no more sense than to put 
 themselves, like dry sticks, under the cauldron of 
 corruption. 
 
 Only those who take into account the condition of 
 the populace prevailing when Co-operation began can 
 understand how the more intelligent welcomed the 
 humble and hopeful thing that sprung out of that chaos 
 of despair. Historical knowledge was not the strong 
 point of the people. Those of them who were politicians 
 believed that the history of the world began with the 
 first French Eevolution. Old midland politicians half 
 believe now that history began with the Birmingham 
 Political Union of 1830. A stout Eadical of mark in 
 Bradford, Squire Farrar, built himself a house early 
 in this century, and over the door, cut in stone, still 
 appears the date of the declaration of American Inde- 
 pendence ; and there is a general impression in many 
 quarters here, as well as across the Atlantic, that the 
 world recommenced at that period. 
 
 However, without troubling too much when the 
 world began, workmen were to be found who were 
 bent on improving it. Trades-unionists have the credit 
 of being aihong the most active of this class. We 
 need not go far for an example which will sufficiently 
 illustrate their condition and their sense as well as 
 their spirit. 
 
 The wool combers and stuff weavers of Bradford, 
 published in 1825 a noticeable statement of the workman's 
 case in local verse, which commences thus : — 
 
 Odda bobs, lads, pray wbat's the matter? 
 Come, tell the cause of aU this clatter, 
 And let me know what 'tis about ; 
 Have you with master fallen out ? 
 " Yes, sir, we have, and well we might, 
 For sure we are our cause is right ; 
 For let us work hard as we will. 
 We're ne'er the better for it still." 
 
14 flISTOEY OF . CO-OtEEATlOU . 
 
 Tradea UnionB proposed by the poet in 1825. 
 
 Bradford men always had a stout, unyielding way of 
 expressing' dissatisfaction with their condition when they 
 had sense to see it, or sense to listen to those who did 
 see it, and could explain it to them. So these weavers, 
 after recountmg their masters' imputation against them, 
 the one they al^ja hring, namely, that the men are 
 idle, the Bradford Homer proceeds to sound this note 
 of battle, of which the world has heard a good deal since. 
 Answering the masters, the poet sings : — 
 
 They say there's good work, plenty too, 
 
 As much as all of us can do ; 
 
 All this we grant, and are most willing 
 
 To work twelve pen'orth for a shining. 
 
 But more we neither can nor wiU ; 
 
 We'd rather aU, at once, stand still. 
 
 And form a nNioN of our own, 
 
 As men have done in many a town. 
 
 The stuflf weavers' hard, whose verse, it must be 
 owned, is a little woolly, then takes a higher flight, and 
 betrays some inkling of that doctrine of solidarity which 
 Louis Blanc brought into prominence a quarter of a 
 century later. Our bard supposes the employer to have 
 married the workman. If so, it must be apparent that 
 he has made a sorry provision for his wife. This is the 
 inspired passage : — 
 
 'Tis said the world is like a chain, 
 Hung link to liuk, throughout the frame ; 
 If so, the rich and poor are tied 
 Together, sure as man to bride. 
 Then why are not the rich to give 
 Wages whereby the poor may live, 
 So that the chain may hang together, 
 In roDL as well as in faib weather ? 
 
 Those who know the lives of bitterness and hopeless- 
 ness, the fruitless political agitations which led many 
 to the gaol, the long-drawn years of toil which ended 
 in dependence and the poorhouse in Bradford since that 
 time, will sympathise with the humble strugglers who 
 found comfort in such a song. Things were not in a 
 
THE KVIL DAYS BEFOEE IT BEGAN. 15 
 
 A great poet deems the condition of the people a subject for Ms Muse. 
 
 satisfactory state in England when men like Southey 
 and Coleridge thought of seeking in another land more 
 hopeful conditions of life. Even poets mostly addicted 
 to genteel themes had some thought then for the misery 
 of the many. . In every publication of the people — when 
 they first began to have publications — there was quoted 
 Southey's noble invocation to the wealthier classes to 
 give heed to the poor, who, though troublesome, were 
 not entirely useless to the country. In a higher quality 
 of verse than Bradford bards could employ, he said : — 
 
 Train up thy cHldren, England, 
 In the ways of righteousness — and feed them 
 
 Vfith the bread of wholesome doctrine. 
 Where hast thou mines — but in their industry 1 
 Thy bulwarks where — ^but in their breasts ? Thy might, 
 
 But in their arms ? 
 Shall not their NUMBERS, therefore, be thy wealth — 
 Thy BTKENGTH — ^thy powEK — thy safbit— and thy pbidb? 
 
 grief, then — grief and shame. 
 If in this flourishing land there should be dwellings 
 Where the new-bom babe doth bring unto its parents' soul 
 No joy ! — where squalid poverty receives it at the birth, 
 And on her wither'd knees 
 Gives it the scanty bread of discontent.* 
 
 The rise of machinery was the circumstance that filled 
 the working class with despair. The capitalist able to 
 use machinery grew rich, the poor who were displaced by 
 it were brought in great numbers to the poorhouse. A 
 man so strong thinking as Horace Greeley had his mind 
 inclined to protection by the misery he witnessed in his 
 father's household, when handloom weaving was super- 
 seded by.mercUess inventions. Political economists made 
 what seemed cold and heartless speeches to the poor, to 
 prove that machinery tended to the benefit of society, 
 not seeing that acquiescence in the meantime exacted a 
 
 • I preserve the distribution of capitals employed by Mr. Owen in the 
 Economist, in 1821. It was a popular quotation long after 1840, and is 
 not untrue or entirely iaapplioable in 1874. The Economist considered 
 that " it deserved to be written in diamonds." 
 
16 HISTOEY OF CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 The despairing outlook of workmen. 
 
 fine spirit of self-sacrifice from tlie thousands who were 
 turned from their employment to famish under the 
 parsimony and ignominy of parish relief,_ in order that 
 the next generation might henefit by their destruction. 
 The rich are not prompt in being thus philosophical. 
 Besides, over the whole horizon of labour no one saw 
 anywhere breaking a light of redress. One who was 
 sanguine enough to see anything visible exclaimed, 
 " We are pressed down by the weight of inventions and 
 improvements."* Indeed, ia 1807, things were so 
 hopeless for the people that Mrs. Barbauld wrote that 
 "they considered even depredators usefully employed 
 in lessening the inequalities of rank." 
 
 Goldsmith relates how he found the philosophical 
 shoemaker who had but one regret, that by changing 
 his street he had abandoned a stall where a more settle- 
 minded successor "had amassed a handsome fortune," 
 having died at last over his lapstone, "with seven 
 pounds seven shillings, all in hard gold," stitched in the 
 waistband of his lucky breeches. 
 
 The tendency of competition, which the introduction 
 of machinery intensified, lowered wages, and pushed Ihe 
 mass of the workmen with increased force against the 
 walls of the workhouse. Mr. Thompson, of Cork, com- 
 menced an address, in 1826, to the distressed Spitalfields 
 weavers, thus: " The system of labour by which your 
 productive powers have been hitherto misdirected is fast 
 coming to its close. All kinds of labour, agricultural 
 and manufacturing, are rapidly approaching their fated 
 equality — the level of competition, or the starvation 
 
 * Mr. Owen's speech at the Holkham agrioultm-al meeting, on his 
 health being proposed by Mr. Coke. Even landlords had their vicissi- 
 tudes in those days. Then Mr. Coke's land let at 15s. per acre ; a fall 
 in the value of produce might throw it out of cultivation, reducing it to 
 6s. per acre, involving a loss of £40,000 a year. Even then the eminent 
 and unfortunate owner would probably not need to come upon the parish, 
 while the weaver or mechanic would have no choice but to make that 
 application. 
 
THE EVIL DAY3 BEPOEB IT BEGAN. 17 
 
 Obligations of craftsmen to Carlyle. 
 
 price, the lowest that even in times of average employ- 
 ment will support a miserable existence."* If one 
 whom fortune had placed above want, and education 
 above prejudice, had these impressions, no wonder the 
 poor desponded, and were generally confused. 
 
 There was one unpleasant thing about the Social 
 Eeformers, who tardily came to the surface — they were 
 air world-sick. They called this the " old " world, as 
 though they had a new one on hand, instead of in the 
 remote future. They evidently thought that destiny 
 might have done better by them than placing them in 
 this state of existence. Mr. Charles Bray, a solid think- 
 ing writer, and author of many works on principles of 
 social life, wrote so late as 1844 to ask whether "com- 
 merce and the mechanical arts do not really point to a 
 declining age?" Social innovators wrote about society 
 all the dismal facts of the day, and those only were 
 brought to the front, as though society had the small-pox 
 and had never been vaccinated ; whereas the great crea- 
 ture called society has " a pulse like a cannon." True, 
 there is "something the matter with its head," since it 
 permits the rich to display themselves conspicuously in 
 the midst of a squalid people, as some one has said, like 
 jewels in the hair of a mendicant woman. National 
 secular education, if ever it gets it, will restore to it a 
 sound mind. 
 
 True, Carlyle is a grim preacher, but his strong 
 screech is not one of despair but incentive. To his 
 manly and contagious indignation has been greatly 
 owing the improved regard since shown for craftsmen. 
 Carlyle created captains of industry, who thought of 
 equity and honour as well as gain.t Before he wrote, 
 
 • " Co-operative Magazine," Nov. 26th, p. 333. 
 
 t Of later years an element of Titanic impatience has crept into those 
 potent counsels. To applaud those who added pianoforte wire to the cats 
 with which they flogged working men and women, lest they should becoma 
 refractory, is an act likely to find more imitators than the nobler advice ol 
 
 
 
18 HISTOEY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Advantages of civilised poor over savage poor. 
 
 capital, as a commercial power, unallied to the labourer's 
 interest, was both a tyranny and a terror. Such a 
 capitalist was a new feudal lord, as selfish, as capricious, 
 and more cruel than the king who reigned by conquest. 
 The feudal lord had some care for his vassal, and 
 provided him with some sustenance and dwelling ; the 
 new lord of capital charged himself with no duty of 
 the kind, and did not even acknowledge the labourer's 
 right to live. His condition was his affair, not his 
 employer's. Thoughtfulness for the workman might be 
 manifested as an act of patronage, but not as an act of 
 duty. 
 
 The workman then naturally fancied that the wealth 
 which existed through the instrumentality of his labour 
 and the use of capital existed at his expense, and that 
 he was poorer because this wealth existed ; that it had 
 been abstracted from his proper income, and that if he 
 did not work for the capitalist he would be himself 
 better off. But this is not so. K the workman acted 
 for himself alone, and worked for himseK alone, he 
 would have to do everything for himself and to provide 
 everything for himself. He would be a mere savage, 
 without any food except what he could catch or fight 
 for. So long as he lived where population was scarce, 
 and the forests or rivers fruitful, he would be better off 
 for health and freedom than as a workman in a large 
 town, or as a labourer in a village, where he has a 
 confined home and cannot plunder or kill. If, however, 
 he lived wild, where there were many wild men besides 
 himself, he would be worse housed, and never sure of 
 his home. He would perish of hunger, or be killed by 
 his comrades, unless he could kill them in the fights 
 
 work and justice. Men in the negro condition, black and white, will one 
 day have their tm-n of power, and Mr. Carlyle's ferocious approval will 
 invigorate many a cat, and sharpen many a knife, for use on respectable 
 backs and throats, unless working people leara that fii-muess and faii-nesa 
 alone bxing secuiitj. 
 
THE EVIL DAYS BEFORE IT BEGAN. 19 
 
 Are the poor pooret beoaose the rich are richer? 
 
 that must occur. _ There is hardly any man so poor or 
 miserable in civilised society as he would be in ordinary 
 savage society. The poorest mechanic or labourer may 
 get more from mendicity societies, and by chance-work 
 from charities, than he would get as a savage, if he 
 lived amid a large tribe of savages, in a poor country. 
 He may die early of insufficient food, and of an unhealthy 
 dwelling in a civilised town, but he would die earlier and 
 Buifer more as a savage ; while by frugality and care 
 everyone may find twenty chances of rising to some sort 
 of comfort, however precarious, and some even to riches, 
 which would never happen to one savage in a thousand. 
 Captain Burton, in his " Unexplored Syria," relates 
 that he went out with Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake to visit 
 Mount Lebanon. Lured by writers, whom he says had 
 " Holy Land on the brain," he found life there, though 
 ages removed from the barbarian state, such that he 
 exclaims: "Having learned what it is, I should far 
 prefer the comfort of Spitalfields, the ease of the Seven 
 Dials, and the society of South wark." Though the poor 
 are kept down to the very limits of life and have to die 
 early, they have many conveniences and pleasures no 
 savage can command. The poor man, however, who 
 does not know how to think, spends his time in com- 
 plaining when he should be planning. English working 
 men have no general comparison of savage life before 
 them, and do not realise its helpless penury, tyranny, 
 and misery. Hoarded earning is the beginning of 
 progress. Capital is the handmaid of civiHsation. 
 Lord Brabazon points out that " the higher the civilisa- 
 tion of a country the more marked is the differemce 
 between rich and poor."* This only means that as 
 the refinements and luxuries of the wealthy increase, 
 the contrast grows greater between the condition of rich 
 and poor. This does not necessarily imply that the 
 
 * Kepoi'ts of tUe CooditioB of the fotoU1»l Classes in Foreign Countries. 
 
20 raSTORY OP CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 EtU of military inBpiration in civil progress. 
 
 condition of the poor is therefore worse than it waa. 
 This is hardly possible, seeing that in every age it is 
 declared to be as bad as it can be, and_ always worse 
 than it ever was before. Civilisation gives the poor, 
 who are wise, a better chance than the starvation stage. 
 If a man is Lazarus it is better for him to catch the 
 crumbs falling from the table of Dives than lie waiting 
 for those which may drop from brother Lazarus's table. 
 As compared with the rich of the middle ages, the 
 poor of to-day are better off in many respects than the 
 rich of that time. But relatively to the rich of to-day 
 the poor now are worse off, because the rich have got 
 on faster than the poor. It is, however, an idle and 
 irrelevant disputation whether the poor are better or 
 worse off than their order were generations ago. The 
 sole sensible question for them to ask is, can they better 
 themselves, whatever their condition is ? The rich neither 
 trouble themselves when they meditate acquisitions, nor 
 limit themselves in anything they can compass by 
 historical considerations of the condition of their grand- 
 fathers. And this should be the policy of the working 
 people. They should see, or try to see, the possibilities 
 before them, and take the bearings of things about them. 
 Progress is only bound by traditions of honour and 
 heroism, not by those of poverty and degradation. Out 
 of every condition it takes courage, and seeks to advance. 
 Had the French been of our way of acting, they had 
 exercised great inspiration in England. While their 
 brilliant theories allured us forward their impatience 
 threw us back. The French, demoralised by centralisa- 
 tion, had none of the English habit of working for 
 majorities and winning them by agitation. The traditions 
 of the camp in France have been another disqualification 
 for progress by reason. It is showier, swifter, and more 
 natural to man to fight out a difference than persuade 
 men out of it. Eeason is tiresome, and is rather counted 
 unmanly. All the peril and imprisonments which 
 
THE EVn DATS BEFORE IT BEGAN. 21 
 
 Equitable distribution of new wealth the aim of Co-operators. 
 
 resulted from political movements in England the first 
 half of this century were occasioned by members who 
 had been in the army and wanted their associates 
 to arm. 
 
 It is all very well for Dr. Johnson to say " clear your 
 minds of cant." People who have the cant in their 
 minds cannot do it. They do not know it. Hence there 
 is a cant of dissatisfaction among workmen, because 
 they do not see that to live in a state in which capital 
 can exist is an advance for their order. It is only in 
 that stage that emancipation is possible. It is by con- 
 cert in industrial operations that wealth arises, rather 
 than from individual isolated exertion. A workman 
 who gets, none of this wealth beyond mere subsistence 
 is no worse off than he would be if he abstained from 
 assisting in this combination. Since, however, he is one 
 of the instruments in creating the wealth, he ought to 
 get a reasonable share of it. This he may obtain, not 
 by taking it from those who have amassed it, which can 
 only be done by fighting, bloodshed, and waste, and by 
 Betting a precedent which will expose him to similar 
 attacks in his turn ; but by employing the economy of 
 Co-operation to save capital, or by entering into indus- 
 trial partnerships to earn it. This has been the lesson 
 taught by co-operative thinkers, and by them alone. 
 
 But how evil the evil days were which preceded 
 Co-operation wiU be more manifest if we take into brief 
 account the manner of men who endeavoured to amend 
 them. 
 
22 HISTORY OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 CharacteristioB of the Utopian. 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 THE UTOPIANISTS WHO LED TO IT. 
 
 Now if . . . anyone should propose anything that he had either 
 read in history or ohserved in his travels, the rest would think that the 
 reputation of their wisdom wonld sink, and that their interests would be 
 much depressed it they could not run it down, ... as if this were a 
 great mischief, that any should be found wiser than his ancestors. — Sir 
 Thomas More. "Utopia." 
 
 " WoELD-MAKEES " seems a more relevant term than 
 Utopianist. Dreanainess was but one of the character- 
 istics of men who meditated the reformation of this 
 planet on which we have the chance or privilege, it 
 may be, to live. Those who are conversant with the 
 history of social projectors wOl know that the phrase 
 world-making is a- literal description of the ambitious 
 and insurgent schemes of most of them. 
 
 Co-operation, as we have come to know it in England, 
 was really born of world-makers, and it becomes more 
 intelligible when its order of descent is seen. If a project 
 of to-day is good and useful in itself, it matters nothing 
 whether it is old in the order of time ; but if it be old 
 it is well to know it. An idea recurring from age to age, 
 and among various peoples, may be an obstinate or perti- 
 nacious one, but not necessarily a sound one. It may 
 be a foolish one, since experience shows that silly ideas 
 are more likely to recur than wise ones — foUy being ever 
 ready-made, while sense has to be acquired. But if it 
 be a matter of history that certain ideas, oft recurring 
 and widely agitating dissimilar peoples, have been mostly 
 
THE tJTOPlAKISTS WHO LED TO IT. 2S 
 
 Misgivings on the threshold of untried existence. 
 
 originated by philosophers and only promoted by think- 
 ing people, the presumption is that there is something 
 relevant to human needs in such projects ; and it may 
 be worth while showing, for the space of a page or two, 
 that co-operative ideas have been of this character. It 
 may concihate the reader who considers all social 
 schemes as the dreams of fools to find that they were 
 not fools who first dreamt them. How it came to pass 
 that schemes of social life were in so many cases turbu- 
 lent, sanguine, and extravagant can only be understood 
 by those who take into account the condition of society 
 in earlier times. In no state or time are there wanting 
 people who are humble and wonder that they have any- 
 thing, and are afraid of any change which may rob them 
 of what little they happen to possess. There are a 
 better sort of men, of more sense and spirit, who want 
 to know how it is that knaves are born on the bank and 
 honest men in the ditch. But they do nothing nor 
 encourage others to attempt improvement. The argu- 
 ment that "it has always been so" seems to them 
 unanswerable. It is difficult for educated men to believe 
 in the practicability of what has never prevailed. Only 
 the wise, or the bold, venture on untried existence. 
 Then there have been in all ages classes of men who 
 found things so much to their advantage that they 
 loudly recommended mankind not on any account to 
 disturb them. In earlier days priesthoods arose, who 
 found reason to adopt this view. Cleverer than carnal 
 conquerors, they annexed the unknown world and used 
 it as their gift, threatening, successfully, everyone with 
 the loss of it who sought other rule than theirs. The 
 generous doctrine of "the gi-eatest happiness of the 
 greatest number " was unknown. Humanity was treated 
 as prey ; and the priesthood seldom made alliance with 
 the people, but with successful soldiers and subjugators, 
 and offered their services to them as a sort of spiritual 
 police. Then arose an organised despotism of property 
 
24 HISTORY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Obligations of Society to World-makers. 
 
 and piety, which forbade complaint and free thought. 
 Discontent on the part of any who struggled for better 
 things was called sedition, and free thought on the part 
 of those dissatisfied was known by the hideous name of 
 sin, which made it very disagreeable to avow any new 
 opinion. There were always some good priests who 
 were honest servants of humanity, and some bold priests 
 who themselves led the way to noble innovations. But 
 the good and wise were more in the minority than they 
 are now, and the other sort had the sway, and thinkers 
 who proposed new devices of life had a bad time of it. 
 There must be some allowance made for those world- 
 makers who, at the perU of their lives or repute, first 
 broke through the dark ranks of political and spiritual 
 intimidators. They ought not to be met with derision 
 if they sometimes projected a wild world — for that was 
 worth having, if it gave the ignorant new experience 
 and the miserable some chance. For myself, I am no 
 world-maker — averring with Hudibras : — 
 
 Eeforming sohemes are none of mine ; 
 To mend the world is a vast design. 
 Like those who ply with little boat 
 To tug to them the ship afloat. 
 
 Though, therefore, not entitled to rank with these capa- 
 cious dreamers, the reader need not distrust my story 
 of their generous schemes. Sir Arthur Helps seems to 
 me very justly to advise that we should discontinue 
 the presumptuous term "reformer," and substitute for 
 it the more modest one of "improver." Students 
 of history, or morals, or politics must ofttimes be 
 astonished at the solidity of ancient wisdom, rashly 
 superseded by modern caprice or folly, and be aware 
 that most human devices have truth in them which 
 needs no reforming, rather re-considering and improv- 
 ing. The world-makers have, however, let in light where 
 there was none. Impatience and daring have done much 
 for mankind. Their grand schemes have opened the 
 
THE UTOPIANISTS WHO LED TO IT, 25 
 
 No comprehensive history of Schemes of Social Life. 
 
 eyes of the world, which, though a perilous operation to 
 attempt, is serviceable, for men are never the same any- 
 more after they have once seen a new thing. 
 
 The uninstructed working people who ultimately set 
 Co-operation going scarcely knew where their social ideas 
 came from : not alone were they weak in history. Indeed 
 journalists, preachers, and political economists did not 
 seem very well read when socialism arose among us. 
 They nearly all said it was contrary to human nature. 
 What was new to them they concluded was new to 
 humanity.* Yet there were traditions among the people 
 that schemes of social life had been devised in earlier 
 times. In recent years attempts have been made to 
 render some account of them, but nothing considerable 
 has been done. Eventually the day wUl come when 
 some writer, of the necessary capacity for research and 
 sympathy with forgotten ideals of life, will look up the 
 marvellous instances scattered over the unregarded 
 literature of social progress, and publish a history of 
 the efforts to promote public happiness by public 
 arrangements ; and very interesting reading it will prove, 
 even to those who do not care for the subject. If it 
 does not amuse it will surprise them, and that may do 
 them good. 
 
 All the world-makers sought to equalise property in 
 society. The arrangement which confines to the few 
 the possession of those objects which are coveted by the 
 many breeds disorder, and may be said to invite crime. 
 Yet it was useless to attempt any remedy if the arrange- 
 ment proceeded from a permanent instinct in man. The 
 social innovators thought they had reason to deny that 
 it did. The sentiment of mine and thine, which now 
 seems part of human nature, was once an invention. 
 
 * They seem to think like the Irish peasant -whom Dr. King met, ard 
 asked whether he would rather lire upon wheaten bread or potatoes, who 
 answered, " Sir, I like bread well enough once in a way, but potatoes are 
 more natural." — " Co-operative Magazine," 1826. 
 
26 HISTORY OP CO-OPEEATIOM. 
 
 The noble " dread " of ancient times exttnct. 
 
 "Even when agrieulture had been introduced," Herder 
 remarks, " it cost some pains to limit men to separate 
 fields and establish the distinctions of mine and thine."* 
 Mr. James Mill pointed out, in his "History of British 
 India," that " the different combination of benefits which 
 are included under the idea of property, at different 
 periods of society, are all arbitrary ; that they are not 
 the offspring of nature but the creatures of will deter- 
 mined and chosen by society as that arrangement with 
 regard to useful objects which is, or is pretended to 
 be, the best for all." According to Aristotle, there were 
 nations who held the land in common and divided the 
 produce, and there were others who divided the land 
 and stored the produce in common. Minos, who, accord- 
 ing to the legend, aimed at establishing equality among 
 the Cretans, would not suffer any of them, whatever 
 might be their rank, to lead an indolent hfe. Persons 
 of all classes sat at common tables, partook of the same 
 diet, and at the public expense. These laws subsisted 
 in force for nearly a thousand years — a long time for a 
 scheme of life to last which would now be held to be 
 contrary to human nature. Minos left a mighty name 
 as a lawgiver, which has lasted for ages ; but if he 
 appeared in England in these days, he would be written 
 down in a month. Lyeurgus governed Sparta as grandly 
 as Minos did Crete. Obedience to the law, and the dread 
 of living for himself, were the earliest lessons imprinted 
 on the mind of a Lacedemonian ; and this education was 
 found — at least is reputed — ^to have endured 400 years. 
 This "dread" of a man living for himself alone has 
 been long extinct in modern society. It is a true saying 
 that it is liberty which is old; it is despotism which is 
 new. As with men so with industry ; it is Co-operation 
 which is ancient, it is competition which is new. Plato's 
 Eepublic is the most splendid example on record of what 
 
 • Herder. " PhU. Hist." Vol. I., p. 372. 
 
THE UTOPIANISTS WHO LED TO IT. 97! 
 
 Jesus ignored by political economists. 
 
 genius and judgment might do for mankind in the 
 organisation of society. Plato had the sagacity to 
 foresee and reason upon the danger of over-population, 
 and considered it would be impossible to preserve 
 equality in any state without regulating the number of 
 the inhabitants — a question society has not made up its 
 mind to look at yet. 
 
 The noblest body of Jews, unlike any others of which 
 history has made mention, were the Essenes. They 
 deemed riches to consist in frugality and contentment ; 
 nor had they any slaves among them. All were free, 
 and all in their turn administered to others. Among 
 them there was no house, however private, which was 
 not open to the reception of all the rest. There was but 
 one^treasure, from which all derived their subsistence ; 
 and not only their provisions but their clothes were 
 common property. Nor were they enervated by their 
 communistic principles. Josephus attests the heroic for- 
 titude with which they met their sufferings in defence of 
 their opinions and mode of life. Jesus evidently thought 
 well of their principles, and commended them. But 
 not himself foreseeing the rise of the commercial and 
 manufacturing systems of Europe, he left no directions^' 
 which approve themselves to practical men — for con- 
 tinuing a plan of life in which men should have " all 
 things in common." Indeed political economists have 
 with one consent ignored him in that great department of 
 progress which is their especial study, and where sound 
 teaching is most wanted. Professor Jowett, who has 
 the merit of looking at things for himself, points out 
 that "Aristotle censures the community of property 
 much in the spirit of modern political economy, as tend- 
 ing to repress industry and as doing away with the 
 spirit of benevolence. Modern writers almost refuse to 
 consider the subject, which is supposed to have been 
 long ago settled by the common opinion of mankind." 
 The same discerning writer remarks that "the early 
 
28 mSTOEY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 The "Utopia" of More based on historic facts. 
 
 Christians are believed to have held their property in 
 common, and the principle is sanctioned by the words of 
 Christ himself, and has been maintained as a counsel of 
 perfection in almost all ages of the Church. Nor have 
 there been -wanting instances of modern enthusiasts who 
 have made a religion of communism. In every age of 
 religious excitement notions like Wycliffe's 'Inheritance 
 of Grace ' have tended to prevail." Nothing can be more 
 disastrous to the struggling poor than that a teacher of 
 the highest repute among them should bequeath to them 
 plans of social life so crudely stated that men should 
 be contemptuously counted as " enthusiasts " who seek 
 to reduce them to practice. 
 
 Even from these instances alone — and there are others 
 equally famiUar — the reader will see that philosophy 
 and religion ahke have sought to turn men's minds in 
 the direction of social improvement. In all nations 
 movements of this nature, more or less remarkable, 
 have been made ; but this narrative is necessarily 
 confined to the instances which are known to have 
 determined English thinkers to similar attempts. Sir 
 Thomas More's "Utopia" had great influence in this 
 respect. Considering More's position, and the eminence 
 of the persons and interests which were satirised in his 
 " Utopia," it was a bold as well as a wise book.* The 
 forin of fiction under which he wrote was a necessary 
 disguise. People continue to regard the work as imagi- 
 nary, whereas it was founded on historic facts and 
 practiqal experience. What kind of book the " Utopia " 
 is, and what manner of man the brave author was, has 
 been told by one whose pen lends some charm to the 
 meanest fact and worthily recounts the noblest. Mr. 
 Euskin says : " We have known what communism is — 
 
 • Bishop Burnet says the tenderest part of the whole work is the 
 representation he gives of Henry the Seventh's Court, in which his disguise 
 is so thin that the matter would not have been much plainer if ^e had 
 named him. 
 
THE UXOPIANISTS WHO LED TO IT. 29 
 
 More's remarkable pictnre ol Society. 
 
 for our fathers knew it, and told us three thousand years 
 ago. . . . First, it means that everybody must 
 work in common, and do common or simple work for 
 his dinner. That much, perhaps, you thought you 
 knew ; but you did not think that we Communists of the 
 old school knew it also. You shall have it, then, in the 
 words of the Chelsea farmer and stout Catholic. He 
 was born in Milk-street, London, three hundred and 
 ninety-one years ago, 1480,* and he planned a commune 
 flowing with milk and honey, and otherwise Elysian, 
 and called it the 'Place of Well-being,' or Utopia, 
 which is a word you perhaps have occasionally used 
 before now, like others, without understanding it. 
 . . . Listen how matters really are managed there." 
 [It is Sir Thomas More who says what follows.] " Con- 
 sider how great a part of all other nations is quite 
 idle. First, women generally do little, who are the 
 half of mankind ; and if some few women are diligent 
 their husbands are idle. Then consider the great 
 company of the idle priests, and of those that are 
 called religious men; add to these all the rich men, 
 chiefly those that have estates in lands, who are called 
 noblemen and gentlemen, together with their families, 
 made up of idle persons that do nothing but go swagger- 
 ing about. Eeckon in with these all those strong and 
 lusty beggars that go about pretending some disease in 
 excuse for their begging ; and upon the whole account 
 you will find that the number of those by whose labours 
 mankind is supplied is much less than you did perhaps 
 imagine. Then consider how few of those that work 
 are employed in labours that men do really need ; for 
 we, who measure all things by money, give occasion to 
 many trades that are both vain and superfluous, and 
 that serve only to support riot and luxury. ... If 
 all those who labour about useless things were set to 
 
 • •' Fors Clayigeia." Letter 7. 1871. 
 
80 HISTOEY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Pedigree and character of Harrington. 
 
 more profitable trades; and if all that number that 
 languish out their life in sloth and idleness, of whom 
 every one consumes as much as any two of the men that 
 are at work do, were forced to labour, you may easily 
 imagine that a small proportion of time would serve for 
 doing all that is either necessary, profitable, or pleasant 
 to mankind." He who said this, Mr. Euskin adds, " was 
 one of the sternest Eoman Catholics of his stern time ; 
 and at the fall of Cardinal Wolsey became Lord High 
 Chancellor of England in his stead." 
 
 Sir Thomas More wrote iti 1516. One hundred and 
 forty years later, 1656, Harrington dedicated his agrarian 
 " Oceana " to Cromwell. Hume considered it to be " a 
 work of genius and invention, and the most valuable 
 model of a commonwealth which had been offered to the 
 pubhc. " Cromwell thought there was mischief in it, and 
 is stated to have said, that "what he had won by the 
 sword he was not going to be scribbled out of by Mr. 
 Harrington." 
 
 Harrington was a man capable of being consoled by 
 philosophy, but very little comfort accrued to his later 
 followers, for one hundred and fifty years after his death 
 any espousal of his scheme brought persons into diffi- 
 culties ; and his majesty's attorney-general, in 1793, 
 spoke of him in a very unpleasant way. The vindication 
 that Erskine made of him has interest to day. When the 
 abusive attorney-general sat down, Erskine generously 
 rejoined: "Yet this very Harrington, this low black- 
 guard as he is described, was descended (you may see 
 his pedigree at the Herald's Office for sixpence) from 
 eight dukes, three marquises, seventy earls, twenty- 
 seven viscounts, and thirty-seven barons, sixteen of 
 whom were knights of the Garter." He was the most 
 affectionate servant of Charles I., from whom he never 
 concealed his opinions, for it is observed by Wood that 
 the king greatly affected his company ; but when they 
 happened to talk of a commonwealth he could scarcely 
 
THE UTOPIANISTS WHO LED TO IT. 31 
 
 Harrington's candour to Charles I. 
 
 endure it. "I know not," says Toland, " which most 
 to commend — the king for trusting an honest man, 
 though a republican, or Harrington for owning his prin- 
 ciples while he served a king." He preserved his fidelity 
 to his unhappy prince to the very last, after all his 
 fawning courtiers had left him to his enraged subjects 
 He stayed with him while a prisoner ia the Isle of Wight, 
 came up by stealth to follow the fortunes of his monarch 
 and master ; even hid himself in the boot of the coach 
 when he was conveyed to Windsor, and, ending as he had 
 began, fell into his arms and fainted on the scaffold. At 
 Charles's death the " Oceana " was written. It breathes 
 the same noble and spirited regard, and asserts that it was 
 not Charles that brought on the destruction of the monar- 
 chy, but the feeble and ill-constituted nature of monarchy 
 itself. It was seized by Cromwell as a libel, and the way 
 in which it was recovered was remarkable. Harrington 
 waited on his daughter to beg for his book, and on enter- 
 ing her apartment snatched up her child and ran away. 
 On her following him with surprise and terror, he turned 
 to her and said : " I know what you feel as a mother ; feel, 
 then, for me. Your father has got my child," meaning 
 the " Oceana." The " Oceana " was afterwards restored 
 on her petition, Cromwell answering, with the sagacity 
 of a sound politician : " Let him have his book ; if my 
 government is made to stand, it has nothing to fear from 
 paper shot."* 
 
 A century ago Harrington was very popular with 
 the " advanced " politicians, who took interest in his 
 schemes. Disraeli the Elder points out, in his "Ameni- 
 ties of Literature," that Toland had introduced in an 
 edition of Harrington's works a treatise on the "Grounds 
 and Eeasons of Monarchy," " one of the most eloquent 
 
 * Brskine's defence of Paine, before Lord Kenyon, 1793. This was the 
 occasion, according to Erskine, when Cromwell made the remark before 
 cpioted, which I leave in both forms. 
 
82 HISTOEY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Hia vindication by Disraeli the Elder, 
 
 invectives against monarchical institutions," but over- 
 flowing with defamations prevalent at that distempered 
 season, when popular writers made monarchs into mon- 
 sters. After Harrington's professed affection for Charles 
 I. it would have been an infamous thing in him to have 
 written that paper. " Placed prominently at the opening 
 of the works of Harrington, inseparably combined with 
 his opinions by the reference in the general index, this 
 composition misled many generations of readers." It 
 was really the composition of Hall, of Durham, a salaried 
 party-writer, and was in no way connected with Har- 
 rington. It was thus that, while Harrington was admired 
 by Liberals for his principles of government, those 
 principles were, among adversaries, associated with a 
 belief in the infamies of the invective of the author whom 
 Toland, ignorantly or criminally, introduced into his 
 works. Hall belonged to the class of Chatterton and 
 Poe — brilliant and dissolute. It is one of the many 
 services to literature which Disraeli the Elder has ren- 
 dered to correct these errors. 
 
 Forty years after Harrington's scheme of public life 
 founded on equipoise, came the proposal, by John Bellers, 
 of a College of Industry — a remarkable instance of prac- 
 tical and co-operative sagacity. It appeared in 1696, and 
 was the first known instance of a complete plan of an 
 industrial community intended for immediate adoption 
 in England. Mr. Eobert Owen, of this century, was so 
 struck by it, as anticipating more than he himself had 
 originated from his own experience and reflections, that 
 ne had it copied and printed in the old type in which it 
 first appeared. Bellers' scheme required £18,000 in 
 the money of that time to carry it out. Had it been 
 adopted by the statesmen to whom he addressed it, 
 pauperism would have become a tradition in England 
 before this time. Like Mr. Owen, he appealed directly 
 to the heads of the state, and prayed the lords and 
 commons in parliament assembled to give ear to his 
 
THE UTOPUNISTS WHO LEB TO IT. 33 
 
 Appearance of Sellers. 
 
 plan, " by which the common people could be trained in 
 the art of taking care of themselves." He also addressed 
 the " thinking and public-spirited," who appear not to 
 have been more numerous in those days than now. He 
 adopted for his motto the wholesome words, " Industry 
 brings plenty " — which has ever been the motto of the 
 co-operators — and the uncompromising intimations, not 
 always pleasant for rich people to hear, that " a slug- 
 gard should be clothed with rags," and " he that will not 
 work shall not eat." Lest these sentiments should 
 escape notice, Bellers placed them on his title page. His 
 pamphlet was " printed and published by T. Sowle, in 
 White Hart Court, in Gracious-street, London, 1696." 
 Bellers began by quoting Lord Chief Justice Hale, who 
 said that "they that are rich are stewards of their 
 wealth " — a doctrine which was thought very new when 
 first Sir John Sinclair and afterwards Mr. Drummond 
 preached it in the House of Commons, and later, 
 Thomas Carlyle out of it. " The best account," according 
 to the Lord Chief Justice, "which the rich could give 
 of their wealth was to employ it in the reformation and 
 relief of those who want either money or wisdom ; " and 
 reminded them that "he who said, ' Am I my brother's 
 keeper ?' was one of the worst of men." " The want of 
 a due provision," he said, " for the education and relief 
 of the poor in a way of industry is that which fills the 
 gaols with malefactors and the kmgdom with idle persons. 
 A. sound, prudent method for an industrious education 
 of the poor will give a better remedy against these 
 corruptions than all the gibbets and whipping-posts in 
 the kingdom." Bellers himself remarks that " it is the 
 interest of the rich to take care of the poor." He seems 
 to have had an idea in his mind that there were no 
 poor, some of whose ancestors had not been rich, and 
 that there were none rich then, some of whose ancestors 
 had not been poor ; and that in the revolutions of society 
 the posterity of the rich might be poor again, and that 
 
 D 
 
84 filSTOBY OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 The first proposal to supersede Shopkeepers. 
 
 it would be good sense to put a stop to any more people 
 becoming poor. He regarded money as " a crutch to 
 the body politic," and insisted that an industrial college 
 could produce all its members required, and could supply 
 them without barter or a medium of exchange. The 
 shopkeepers of this generation will be astonished to learn 
 that their original enemy was Bellers, and many co- 
 operators will be surprised at the sagacity with which 
 Bellers saw farther than they see now. He did not call 
 his college of self-supporting industry co-operative, 
 because that lumbering name had not been invented 
 then ; but how completely identical his scheme was with 
 what we now know as Co-operation will be seen in this : 
 He enumerated more than twenty persons and things 
 of which he intended to save the cost in his system : 
 1. He named shopkeepers and all their servants and 
 dependents. 2. All useless trades. 3. Lawsuits. 4. 
 Bad debts. (He was evidently opposed to the credit 
 system.) 5. Dear bargains. 6. Loss of time for want 
 of work. 7. Saving the labour of many women and 
 children. 8. Saving by the abolition of beggars. 9. 
 Saving of much separate house room. 10. Saving 
 much firing. 11. Saving much cooking, brewing, and 
 baking. 12. Saving much fetching and carryiag of 
 work and provisions. 13. Saving clothing hurt in the 
 making and not fit for sale. 14. Securing that the land 
 should be better tilled by the labourers being owners. 
 
 15. Securing 'that waste land should receive attention. 
 
 16. Providing mechanics to help in the harvest. 17. 
 Frustrating stock-jobbers, who ruin many good things. 
 These are examples of his proposals. 
 
 The profits of the college were to be divided among 
 the shareholders, but the workers were to be guaranteed 
 security in and for all things necessary in health or 
 sickness, single or married, wife or children, and if the 
 parents died early, the children would be well educated 
 and preserved from misery. The workers as they grew 
 
THE UTOPUNISTS WHO LED TO IT. 35 
 
 The excellent originality of Bellers. 
 
 older were to be abated one hour a day of their work, 
 and everybody be guarded against the intrigues of his 
 neighbour in buying and selling, and no man was to 
 prey upon another. The discipline Bellers proposed was 
 very much in advance of his time, and must have very 
 much surprised that age, which put its faith in whip- 
 pings and the pillory. He proposed that the punish- 
 ments should be rather abatements of food than stripes, 
 and that those deserving of greater punishments should 
 be expelled. His plan for teaching languages to the 
 children contained the germ of that system which Mr. 
 Prendegast has since made famous, and BeUers proposed 
 the same abridgment of the hours of learning for children 
 which Mr. Edwin Ohadwick has since so mercifully justi- 
 fied. Bellers proposed, as PeBtalozzi and Froebel have 
 since done, "to raise the child's love to what he should 
 learn." Beating children to make them learn he thought 
 silly, and spoiled their natiiral parts. "Grief," he said, 
 " hurt the memory, and disordered thethoughts of most." 
 "Understanding," hecontended, "must rather bedistilled 
 as children can take it, than be driven into them." He 
 was for giving them sensible employment, as he thought 
 a siUy employ left the mind silly. "A good education," 
 he said, "though with but a little estate, makes a 
 happier man than a great estate without it." 
 
 Bellers gave no account of himself as to who he was — 
 what station he occupied — from what reading or expe- 
 rience he derived his thoughts, and nobody has asked ; 
 but he was clearly a sensible, original, thinking man, 
 and described very accurately his industrial college as 
 being an epitome of the world. His scheme is worth 
 consulting by any community-maker, for it defines the 
 number and proportions of persons in every department 
 of industry who should be brought together. His was 
 not a voluntary, but a state scheme of Co-operation, 
 and the only one ever proposed in England. He ended 
 his proposal by answering a number of objections which 
 
36 HISTORY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 His character and death. 
 
 he considered might he brought against it. One is very 
 sensible and natural, and his answer to it is very 
 conclusive as to ■ his penetration and candour. The 
 objection is : " Why should he propose to get the chief 
 share of the profit of the poor's labour, and not let them 
 have all the profit themselves, but give the larger por- 
 tion to the rich, who are to supply the funds to the 
 college?" His answer is: " Because the rich have no 
 other means of living but by the labour of others ; as the 
 landlord by the labour of his tenants, and the trades- 
 men by the labour of the mechanics." It did not much 
 matter that Bellers gave the surplus to the capitalists, 
 seeing that he first made it a condition that every 
 reasonable want of every member should be well pro- 
 vided for. The clear-headed projector, devoid alike of 
 anger and enthusiasm, but a solid, clear-minded, just 
 man, certainly proposed a college of labour which would 
 have stood a good chance of succeeding had it been 
 fairly started, because it would have been governed. It 
 was no sentimental scheme in which those who set it 
 going were compelled to find the capital, and those who 
 used it did as they pleased. Bellers' college of industry 
 was a despotism founded on industrial justice — i.e. free 
 participation by the workers in the advantages they 
 created. I learn, through the researches of Mr. W. E. 
 A. Axon, that John Bellers was a member of the Society 
 of Friends, the father of Pettiplace Bellers. John 
 Bellers died February 8, 1725, and was buried in Bunhill 
 Fields. 
 
 The reprint of Bellers' book made a great impression 
 when it appeared, and was reproduced in periodicals. 
 There was another writer subsequent to this social- 
 minded Quaker — one Morelly, a Frenchman, who wrote 
 in the 18th century. Mr. Owen was much influenced 
 by what he came to know of his views. Francis Place 
 gave some account of Morelly in a paper he once wrote. 
 Morelly was distinguished for the precision of his ideas 
 
THE XITOPIANISTS WHO LED TO IT. 87 
 
 The masterly problem of Morally. 
 
 and for the mathematical nature of his mind. He 
 described what he aimed at with greater distinctness 
 than any of his successors. He said the "problem" of 
 social reform was "to find that state of things in which 
 it should be impossible for anyone to be depraved or 
 poor." No theorist ever expressed the thing to be done 
 so well before, — no social reformer has expressed it 
 better since. This is what social thinkers, in their 
 wandering way, were always aiming to bring about. 
 
 In early co-operative literature there was frequently 
 inserted an instance of co-operative life in France, 
 which was new to many persons, and appeared to them 
 Instructive. The Marquis of Mirabeau, in a letter dated 
 1762, made mention of a family of the name of Pinon, 
 living a few leagues distant from the town of Thiers, in 
 Auvergne, in France, the head of which, a farmer, having 
 lived to see his sons marry, requested them to continue 
 a distinct tribe, and to maintain inviolably the sacred 
 bond of union, by community of wealth and property 
 amongst them. "After having been established, at this 
 period, above a century," says the marquis, "this 
 amicable institution has so greatly prospered, that the 
 Pinons have not only a family seat in the mountains, 
 supplied with all the conveniences of life, with elegant 
 apartments for strangers of the highest rank, who are 
 treated with the most generous hospitality, but they 
 have also several villages appertaining to them, whose 
 clergy, lawyers, and other professional persons are 
 branches of the same stock. The necessary arts of life 
 are exercised in this tribe for the emolument of the 
 whole ; and the superfluities sold at the adjacent fairs 
 and markets, where everyone carries with him his family 
 credentials. One tradition of their origin is that an 
 ancestor of great wealth and a numerous progeny, well 
 advanced in years, explained to his children "that their 
 splendid way of living must be greatly diminished if, 
 after his death, they should, as was customary, divide 
 
38 HISTORT OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Theological Connnnnisin trngmding and tmprogresBive. 
 
 his fortune into separate portions; but that, if they 
 desired to be better economists than the rest of mankind, 
 they should live in the united state they had done under 
 his roof." 
 
 There are other instances in history not less curious 
 but disregarded here. The Pinon case is cited because 
 its success was based on secular reasons, which alone 
 are of universal weight. Certain Jesuits are credited 
 with very great and instructive success in carrying out 
 arrangements of common life in Paraguay. With many 
 merits these, however, are not the persons to afford 
 the world an example of a self-acting and progressive 
 community. If Jesuit communists displayed any 
 fervour for political liberty, or exercise of free thought 
 in things spiritual, the probability is that the holy 
 fathers made things very unpleasant to them. No 
 theological scheme of hfe is therefore of much account, 
 or need be sought out, as far as ends of freedom and 
 progress are concerned. The noble aspiration after 
 truer and higher life, with all the perils, conflicts, and 
 vicissitudes it involves, is better than the softest, 
 smoothest, sleekest, and most steadfast stagnation. 
 
 The only instance in which social equality was the 
 subject of conspiracy was at the end of the last century 
 in Paris. It began in 1796. Its great leader was Babeuf. 
 His conspiracy was not much known to English working 
 people; but it would be well known to their rulers. His 
 name occasionally occurred in the press, when it was 
 always mentioned with an accompaniment of epithets 
 not of the commendatory kind. In those days a bUnd 
 love of innovation prevailed, not alone in France but 
 in Europe, and was strongest in Paris. Then hope and 
 eagerness had the force of a passion, and allowance 
 must be made for many extravagances of manifestation. 
 M. de Talleyrand used to say "that only those who 
 had lived near the conclusion of the last century could 
 realise the worth of the world to man." Gracchus 
 
THE UTOPIANISTS WHO LED TO IT. 39 
 
 The Eise of Babenf. 
 
 Babeuf was a young man when the French revolution 
 occurred. Ardent, well-informed, of penetrating mind, 
 and able to write with clearness and fire, he soon got 
 himself into difficulties. Of what kind nothing more 
 need be said than that it was Marat who saved him from 
 the consequences of an order of arrest. At a later 
 period he obtained the post of secretary to a district 
 administration, and subsequently he got employment 
 in the bureaux of the old commune of Paris. Mrs. 
 WoUstonecroft, who knew Babeuf well, declared that 
 " she had never seen any person who possessed greater 
 abilities, or equal strength of character." His plan was 
 to establish a system of equality by force. No English- 
 man has any sympathy with such an attempt, nor ought 
 to have in a country which has a free press, free speech, 
 and the right of public meetings, which Paris then had 
 conquered. For these means of progress an Englishman 
 would fight ; but, having won them, he would count 
 himself a fool if he could not make his way with them. 
 Babeuf was not a wild reformer in the sense of not 
 knowing what he wanted. He had a clear and complete 
 idea of the system he would put in the place of that he 
 intended to supersede. His object was to establish a 
 despotism of justice and equality. Eobespierre, on the 
 other hand, held that " without the people's consent 
 none have a right to thrust systems upon them; but 
 with their consent, all systems should -be equally 
 accessible to them." But it was the fault and ruin of 
 the French friends of equality that they interpreted 
 political principles with an appalling latitude. To the 
 credit of the French Liberals many of them objected to 
 violent modes of attaining just objects. Certainly many 
 of the aims of the conspirators were good. They were 
 for abolishing mendicity as dishonouring to a free 
 state ; they proposed to establish a system of education 
 in common. They regarded?*ignorance as a national 
 danger. They were friendly to a policy of peace. They 
 
40 HISTOEY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Eemarkable sentiments of the Babeuf Conspirators. 
 
 adopted a doctrine of non-intervention. They would 
 not intermeddle -with other nations, nor suffer other 
 nations to intermeddle with the affairs of Prance. 
 There were to be no idlers. " Nature," they said, " had 
 imposed upon everyone the obligation to work." They 
 kept no terms with those who did nothing. Their 
 words were : "They do nothing for the country who do not 
 serve it by some useful occupation, and can exercise no 
 rights in it." The common accusation is that men of 
 social convictions seek other people's property — whereas 
 the fact is they seek to make everybody work. This 
 may be a very disagreeable passion; but it is not 
 laziness, nor is it plunder. All the schemes of Utopians 
 and world makers prove at bottom to be schemes of 
 workers and wealth makers. Shopkeepers will be 
 interested to hear that Babeuf and his colleagues 
 proposed to retain retail dealers. They had, however, 
 some calamitous notions in their heads. They meditated 
 censorship and restrictions of the press, which the 
 Napoleon family afterwards put in execution. But the 
 conspirators had a ferocious thoroughness and vigour 
 which Mr. Carlyle and other eminent friends of Governor 
 Eyre, of Jamaica, would very much esteem them for. 
 They decreed on the day on which they commenced their 
 insurrection, that " to give or execute in the name of 
 the existing government (' tyranny ' they called it) any 
 order whatever should be punished with instant death." 
 According to some opinions in the insurrectional com- 
 mittee, the condemned who might be brought to an end 
 by some more dilatory process were "to be buried 
 under the ruins of their palaces ; which ruins were to 
 be left in that state, as a monument to the latest 
 posterity of the just punishment inflicted on the 
 enemies of equality."* A very pretty kingdom of 
 
 * This amiatle design shows that the petroleuse business, which got 
 connected with the honest and just aims of the oommunalist party in 
 
THE UTOPIANISTS WHO LED TO IT. 41 
 
 The Petrolense idea not a Parisian monopoly. 
 
 equality France would have been with these murderous 
 ruins defacing it. 
 
 Babeuf and his compatriots failed through a traitor,* 
 and came to the block and deportation. They were 
 brave men, neither afraid to avow their designs nor die 
 for their cause. Babeuf's last letter to his wife contained 
 some wise and lofty sentiments : " It belongs," he said, 
 " to the family of a martyr of liberty to give the example 
 of every virtue, in order to attract the esteem of all ^ood 
 people. I would desire my wife to do all in her power 
 to give education to her children. I hope you will believe 
 you were always most dear to me. Speak often of me 
 to Camille ; tell him a thousand times I bore him ten- 
 derly in my heart. Tell Caius as much when he will 
 be capable of imderstanding it. I knew no other way 
 to render you happy than by promoting the happiness 
 of all. I have failed. I have sacrificed myself ; it is 
 for you as well as for liberty I die." 
 
 When the conspirators were sentenced, Babeuf and 
 Darthe, the chief leaders, stabbed themselves with their 
 daggers, and were dragged from the court by the gen- 
 darmes. Babeuf's poignard broke, and a piece remained 
 imbedded near his heart. Both lived long enough to be 
 beheaded next day, but their courage never forsook them. 
 Their bodies were flung into a ditch. Some country 
 people buried them. So ended the first and last con- 
 spiracy for equality! Its conduct justifies the high 
 
 France lately, was no new madnesa. Indeed it would not be new in 
 England. Aji English Conservative lord some time ago had at his break- 
 fast table one whom I knew to have acted in a plot to blow up Loudon in 
 the same way in 1848. It was a police agent's projeot, but the person in 
 question fell in with it, and it took some trouble to save him from it. 
 The said lord, who rather liked his guest, did not know of this little affair. 
 The enterprising patriot has long left the country, though, as the public 
 have heard, he keeps up a correspondence with his noble friend. 
 
 • This was Grrisel, in whom they had confided, and who had flattered, 
 inflamed, and caressed them, as is the way of suspicious patriots. The 
 club of Babeuf assembled in the vaults of the Pantheon, and this Grisel 
 was the most onen mouthed scoundrel there. 
 
42 EISTOEY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Wonderful organisation of the Conspirators for Equality. 
 
 repute for ability Babeuf won. It was a masterpiece of 
 organisation. Nothing was forgotten. Proclamations, 
 songs, manifestoes, decrees, laws, declarations of rights, 
 were all prepared for issue, conceived with sagacity, and 
 written with brevity, eloquence, and fire. The labour and 
 secret discussions gone through were immense. Nothing 
 is more astonishing than the sublime confidence of the 
 conspirators in human nature to' believe that no traitor 
 would betray plans to which hundreds must have been 
 privy. That only one was false shows that equality must 
 have been a noble inspiration. Phillipo Buonarroti, a 
 Florentine of high family, a reputed descendant of Michael 
 Angelo — and his brilliant powers and daring services 
 corroborated the belief — was a colleague of Babeuf, and 
 afterwards published a history — ^with documents which 
 he had the courage to preserve — of the famous attempt 
 - of Babeuf. Among them were the " Songs for the Streets," 
 which had not been overlooked. Equality had its Mar- 
 seillaise as well as Eepublicanism, though its notes got 
 stifled with daggers. I shall quote it as giving some 
 idea of the aspirations of the time. Let the reader 
 remember that the French had found no way out of the 
 long oppression under which they and their forefathers 
 had lived save by insurrection ; that they believed 
 kingly luxury and tyranny to have been the causes of 
 their misery and subjection; that the people had 
 delivered themselves by the knife ; that they had never 
 seen any other means succeed; that the philosophers 
 had all pleaded for them in vain ; that they were firmly 
 convinced that before kings arose equality, freedom, 
 and ample means of subsistence were enjoyed by all who 
 toiled; that everlasting emancipation from slavery and 
 want depended upon themselves alone ; and that one 
 united, uncompromising, and thorough blow would 
 redress for ever the wrongs of ages. Let the reader 
 recall all this, and he is not Enghsh if his blood is not 
 stirred by this-— 
 
THE UTOPIANISTS WHO LED TO IT. 43 
 
 Their famous Battle Song. 
 
 BATTLE SONG OF THE CONSPIRATOES FOR EQUALITY. 
 
 By tyrant codes enthralled, by knaves borne down, 
 
 Man stoops to man, and viUams wear the crown : — ■ 
 
 Where is the freeman's voice ? the warrior's steel ? — 
 
 Shall we not stoutly fight, as well as keenly feel ? 
 
 Awake ! arise, at liberty's command ! — 
 
 Th' Aurora of our freedom is at hand — 
 
 And slavery's night is o'er if we'll hut bravely stand 1 
 
 Oh, Nature, or whatever power it be. 
 
 Which said to man, "Be happy and be free I " 
 
 Say by what strange mischance thy laws o'erthrown 
 
 Have yielded place to slavery and a throne. 
 
 Is there not one wiU dare assert the cause 
 
 Of outraged manhood and thy broken laws ? 
 
 How long shall man quail 'neath the despot rule 
 
 Of a usurper or a lung-born fool ? 
 
 Nations I arise, at Liberty's command ! — 
 
 Th' Aurora of your freedom is at hand— 
 
 And slavery's night is o'er if you'll but bravely stand I 
 
 In ancient times, when yet our race was young — 
 Nor gold nor war the soul to madness stung — 
 Bach' in the laud possessed an equal share ; 
 No kingly luxury known, no gaunt despair. 
 Then peace and competence went hand in hand, 
 Unfear'd the assassin's knife, the foemau's brand — 
 These days are ours again if we'U but bravely stand 1 
 
 In those bless'd days when man, of man the friend, 
 
 Nor yet had learn'd to borrow or to lend. 
 
 Nature on aU alike her bounty poured ; 
 
 No starving wretch was seen, no pampered lord — 
 
 Till fraud and priestcraft, by ambition led, 
 
 Taught man his kind to hate, his blood to shed ; 
 
 Then princes, subjects, masters, serfs were known. 
 
 And shuddering Freedom fled before — a Thbone 1 
 
 Then started into life the warrior's trade — 
 
 Then groan'd th' assassined sire, the ravished maid 1 
 
 Pillage and murder still the steps pursued 
 
 Of heroes, glorying in the path of blood. 
 
 Then fii-st were heard the ravingsof despair, 
 
 And dying wretches rent with shrieks the air. 
 
 Nations ! arise, at Liberty's command 1 — 
 
 Th' Aurora of your freedom is at hand — 
 
 And slavery's night is o'er if you'U but bravely stand I 
 
44 HISTOEY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Political Bervioes of Bronterre O'Brien. 
 
 Where is the difference 'tween the serf and peer ? 
 
 Why meanly quail ye, then, with idiot fear ? 
 
 Bring front to front the oppressor and the oppressed ; 
 
 Wealth cannot strength impart, nor title steel the breast. 
 
 Lay on 1 lay on 1 the death-sigh of the brave 
 
 Be ours, and not the death-bed of the slave 1 
 
 Nations ! arise, at Liberty's command 1 — 
 
 Th' Aurora of your freedom is at hand — 
 
 And slavery's night is o'er if you'U but bravely stand ! 
 
 The only English account of this great and disastrous 
 conspiracy is the translation of Mr. James Bronterre 
 O'Brien — a fervid and voluble author, who always wrote 
 or spoke most eloquently upon some other subject than 
 the one he had in hand. Of him, however, it ought to 
 be recorded that he rendered great service to political 
 advancement when boldness and political and historical 
 knowledge were very important to the populace. He 
 was one of the best-informed of the Chartist leaders. 
 His translation and additions — of illustration and com- 
 ment — of Buonarroti's History are still cherished by a 
 few surviving old Chartists, who also cared for social 
 progress. They excused Babeuf for his violent methods 
 because he was French, while they admired him for his 
 noble spirit and love of public justice. The French, 
 demoralised by centralisation, were wanting in the 
 English habit of. winning majorities by discussion. 
 Traditions of the camp have contributed to disqualify 
 the French Liberals for seeking progress by reason. 
 It is showier, swifter seeming, and more natural, to 
 those who think more of present success than perma- 
 nence, to fight out a difference than persuade men out 
 of it. Eeason is tiresome to the impatient, and no 
 doubt ineffective for a time with those who do not 
 understand how to manage the weapon iu the use of 
 which they have not been drilled. Most of the peril 
 and imprisonments in England which occurred in 
 Chartist movements were occasioned by persons who 
 had been in the army. They said, "What is the use of 
 reasoning when you know you are in the right? Why 
 
THE tJTOPIANISTS WHO LED TO IT. 45 
 
 Logic of the Political Musketeers. 
 
 waste time trying to convince those who know they are 
 m the wrong." And while their plodding comrades 
 were holding meetings, they were planning fights in 
 the streets — declaring an hour's drill was worth a week 
 of speeches, and that a siagle musket would carry 
 farther than twenty resolutions. But no socialist in 
 England ever listened to these political musketeers ; 
 and I have dwelt so far upon the conspiracy of Babeuf, 
 because it is the only instance upon record of an 
 endeavour to found a social system by force. Yet the 
 imputation of seeking equality by violence is made 
 against all socialists to this day : to some extent by 
 persons who know better ; by more who ought to know 
 better ; but mostly by persons who have no knowledge 
 whatever upon the subject.* 
 
 People who think the working class and their leaders 
 rather a "bad lot" cannot be expected to discriminate 
 among them, and with the old clerical felicity of classifi- 
 cation they put down Voltaire as an atheist, and, like the 
 late Lord Calling, describe Paine as a disbeliever in God, 
 and put Eobespierre among the communist conspirators. 
 But Von Sybel, who seems to have the merit of hating 
 everybody concerned in the French Eevolution, admits 
 that " Eobespierre urged a gentle culture of prosperity. 
 He was very careful not directly to offend the prejudices 
 in favour of property. In this case, as well as on the 
 question of Eepublicanism, he exercised the utmost 
 prudence, and was satisfied if he could remove the more 
 
 * Mr. Thomas Hughes relates in his instructive " Memoir of a Brother," 
 how George Hughes said to him, "You, Tom, don't want to divide other 
 people's property?" "No." "Then why call yourselves Socialists?" 
 Tom answered, "It is only fools who know nothing ah5ut the matter, or 
 people interested in the competitive system of trade, who believe or say 
 that a desire to divide other people's property is the essence of Socialism." 
 "That may be very true," answered his shrewd brother George, "but 
 nine-tenths of mankind, or, at any rate, of Englishmen, come under one 
 or other of those categories. If you are called Socialists, you will never 
 persuade the British public that this is not your object." — ^pp. 113-14. 
 
46 HISTORT OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 English foresight of Godwin. 
 
 immediate iiindrance to the progress of his aims. By 
 conviction he was as little of a communist as a repub- 
 lican." 
 
 A very striking instance of how alien the English 
 world-making mind has always been to force is seen in 
 Godwin's " Political Justice." Though unread now, it 
 was regarded, next to the famous political works of 
 Paine, as a text-book of working-class politicians at the 
 end of the last century. Published in the year 1793, 
 three years before Babeuf fell, who, as we have seen, 
 was known to and highly esteemed by Godwin's wife, 
 Mrs. WoUstonecroft, yet it contained no sanction of 
 Babeuf's desperate methods. Nevertheless it advocated 
 equality as broadly as Babeuf did ; but Godwin added 
 these warning, thoroughly English and social words : 
 " As the equality contemplated would be the result not 
 of force and requiring to be maintained by positive 
 institutions, but of the serious and deliberate conviction 
 of the pubUc at large, it would be permanent, and 
 until then it could not be realised." All English 
 partizans of equality were aware that the four enemies 
 of social progress were war, idleness, waste, and inco- 
 herence, and declared themselves in favour of peace, 
 industry, economy, and reason. 
 
 Statesmen who would speak discriminatingly of the 
 political aspects of communism might take notice of its 
 historic policy of progress by persuasion. Among our 
 social innovators have been men who cared nothing for 
 political freedom. Many have come among them and 
 have encouraged them, like Napoleon III., because they 
 thought social ideas would beguile them of political 
 aspirations. The majority of them, however, have been 
 men and women steadfastly caring for political improve- 
 ment — not shrinking from sacrifice or peril when it 
 came ; but they put not change upon issues of violence. 
 Often brutally used by the authorities of the day, poli- 
 tical and religious, at no time have they professed 
 
The ttTOPIANISTS WHO LED TO IT. 4^ 
 
 Political policy of Communists. 
 
 retaliation. The doctrine of Jamaican officialism, which 
 has found distinguished favour among us in recent days 
 (that of stamping out adversaries), has never been coun- 
 tenanced by English communists, and is alone heard 
 on the continent, where the ferocious example of 
 rulers begets it.* Communism, which might be written 
 commonism, seeking, as its theory implies, the com- 
 mon welfare of all united under it — their education, 
 maintenance, recreation, and personal profit within the 
 limits prescribed by common consent. Since force 
 would make common life a tyranny and a terror, and 
 common agreement could alone fix the conditions which 
 make it an advantage and a pleasure, persuasion became 
 the only means of unity. This abiding belief that 
 success depended on the power of founding association 
 on conviction made the difference between communists 
 and mere politicians as marked as that which exists 
 between Mahommedan and Hindoo religion. In Ma- 
 hommedanism the sword largely prevails, in Hindooism 
 toleration. Nevertheless, communism is not feebleness 
 or apathy, but a force, as Coleridge recognized, "unhast- 
 ing and unresting." 
 
 Considerant gives an interesting account of the fabri- 
 cation of Gruyere cheese in the Jura mountains : " The 
 peasants rent a small house in two parts, the workshop 
 and the dairy, with a cellar. In the workshop they 
 place an enormous copper, destined to receive the milk 
 of two hundred cows. A single man suffices to make 
 two or three cheeses of from sixty to eighty pounds 
 weight. These cheeses are then disposed in a cellar to 
 be salted and cured. Every day the quantity of milk 
 brought to the dairy is noted on two pieces of wood — one 
 for the milker, the other for the manager. It is therefore 
 
 * " A communist refugee thought the last revolution had been com- 
 menced with too much moderation. They ought to have acted at first as 
 their adversaries had afterwards." — " International Working Men's' Con- 
 gress, Brussels," Times, September H, 1874. 
 
48 HISTORY OF CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 St. Simon's apostleship of Industry. 
 
 known exactly how much each family contributes. They 
 can even keep an account of the relative qualities of 
 milk by means of an aerometer. At the epoch of sale 
 they sell at wholesale to the merchants, and charge the 
 carriage. Then, in sharing the proceeds, they deduct 
 rent, fuel, and implements ; they pay the manager in 
 proportion to the general benefit, and divide the rest 
 amongst the families, proportionably to the value of 
 their respective investments. It is clear that Gruyere 
 should be the fayourite cheese of co-operators, as it 
 is the first cheese made on their system j and if its 
 manufacture is continued as in Considerant's day, the 
 establishment ought to be visited by the agents of the 
 Manchester Wholesale Society. If Protestants of historic 
 tastes eat ox-tail soup (Huguenot soup) because the 
 Huguenots taught us to make it, co-operators ought to 
 eat Gruyere. 
 
 St. Simon, a member of an illustrious French family, 
 who was born in Paris in 1760, was one of the world- 
 makers in everybody's mind conversant vsdth social 
 schemes. He served in five campaigns under Washing- 
 ton, but out of the ranks he proposed no violence, nor 
 did any, except when he came to poverty and neglect 
 he attempted to shoot himself. He, however, survived, 
 regained his generous enthusiasm for human improve- 
 ment, and prided himself on being the apostle of 
 industry, a worthy species of apostles who have come 
 rather late in the world. He took no part in the destruc- 
 tive movement of the French Eevolution, but spent 
 nearly all his fortune in instituting " A Grand Establish- 
 ment of Industry and a School of Scientific Perfection." 
 He did not see that mankind would be well content 
 could he help them to an approximation to that. In 
 1814 he published a scheme for the " Eeorganisation of 
 Europe." Europe would have been very glad if he 
 had accomplished that satisfactorily for France alone. 
 In 1817 (a notable year, as will appear in another 
 
THE UTOPIANISTS WSO LED TO IT. 49 
 
 Dying words of St. Simon. 
 
 chapter, with English social aspirants) St. Simon pub- 
 lished his work on " Industry," upon the organisation of 
 which he never ceased to write. "Industry," he declared, 
 " was holy, for it serves to ameliorate -the condition of 
 the poor." His system was known by the formula — 
 " To each according to his capacity : to each capacity 
 according to its works :" which meant that the commu- 
 nity would expect from each member the best he was 
 able to do, and would reward him according to what he 
 did. The followers of St. Simon acquired a grand way 
 of speaking. " If Moses," they said, "had promised to 
 men universal fraternity, Jesus Christ had prepared it, St. 
 Simon had realised it." His system, which no one ever 
 reduced to the level of the British understanding 
 attracted many noble minds in Prance. St. Simon him- 
 self shared the common fate of those who think for 
 others more than for themselves, and died poor and 
 neglected in 1825. One disciple and two or three friends 
 were with him when he expired, whom he exhorted 
 "to be of courage, and go forward constantly." 
 
 In 1832 St. Simonian missionaries came to London 
 to call attention to their principles and plans. They 
 described themselves as representing the holy religion of 
 progress — a very good religion in its way, but it is one 
 that never had many followers. 
 
 Charles Fourier was the next French dreamer of social 
 worlds who attained great celebrity. He was born at 
 Besan9on, iu 1772. He began his career in a way that 
 gave no promise of the sublime schemes of passional 
 harmony he was destined to amaze mankind with. His 
 first literary effort was a poem on the death of a pastry- 
 cook, which astonished the professors of the college at 
 which he was placed. He was hardly seven years old 
 when tarts inspired his muse. Though of poetical tem- 
 perament he was attached to business. His life was 
 several times in danger during the fearful times of the 
 TRevolution. Notwithstanding that he was compelled to 
 
50 BlSTORt OF 00-OPEBATION., 
 
 Amazing pretensions of the Fourierists. 
 
 enter the army and serve six years, his gentle and kind 
 disposition never changed. He believed the miseries of 
 humanity to proceed from ignorance ; and held that 
 pain, either physical or moral, was the sign of error — 
 pleasure the sign of truth : sound principles, if we look 
 far enough into consequences in applying them. He 
 issued in 1808 a statement of his views, under the title 
 of " The Theory of the Four Movements." His ultimate 
 work of most mark was " The New Industrial World ;" 
 but it was not untU Victor Considerant became his dis- 
 ciple that his views began to allure cultivated minds. 
 Fourier founded Phalansteres, and bewildered men more 
 than St. Simon. His plans were as boundless as the 
 visions of the "Arabian Nights" — his statement of 
 them as dry as mathematical rigour could make them ; 
 •his divisions and sub-divisions were such that no English- 
 man could hope to master them and live. Never were 
 there such pomp and perplexity presented to working 
 people before. If Fourier had had his way nobody 
 would have known the earth again. If the disease of 
 social reformers be world-making, Fourier may be said to 
 have had it in a very violent form. We have had bad 
 attacks of it in England, but nothing like what French- 
 men have suffered from. Fourier does not hesitate to 
 take the measure of God as well as of mankind. He 
 ends his work on the social destiny of man by the 
 astounding remarks : " The duty of God is to compose 
 a social code, and reveal it to man. * * The duty of 
 man is to search for the divine code. * * It is 
 manifest that human reason has not fulfilled its task. 
 This neglect has now been repaired, and the passional 
 code discovered* " — by Fourier. His last work, " La 
 Fausse Industrie," was published in 1835 : in 1837 he 
 died, after the manner of his kiad, sad and dejected at 
 the disappointment of his grand and gracious dreams. 
 
 ; " Social Destiny of Man." 
 
THE TJT0PIANIST8 WHO LED TO IT. 51 
 
 Map of the unknown land. 
 
 But these generous thinkers did not fail as far as the 
 increase of social conviction was concerned. They put 
 new ideas into the mind of the world. They kept up 
 the inspiration of progress. They made it possible for 
 new men to do more. The careless verdict of the 
 unregarding public was that they had all discovered 
 perpetual motion, but none of them could get their 
 machines to move. In the meantime these disinterested 
 Dtopianists accomplished another thing for which 
 men may yet be grateful — they mapped out the new 
 country of industrial competence, through which the 
 present generation are beginning to better find their 
 way. Before pioneers for their encouragement stand 
 the dying words of St. Simon, "Be of courage and 
 go forward constantly " 
 
52 SISTOBY OF CO-OPEBATIOSr. 
 
 Appearance of Eobert Owen. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 HOW CO-OPEEATION ITSELF BEGAN. 
 
 All ai-otmd was dim, 
 Yet his face glowed with light revealed to Imn. 
 
 Jubal. By Geo. Eliot. 
 
 The originator of that Co-operation which now attracts 
 so large a share of perturbed attention, and which 
 requires a history to be written of it, was undoubtedly 
 one Eobert Owen, who was born so far back as 1771, a 
 year .before Fourier. Nature was in one of her adven- 
 turous moods at that period. In the four .years from 
 1769 to 1772 there appeared Napoleon, WeUiagton, 
 Goethe, Owen, and Fourier — all historic men in their 
 line : bane and antidote, war and art, world destroyers 
 and world makers. Eobert Owen was born May 14, 1771, 
 in Newtown, Montgomeryshire. He was afterwards known 
 as Eobert Owen, of New Lanark. I am sorry to teU the 
 reader this, as many will consider that he was not a 
 proper kind of person to be brought forward in legitimate 
 history, and that it was a want of taste in him to intrude 
 improvements upon the world which would necessitate 
 his being accorded some kind of acknowledgment. But 
 history is an unceremonious and brutal thing. Its 
 natural food is facts ; and when it gets them it has no 
 choice, no scruples, and no remorse. The truth is that 
 in Mr. Owen's days "proper persons" had no faculty 
 of improvement in them of the kind that the world 
 most wanted, and therefore a wilful Welshman took it 
 into his benevolent and fertile head to do what he could. 
 
HOW 00-OPEEATION ITSELF BEGAN. 53 
 
 Co-operation of Welsh origin. 
 
 And thus it came about that Co-operation was really a 
 Welsh invention. In no literature before the active days 
 of this social devisor does any trace of this new industrial 
 shibboleth, Co-operation, appear.* 
 
 Mr. Owen was a very unusual man. His career is 
 one of great instruction and interest to many who will 
 never think of imitating it. By patience, industry, 
 sagacity, and kindness he raised himself to eminence 
 and opulence. His life illustrates how much knowledge 
 a man of observation may acquire without books. He 
 attained distinction by two things — the observance of 
 truth in conduct and experience in practice. He was 
 known from the first as a man of veracity and reflection. 
 From being a draper's assistant he became a manager 
 of cotton mills at Manchester. He afterwards entered 
 into the employ of Mr. David Dale, a cotton spinner, of 
 Glasgow, who had mills at New Lanark. In due course, 
 after the manner of other heroes of romance and real 
 life, he married his master's daughter, became a 
 partner in the business, and ultimately owner of it in 
 conjunction with others. Subsequently Mr. Owen had 
 a large population of the working class under his 
 direction in Manchester, from 1791 to 1799, and a 
 still larger number for many years afterwards at New 
 Lanark, where, in 1810, he planned an institution 
 unheard of before his time, but which statesmen and 
 prelates have had in their minds ever since, — an 
 Institution for the Formation of Character. He built 
 commodious schoolrooms (one of them 90 feet by 40 
 feet) for the separate instruction of persons from the 
 time when as infants they were able to walk alone until 
 they were intelligent. No school board now, half a 
 century later, with a town-rate to aid it, would venture 
 
 * This was recognised long ago. Some who peruse this page TviU 
 remember reading that " the principles of Co-operation were first put 
 together and clearly stated by Mr. Owen in bis earliest writings." — 
 Co-operative Miscellany, No. 2, 1830. 
 
54 HISTOET OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Owen's magnificent echeme for the working people. 
 
 upon erecting premises so spacious for little children.* 
 These proceedings heing too far in advance for his 
 money-wishing partners, they differed with Mr. Owen 
 about it, and the building was suspended when the 
 walls were half up. In 1814 he separated from these 
 school-fearing colleagues, made arrangements for new 
 partners, and purchased the whole establishment. 
 Assent to his measures for the improvement of the 
 population and the finishing of the institution were 
 the conditions on which he accepted his new alUes into 
 partnership. The new institution was completed, fitted 
 up, and furnished in the year 1815. On the first day 
 of the following year, namely, January, 1816, "The 
 Institution" was formally opened, in the presence of all 
 the villagers with their children. The assemblage ex- 
 ceeded two thousand in number. There were present also 
 the principal nobility and gentry in the neighbourhood, 
 with some of the clergy of various denominations. 
 The parents present were astonished at being called 
 upon to send their children to school the very next day. 
 This was the first infant school ever established. Lord 
 Brougham — then Henry Brougham — visited it twice. It 
 was by Mr. Owen's aid in supplying them with teachers 
 that Mr. Brougham, Mr. James Mill, and others were 
 able to open the first infant school set up in England, 
 in Brewer's Green, Westminster. The first little scholars 
 met there on the 14th of February, 1819. t Mr. Owen 
 
 * Modem testimony corroborates this. The late member of parliament 
 for Plymouth lately stated that " Owen, like Plato, laid great stress on 
 the yalne of singing, dancing, and drill, as means of education, much to 
 the horror of his Quaker partners. Like Plato, he considered ease, 
 graceful hearing, self-possession, and politeness principal tests and objects 
 of any system of education. Where even now could you find such a school 
 as the New Lanark school, for rich or poor, setting up these qualities as 
 among its main and principal objects?" — Lecture on " Foreshadowings 
 of Co-operation in Plato," by Walter Morrison, Co-operatiTe Institute, 
 London, 1874. 
 
 t This school failed. Not satisfied with the moral training and 
 instructiTe amusement, as at New Lanark, the managers songht prema- 
 
HOW CO-OPERATION ITSELF BEGAN. 55 
 
 Early conception of Cb-operation. 
 
 ■was incessant in translating his theories into practice 
 in aid to others and in useful suggestions. It was in 
 these kindly and skilfully-devised and long-continued 
 co-operative arrangements for uniting intelligence with 
 industry, and industry with working-class competence, 
 that Co-operation was generated. Of course it was not 
 in the beginning a very definite contrivance, nor was it 
 self-acting, as it subsequently became. It was at first 
 an administration by the thoughtful manufacturer who 
 planned it. It was partly a benevolent, but mainly 
 a well-considered economic scheme. The originator 
 wanted to see in his workpeople more skill, better 
 conduct, and improved condition. To attain these 
 ends he knew there must be diffused among them 
 intelligence ; and the cost of imparting this intelligence 
 he believed would be refunded by commercial results. 
 He acted on the principle that intelligence would prove 
 a good investment. It did prove so, and thus it came 
 to pass that education of members has always been 
 deemed a part of the co-operative scheme among those 
 who understood it. 
 
 Though Mr. Owen earned an honourable name for 
 benevolence he was not a man who played at philan- 
 thropy. The working people among whom he found 
 himself were in ignorance, and viciousness, and discom- 
 fort. Their great employer's object was to show them 
 how much could be done by mutual arrangement to im- 
 prove their condition and prospects. If, like aU ignorant 
 persons, they did not care for knowledge for themselves, 
 they would see it was good for their children and would 
 care for it for them ; and Mr. Owen's provisions in the 
 attractions of the schoolroom, in the appliances for teach- 
 ing, and the extent and quality of what was taught, have 
 
 turely to develop the intellectual powers. The tender brain of the infant 
 was over-excited ; more harm than good was done ; and the system fell, 
 in a measure, into disrepute, until Froebel, in his "Kindergartens," 
 brought back things to a more rational way, — jR, D, Owen : Autobiography. 
 
56 HISTORT OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Co-operation gains by gi'mg. 
 
 not been excelled by the provisions made for popular 
 education in the most generous state in America, and 
 ■which it has never yet entered into the imagination of 
 any English minister to offer, or of any workpeople to 
 ask in Great Britain. The weavers and their wives at 
 New Lanark who witnessed this more than princely 
 concern for their children's welfare knew that he who 
 showed it meant them well, as was manifest also in a 
 thousand acts of thoughtfulness and respectful treatment 
 towards them, the like of which had never been seen 
 before nor since in any manufacturer's establishment. 
 Had Mr. Owen lived in happier and more appreciative 
 days, such as our own, he had been offered a baronetcy. 
 However, grateful workpeople offered him what he was 
 prouder of, their confidence and co-operation, and their 
 will and skill were new elements of profit in the 
 workshop. Their good will, born of their regard for 
 their employer, and their skill and honesty in their 
 work, arising from increased intelligence and pride,, 
 meant money. They were new elements of gain to 
 the company, and labour and capital worked together 
 as they had never worked before ; and thus the founda- 
 tions of Co-operation were laid by Mr. Owen and his 
 associated capitalists by sharing with the labourers and 
 their families a portion of the common gain. Thus the 
 share falling to the employers was made greater and 
 greater than it otherwise could have been, by the confi- 
 dence and co-operation of the working people. 
 
 These facts were referred to by Mr. Owen in his letter 
 to the Times newspaper in 1834. In the same letter, 
 addressing his early friend, who had then become Lord 
 Chancellor Brougham, he said: "I believe it is known to 
 your lordship that in every point of view no experiment 
 was ever so successful as the one I conducted at New 
 Lanark, although it was commenced and continued in 
 opposition to all the oldest and strongest prejudices of 
 mankind. For twenty-nine years we did without the 
 
HOW CO-OPEEATION ITSELF BEGAN. 57 
 
 Becital of the Buccesses at New Lanark. 
 
 necessity for magistrates or lawyers ; without a single 
 legal punishment; without any known poor's rate ; with- 
 out intemperance or religious animosities. We reduced 
 the hours of labour, well educated all the children from 
 infancy, greatly improved the condition of the adults, 
 diminished their daily hours of labour, paid interest of 
 capital, and cleared upwards of £300,000 of profit." 
 
 Lord Brougham, in reply, stated in the Times news- 
 paper, what he many years afterwards repeated in the 
 House of Lords, that Mr. Owen was the originator of 
 infant schools in England. Lord Brougham said : " I 
 have not the least hesitation in stating that the infant 
 school system never would, in all probability, have been 
 established but for Mr. Owen's Lanark schools. I most 
 distinctly recollect Mr. Mill (Mr. James Mill, father of 
 John Stuart Mill, was the person referred to). Sir C. 
 Grey (afterwards chief-justice of Calcutta), and myself 
 discussing for some weeks what name we should give 
 these new schools, and . . . after rejecting various 
 names, we fixed upon that of Infant Schools. The thing 
 as well as the name were equally unknown till then in 
 England." Mr. Owen added, in a further letter to the 
 same journal, that in 1799 he purchased the New 
 Lanark mills for £60,000, and entered upon the premises 
 on the 15th of August of that year ; that he published 
 a very full and detailed account of the new institution, 
 which included the infant schools, in his third essay on 
 the " Formation of Character," and that a mutual^ 
 friend of his and Lord Brougham (Mr. James Mill) 
 corrected the press for him. It was candid in Mr. 
 Owen to make this acknowledgment of the assistance 
 of Mr. MiU.* The reader is conscious of a vigour and 
 directness of statement in those essays never attained 
 in any other work of Mr. Owen's. 
 
 * Mr. Francis Place told me that he also was concerned in the revision 
 of the MS. 
 
58 HISTOEY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Activities and KelationsMps of the Founder of Co-operation. 
 
 Co-operation in its earlier and inchoate forms 
 traversed a wide area and commanded respectable 
 countenance. Its fertile and energetic founder caused 
 it to be tried in various ways. It was at his instigation 
 that Fellenberg commenced an infant school "at Hofwyl, 
 which subsequently uniting industry with education 
 became celebrated. Owen had the sagacity to make, 
 and the influence to get carried out, numerous schemes 
 of social and co-operative reform. The self-supporting 
 Pauper Colonies of HoUand were owing to his suggestion. 
 He originated the short-time agitation on behaK of 
 children in factories; he assisted Fulton with money to 
 try his inventions in steam navigation; he purchased the 
 first bale of American Sea Island cotton imported iuto 
 England, foreseeing at once the future importance to the 
 spinning trade of England of encouraging the foreign 
 supply of raw material. The great "Utopian" (as 
 persons call him who following the bent of their own 
 faculties believe nothing which is not commonplace) 
 was a practical man, and knew how tq make money as 
 well as to agitate great projects. Hisl son has related 
 instances of the splendid recognition accorded to him in 
 his day. "He had," Dale Owen states, "been received 
 respectfully, and sometimes with distinction, by those 
 highest in position: by Lords Liverpool, Sidmouth, 
 Castlereagh, and by Mr. Canning; by the Eoyal Dukes 
 York, Cumberland, Sussex, Cambridge, and especially 
 by the Duke of Kent (her Majesty's father); by the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury (Sutton), and by the Bishops 
 of London, St. David's, Durham, Peterborough, and 
 Norwich. Besides Bentham, his partner, he was more 
 or less intimate with Godwin, Eicardo,Malthus,Bowring, 
 Francis Place, Joseph Hume, James Mill, O'Connell, 
 Eoscoe, Clarkson, Cobbett, Sir Francis Burdett, the 
 Edgeworths, the statistician Colquhoun, Wilberforce, 
 Macaulay (father of the historian), and Nathan Eoths- 
 child, the founder of the house. He had received as 
 
HOW CO-OPERATION ITSELF BEGAN. 59 
 
 EouBehold economies of Go-operatios. 
 
 guests at his own house at Braxfield Princes John and 
 MaximUian of Eussia, the Duke of Holstein-Oldenburg, 
 Baron Goldsmid, Baron Just (Saxon ambassador), Cuvier, 
 Brougham, Sir James Mackintosh, and Lord Stowell, 
 father-in-law of Lord Sidmouth. When he visited 
 Paris he took letters from the Duke of Kent to the 
 Due d'Orleans (Louis Philippe), and from the French 
 ambassador to the French minister; and he was invited 
 to the Visitor's Chair by the French Academy. In 
 Europe he made the acquaintance of La Place, Hum- 
 boldt, La Eochefoucault, Camille Jourdain, Pastor 
 Oberlin, Pestalozzi, Madame de Stael, and many other 
 eminent persons."* 
 
 All these illustrious intimacies show that Eobert 
 Owen carried Co-operation into good company, and that, 
 in a far more radical and ambitious form than this 
 generation knows, it was known and considered by 
 persons of great influence in Europe; for the knowledge 
 or discussion of this subject was the sole reason why 
 they sought Mr. Owen, or he sought them. 
 
 The gains and efconomies of Lanark Mill had taught 
 him that the working class could, if they had sense 
 to unite in it, make something by shopkeepiag. His 
 community schemes of life were always recommended on 
 the ground of their saving arrangements. One oven, he 
 pointed out, might suffice to bake for one hundred 
 families with little more cost and trouble of attendance 
 than a single household took, and set free a hundred 
 fires and a hundred domestic cooks. One commo- 
 dious washhouse and laundry t would save one hundred 
 disagreeable, screaming, steaming, toiling washing days 
 in common houses. It was not far to go to infer that 
 one good well-stocked shop would, properly served. 
 
 • Eobert Dale Owen, " Atlantic Monthly," June, 1873 ; pp. 73S-6. 
 t These exist now. In Mr. Owea's days they were unknown and 
 unthought of. 
 
60 HISTOE'S OF CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 Splendid expectations at a New Era Time. 
 
 supply the wants of a thousand families, and supersede 
 twenty smaller shops, and save to the customers all the 
 cost of the twenty shopmen and twenty shop rents and 
 rates, in addition to the economy in prices and advantage 
 in quality in buying wholesale, in a degree smaU shops 
 could not compass. 
 
 When the grandeur of Mr. Owen's plans for the 
 reconstruction of society first dazzled the imaginations of 
 men who suffered and men who thought, hope begat 
 belief that the day of great change was nigh. Many 
 middle-class men and gentlemen, as well as the poor, had 
 a sense. that society was ravel and cruelty, as far as com- 
 petition went, and were excited at the new scheme of life. 
 Princes, prelates, even monarchs had lent heeding ears 
 to the inspired Welshman's story of what might be 
 done for the formation of the character of mankind — ^if 
 those who wielded national influences would use them 
 to this end. The novelty of the dream is over now — 
 science has taught men that the improvement of man- 
 kind is an affair of a million influences and unknown 
 time. None now, save the survivors of that period, can 
 tell the fascination of that vision of improvement, in 
 which progress was considered to be reduced to a simple 
 problem of state mechanism, of which all the conditions 
 had been discovered. 
 
 The tireless Newtown Utopian instituted a magnificent 
 publicity of his co-operative projects. He made speeches, 
 held meetings, published pamphlets and books, bought 
 innumerable copies of all newspapers and periodicals 
 which gave any account of his proceedings, and distri- 
 buted them broadcast over the world.* The very day 
 
 * He paid the full price for all newspapers lie bought, and the price was 
 considerable then ; and he posted copies, among others, to every clergy- 
 man ia the kingdom. Mr. Pare found that Mr. Owen's payments for 
 papers amounted to £4,000 in three months. Yet people talk now as 
 though Co-operation was a new thing. Many of the new co-operators — 
 whom leaders of the earlier school have attracted to the stores and 
 societies they have formed — imagine the same. 
 
now CO-OPEBATION ITSELF BEGAN, 61 
 
 The First Co-operative Periodical. 
 
 on which he opened his celebrated schools at New 
 Lanark for the formation of character he dispatched to 
 Lord Sidmouth the manuscript copy he had made of all 
 he said, so that the government might have the earliest 
 and most authentic knowledge of what was going forward. 
 Where a great co-operative society now spends pounds 
 in diffusing a knowledge of its principles _Mr. Owen 
 spent thousands of pounds. It was this wise, costly, 
 and generous publicity that led the public to attach 
 value to the new social ideas. Mr. Owen may be said 
 to have impressed mankind with them : for he travelled 
 all over Europe and made repeated visits to America 
 to personally spread the information of the new system 
 of society which he contemplated establishing. Simul- 
 taneously with his efforts in Europe he spent a fortune 
 in America in endeavours to found communities there. 
 But up to 1820 no periodical was started to advocate 
 these views. 
 
 To his comprehensive plan of reconstructing society 
 many naturally objected, as involving a great interrup- 
 tion of business. But the ardent remodeller of all things 
 thought very little of this difficulty. Things were so 
 bad that few saw any hopes of amending them. The 
 conclusion of most who thought upon the subject was 
 that of the link-boy, who, when Pope, stumbling, cried 
 out, "God mend me," answered, " I think, sir, God had 
 better make a new one." Political reformers oft repeated 
 this reply, and said it was better to make the stumbling 
 world over again — if it could possibly be done. Mr. 
 Owen had made up his mind to it, and in the Economist 
 of that day, the first of the name, which contains the 
 most animated writing which ever came from his pen, he 
 thus announced the resolution to which he had come : — 
 
 " Though far from entertaining a very exalted opinion 
 of my own powers, yet from the mere conviction that 
 the duty ought to be performed by some one, however 
 humble, I have had the boldness to take upon my shoulders 
 
62 HISTOBY OF 00-OPEEATIOlT, 
 
 Example of Mr. Owen'a early eloquence; 
 
 the burden of examining the whole affairs and circumstances 
 of mankind. The ponderous load is greater than I could 
 sustain, but that I feel a strength beyond my own 
 which shall enable me to bear it from obscurity into the 
 full light of day, where the effulgent blaze of truth, 
 darted from millions of quick and inquiring eyes, shall 
 finally penetrate and pervade every portion of the mass. 
 I summon to my aid all the friends to humanity. 
 Would that I possessed the power to call around me on 
 the instant the choicest spirits of the earth and the 
 air, — that with a magic touch I could at once dissolve 
 the delusions of error and of prejudice, — and, awing to 
 obedience the genii of the lamp and the ring, transport 
 mankind in a moment into that new world of dehghts 
 which is opening upon ray enraptured sight. 
 
 " But I must be content to toil my way through the 
 intricacies of a laborious though pleasurable work by 
 the ordinary exertion of human faculties. My lamp 
 serves but to remind me of that feeble ray of reason and 
 of knowledge which has played upon my mind. My 
 ring is the narrow darkling circle which bounds and 
 confines my powers. Yet if that feeble ray be a ray of 
 truth it shall go forth increasing in eternal splendour. 
 If this little circle be drawn from the immovable centre 
 of justice and of wisdom it shall be extended until it 
 encompass the whole earth. If my feeble voice be at 
 first scarcely heard amid the noisy contention of the 
 world, yet if it be joined by the full chorus of the sons 
 of truth, swelling into the clarion shouts of countless 
 multitudes, and caught with joyous acclaim from nation 
 to nation, the harmonizing strain shall resound through 
 the globe. 
 
 "But I am indulging in anticipations of joy before 
 the battle is won. The song of triumph must be reserved 
 for the hour of victory. The lyre must be relinquished 
 for Ithuriel's spear. We lay down the pencil for the 
 pickaxe and th© spade. The region of fancy, with all 
 
HOW CO-OPEEATION ITSELP BEGAN. 63 
 
 EiB conception of the laborious realities of progress. 
 
 its gay and glittering fascinations, must be abandoned 
 for the sombre gloom of the cloistered grove. We 
 descend into the caverned mysteries of nature for the 
 inestimable gems of which we are in search. We have 
 not to run the career of genius, but to dig the quarries 
 of knowledge and of experience. The fervour of imagi- 
 nation must yield to the rigour of philosophic research, 
 and the flashy coruscations of wit be extinguished, till 
 in the darkness which surrounds us we steadily discern 
 the first dawn of the mUd and sober light of reason and 
 of truth. 
 
 "We must strip, then, for our work. We go down 
 into our mines, where — if my readers will accompany 
 me, and assist to penetrate the strata which have hitherto 
 concealed our treasures, and to remove the rubbish, the 
 accumulations of ages, in the unskilful excavations of 
 former workmen — we shall find the bright reward of our 
 fondest hopes."* 
 
 The enchanted philosopher comes in the end, as a 
 philosopher should, to the dreary realities of the way 
 which leads to a new order of progress. But common 
 people would catch the enchantment and not the insight 
 of the great Dreamer. 
 
 Was it possible that men poor and ardent could 
 decide upon a policy as men may who are at once opulent 
 and cool ? A new world of hope and effort was opening 
 to many eyes which hitherto had found no outlook 
 beyond the poorhouse. Yet those who were able to 
 think found that each must come to some conclusion as 
 to what he would attempt. No Englishman can go on 
 dreaming all his days. The new social innovator felt 
 that he must do something. The British public, who 
 walk by faith on Sundays walk by sight only during 
 week days. In business they believe only according to 
 results, and the social propagandist soon felt that he 
 
 * EQonomist, No. 1. 1821. 
 
64 HISTOEY OF CO-OPEBATIOW. 
 
 World-sick Agitators. 
 
 must clear his mind of confusion and get some definite 
 idea of the course before him. . Should he clear the 
 ■world or take it as it is ? Should he create new conditions 
 for mankind or accept what he finds, and work from 
 them to the higher thing he aims at ? Many men had 
 never thought at all in a systematic manner on any 
 subject, and were prepared to put their trust in any 
 thing new, because they were well nigh sick of the world 
 as it was. Others were discontented with all things — ^were 
 never to be reconciled either to the old or the new, and 
 would die in a state of protest. Those who had resolved 
 on action had an alarming leader to follow. Mr. Owen, 
 like his French prototypes, was a world-clearer, though 
 his methods were milder. He would make a clean sweep 
 of all existing institutions. There was a prospect indeed 
 of full employment for disciples of this thorough-going 
 school, and a broom party of reformers was actually 
 formed, who undertook to sweep error up and cart it 
 away, and an enterprising and disastrous party they 
 proved to be — standing for a generation in the way of 
 all those not less resolute but more practical men who 
 intended to build where they could, and with the scant 
 and poor materials which alone were at hand. 
 
 Social science, now well recognised, was then an un- 
 known term. Mr. Owen was the first public man to iasist 
 that there might be a science of society.* His doctriae 
 was that by the wise use of material means men might 
 make society what it ought to be. In these happy and 
 latitudinarian days anybody may improve society who 
 can, and society is very glad when anybody gives signs 
 of the capacity of doing it. His services are accepted, 
 
 * During a period of twenty years I well remember when the phrase 
 "social science" was regarded as much an indication of "something 
 being wrong" on the part of those who used it, as mentioniag Sir C. 
 LyeU's doctrine of the antiquity of man or Dr. Darwin's theory of 
 evolution afterwards became. We were all surprised when a " Nations] 
 Association was formed for the Promotion of Social Science " in which 
 prelates took part. 
 
HOW 00-OPERATION ITSELF BEGAN. 65 
 
 The appearance of the Economist. 
 
 and no questions are asked. But in Eobert Owen's days 
 no one was allowed to attempt any good unless he 
 believed in the Thirty-nine Articles,* and down to the 
 year 1840 the Bishop of Exeter made things very unplea- 
 sant in the House of Lords to any persons detected doing 
 it. Our " pastors and masters " held then the exclusive 
 patent for improving the people, and though they made 
 poor use of it, they took good care that nobody infringed 
 it. Improvement, like the sale of corn, was a monopoly 
 then, but we have free trade in humanity now, though 
 the business done is not very great yet. The day at 
 length came when the most ardent paused. The world 
 admired but did not subscribe, and it was left to 
 chequeless enthusiasts to find funds to diffuse a know- 
 ledge of the new views. It was then that some practical 
 minded persons advised the formation of Co-operative 
 Stores, where money might be made without subscribing 
 it, and proposed that shareholders should give their 
 profits to a fund for propagandism. 
 
 It was in 1821 that the first journal appeared in the 
 interests of Co-operation. It bore the name of The 
 Economist. It was thought by many in 1868 an act of 
 judgment, and believed to be an original designation, to 
 take the name of Social Economist, as the title + which 
 would best recommend to public sentiment a co-opera- 
 tive periodical — eocmomy being that commercial feature 
 in which society is most readily interested, and which 
 is most easily proved as an advantage of Co-operation. 
 Mr. Owen's title was the- same as the one subsequently 
 adopted by Mr. James Wilson, the founder of the 
 
 * This was as modestly put as could he expected by a prelate of that 
 day. The Bishop of London said, ' ' Mr. Owen's system was brought forward 
 by an individual who declared that he was not of one of the religions 
 hitherto taught. This alone was a sufficient reason for him to disregard 
 it."—" Hampden in the 19th Century," p. 47, 1834. 
 
 t " The Social Economist." Edited by the present writer and Mr. 
 E. 0. Greening. 
 
 F 
 
68 HISTOB'Z OP CO-OPEEAttOlti 
 
 First acnonncement of Co-operatioii. 
 
 Economist newspaper, who was likely to have seen Mr. 
 Owen's puhlication, for there was much early knowledge 
 of Co-operation in the house in Essex-street, where I 
 used to see formidable files, reaching to the ceiling, of 
 unsold Economists, before it became the organ of the 
 commercial classes; and the proprietor had ample 
 leisure left to wonder whether they would ever make up 
 their minds to buy it. The first number of Mr. Owen's 
 Economist appeared on Saturday, January 27, 1821, 
 price threepence. It was preceded by a prospectus after 
 Mr. Owen's manner, as elaborate as an essay and as 
 long as a pamphlet. The title page of the volume 
 declared that " The Economist was a periodical paper 
 explanatory of the new system of society projected by 
 Eobert Owen, Esq., and a plan of association for im- 
 proving the condition of the working classes during 
 their continuance at their present employments." The 
 time was clearly foreseen when an entirely new order of 
 things would take the place of that then existing ; but 
 in the meantime temporary improvement was to be 
 attempted in the condition of the "working classes." 
 " Working people " was the better phrase Francis Place 
 used in his addresses to them. In the very first number 
 of this Economist mention was made of the formation 
 of a " Co-operative and Economical Society," which is 
 the earliest record I find of a name now so familiar to 
 the public ear. 
 
 There was no want of emphasis in announcing the 
 discovery of Co-operation when the idea had taken a 
 definite form in the minds of its originator and his 
 friends. For some time the public had been told, in 
 abounding phrases, that human affairs were henceforth 
 to be based on some new principle to which no definite 
 name was given. It does not appear whether anybody 
 had asked what it was, but there was a general expecta- 
 tion that the friends of the social state would soon 
 hear of something to their advantage. At length one 
 
aoW CO-OPEEATION ITSELF BEGAN. G7 
 
 Motto of the First Co-operative Society. 
 
 day in the autumn of 1821, the Editor of the Economist 
 broke in upon his readers with an air of importance, 
 and small capitals, and said to them : — 
 
 " The Seceet is Out : it is unrestrained Co-opeea- 
 TioN, on the part of all the members, for eveey purpose 
 of social life."* Undoubtedly this was big intelligence. 
 There was no want of comprehensiveness in it. Co-ope- 
 ration of this description looked a. long way forward, 
 and spread very far round. Clearly it meant Com- 
 munism, and whoever expressed it, in the words quoted, 
 knew very well what he meant, and said it in well- 
 chosen terms, never used subsequently, and never in 
 those days improved upon. It was a very small, eager, 
 active, manifold thing which issued in the name of 
 Co-operation, then for the first time distinctively named ; 
 but during the next ten years it spread wondrously over 
 the land. 
 
 In the middle of January, 1821, a pamphlet was 
 published describing this Economical society. It was 
 issued at the Medallic Cabinet, 158, Strand, where the 
 Economist itself was published. The particulars of 
 the Co-operative Economical Society were, signed by 
 Kobert Hunt, James Shallard, John Jones, George 
 Hinde, Eobert Dean, and Henry Hetherington. It pro- 
 fesses to be a report of the committee appointed at a 
 meeting of journeymen, chiefly painters, to take into 
 consideration certain propositions, submitted to them 
 by Mr. George Mudie, having for their object a system 
 of social arrangement calculated to effect essential im- 
 provements in the condition of the working classes and 
 of society at large. They took as a motto words from 
 Milton, which were very appropriate to their purpose : — 
 
 Our greatness will appear 
 Then most conspicuous, when great things of small, 
 Useful of hurtful, prosperous of adTerse 
 We can create. 
 
 Ecotumiat, August 27, 1821. 
 
68 HISTORY OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 The Insigmficant Origin of Progress. 
 
 From the general fitness and expressiveness of these 
 words of Milton, and as being the first Co-operative 
 Society motto, I have placed it on the title page of this 
 record of their rise, fluctuations, and progress. 
 
 The term Co-operation was at first, as the reader sees, 
 and for several years afterwards, used in the sense of 
 communism, as denoting a general arrangement of 
 society for the mutual benefit of all concerned in sus- 
 taining it. Later, the term Co-operation came to be 
 restricted to the humbler operations of buying and selling 
 provisions. From implying concert of life in commu- 
 nity it sank into meaning concert in shopkeeping. It 
 seems now, as it seemed then, a ridiculous thing that 
 the commencement of the social reformation of the world 
 should consist in opening a cheese and butter shop. It 
 was a great descent from the imperial altitude of world- 
 making to stoop to selling long-sixteen candles and 
 retailing treacle. Doubtless, if we only knew it, the 
 beginning of civilised society was not less absurd. There 
 were in all probability dreamers who stood on the verge 
 of savage life and contemplated with poetic exultation 
 the splendid future of civilisation, when men should 
 abandon their reckless and murderous habits and master 
 methods of thrift and peace. And when that new order 
 of life began which is now described as the dawn of 
 civilisation, there must have been persons with a fine 
 sense of contempt and words of sharp ridicule of those 
 petty hoards and miserable transactions of barter, out 
 of which capital and commerce grew, which have finally 
 covered the earth with palaces and raised private indivi- 
 duals to an opulence surpassing that of monarchs. 
 Had there been leading articles and reviews, parliaments 
 and reporters, and political economists (who see nothing 
 in human destiny save supply and demand) in those days, 
 how these Utopianists who brought about modern society 
 would have been held up to derision and have been glad 
 to hide their confused and abashed heads. 
 
HOW CO-OPEEATION ITSELF BEGAK. 
 The Social Maxim of Demosthenes. 
 
 Mr. Owen entertained the belief common with all 
 social thinkers from the days of Demosthenes, that 
 " if the bad position of men's affairs proceed not from 
 necessity but from errors, there is room to hope that 
 when those errors are forsaken or corrected a great 
 change for the better may ensue." " It is comparatively 
 of little avail," Mr. Owen was accustomed to say, " to 
 give to either young or old ' precept upon precept, and 
 line upon line,' except the means shall be also prepared 
 to train them in good practical habits." They were 
 these convictions which gave him strength — they were 
 these ideas that made him useful. His grand dreams 
 do not seem so Utopian now. He was but premature in 
 expressing them. When passing by the new Eoyal 
 Exchange, London, he, looking up at it, said to a 
 friend with him — " We shall have that one day. The 
 old system must give way. It will come down of its 
 own weight." The course of progress in this country 
 is happily otherwise. Society does not come down. It 
 gets itself underpinned and shored up, and takes time 
 to get itself reconstructed on the new plan as soon as 
 the new plan condescends to render itself intelligible. 
 In a way the originator of Co-operation never foresaw, 
 a practical part of his views was destined to obtain a 
 strange ascendancy. Who would have dreamed that 
 flannel weavers and mechanics, shoemakers and cotton- 
 spinners of Eochdale, that adventurous but humble band 
 of pioneers who commenced their petty and then absurd 
 store in 1844, were founding a movement the voice 
 of which would pass like a cry of deliverance into the 
 camps of industry in every country where workmen 
 had the instinct of self improvement ? Who dreamed 
 that these obscure mechanics, who had no means but 
 pence, and no sense but common sense, would, in 1872, 
 cause shopkeepers ia every High-street of every town 
 and city of the British Empire to scream with an 
 unknown dread, and cry to members of p0,rliament, and 
 
70 HISTOBY OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Unforeseen Ascendancy of Oo-operation. 
 
 crowd the ofSces of the chancellor of the exchequer, 
 praying to be rescued from the Bed Sea of Co-operation, 
 which threatens to submerge for ever all the tawdry 
 chariots of higgling and huxtering ? But more merciful 
 than the Egyptian waves, the Pharaohs of capital and 
 competition will be saved by the new power, although 
 they have brought — as co-operators contend — countless 
 plagues of poverty upon the people. Co-operation, that 
 new power of industry which has grown up in this 
 generation, Mr. Owen no more constructed than George 
 Stephenson did that railway system which a thousand 
 unforeseen exigencies have suggested and a thousand 
 brains matured. But as Stephenson the elder made 
 railway locomotion possible, so Owen set men's minds 
 on the track of Co-operation, and time and need, failure 
 and gain, faith and thought, and the good sense and 
 devotion of multitudes have made it what it is. 
 
THE CHARACTER OF ITS DISCOVERER. 71 
 
 Mr. Owen's place in Oo-operatire History, 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE CHARACTER OF ITS DISCOYERER. 
 
 There is a way of winning more by lore than fear ; 
 Force works on servile natures — not the free : 
 He that's compelled to goodness may be good, 
 But 'tis but for that fit : where others, drawn 
 By softness and example, get a habit. — Ben Jonson. 
 
 It is impossible to give any adequate account of the rise, 
 decline, and restoration of the co-operative movement 
 vrithout taking into account the influence of Mr. Owen's 
 proceedings upon its fortunes. But for him it would 
 not have come into existence in England when it did, 
 nor would it have acquired the character which ia its 
 early years it bore. It was often involved in theological 
 as well as political conflicts : and moral ones not 
 infrequently. Mr. Owen was the chief cause of this. 
 Many facts and statements, which the reader will find 
 laid before him in these pages in various places, will 
 prove that Mr. Owen could not very well avoid giving 
 battle to several kinds of adversaries, and, being a 
 Welshman, I have no doubt he did it with good-will. 
 In fact, he had to make up his mind either to assault 
 the enemy or give up his enterprise altogether, for they 
 barricaded the way before him frequently. I have done 
 all I honestly could to subordinate these particulars. 
 But to omit them altogether would be like pretending 
 to write the history of England for the last century and 
 leaving out the wars with France. 
 
72 HISTORY OF CO-OPEEATIOU. 
 
 BiograpUcal Facts. 
 
 Eobert Owen was the only Welshman I ever knew 
 who did not think Wales the world, and he no sooner 
 comprehended that there was a wider world elsewhere 
 than he acted like one who had taken possession of it, 
 and finding it in disorder, suggested how it might be 
 put straight. Looking at it with an intelligent and 
 benevolent eye he saw that crime was error and that 
 misery was crime ; in other words, that misery was 
 preventable and that it was a crime in rulers to permit 
 it. He was the first publicist among us who looked 
 with royal eyes upon children. He regarded grown 
 persons as being proprietors of the world — bound to 
 extend the rites of hospitality to all arrivals in it. He 
 considered little children as fittle guests, to be welcomed 
 with gentle courtesy and tenderness, to be offered know- 
 ledge and love, and charmed with song and flowers, so 
 that they might be glad and proud that they had come 
 into a world which gave them happiness and only asked 
 of them goodness. Mr. Owen began his career as a 
 reformer — in what we regard now as the pre-scientific 
 period — before men measured progress by single steps. 
 As Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar expressed it, with 
 admirable comprehensiveness, "Mr. Owen looked to 
 nothing less than to renovate the world, to extirpate all 
 evil, to banish all punishment, to create like views and 
 like wants, and to guard against all conflicts and 
 hostilities." There is grandeur in this wide horizon 
 of social effort which will always have inspiration in it. 
 Finding pious benevolence seeking progress by prayer, 
 which did not bring it, Mr. Owen boldly proposed to 
 substitute for it scientific benevolence, which seeks 
 human improvement by material methods. "Here," 
 he said, if not in terms in theory, " is the new path of 
 deliverance, where no thought is lost, no effort vain ; 
 where the victory is always to the wise and the patient, 
 and the poor who believe will no longer be betrayed." 
 We know not now what courage it required to say this 
 
THE CHAEAOTER OP ITS DISCOVEREE. 73 
 
 Principles tanght to the people. 
 
 when Mr. Owen said it. Gentlemen expected to provide 
 the poor with their religion. If they subscribed to any 
 school this was the chief object they had in view, for it was 
 very little secular learning they imparted. In Sunday 
 schools, spelling, reading, writing, and arithmetic were 
 given in homoeopathic doses, and they got generally 
 relinquished for the catechism. Mr. Owen gave lessons 
 in the knowledge of the world in his schools, and justified 
 their being given. Both the clergy and dissenting 
 ministers regarded with jealousy any influence arising 
 not under their direction, and they made it difficult 
 for social improvers to do anything. They gave bad 
 accounts of any working men who allied themselves to 
 social schemes, so that they were intimidated. It was a 
 great merit in Mr. Owen that he did more than any 
 gentleman of his time to resent this, and inspire others 
 to deliver society from it. 
 
 To teach common people the arts of self-help, the 
 wisdom of choosing their own opinions, and to believe 
 only in that religion which brought them actual deliver- 
 ance from dependence and want was not a popular thing 
 to do. Mr. Owen had the fate of Paine before him. 
 Paine would have ranked next to Burke as a political 
 writer. He excelled all politicians who addressed the 
 people in teaching them principles. Ebenezer Elliott 
 told me Paine was the greatest master of metaphor he 
 had known. Cobbett's writings ' were mere vigorous 
 wordiness compared with Paine's, and were far less 
 instructive than Paine's finished thoroughness of expo- 
 sition. In America the pen of Paine did as much as 
 the sword of Washington to effect independence; yet 
 he was long excluded from the rank of respectable 
 authors. Certainly to this day he is spoken of in an 
 unpleasant way, both in America and England, in con- 
 sequence of his promoting theological independence of 
 thought. But for this he would be remembered as one 
 whose writings Pitt thought it worth while to study, 
 
74 EISTORT? OF 00-OPEEATION. 
 
 Mr. Owen as a Public Speaker. 
 
 and be regarded in America as one of the founders of 
 national independence whom Washington, and Jefferson, 
 and Franklin consulted. 
 
 Eobert Owen, knowing all this, yet protested against 
 theology barring the way to the social amelioration of 
 the people ; and from being the associate of the first men 
 of his time he was driven to consort with shoemakers and 
 tailors, fustian-cutters, whitesmiths, weavers, and miners, 
 who alone remained to work out his great ideas and 
 gratefully honour his memory. 
 
 Mr. Owen had the capacity of personal inspiration. 
 He was ready in public speech. He had bursts of 
 impassioned oratory, Cambridge scholars, utterly pre- 
 judiced against him, were struck with the dignity of his 
 bearing at the memorable meetings at the City of London 
 Tavern in 1817. After a lapse of fifty-six years, one of 
 those present has related that when Mr. Owen said "all 
 the religions of the world were wrong," he thought him 
 beyond the rank of common men. He seemed to this 
 hearer to grow loftier in stature. The vast and various 
 audience listened as men breathless. Then they broke 
 out into tumultuous cheering at the courageous act of 
 the speaker. Indeed I modify the terms in which that 
 day has been spoken of to me. Eeaders now would not 
 understand the impression made ; and for any purpose 
 of persuasion it is useless to say more than will seem 
 probable to those addressed. Mr. Owen's reputation for 
 great wealth, the munificence of his known gifts, his 
 personal sincerity, his high connections, the novelty of 
 his views, — aU lent elements of popular interest to what 
 he said on subjects on which no gentleman, save he, 
 ventured to say anything. He had made, himself a 
 captain of industry. He had accomplished wonders never 
 attempted before by any manufacturer. Statesmen from 
 every part of Europe had been allured to New Lanark, 
 and, for all anyone knew, he might be able to demon- 
 strate what no statesman had ever deemed it possible to 
 
THE CHARACTEB OP ITS DISCOVEEEE. 75 
 
 Mr. Owen before a Parliamentary Committee. 
 
 compass — the conditions which should render certain 
 the improved character and decent competence of the 
 common people; realising, with the precision of science, 
 a state of society in which neither depravity nor poverty 
 should recur. No wonder much was thought of him, 
 much was forgiven him, much was hoped for from him. 
 The determination to make the formidable statement 
 described, at that particular time, his son relates, 
 was come to suddenly. Certain sectarian publications, 
 seeing favourable notices of his proceedings at his first 
 and second meeting in the London Tavern made in the 
 Times began to call upon him to make a declaration 
 of his views on religion, which up to that time he had 
 withheld. They had formed then* own opinion on that 
 subject, as many vexatious and unfriendly charges made 
 against Mr. Owen's proceedings at Lanark had already 
 informed him.* He had, however, held his ground and 
 held his peace, and maintained a proud reticence towards 
 them. He believed they meant him deadly mischief, and 
 the public knew it. As he enjoyed the personal respect 
 of several eminent prelates in the church — for the best 
 educated are always the most tolerant — Mr. Owen could 
 well afford to pass the lower sort by. As they were 
 capable of doing harm, Mr. Owen, who was brave and 
 not politic, defied them. It was the consciousness of 
 this which helped to move the wonder and enthusiasm of 
 the audience at his third meeting, when he made this 
 long-remembered- speech to the densely-packed and 
 excited audience, thousands outside trying in vain to 
 
 • His son, Bobert Dale, relates that he was with him during his exami- 
 nation by a committee of the House of Commons when he gave evidence 
 on the condition of the factory children, and heard Sir George Philips 
 put questions to his father in an insolent tone as to his religious opinions. 
 Brougham, who was also on the committee, resented this irrelevant 
 offensiveness, and moved that the cross-examination in question be 
 expunged from the record, and it was done. If, however, a gentleman's 
 personal opinions could be attacked in the House of Commons, the reader 
 can imagine what took jlaoe elsewhere. 
 
76 HISTORY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 His Memorable Speech of 1817. 
 
 obtain admission. " What, my friends," he began, " has 
 hitherto retarded the advancement of your race to a 
 high state of virtue and happiness ? Who can answer 
 that question ? Who dares answer but with his life in 
 his hand ? — a ready and willing victim to the truth and 
 to the emancipation of the world from its long bondage 
 of error, crime, and misery. Behold that victim ! On 
 this day ! in this hour ! even now ! shall those bonds 
 be burst asunder, never more to reunite while the world 
 lasts ! " 
 
 An English gentleman with anything to lose had 
 never held this language before This enthusiasm and 
 pluck moved the admiration alike of those who approved 
 and those who dissented from this dangerous and impoHtic 
 speech. The consequences soon came home to him. He 
 had friends too powerful for his life to be in danger ; but 
 those who could save his life could not save his influence. 
 And in after years, in the provinces at public meetings, 
 his life was often in jeopardy, and he was only saved by 
 the intrepidity of working men, who protected him. 
 The Times soon wheeled into line against him — the 
 Conservative and influential classes deserted him. Only 
 the Duke of Kent and Lord Brougham stood by him to 
 the end.* 
 
 It is difficult to judge yet the extraordinary proceeding 
 of Mr. Owen in "denouncing all the religions of the 
 world." It was part of his plan. It was a deliberate 
 act. He told his religious partner, Mr. Allen, the 
 Quaker, that he would do so — two years before. He, 
 however, arrested the acceptance of his social system by 
 it. From being a social reformer he commenced to be 
 a religious reformer, and being thorough, he did by 
 the church as he did by the state — he proposed to 
 reform it altogether. For this work he appears to me 
 to have made no adequate preparation. He followed 
 
 • Vide AntoWography of Eobert Dale Owen. 
 
THE CHAEACTEB OP ITS DISCOVERER. 77 
 
 His irrelevant views of policy. 
 
 the instinct of his conscience without calculation. An 
 ominous meeting in the Eotunda of Dublin in 1823 
 sealed the fate of his new world, and condemned his 
 schemes ever after to the hands of the minority. The 
 great powers of society set their faces against him, and 
 the people were too poor to carry his ideas out. The 
 greatest person of distinction who best understood Mr. 
 Owen, and who did not desert him on account of his 
 irreligious views, was the Queen's father. He said at 
 one of Mr. Owen's meetings, two years after he had 
 denounced all religions, " If I understand Mr. Owen's 
 principles, they lead him not to interfere to the injury 
 of any sect ; but he claims for himself that which he is 
 so desirous to obtain for his fellow-creatures — 'religious 
 liberty and freedom of conscience;' and these he contends 
 for because his experience compels him to conclude that 
 these principles are now necessary to secure the well- 
 being and good order of society." This is excellently 
 put, and is really what Mr. Owen meant. Being always 
 a Theist, he was logically in error in denouncing " all 
 religions." His province was to defend humanity 
 against the abuses of religion, and maintain, as the 
 Duke of Kent puts it, " religious liberty and freedom of 
 conscience." 
 
 In those alarmed days, when politicians and capitalists 
 were as terrified as shopkeepers at the progress of Co- 
 operation, Mr. Owen, not content with spreading disquiet 
 among the clergy, unhesitatingly countenanced the dis- 
 cussion of a new question, which has strangely passed 
 entirely out of the sight of history. Mr. James Mill had 
 written in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," as Malthus 
 had done before, that it was both desirable and profitable 
 to limit the families of the poor. He despised working 
 people who crowded the labour market with their off- 
 spring, and then complained of the lowness of wages and 
 the want in their homes, where there were more hungry 
 mouths than food: And certainly a man or woman 
 
^g EISTOEt OF dO-OPERATIOK. 
 
 His singnlai fearlessness. 
 
 entering the office of a parish overseer, to be questioned 
 with suspicion, relieved with reluctance, treated as a 
 burden on the parish, and advised to enaigrate, as the 
 needy shopkeeper assessed for poor-rates is necessarily, 
 against his will, compelled to begrudge the flesh on their 
 bones, which he had to help pay for — is a humiliating 
 business, so shocking and deplorable that those who 
 come to it had better never have been born. Any legiti- 
 mate remedy which the wit of man could devise having 
 this object would seem purity and dignity by the side of 
 this degradation. Those who undertook to make com- 
 munities soon found that the inmates would come to 
 certain ruin if the houses were overrun with children, 
 and they listened to the Malthus and Mill warning. 
 Mr. Owen, who always gave heed to the philosophers, 
 took oft-debated steps to give effect to their advice. 
 His courage and thoroughness were wonderful. No 
 man had a better right than he to invent the maxim 
 he was fond of using — " Truth without mystery, mixture 
 of error, or fear of man." He was not better able, 
 ^ peradventure, than other men to obtain truth free from 
 error and doubt ; but he was, beyond question, as free 
 from the fear of. man in moral things as any pubhcist 
 who ever lived. 
 
 Beyond any gentleman of his time, Mr. Owen cared 
 for the friendless, regardless of himself. This question 
 concerned none save the poor, and he boldly counselled 
 them not to be coerced by opprobrium into supplying 
 offspring to be ground up alive in the mill of capital ; 
 or be cast aside when the labour market was glutted 
 to fall into the hands of the constable or the parish 
 overseer. The subject was regarded by the public then 
 as the question of cremation was, which could never be 
 mentioned in any periodical with tolerance, but which is 
 sure to be discussed in the future, as cremation is, to 
 the surprise of everybody, now — a question supposed to 
 be inurned with the ashes of Shelley. 
 
(the ohAeactee of its discoveeer. 79 
 
 Lives of Bobert Owen. 
 
 No notice of this curious episode in Mr. Owen's life 
 occurs in the biographies of him which have appeared 
 since his death. In other respects the life of him Mr. 
 Sargant has published is very interesting. He has 
 brought together a variety of facts which it must have 
 taken considerable research and cost to accumulate. 
 Though Mr. Sargant's views are unsympathetic and 
 antagonistic, he never calumniates, although he often 
 fails to judge accurately points which an alien historian 
 could hardly be expected to understand ; but as he is 
 never dull and never indecisive, and often quite right 
 in the opinion he forms, he is an instructive writer to 
 those who incline to the side of the innovators, and 
 must have considerably increased the curiosity of the 
 public of this generation, who regard Mr. Owen, if they 
 know him at all, as an heresiarch, whose proceedings 
 had been unknown in polite society. 
 
 With his gift for pleasant and picturesque statement 
 Mr. Dale Owen might give the world an incomparable 
 life of his father, such as otherwise we are not likely to 
 see. He had opportunities which no man, save he, of the 
 last generation possessed, of knowing all the proper and 
 improper people of celebrity — ^using the term improper 
 in the sense of unconventional, not morally disqualified, 
 persons. For a period of half-a-century, almost every 
 man in Europe and America engaged in any forlorn hope 
 of progress had communications at one time or the other 
 with Mr. Eobert Owen. Eobert Dale lately published a 
 work casting interesting but limited light on his father's 
 career. It would seem, however, that Mr. Dale Owen 
 has lived himself so long in the world that he is afraid 
 of going about it. Some time ago he published the 
 "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," which 
 reads as though it were written by .a man who had left 
 this. Writing upon the suggestion of a friend, he has 
 apparently given us from memory, or from scant notes, 
 twenty-seven years of autobiography in "Threading my 
 
80 HISTORY OF 00-OPEEATION. 
 
 The foolishness of indiscriminate praise. 
 
 Way," which, however, serves to show how curious and 
 valuable a history of his father it would be in his power 
 to make. 
 
 That I take to be the manliest reverence which praises 
 within the limits of truth. The flatterer is either a knave 
 who intends to impose upon you, or a patron who intends 
 to befool you, or a coward who applauds because he has 
 not the courage to condemn you, or a -weak-eyed man 
 who can only see one thing at a time. Those are wise 
 who avoid the men who by wholesale praise hide from 
 a man what he should be and keep him what he is. 
 Prefer the man who blows hot and cold to him who 
 blows all hot, because it is better to be invigorated than 
 to be stifled. Believing so, I speak frankly as well as 
 affectionately of Mr. Owen. 
 
 It is no part of my object to represent Mr. Owen other 
 than he was. Though he was a very amiable, he was, 
 doubtless, later in life a somewhat tiresome reformer. 
 His letters were essays and his speeches were volumes. 
 When he called a meeting together, those who attended 
 never knew when they would separate; yet he was, 
 undoubtedly, endowed with great natural capacity for 
 understanding public affairs. He was accustomed to 
 give practical and notable opinions upon public questions 
 quite apart from his own doctrines ; and his society was 
 sought as that of a man who had the key of many state 
 difficulties. Those know little of him who suppose that 
 he owed his distinction wholly to his riches. A man 
 must be wise as well as wealthy to achieve the illustrious 
 friendships which marked his career. He had personally 
 an air of natural nobility about him. He had, as the 
 Daily News lately said, "an instinct to rule and com- 
 mand." I only knew him late in life, when age had 
 impressed measure upon his steps and deliberateness on 
 his speech. When he had the vivacity of youth and 
 middle age he must have been an actor on the political 
 stage of no mean mark. He always spoke as " one 
 
^ THE OHARAOTEa OP ITS DISCOVEREE. 81 
 
 The Speech at South Place Chapel. 
 
 having authority." He had a. voice of great compass, 
 thorough self-possession, and becoming action. Like 
 many other men he spoke much better than he wrote. 
 When he was but twenty years of age he apphed to 
 Mr. Drinkwater — who became his first employer of 
 consequence — for a responsible situation. He was told 
 "he was so young." "Yes," answered Mr. Owen, 
 " that used to be said of me several years ago, but I did 
 not expect to have it brought against me now." His 
 boldness never deserted him. On one occasion William 
 Johnson Fox, the famous preacher and anti-corn-law 
 orator, delivered a discourse in South Place Chapel on 
 Mr. Owen's co-operative system. Some of his remarks 
 being founded on a manifest misconception of it, Mr. 
 Owen, who was present, rose before the final hymn was 
 given out, and addressed the congregation in a speech 
 of great dignity and propriety, and corrected the error 
 of the orator. Though the proceeding was most unusual, 
 and would only have been permitted in a place of 
 worship where freedom of conscience was not only main- 
 tained but conceded, Mr. Owen acquitted himself so well 
 that no one felt any sense of unseemliness in what he 
 did.* 
 
 Mr. Owen was an apostle not a rhetorician. He never 
 looked all round his statements (as Mr. Cobden did) 
 to see where the ignorant might misconstrue them, 
 or the enemy could come up and pervert them. He 
 said "man was the creature of circumstances" for 
 thirty years before he added the important words, "acting 
 previous to and after his birth." He had the fatal ideas 
 of the New Testament that equality was to be attained 
 by granting to a community " all things in common " 
 at the commencement. Whereas equality is the result, 
 not the beginning. You must start with inequality and 
 
 * Mr. David Dale, who was a shrewd, discerning man, once said to 
 Mr. Owen, " Thou needest to be very right, Bobert, for thou art very 
 positive." 
 
 G 
 
82 HISTOBY OF 00-OPEEATION. 
 
 Equality a result not an arrangement. 
 
 authority, steering steadily towards self-government and 
 the accumulation of the common gains, until indepen- 
 dence is secured to all. Mr. Owen looked upon men 
 through the spectacles of his own good nature. He 
 seldom took Lord Brougham's advice "to pick his men." 
 He never acted on the maxim that the worb'ng class are 
 as jealous of each other as the upper classes are of 
 them. The resolution he displayed as a manufacturer 
 he was wanting in as a founder of communities. Eecog- 
 nising his capacity as a manufacturer, even Allen, his 
 eminent Quaker partner, wrote to him, " Eobert Owen, 
 thou makest a bargain in a masterly manner ! " Sir 
 John, then Dr„ Bowring, allowed that the only time 
 Jeremy Bentham ever made money was when he was 
 a partner of Mr. Owen. In after life Mr. Owen was 
 certainly reckless of his own fame. No leader ever 
 took so little care in guarding his own reputation. 
 He scarcely protested when others attached his name 
 to schemes which were not his. The failure of Queen- 
 wood was not chargeable to him. When his advice 
 was not followed he would say: "Well, gentlemen, 
 I tell you what you ought to do. You differ from 
 me. Carry out your own plans. Experience will show 
 you who is right." When the affair went wrong then 
 it was ascribed to him. The public knew nothing of 
 executives from which he withdrew. They only knew 
 Robert Owen ; and whatever failed under his name they 
 inferred failed through him. Mr. Owen was a general 
 who never provided himself with a rear guard. While 
 he was fighting in the front ranks priests might come 
 up and cut off his commissariat. His own troops fell 
 into pits against which he had warned them. Yet he 
 would write his next dispatch without it occurring to 
 him to mention his own defeat, and he would return to 
 his camp without missing his army. Yet society is 
 not so well served that it need hesitate to forgive the 
 eccentricities of its generous friends. To Mr. Owen wiU 
 
THE OHARACTBR OP ITS DISCOVEREB. 83 
 
 The moral impulse of Southey's day given by three men. 
 
 be accorded the distinction of being a philosopher who 
 devoted himself to founding a Science of Social Improve- 
 ment — a philanthropist who gave his fortune to advance 
 it. Association, which was but an act of fear before his 
 day, he converted into a policy and taught it as an art. 
 He substituted Co-operation for coercion in the conduct 
 of industry — the willing co-operation of intelligence 
 certain of its own reward for sullen labour enforced by 
 the necessity of subsistence, seldom to be relied on and 
 never satisfied. 
 
 Southey, who was a competent judge of public men in 
 his day, said : "I would class Owen in a triad as one of 
 the three men who have in this generation given an 
 impulse to the moral world. Clarkson and Dr. Bell are 
 the other two. They have seen the first fruits of their 
 harvest ; so, I think, would Owen ere this, if he had not 
 alarmed the better part of the nation by proclaiming, 
 upon the most momentous of all subjects, opinions 
 which are alike fatal to individual happiness and general 
 good. Yet I admire the man ; and readily admit that 
 his charity is a better plank than the faith of an in- 
 tolerant and bitter-minded bigot, who, as Warburton 
 says, ' counterworks his Creator, makes God after 
 man's image, and chooses the worst model he can find — 
 himself.' " Mr. Owen was not a handsome philan- 
 thropist, but he had what I may call an accessible 
 expression. He had a friendly face. There was a charm 
 that those who approached him always found in his 
 mind. Great or low each felt assured, as the poet puts it : 
 
 For there can live no hatred in thine eye. 
 
 The impression that Mr. Owen made upon workmen 
 of his time is best described by one who won for himself 
 a distinguished name as a working-class poet. I mean 
 Ebenezer Elliott. In an address to him, sent by trade- 
 unionists of Shefiield in 1834, Elliott says : "You came 
 among us as a rich man among the noor and did not 
 
«4 HISTORY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 A notable maxim. 
 
 call US a rabble. This is a phenomenon new to us. 
 There was no sneer on your lips, no covert scorn in 
 your tone." That this distinction struck Elliott shows 
 us how working men were then treated. It was in 
 reply to this address that Mr. Owen made a remark 
 which is an axiom in the best political Liberalism of 
 these days. He said, "Injustice is a great mistake." 
 He saw that it was not merely wrong, wicked, malevo- 
 lent, hateful ; he believed that injustice did not answei 
 in business, in fact that it did not pay. • This is becom- 
 ing understood now. Here and there we may hear a 
 wise employer say : "I cannot afford to pay my men 
 badly." There are co-operative productive societies 
 which have not quite learned this yet. Indeed, it has 
 taken a long time for employers to see that the workman, 
 like the inanimate tools he uses, can only be efficient 
 when made of good material, is of good temper, and 
 kept in good condition. 
 
 The above society referred to in Sheffield, which has 
 never been a sentimental place, bore the name of the 
 " Sheffield Eegeneration Society" — certainly a very sen- 
 timental name. The motto of the members was " Free 
 Trade with Free Labour." Mr. Owen was in favour of a 
 rule of eight hours' labour; he being a very^early advocate 
 of what is now regarded as an American novelty. The 
 Sheffield society did not believe that the world could be 
 regeneratedin eight hours, and addressed Mr. Owen for 
 an explanation. The document was written by Ebenezer 
 Elliott, and was a good specimen of his prose style. It 
 had also this passage : " Doctor Chalmers, though he 
 bids us die unmarried, does not really wish that the 
 noble race of Watt and Burns, Locke and Milton, should 
 become extinct. . . . William Cobbett, almost a 
 great man, and once our only champion [a phrase he 
 afterwards used in his famous epitaph on Cobbett] , 
 seems to be mystifying himself and trying to mystify 
 others on the all-important subject j but we do not call 
 
THE CHARACTER OP ITS DISCOVERER. 85 
 
 The silly partners of Lanark. 
 
 him either rogue or fool." Elliott ended by saying that 
 the appropriate epitaph for the great communist's tomb — 
 when lie arrived at one — would be : — 
 
 In the land of castes Owen was a Man.' 
 
 When Mr. Owen first proposed to his partners to 
 institute educational arrangements at their works he 
 admitted that there might be loss. Bentham, Allen, 
 and other of his partners resolved to run the risk, which 
 in the end led to great fame and profit. When the 
 partners who opposed the outlay retired the Lanark 
 Mills were brought to the hammer. They depreciated 
 the property, spreading about reports that Mr. Owen 
 had ruined it, and that the business was not worth 
 £40,000. They intended buying it themselves. ' But 
 the philanthropist had an eye to business, and sent 
 his solicitor to bid against them. The discontented 
 partners bid in person, and actually bid themselves 
 upwards of £110,000 for property they had declared 
 worth £40,000 only. Mr. Owen bought it for £114,000. 
 They knew that it was worth greatly more, and 
 regretted all their days their folly and their loss. 
 They had prematurely invited a large party of friends 
 to a congratulation banquet on the day of the sale, and 
 they had to play the part of hosts without appetite or 
 exhilaration to guests unable to console them. When 
 the news reached the Lanark workmen that Mr. Owen 
 was to be their future master the place was illuminated. 
 When Mr. Owen and his new partners went down the 
 workpeople and inhabitants for mUes round went out to 
 greet them with music. The horses were ungeared and, 
 amid the acclamations of thousands, they were drawn 
 
 * The reader may see that Elliott, when he came to write his epitaph 
 on Cobhett, must have recurred to this address. It was this : — 
 
 " Our friend, when other friend we'd none ; 
 Our champion when we had but one ; 
 Cursed by all knaves, beneath this sod 
 Bill Cobbett lies— a Man by God." 
 
86 HISTORY OP 00-OPERATION. 
 
 Early teaching of Oo-operation. 
 
 in triumph into the town. Mr. Owen's Quaker partners 
 with him were astounded. Never before were followers 
 of George Fox sharers in such a demonstration. And 
 few have been the employers who have been welcomed 
 back by their workpeople as Mr. Owen was. These 
 facts have had great influence in making co-operative 
 employers genial and considerate to persons in their 
 mills, though none have equalled the great founder oi 
 the system. And these facts are worth remembering 
 by the new co-operative companies continually forming, 
 animated by the common notion that niggardliness is 
 economy and that shabbiness can bring satisfaction. 
 
 Others may tell, in the Life of Mr. Owen which Mr. 
 Pare has left to be completed from documents which he 
 possessed as one of Mr. Owen's literary executors,* what 
 I shall but briefly indicate as I proceed — what steps 
 Mr. Owen took — what establishments he founded — 
 what fortune he expended — what journeys he made, in 
 order to interest the world in his undertakings. I am 
 here concerned with his career only as Co-operation 
 grew out of it. 
 
 Wesleyanism dotted the country with prayer-meetings 
 — Chartism covered it with conspiring groups of worldly- 
 awakened men — Socialism sought to teach industry 
 power, property its duty, and the working people how to 
 struggle for their improvement vdthout anger or impa- 
 tience. It was Mr. Owen who was conspicuous in 
 teaching them the golden lesson of peace and progress, 
 that to effect reform they must change erroneous systems 
 and not hate men. He taught that benevolence ought 
 not to be a cheap sentiment of pity. He taught pity to 
 leave off weeping and ally itself to improvement. His 
 was not that grand patriotism which talked platitudes 
 of well meaning and did no work. His heart was with 
 that religion which, though weak in creeds and collects, 
 
 * The Owen Memorial Committee, 
 
THE CHARACTER OP ITS DISCOVERER. 87 
 
 Its great objects. 
 
 rendered humanity service. No affluence corrupted him. 
 When he saw gentlemen of his acquaintance adding 
 thousands to thousands and acre to acre, and giving 
 themselves up to the pride of family, of title, of position, 
 he himself plotted for the welfare of mechanics and 
 labourers. He found no satisfaction in the splendour 
 of courts so long as the hovel stood in sight. He felt as 
 one has felt since (Mr. Bright) who has a mightier power 
 of expressing the great aims which raise the stature of 
 mankind, who said: "I do not care for military great- 
 ness or renown : I care for the condition of the people 
 among whom I live. . . . Crown, coronet, mitres, 
 military displays, pomp of war, wide colonies, and a huge 
 empire are in my view all trifles light as air, unless with 
 them you can have a fair share of comfort, contentment, 
 and happiness among the great body of the people." 
 
88 HISTOKY OP CO-OPBEATION. 
 
 Popularity of Co-operative advocacy. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HIS APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE. 
 
 There are some very earnest and benevolent persons vrho have never- 
 theless a hollow jingle in their goodness. Being without political insight 
 they mistake their own iadifierence for impartiality, and call npon men to 
 renounce convictions, for philanthropic purposes, which are as sincere, as 
 salutary, and often more important to public freedom than philanthropy 
 itself. — M.MS. (Modem Manuscript.) 
 
 It was the year 1825 which saw co-operative views — 
 which since 1812 had been addressed by Mr. Owen to 
 the upper classes — first taken up by the working class, 
 with whom the originator had then cultivated friendly 
 relations. His great ambition had been to interest 
 cabinets and kings in his schemes, and he very wisely 
 concluded that if he addressed himself exclusively to 
 the labouring classes the aristocracy would not identify 
 themselves with his views, and indeed might suspect an 
 insurgent element in them. No promulgator of new 
 ideas ever had greater success than he for many years. 
 It has been recounted how his wealth, his munificence, 
 the remarkable results he had achieved, his contagious 
 confidence in his plans, his stately manners, and calm 
 zeal, allured the most eminent philosophers and politi- 
 cians of his time, who joined him as partners and 
 counseUers in his New Lanark institutions. Consulted 
 by the governments of England and America, a welcome 
 visitor to every court in Europe — receiving princes and 
 heirs to empires as visitors to his counting-house — being 
 assured by the cabinet of his own country that thev 
 
HIS APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE. 
 One of Pope's falaoies. 
 
 were convinced of the truth of his system, it is not 
 surprising that he thought that the world was entirely 
 converted to his opinion, in which he was certainly 
 premature. But when in 1817, as the reader has 
 already seen, he publicly declared " all the religions of 
 the world to be founded in error," he alarmed for his 
 day and generation the bishops and clergy, who were 
 really to a great extent in honourable sympathy with 
 his generous views, and had themselves intermittent 
 compassion for the working class. For twenty-three 
 years their wrath endured. In 1840, Mr. William Pare, 
 one of the earliest and ablest of Mr. Owen's disciples, 
 was compelled to resign the of&ce he held of registrar 
 of births, deaths, and marriages in Birmingham, in 
 consequence of its being made known to the Bishop of 
 Exeter that Mr. Pare sympathised with socialist views. 
 Many of Mr. Owen's difficulties with theologians arose 
 through their not understanding him, and through Mr. 
 Owen not understanding that they did not understand 
 him. The fact is he had a religion of his own — he was 
 a believer in the religion of humanity — a religion not at 
 all recognised in his day. His followers many years 
 after were fond of quoting the lines : — 
 
 For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, 
 His can't be wrong whose life is in the right. 
 
 It is not at all clear that a man has a fair chance of 
 getting his life right while his creed is wrong. With 
 sincere and intelligent men creed has a great deal to do 
 with conduct. These lines are the doctrine of a latitu- 
 dinarian without a conscience. But the argument of 
 Pope imposed on Mr. Owen, as it has done on other 
 excellent men. Mr. Owen was not himself indifferent to 
 conviction. His own conviction that humanity was 
 godliness was so strong that he paid no heed to any 
 opinions which contradicted that ; and hence he 
 denounced the most sacred faiths of his countrymen 
 with little ceremony, and though a philanthropist he 
 
90 HISTORY OP CO-OPBEATION. 
 
 Tbe tmconscions insolence of philosophers. 
 
 did very cruel things in this way. A man may be a 
 heretic, and have a perfect right to set forth the grounds 
 of his convictions, and insist upon them, and point out 
 the errors and mischiefs of a popular faith ; but he can 
 never command respect from adversaries unless he 
 makes himself master of their case and does public 
 justice to the equal honesty of those sincerely opposed 
 to him. Mr. Owen was never wanting in kindliness of 
 purpose, but he was in consideration and detail of state- 
 ment. Quite unconscious of it, and meaning nothing 
 offensive by it, he continually displayed the common 
 insolence of philosophers — ^the insolence of pity. It is 
 irritating and not at all instructive to earnest men to be 
 looked down upon with compassion on account of con- 
 victions acquired with anxiety and many sacrifices. We 
 are all struggling for more light ; and, though the belief 
 that we have found the truth is a proper sentiment to 
 display, it is courtesy to others as well as modesty to 
 avoid giving them the impression that our confidence 
 proceeds from self-suf&ciency. Airs of infallibiUty which 
 greatness of character may condone in a founder are apt 
 to become insupportable in followers who have not 
 fought the battle which has given them distinction and 
 ascendency. 
 
 If Eobert Owen had had a compact agitating mind, 
 which knew how to control speech as a part of policy, 
 he would have made in the world a great name instead 
 of a well-known one. "It is not our object," he used 
 to say, in hours of accurate statement, " to attack that 
 which is false, but to make clear that which is true. 
 Explaining that which is true convinces the judgment 
 when the mind possesses full and deliberate powers of 
 judging, while attacking that which is false instantly 
 arouses irritation and renders the judgment unfit for its 
 office and useless." This Mr. Owen said very early, and 
 very often, but not always, and almost precise!^ in 
 thes3 terms. . He said, in a speech to Ihe British 
 
HIS APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE. 91 
 
 ' The Creed of Co-operation. 
 
 Co-operative Assbciation, in Dr. Birkbeck's Mechanics' 
 Institution, "that those who carried out the new social 
 principles would have no need to injure a single indivi- 
 dual, or wish for any of the emoluments of the rich, for 
 they would have the power, when they began to apply 
 it, to create more new wealth than any rational being 
 will desire to consume." Mr. Owen, as a rule, was apt 
 to squander his words about his ideas, which sometimes 
 permitted his disciples to evade them and his enemies to 
 misconstrue them ; but these admirable conceptions were 
 BO oft and so precisely repeated that everybody for the 
 time admitted their meaning. The creed of Co-operation 
 ought never to have had any enemies. It was simple, 
 it was manly, it was honest, and well intended. It was 
 that the people should be instructed to mean well, to 
 work well, and secure to themselves the results of their 
 labour ; and neither beg, nor borrow, nor steal, nor 
 annoy. Co-operation put its hand in no man's pocket, 
 nor its fist in any man's face. To this social idea Mr. 
 Owen was always consistent. Religion was the weak 
 point of his associative advocacy. He denied men's 
 responsibility for their belief, and then said the new 
 system did not contravene religion. As religion was 
 then understood it did. Mr. Owen's disciples echoed 
 his challenging declaration that " all the religions of the 
 world were founded in error," and then said ''they 
 wanted no religious discussion." 
 
 In 1837, as he had often done before, Mr. Owen, in 
 his discussion with the Eev. J. H. Eoebuck", at Manches- 
 ter, said "he was compelled to beheve that all the 
 religions of the world were so many geographical 
 insanities." It was foolishness in followers who did 
 not repudiate language of this character to represent, 
 as many did, that their views were those of "true 
 Christianity." Their business was simply to contend 
 that their views were relevant to the needs of the day 
 and morally true, and rest there. At this distance of 
 
92 EISTOEY OF CO-OPERATION 
 
 Universal industry an uncomfortable proposal. 
 
 time, in the light of experience which did not then 
 exist, it is easy to see clearer. Neither to attack 
 Christianity nor weakly to attempt to reconcile social 
 views to it would have heen a self-defensive and self- 
 respecting policy. 
 
 Mr. Owen's theory of the motives of conduct was one 
 which could only commend itself to persons of consider 
 able independence of thought — who were then a small 
 minority. To incite men to action he relied on four 
 considerations, namely, that what he proposed was :— 
 
 1. True: 
 
 2. Eight: , 
 
 3. Humane: 
 
 4. Useful. 
 
 It was the failure of this high policy and the want of 
 measure in religious argument that led to his appeal to 
 the masses, to whom audacity and generosity are sources 
 of inspiration. It was understood very early* that 
 Co-operation was proposed as a system of universal 
 industry, equality of privileges for aU, and the equal 
 distribution of the new wealth created. This was an 
 alarming programme to most persons, except the poor. 
 Many did not like the prospects of "universal 
 industry." The "distribution of wealth" in any sense 
 did not at all meet the views of others, and " equality 
 of privilege" was less to the general taste. The great 
 penniless crowd outside the doors of the opulent were 
 likely to have different views. 
 
 Finding himself unable to succeed with the upper 
 classes, Mr. Owen determined to carry his point, if he 
 could, by committing his schemes to the hands of the 
 people, for whom he always cared, and whom alone he 
 sought to serve. They would be captivated by his 
 philanthropy and his courage, yet, politically, he was 
 not well fitted to succeed with them. Cobden said Lord 
 
 * " Co-operative MiBoellany," No. 2, 1830. 
 
HIS APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE. 93 
 
 Political indifferentism. 
 
 Palmerston had no prejudices — not even in favour of the 
 truth. Mr. Owen had no political principles — ^not even 
 in favour of liberty. His doctrine was that of the poet : — 
 
 For modes of goTermuent let fools contest, 
 That which is best administered is hest, 
 
 a doctrine which has no other ideal than that of a 
 benevolent despotism, and regards as idle or futile the 
 individual life and self-government of the people. Mr. 
 Owen was no political go-between — no conscious agent 
 of the adversaries of the political rights of the people. 
 Had it rested with him he would have given them 
 every right they sought. He simply did not think rights 
 of any great consequence one way or the other. There 
 never was any question among Liberal politicians as to 
 the personal sincerity of Mr. Owen. Jeremy Bentham, 
 James Mill, Francis Place were his personal friends, 
 who were both social and political reformers, and valued 
 Mr. Owen greatly in his own department, which was 
 social alone.* 
 
 The French social reformers, from Fourier to Comte, 
 have held the same treacherous tone with regard to 
 political freedom. Albert Brisbane, who published the 
 "Social Destiny of Man," himself a determined Fourierite, 
 announced on his title page : " Our evils are social not 
 political " — giving a clean bill of health to all the 
 knaves who by political machination diverted or 
 appropriated the resources of the people. " Our most 
 enlightened men," he contemptuously wrote, " are 
 seeking in paltry political measures and administrative 
 reforms for means of doing away with social misery." 
 Tamisier more wisely wrote when he said, "Political 
 
 * In his account of the Shakers in the Economist of June 2, 1821, Mr. 
 Owen said, " They never meddle with puhlio affairs — or even votiag at an 
 election," and described as " a few siagularities " this base abandonment 
 of the country to whomsoever might bestride it — to patriots who might 
 care for it, or knaves who might despoil it of honour or freedom, while 
 the unheeding Shakers took care of their conscience and comfort. 
 
94 HISTOEY OP CO-OPBRATION. 
 
 Suspicious sympathy of despotism. 
 
 order has alone been the object of study while the 
 industrial order has been neglected." Because social 
 life had been neglected for politics, it did not follow that 
 political life was to be neglected for social. This was 
 naerely reaction not common sense. 
 
 Another dangerous distich then popular with social 
 reformers was the well-known lines of Goldsmith : — 
 
 How small of all that htuuan hearts endure 
 That part which laws or kings can cause or cure. 
 
 Goldsmith knew nothing of political science. The cul- 
 tivated, generous-hearted, sentimental piper was great 
 in his way; but social and political progress, as we 
 understand it, was unknown in his time. He foresaw not 
 England made lean and hungry by com laws ; or Ireland 
 depopulated by iniquitous land laws; or France enervated 
 and cast into the dust by despotism and ignorance — by 
 political misrule ; but social reformers of Mr. Owen's 
 day had means of knowing better. It was not their 
 ignorance so much as their ardour that misled them. 
 The inspiration of a new and neglected subject was upon 
 them, and they thought it destined to absorb and super- 
 sede every other. The error cost them the confidence 
 of the best men of thought and action around them for 
 many years. 
 
 It may interest modern readers to see Mr. Owen's own 
 account of the way in which he sought to enlist the 
 sympathies of the Tories of his time with his schemes. 
 They were then as now, and as despotic rulers always 
 are, ready to occupy the people with social ideas, in the 
 hope that they will leave political affairs to them, who 
 themselves believe they better understand them. How 
 little the Conservatives of Mr. Owen's day were likely to 
 give effect to his views of sound education for the people, 
 irrespective of religious or political opinion, we of to-day 
 know very well. However, this is Mr. Owen's account 
 of his j)roposals and experience : — 
 
 " I have at different times attempted two decisive 
 
HIS APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE. 95 
 
 Overture to Conservatives. 
 
 measures for the general improvement of the population ; 
 and in the promotion of hoth I received great aid and 
 assistance from many members of the aristocracy. The 
 one was a good and liberal education for all the 
 poor, without exception on account of their religious 
 or political principles; and to be conducted under a 
 board of sixteen commissioners, to be chosen by parlia- 
 ment, eight to be of the Church of England and the 
 remainder from the other sects, in proportion to their 
 numbers, and the education to be useful and liberal. 
 Now this measure was supported, and greatly desired, 
 by the members of Lord Liverpool's administration ; and 
 considerable progress was made in the preliminary 
 measures previous to its being brought into parliament. 
 It was very generally supported by leading members of 
 the then aristocracy. It was opposed, however, and, 
 after some deliberation, stopped in its progress Ijy the 
 late Dr. Eandolph, Bishop of London, and by the late 
 Mr. Whitbread. But the late Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 and several other dignitaries of the church, were favour- 
 able to it. The declared opposition, however, of the 
 then Bishop of London and of Mr. Whitbread, who it 
 was expected would prevail upon his party to oppose 
 the measure, induced Lord Liverpool and his friends — 
 who, I believe, sincerely wished to give the people a 
 useful and liberal education — to defer the subject. to a 
 more favourable opportunity. 
 
 " The next measure was the prpposition to promote 
 the amelioration of the condition of the productive 
 classes by the adoption of superior arrangements to 
 instruct and employ them. I had several interviews 
 with Lord Liverpool, Mr. Canning, and other members 
 of the government, to explain to them the outlines of the 
 practical measures which I proposed. I found them 
 more willing to listen and to consider these subjects 
 than I could expect from the attention required in the 
 general business of their departments. They referred 
 
96 HISTORY OP CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 Co-operation accepted by Lord Sidmonth's GoTemment. 
 
 the examination of the more detailed measures to Lord 
 Sidmouth, the secretary of state for the home depart- 
 ment, and I had many interviews and communications 
 with him upon these subjects. 
 
 " From this intercourse with the government I became 
 satisfied that if they had possessed sufficient power 
 over public opinion they would have adopted efficient 
 measures to prevent the population from experiencing 
 the present poverty and misery ; but they were opposed 
 by the then powerful party of the political economists. 
 It is but justice to that administration for me now to 
 state how my proceedings with it terminated. 
 
 " The principles and practices which I have now so 
 long publicly advocated, but which are yet so little com- 
 prehended by the common mind, were submitted for 
 their consideration, and at their request they were at 
 first printed but not published. They were sent, by the 
 permission of the government, to all the governments of 
 Europe and America ; and upon examination by states- 
 men and learned men of the continent were found to 
 contain no evil, but simple facts and legitimate deduc- 
 tions. In one of my last interviews with Lord Sidmouth, 
 secretary of state for the home department, he said : — 
 ' Mr. Owen, I am authorised by the government to state 
 to you that we admit the principles you advocate to be 
 true, and that if they were fairly applied to practice they 
 would be most beneficial ; but we find the public do not 
 yet understand them, and they are therefore not prepared 
 to act upon them. When public opinion shall be 
 sufficiently enlightened to comprehend them and to act 
 upon them we shall be ready and willing to aclmowledge 
 their truth and to act in conformity with them. We 
 know we are acting upon erroneous principles ; but we 
 are compelled to do so from the force of public opinion, 
 which is BO strongly in favour of old-established political 
 institutions.' To a statement so candid I could only 
 reply, ' Then it becomes my duty to endeavour to 
 
HIS APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE. 97 
 
 Difficulties of political aUianoe with adversaries. 
 
 enlighten the people and to create a new public 
 opinion.' "* If Lord Sidmouth believed what he said, 
 in the sense in which Mr. Owen understood him, he 
 dexterously concealed, in all his public acts and speeches, 
 his convictions from the world. ' ' 
 
 It was happily no easy thing even for Mr. Owen to 
 win the confidence of the working-class politicians. 
 They honourably refused to barter freedom for comfort, 
 much as they needed an increase of physical benefits. 
 We had lately a curiously-devised Social and Conserva- 
 tive Confeder.iion, the work of Mr. Scott-Eussell, in 
 which the great leaders of the party always opposed to 
 political amelioration were to lead the working class to 
 the attainment of great social advantages, and put them 
 " out in the open " in some wonderful way. Several 
 well-known working-class leaders, some of whom did not 
 understand what political conviction implied, and others 
 who believed they could accept this advance without 
 political compromise, entered into it. There were others 
 who felt that it was futile to put their trust in political 
 adversaries to carry out their social schemes and then 
 vote against them at elections, and so deprive their 
 chosen friends of the power of serving them. Those 
 working men who were dissentients on this occasion 
 belonged to the old school of Eadical advocates of politi- 
 cal independence, and preferred the leanest liberty to 
 the fattest submission that could be held out to them. 
 Working men of this thorough cast of mind were suffi- 
 ciently numerous all over the country to cause the 
 Seott-Eussell scheme to fall through. Most of_ the 
 workmen who were allured by it were comparatively 
 young men who did not know that the same sort of 
 alliance had been canvassed by English politicians before 
 they were born and had been stoutly resisted. Mr. 
 Scott-Eussell was alike unknown to the working people 
 
 ' Britisli Co-operator." Page 154. 
 H 
 
98 HISTORY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 A remarkatle yisit to Newgate. 
 
 either as their friend or teacher. He had given no 
 fortune, incurred no sacrifices, spent no great portion oi 
 his life in serving them. Mr. Owen had done all these 
 things, and yet he failed to cancel their party preferences 
 and extinguish their political principles and self-respect. 
 Mr. Owen's early followers were looked upon with 
 shyness or distrust hy the Eadical party, although he 
 numbered among his active disciples many of the most 
 invincible adherents of that school ; but they saw in 
 Mr. Owen's views a means of realising social benefits in 
 which they though Eadicals were also interested, and 
 which they believed they could compass without forfeiting 
 their principles, and they stood up for both things. On 
 the other hand, Mr. Owen looked on Eadicals and Con- 
 servatives alike as instruments of realising his views, 
 and seems not to have regarded any opinion save his 
 own, and to have estimated Conservatism and Eadicalism 
 alike as pardonable eccentricities of the human mind. 
 He seems to have imagined that the principles of social 
 welfare would supersede all others, and he appealed to 
 both parties in parliament with the same confidence and 
 the same impartiality to place their names upon his 
 committee ; and remonstrated with one party or the 
 other just as he found it deficient in social enterprise. 
 He went one day with Mrs. Fry to see the prisoners in 
 Newgate. The boys were mustered at Mrs. Fry's request 
 for his inspection. Mr. Owen published in the news- 
 papers what he thought of the sight he beheld. He 
 exclaimed: "A collection of boys and youths, with 
 scarcely the appearance of human beings in their coun- 
 tenances ; the most evident sign that the government 
 to which they belong had not performed any part of its 
 duty towards them. For instance : there was one boy, 
 only sixteen years of age, double ironed ! Here a great 
 crime had been committed and a severe punishment is 
 inflicted, which under a system of proper training and 
 prevention would not have taken place." He then 
 
filS APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE. 99 
 
 Political opposition to Go-operation at the London Tavern. 
 
 apostrophised one whose name has never ceased to be 
 hateful to Eadical ears: "My Lord Sidmouth will 
 forgive me, for he knows I intend no personal offence. 
 His dispositions are known to be mild and amiable ; but 
 the chief civil magistrate of the country, in such case, is 
 far more guilty than the boy ; and ia strict justice, if a 
 system of coercion and punishment be rational and 
 necessary, he ought rather to have been double ironed 
 and ia the place of the juvenile prisoner." 
 
 When Mr. Owen applied personally to Lord Liverpool, 
 then prime minister, for permission to place his own 
 name with the leading names of the members of the 
 then opposition, to investigate his communistic plans, 
 Lord Liverpool answered : "Mr. Owen, you have liberty 
 to do so. You may make use of our names ia any way 
 you choose for the objects you have in view, short of 
 committing us as an administration." The next day 
 Mr. Owen held a public meeting to propose a committee 
 of leading members of both sides of the house. It was 
 as numerously and respectably attended as any perhaps 
 ever held within doors in London. " I proposed," Mr. 
 Owen has related, " that these important subjects should 
 be submitted for consideration to the leading members 
 of the administration and of the opposition; and for 
 several hours it was the evident wish of three-fourths of 
 the meeting that this question should be carried in the 
 affirmative. But as it was supposed by the Eadical 
 reformers of that day that I was acting for and with the 
 ministry they collected all their strength to oppose my 
 measures ; andfindiag they were greatly in the minority 
 they determined to prolong the meeting by opposing 
 speeches, until the patience of the friends of the measure 
 proposed should be worn out. Accordiagly, the late 
 Major Cartwright, Mr. Alderman Waithman, Mr. Hunt, 
 Mr. Hone, and others, spoke against time, until the 
 principal parties retired, and until my misguided oppo- 
 nents could briag up their numerous supporters among 
 
100 
 
 HISTOBY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 The Wonderful Committee of 1817. 
 
 the working classes, who were expected to arrive after 
 they had finished their daily occupations ; and at a late 
 hour ia the day the room became occupied by many of 
 the friends and supporters of those gentlemen who well 
 knew how to obtain their object at public meetings by 
 throwing it into confusion."* The wonderful committee 
 Mr. Owen proposed comprised aU the chief public men 
 of the day, who never had acted together on any ques- 
 tion, and unless the millennium had really arrived — of 
 which there was no evidence before the meeting — it was 
 not likely that they would. This was the resolution 
 submitted to the meeting : " That the following noble- 
 men and gentlemen be appointed on the committee, with 
 power to add to their number : — 
 
 The First Lord of the Treasury. 
 
 Mr. Rothschild and Mr. J. L. Gold- 
 
 The Lord Chancellor. 
 
 smid. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel, the Secretary of 
 
 Lord Althorp, 
 
 State for Domestic Affairs. 
 
 Mr. Brougham, 
 
 Sir George Murray. 
 
 Sir J. Graham. 
 
 Sir Henry Hardiage. 
 
 Sir Henry Pamell. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Bxcheqner. 
 
 Mr. Spring Rice. 
 
 The Attorney and Solicitor General. 
 
 Lord John Russell. 
 
 The Master of the Mint. 
 
 Sir John Newport. 
 
 The Secretary of War. 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh. 
 
 The President of the Board of Trade. 
 
 Mr, Denman. 
 
 The First Lord of the Admiralty. 
 
 Mr. Alexander Baring. 
 
 The Duke of Sussex. 
 
 Mr. Hume. 
 
 The Dnke of Richmond. 
 
 Mr. O'ConneU. 
 
 The Earl of Wmohelsea. 
 
 Mr. Charles Grant. 
 
 The Earl of TTarewood. 
 
 Mr. WUmot Horton. 
 
 The Marquis of Lansdowne. 
 
 Mr. Huskisson. 
 
 Lords Gmsvenor and Holland. 
 
 Lord Palmerston. 
 
 Lord Eldon. 
 
 Mr. J. Smith. 
 
 Lord Sidmouth. 
 
 Lord Nugent. 
 
 Lord Radnor. 
 
 The Hon. G. Stanley. 
 
 Lord Camarron. 
 
 Lord Milton. 
 
 The Archbishops of Canterbury and 
 
 Sir R. Inglish. 
 
 York. 
 
 Sir Francis Burdett. 
 
 The Bishops of London and Peter- 
 
 Mr. William Smith. 
 
 borough. 
 
 Mr. Warburton. 
 
 Deans of Westminster and York. 
 
 Mr. Hobhouse. 
 
 Cardinal Wild and Dr. Croly. 
 
 Dr. Birkbeok. 
 
 William Allen and Joseph Foster. 
 
 Mr. Owen." 
 
 " British So-operator." Page 152. 
 
H13 APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE. 101 
 
 The needlessnesB of opposition to it. 
 
 There was this merit belonging to the proposal, that 
 such an amazing committee was never thought possible 
 by any other human being than Mr. Owen. Even com- 
 mon people of the slightest sense must have considered 
 him a pohtical lunatic. Ministers were to forsake the 
 cabinet councils, prelates the church, judges the courts ; 
 the business of army, navy, and parliament was to be 
 suspended, while men who did not know each other, and 
 who not only had no principles in common but did not 
 want to have, sat down with heretics, revolutionists, and 
 Quakers, to confer as to the adoption of a system by 
 which they were all to be superseded. It was quite 
 unpardonable in Major Cartwright and Alderman Waith- 
 man to oppose the mad motion. The meeting of such a 
 committee would have been the most wondrous and 
 entertaining affair of their time. 
 
 Though Mr. Owen seldom succeeded he was never 
 diverted, and he went on with his appeal to the people, 
 as the reader will see in many facts to be recounted. 
 Despite his alleged heresy and political indifference he 
 was, as the great Corn Law Ehymer's address to him 
 proved, well regarded by the people. Mr. Owen had the 
 distinction of being the only gentleman of his time who 
 had earned great riches with his own hands, and yet 
 spent his wealth without stint in the service of the 
 people ; and it is amusing to see that reverence with 
 which the sons of equality regarded him because he was 
 rich. His name was printed in aU the publications with 
 aU the distinction of italics and capitals as the Great 
 Philanthropist Owen; and there are disciples of his 
 still living who regard the present greatness of Co-opera- 
 tion as a tame and timid device, as a mere lingering 
 introduction to the system of the great master whom 
 they still cite as a sort of sacred name. It was 
 a very subdued way of speaking of him to find him 
 described as the " Benevolent Founder of our Social 
 Views." 
 
102 HISTOKY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Propagandist activity. 
 
 Long years after he had " retired from public life " 
 his activity far exceeded that of most people who were 
 in it, as a few dates of Mr. Owen's movements will show. 
 On July 10, 1838, he left London for Wisbeach. On 
 the three next nights he lectured in Lynn, the two fol- 
 lowing nights in Peterborough. On the next day at 
 Wisbeach again. The next night he was again in 
 Peterborough, where, after a late discussion, he left at 
 midnight with Mr. James Hill, the editor of the Star in 
 the East, in an open carriage, which did not arrive at 
 Wisbeach till half-past two. He was up before five 
 o'clock the same morning, left before six for Lynn, to 
 catch the coach for Norwich at eight. After seeing 
 deputations from Yarmouth he lectured in St. Andrew's 
 Hall at night and the following night, and lectured five 
 nights more in succession at March, Wisbeach, and 
 Boston. It was his activity and his ready expenditure 
 which gave ascendency to the social agitation, both in 
 England and America also to a great extent, from 1820 
 to 1844. 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PERIOD. 103 
 
 The Dutch Co-operators. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE ENTHUSIASTIC PEEIOD, 1820-1830. 
 
 Then felt I like some watcher of the skies, 
 When a new planet swims into his ken ; 
 Or like stent Cortez, when with eagle eyes 
 He stared on the Pacific ; and his men 
 Look'd at each other with a wild surmise, 
 Silent upon a peak in Darien. — Keats, 
 
 ""The enchanted wonder which Keats describes in this 
 famed sonnet, on first finding in Chapman's Homer the 
 vigorous Greek texture of the great bard, was akin to 
 that " wild surmise" with which the despairing sons of 
 industry first gazed on that new world of Co-operation 
 then made clear to their view. 
 
 To the social reformers of fifty years ago the world 
 itself seemed moving in the direction of social colonies. 
 Not only was America under weigh for the millennium of 
 co-operative life — even prosaic, calculating, utilitarian 
 Scotland was setting sail. France had put out to sea 
 years before under Commander Fourier; though it is 
 true nobody well knew what port of Passional Attraction 
 he was bound for. A letter arrived from Brussels, 
 bearing date October 2nd, 1825, addressed to the 
 "Gentlemen of the London Co-operative Society," telling 
 them that the Permanent Committee of the Society of 
 Beneficence had colonial establishments at Wortzel and 
 at Murxplus Ryokewvorsel, in the province of Antwerp, 
 where 725 farm houses were already built ; that 76 were 
 inhabited by free colonists ; and that they had a contract 
 with the government for the suppression of mendicants, 
 
104 HISTOEY OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 The project of the Exeter Comnmnity. 
 
 and had already 455 of those interesting creatures 
 collected from the various regions of beggardom in a 
 depot, where 1,000 could be accommodated. No wonder 
 there was exultation in Bed Lion Square when the 
 squab-built, slow-moving, dreamy-eyed, much-smoking 
 Dutch were spreading their old-fashioned canvas in 
 search of the new world. From 1820 to 1830 Co- 
 operation and communities were regarded by the 
 thinking classes, high and low, who turned their atten- 
 tion to social questions as a religion of industry. Com- 
 munities, the form which the religion of industry was to 
 take, were from 1825 to 1830 as common and almost 
 as frequently announced as joint-stock companies now 
 are. In 1826, AprU brought news that proposals were 
 issued for establishing a community near Exeter — to be 
 called the Devon and Exeter Co-operative Society. 
 Gentlemen of good family and local repute, such as 
 could not now be got in England to look at a commimity 
 project through one of Lord Eosse's long range telescopes, 
 gave open aid to the proposal. Two public meetings 
 were held in Exeter in May, at the Swan Tavern. The 
 Hon. Lionel Dawson presided on both occasions. Such 
 was the enthusiasm about the new system that more 
 than four hundred persons were willing to come forward 
 with sums of £5 to £10; one hundred others were 
 prepared to take shares at £25 each ; and two or three 
 promised aid to the extent of £2,000. Meetings in 
 favour of this project were held at Tiverton, and in the 
 Mansion House, Bridgewater. The zeal was real and 
 did not delay. In July the promoters bought 37 acres 
 of land within seven miles of Exeter. A gardener, a 
 carpenter, a quarrier (there being a stone quarry on the 
 estate), a drainer, a well-sinker, a clay temperer, and 
 a moulder were at once set to work. 
 
 The Metropolitan Co-operative Society, not to be 
 behind when the provinces were going forward, put forth 
 a plan for establishing a community within fifty miles 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PERIOD. 105 
 
 Lord Cloncurry'8 testimony. 
 
 of London. Shares were taken up and £4,000 subscribed 
 also in 1826. There was a wise fear of prematurity of 
 proceeding shown, and there was also an infatuation of 
 confidence exhibited in many ways. However, the 
 society soberly put out an advertisement to landholders, 
 saying, "Wanted to rent, with a view to purchase, or on 
 a long lease, from 500 to 2,000 acres of good land, in 
 one or several contiguous farms ; the distance from 
 London not material if the offer is eligible." Information 
 was to be sent to Mr. J. Corss, Eed Lion Square. Four 
 years earlier Scotland, a country not at all prone to 
 Utopian projects not likely to pay, entertained the idea 
 of community before Orbiston was named. The Econo- 
 mist announced that the subscriptions for the formation 
 of one of the new villages at Motherwell, though the 
 public had not been appealed to, amounted to £20,000.* 
 It may be that the events of this period will be more 
 intelligible related in their chronological order. 
 
 Eighteen hundred and twenty-six was a famous 
 year for communistic projects. A Dublin Co-operative 
 Society was formed on the 28th February, at a meeting 
 held at the Freemasons' Tavern, Dawson-street, Dublin. 
 Captain O'Brien, E.N., occupied the chair. Though 
 society was fifty years nearer the French Eevolution 
 than it is now, public men were not so afraid as they 
 are at present of social ideas of continental repute. 
 Better regarded, more ambitious, and self-confident 
 than any co-operative society in these days, the 
 Dublin Co-operative Society invited Lord Cloncurry 
 to dine with them. His lordship regretted he was 
 unable to do so owing to a previous engagement, and 
 wrote to say that he was more fully convinced than he 
 was four years ago of the great advantage it would be 
 to Ireland to establish co-operative villages on Mr. 
 Owen's plan, and spoke of Mr. Owen in curious terms 
 
 Economist. No. 27, July, 1821 
 
106 HISTOEY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Social Pamphleteers in 1819. 
 
 as the "benevolent and highly-respectable Owen." This 
 was nine years after Mr. Owen had astounded mankind 
 by his famous London declaration "against all the 
 religions of the world."* 
 
 The chief events of this period which concern the 
 reader took place pretty much as follow in the order of 
 time. 
 
 Two years before the Economist appeared, as the first 
 serial advocate of Co-operation, pamphleteers were in 
 the field on behalf of social improvement. Mr. Owen 
 certainly had the distinction of inspiring many writers. 
 One " Philanthropos" published in 1819 a powerful 
 pamphlet on the " Practicability of Mr. Owen's plan to 
 improve the condition of the lower classes." It was 
 inscribed to William Wilberforce (father of the late 
 Bishop of Winchester), whom the writer considered to be 
 " intimately associated with every subject involving the 
 welfare of mankind," and one who "regarded political 
 measures abstractedly from the individuals with whom 
 they originated." Mr. Wilberforce, he said, had shown 
 that "Christianity steps beyond the narrow bound of 
 national advantage in quest of universal good, and does 
 not prompt us to love our country at the expense of our 
 integrity."t 
 
 The Economist, mentioned before in Chapter V., was 
 concluded in January, 1822. It was of the small 
 magazine size, and was the neatest and most business- 
 looking journal issued in connection with Co-operation 
 for many years. After the 32nd number the quality 
 and taste of the printing fell off. Some irregularity 
 in its issue occurred. Mr. Owen was frequently abroad, 
 and its coriductor appears to have been unequal to 
 his duties. He explained in the 51st number that 
 its printing had been put into the hands of the Co-ope- 
 rative and Economical Society, which was then in 
 
 * Go-operative Magazine, 1826, p. 147. 
 t These were Bishop Watson's own words, adopted hy " Philanthropos." 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PEEIOD. 107 
 
 The Printers of the Economist, 
 
 successful action, "and that it would continue to be 
 regularly executed by them in a more correct man- 
 ner than some of the late numbers." With the 
 52nd number the Economist was discontinued, without 
 any explanation being given. It was bound in two 
 volumes, and sold at 7s. each in boards. Many numbers 
 purported to be " published every Saturday morning, by 
 Mr. Wright, bookseller. No. 46, Fleet-street, London, 
 where the trade and newsmen may be supplied, and 
 where orders, communications to the editor, post paid, 
 are respectfully requested to be addressed." Early 
 numbers bore the name of G. Auld, Greville-street. 
 With No. 22 the names appear of J. and C. Adlard, 
 Bartholomew Close. With No. 32 the imprint is "G. 
 Mudie, printer" — no address. This was the period of the 
 bad printing. After No. 51 the intimation is "Printed 
 at the Central House of the Co-operative and Economical 
 Society, No. 1, Guilford- street East, Spafields." The 
 co-operative printers give their address boldly; as I 
 hope they will always be able to do. 
 
 Mr. Pare, who was at his death in 1873 the oldest and 
 best informed co-operator in England, and whom I had 
 opportunity of consulting, told me in 1872, in answer 
 to my inquiry, that he did not know who was the editor 
 of the Economist. Mr. Francis Place, who not only 
 knew more than any other man of his time of working- 
 class literature, but made notes of what he knew, wrote 
 on his copy of the Economist, which lies before me, the 
 name of " Eobert Owen." Mr. Place bound his books 
 with his own hands in boards with white parchment 
 backs, on which he wrote the names of the authors and 
 the leading contents of the volume. The Economist 
 stood on Mr. Pliace's library shelves for more than thirty 
 years, obvious to all visitors, and Mr. Owen must often 
 have seen it ; and would, judging from his candid habit, 
 have mentioned the error to Mr. Place, had it been one. 
 Twelve years later, when the Gazette of the Exchange 
 
108 HISTOEY OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Its Editorship. 
 
 Bazaars was started, a fly-leaf was issued, which Mr. 
 Place also preserved, bearing a rude diagram of the 
 classes into which society was divided, the privileged and 
 petty portion converging round the throne ; a favourite 
 device of Mr. Owen's, which he afterwards reproduced 
 with many elaborations ; it stated, " This work will be 
 conducted by the individual who founded the first of 
 the co-operative societies in London, 1820, and who 
 edited the Economist, in 1821-22, the Political Economist 
 and Universal Philanthropist, in 1823, the Advocate of 
 the Working Classes, in 1826-27 ; and who has besides 
 lectured upon the principles to be discussed in the forth- 
 coming publication fThe Exchange Bazaars Gazetted, in 
 various parts of Great Britain. He enters on his 
 undertaking, therefore, after having been prepared for 
 his task by previous and long-continued researches." 
 This writing, lecturing, and travelling would be equally 
 descriptive of Mr. Owen; and if the narrator was not he, 
 he was one who had caught his grand style. As Mr. 
 Owen, though the cause of co-operative societies arising, 
 never thought much of them, regarding grocers' shops 
 as ignominious substitutes for the reconstruction of the 
 world — ^this writer whose name never directly transpired, 
 and who was a man of education, was possibly the editor 
 of the Economist, but Mr. Owen was the controlling 
 mind and chief writer and inspirer of its contents, 
 warranting Mr. Place in putting his name upon it. 
 
 The dedication of the Economist was made to those 
 persons precisely whom Mr. Owen had been associated 
 with. It was thus expressed : — 
 
 " To Mr. John Maxwell, Lord Archibald Hamilton, 
 Sir WiUiam de Crespigny, Bart., Mr. Dawson, Mr. 
 Henry Brougham, Mr. H. Gurney, and Mr. William 
 Smith, the philanthropic members of the House of Com- 
 mons, who, on the motion of Mr. Maxwell, on the 26th 
 of June, 1821, for an addi-ess to the throne, praying 
 that a commission might be appointed to investigate 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PEBIOD. 109 
 
 Writings of Mr. William Thompson. 
 
 Mr. Owen's system, had the courage and consistency, 
 under the sole influence of benevolent principles, to 
 advocate a system so generally derided by ignorance 
 and prejudice, this volume, a humble but sincere 
 endeavour to serve the same great and good cause, is 
 inscribed, in testimony of heartfelt respect and grati- 
 tude for their enlightened and humane conduct, by 
 The Economist." 
 
 It was a prophetic felicity that the very first periodical, 
 an organ of co-operative societies, should bear the title 
 of Economist — economy being the first recognised feature 
 of Co-operation, its greatest commercial recommenda- 
 tion, and the one most likely to commend it to a practical 
 people like the English — and the most prominent feature 
 of the system in which co-operators have, as a body, 
 always agreed upon and about. 
 
 The earliest name of literary note connected with 
 Co-operation was that of Mr. William Thompson. He 
 was an abler man than John Gray. Though an Irish- 
 man, he was singularly dispassionate. He possessed 
 fortune and studious habits. He resided some years 
 with Jeremy Bentham, and the methodical arrangement 
 of his chief work, the " Distribution of "Wealth," betrays 
 Bentham's literary influence. This work was written in 
 1822. In 1825 he published "An Appeal of one-half 
 the human race — Women — against the pretensions of the 
 other half — Men." It was a reply to James MiU — to a 
 paragraph in his famous "Article on Government." 
 Mr. Thompson issued, in 1827, " Labour Eewarded," in 
 which he explained the possibility of conciliating ihe 
 claims of labour and capital and securing to workmen 
 the " whole products of their exertions." This last work 
 showed the growth of practical judgment for which 
 he was distinguished; it consisted of business-like 
 " Directions for the Establishment of Co-operative Com- 
 munities." These " directions " were accompanied by 
 elaborate plans and tables, and was really a most 
 
110 SISTOE'J OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 ffis " Distribution of Wealth." 
 
 exhaustiYe work. A moderate number of pioneers might, 
 with that book in their hand, found a colony or begin a 
 new world. He consulted personally Eobert Owen, Mr. 
 Hamilton (whom he speaks of as an authority), Andrew 
 Combe, and others who had had experience in commu- 
 nity making. Jeremy Bentham's wonderful constitutions, 
 which he was accustomed to furnish to foreign states, 
 were evidently in the mind of his disciple, Mr. Thompson, 
 when he compiled this closely-printed octavo volume of 
 nearly three hundred pages. He placed on his title page 
 a motto from Le Producteur : " The age of Gold, Happi- 
 ness, which a blind credulity has placed in times past is 
 before us." His elaborateness in his "Distribution of 
 Wealth" was out of place. The world did not want an 
 argument in favour of distribution through the medium 
 of communities, it wanted to see the thing done. It did 
 not desire, like Diogenes, to have motion proved, it 
 wanted to see something set going, but in practical 
 directions for forming communities exhaustive instruc- 
 tions were precisely the things needed. Where every step 
 was new and every combination unknown, Thompson 
 wrote a book like a steam engine, marvellous in the 
 scientific adjustments of its parts. Where the object 
 was conviction this did very well ; but where men were 
 unwHling to read at all some elements of human interest 
 were indispensable. Mr. Thompson's " Distribution of 
 Wealth " is the best exposition to which reference can 
 be made of the pacific and practical nature of English 
 communism. He was a solid but far from a lively 
 writer. It requires a sense of duty to read through 
 his book — curiosity is not sufficient. Political econo- 
 mists in Thompson's day held, as Mr. Senior has 
 expressed it, that " It is not with happiness but with 
 wealth that I am concerned as a political economist." 
 Thompson's idea was " to enquire into the principles of 
 the distribution of wealth most conducive to hvman hap- 
 piness." His life was an answer to those who hold that 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PEEIOD. Ill 
 
 The Three Combes. 
 
 socialism implies sensualism. For the last twenty years 
 of his life he neither partook of animal food nor intoxi- 
 cating drinks, because he could better pursue his literary 
 labours without them. He left his body for dissection — 
 a bold thing to do in his time — a useful thing to do in 
 order to break somewhat through the prejudices of the 
 ignorant against dissection for surgical ends. Com- 
 pliance with his wish nearly led to a riot among the 
 peasantry of the neighbourhood of Glonnkeen, Eosscar- 
 bery, County of Cork, where he died. 
 
 Another early and memorable name in co-operative 
 history is that of Abram Combe. It is very rarely that 
 a person of any other nationality dominates the mind of 
 a Scotchman : but Mr. Owen, though a Welshman, did 
 this by Abram Combe, who, in 1823, published a small 
 book named " Old and New Systems " — a work excelling 
 in capital letters. This was one of Mr. Combe's earliest 
 but not happiest statements of his master'sviews, which 
 he reproduced with the fidelity which Dumont showed 
 to Bentham, but with less ability. There were three 
 Combes — George, Abram, and Andrew. All were 
 distinguished in their way, but George the most so, 
 and became the best known. George Combe was the 
 phrenologist who made a reputation by writing the 
 " Constitution of Man," though he had borrowed without 
 acknowledgment the conception from Gall and Spur- 
 zheim, especially Spurzheim, who had published an 
 original little book on the " Laws of Human Nature ; " 
 but to George Combe belonged the merit which belonged 
 to Archdeacon Paley with respect to the argument from 
 design. Combe restated, animated, and enlarged into 
 an impressive volume what before was fragmentary, 
 slender, suggestive, but without the luminous force of 
 illustrative facts and practical applications which Combe 
 supplied. The second brother, Dr. Andrew Combe, had 
 all the talent of the family for exposition, and his works 
 upon physiology were the first in interest and popularity 
 
112 HISTORY OF CO-OPBEATION. 
 
 Eotert Dale Owen's First Work. 
 
 of their time; but Abram had more sentiment than 
 both the others put together, and ultimately sacrificed 
 himself as well as his fortune in endeavours to realise 
 the new social views in practice. 
 
 In 1824 Eobert Dale Owen (Mr. Owen's eldest son) 
 appeared as an author for the first time. His book was 
 entitled "An Outline of the System of Education at 
 New Lanark." It was published by Longman & Co., 
 London, written at New Lanark, 1823. It was dedicated 
 to his father. The author, who is still living, must 
 have been a young man fifty years ago.* Yet his book 
 shows completeness of thought and that clear and grace- 
 ful expression by which, beyond all co-operative writers, 
 Eobert Dale Owen was subsequently distinguished. His 
 outline is better worth printing now than many books 
 on New Lanark which have appeared, it gives so inte- 
 resting a description of the construction of the schools, 
 the methods and principles of tuition pursued. The 
 subjects taught to the elder classes were the earth (its 
 animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms), astronomy, 
 geography, mathematics, zoology, botany, mineralogy, 
 agriculture, manufactures, architecture, drawing, music, 
 chemistry, and ancient and modern history. The httle 
 children were occupied with elementary education, mili- 
 tary drill, and dancing, at which Mr. Owen's Quaker 
 partners were much discomforted. The schoolrooms 
 were picture galleries and museums. Learning ceased 
 to be a task and a terror and became a wonder and 
 delight. When the reader thinks of the beggarly educa- 
 tion given by this wealthy English nation, under its 
 school boards, and the miserable conditions by which it 
 is accompanied, he will feel admiration of the princely 
 miud of Eobert Owen, who gave to the children of 
 weavers this magnificent scheme of instruction. No 
 manufacturer has arisen in England so great as he. 
 
 * His " Autobiography," since published, states that his age was 
 twenty-two, and that this was his first work. 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PERIOD, 113 
 
 The London Co-operative Society. 
 
 The London Co-operative Society was formally com- 
 menced in October, 1824. It occupied rooms in Burton- 
 street, Burton Crescent. This quiet, and at that time 
 pleasant and suburban, street was quite a nursery 
 ground of new-world principles. Then, as now, it had 
 no carriage way at either end. In the house at the 
 Tavistock Place corner lived for many years James 
 Pierrepoint Greaves, the famous mystic who afterwards 
 troubled the co-operative mind greatly. As secluded 
 Burton-street was too much out of the way for the conve- 
 nience of large assemblages, the discussions commenced 
 by the society there were transferred to the Crown and 
 EoUs Booms, in Chancery Lane. Here overflowing 
 audiences met — political economists seem to have been 
 the principal opponents ; and however wild their adver- 
 saries may have seemed certainly the political economists 
 were wilder, for their chief argument against the new 
 system was the Malthusian doctrine against "the 
 tendency of population to press against the means of 
 subsistence," which, whether true or not, had nothing 
 to do with the co-operative system, since excess of popu- 
 lation could be more easily regulated when society was 
 a science than when it was a chaos. 
 
 In the month of April, 1825, the London Co-operative 
 Society hired a first-floor in Picket-street, Temple Bar, 
 for the private meetings of members, who were much 
 increasing at that time. In November of the same year, 
 1825, the society took the house No. 36, Bed Lion 
 Square. Mr. J. Corss was the secretary. The London 
 Co-operative Society held weekly debates, but generally 
 upon subjects that had small relation to any practical 
 business. One constant topic was the position taken by 
 Mr. Owen— that man is not properly the subject of 
 praise or blame, reward or punishment. It also con- 
 ducted bazaars for the sale of goods manufactured by 
 the provincial societies. The announcement of their 
 sales was not always made with judgment. Thinking only 
 
114 HISTOEY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 The Americaji New Harmony Gazette. 
 
 of themselves the managers of the co-operative bazaar 
 thought little of local honour or tra;de pride, and spoke 
 of goods sent up by the first Birmingham co-operative 
 society as "Brummagem ware;" and this they put in 
 the report of the fourth quarterly meeting of the 
 British Association for the Promotion of Co-operative 
 Knowledge. If the ware was not good Birmingham 
 workmanship the co-operators there were discreditable 
 for producing it, and the bazaar committee were wanting 
 in judgment in accepting it for sale. 
 
 At New Harmony, Indiana, David Dale Owen, writing 
 to his father, related that they had debates there, and 
 Mary and Jane, daughters or daughters-in-law of Mr. 
 Owen, both addressed the meetings on several occasions. 
 After all the discourses or lectures opportunity of discus- 
 sion and questioning was uniformly and ever3nvhere 
 afforded; a right but dangerous practice — as right 
 things generally are when first attempted. 
 
 There was a " Newgate Monthly Magazine, or Calen- 
 dar of Men, Things, and Opinions" published in 1825; 
 price Is. The title suggested a Newgate Calendar — of 
 scoundrels, which was also published ; but Liberals 
 never hesitate to adopt an unhappy name for then- 
 publications. This " Magazine " objected to Mr. Owen's 
 system, because, in Byron's words, 
 
 It breeds more months than it nonrishes. 
 
 The second serial journal representing Co-operation 
 appeared in America, though its inspiration was English. 
 It was the Netv Harmony Gazette. There was a dash of 
 sentimentality in the motto of this Gazette set up to 
 represent and record proceedings there. It was : "If 
 we cannot reconcile aU opinions let us endeavour to 
 unite all hearts" — an absurd undertaking, in no sense 
 possible until some one has found out how to reconcile 
 all interests. This endeavour of reconciling interests 
 did lie a little in the co-operative way ; and while they 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PERIOD. 115 
 
 Eeoommencement of Co-operative periodicals in England. 
 
 had this work on hand they really had no time for 
 attempting the other thing. Divided interests are 
 always producing divided hearts. 
 
 The recommencement of the people's co-operative 
 publication in England took place in 1826. The first 
 was entitled the " Co-operative Magazine and Monthly 
 Herald," and appeared in January. It was "printed 
 by Whiting and Branston, Beaufort House, Strand," 
 and "published by Knight and Lacey, Watt's Head, 
 Paternoster Eow." It purported to be " sold by J. 
 Templeman, 39, Tottenham Court Eoad; and also at 
 the office of the London Co-operative Society, 36, Bed 
 Lion Square." The second number of this magazine 
 was published by Hunt and Clarke, Tavistock-street. 
 A change in the publisher occurred very early, and 
 additional agents were announced as J. Sutherland, 
 Calton-street, Edinburgh ; E. Griffin & Co., Hutchinson- 
 street, Glasgow ; J. Bolstead, Cork ; and A. M. Graham, 
 College Green, Dublin. The third number announced a 
 change in the Cork publisher ; J. Loftus, of 107, Patrick- 
 street, succeeded Mr. Bolstead, and a new store, the 
 "Orbiston Store," was for the first time named.* The 
 co-operative writers of this magazine were not wanting 
 in candour even at their own expense. Mr. Charles 
 Clark relates that while one of the New Harmony philo- 
 sophers was explaining to a stranger the beauties of a 
 system which dispensed with rewards and punishments, 
 he observed a boy who approved of the system busily 
 helping himself to the finest plums in his garden. 
 
 * I preserve the names and addresses of the earlier societies' printers 
 and publishers. It is always interesting to know the places where historic 
 movements first commenced and the persons by whose aid, or enthusiasm, 
 or courage the first publicity was given to them. It would tire the reader 
 to recount all persons and places concerned, but would surprise him to 
 find that every part of London has been dotted with shops where they 
 were printed and sold, with cofiee shops where they were discussed, and 
 with printing ofiices where the struggling publications were carried to be 
 printed when one house after another had declined to print any more. 
 
116 EISTOKY OP CO-OPEKATION. 
 
 Extraordinary plan of marriage by lottery. 
 
 Forgetting his argument, he seized the nearest stick at 
 hand and castigated the young thief in a very instruc- 
 tive manner.* 
 
 The worthy editor of the "Co-operative Magazine" 
 did not know at all when he was beiQg hoaxed, or his 
 principles quizzed. In his first number he gravely 
 reviews a grand plan of one James Hamilton, for render- 
 ing " Owenism Consistent with our Civil and Eeligious 
 Institutions." His proposal is to begin the new world 
 with one hundred tailors, who are to be unmarried and 
 all of them handsome of person. Hamilton, who was 
 either mad or a satirical knave, had a splendid burlesque 
 of Mr. Owen's mechanical system of society. Anticipat- 
 ing by many years the political expedient of this time, 
 Mr. Hamilton proposed to marry all the handsome tailors 
 by ballot. His plan was to advertise that he was ready 
 to receive five hundred girls from sixteen to twenty years 
 of age ; as the Mormons' prophet had not then appeared, 
 why he wanted five hundred young women to match 
 the hundred tailors is not made clear. These five 
 hundred girls were to be virtuous and beautiful, and 
 not under five feet one inch in height. After they 
 had undergone a course of education under the direc- 
 tion of Mr. Hamilton and the females of his family 
 and assistants who are not otherwise described, they 
 were to be assembled in a great haU serving for a church, 
 where they were to stand on one side veiled in uniform 
 dresses. On the other side the handsome tailors, stature 
 not given, paraded in the costume of HamUtonian 
 invention. + After sermon and prayer the head partner 
 and minister, assisted by foremen of all the committees, 
 were to put the written names of the men in one box 
 
 * Private Letter from New Harmony, 1825. " Co-operative MaRazine." 
 Vol. I., No. I., p. 50. 1826. 
 
 t This eccentric caricaturist had evidently been borrowing what ha 
 could from " Plato's Republic," except that Plato does not particularise 
 tailors as the foundation of his model state. 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PEEIOD. 117 
 
 Munificenae of Mr. Hamilton, of Dalzell. 
 
 and those of the girls in another. The head partner 
 was then to mix the male names and the minister the 
 female names, and each to draw one out and proclaim 
 it aloud. The minister was immediately to draw out 
 the name of a girl from his box ; the interesting couple 
 were then to receive these unpremeditated tickets of 
 marriage and be requested to consider themselves united 
 by decision of heaven. They then walk out on to a lawn 
 to consult together, and if content with their lottery 
 lovers the perplexing business of marriage was over. If 
 they were not content they returned their tickets to the 
 boxes and drew their connubial fortunes again. If any 
 remained unmated the Hamiltonian society kindly gave 
 them another chance at a future day. By this econo- 
 mical arrangement young couples were saved all the 
 anxiety of selection, loss of time in wooing, the suspense 
 of soliciting the approval of parents or guardians ; and 
 the distraction of courtship, sighs, tears, smiles, doubts, 
 fears, jealousies, expectations, disappointments, hope and 
 despair were all avoided by this compendious arrange- 
 ment. How any editor, not himself an out-patient 
 of a lunatic asylum, could have occupied pages of the 
 " Co-operative Magazine " by giving publication to such 
 a derisive scheme it is idle to conjecturci The reason 
 probably was that the Mr. Hamilton was he of Dalzell, 
 who joined Mr. Abram Combe in the purchase of Orbiston 
 for £20,000, and who offered to let lands at Mptherwell 
 for a community, and to guarantee the repayment of 
 £40,000 to be expended on the erection of the buildings. 
 Of course such a person had a right to be heard, but the 
 editor was not bound to go mad with admiration. In 
 his place he had to represent the reputation and common 
 sense of the party. 
 
 Apart from the eccentric views which we have re- 
 counted (if indeed they were his) Mr. Hamilton was 
 distinguished for the great interest he took in co-opera- 
 tive progress and the munificence by which he assisted 
 
118 HISTORY OP CO-OPBEATION. 
 
 The Commnnity'of Motherwell. 
 
 it. In the projected community of Motherwell he was 
 joined by several eminent men, who had reason to 
 believe that a large and well-supported co-operative 
 colony might be made remunerative, beside affording to 
 the government of the day a practical example of what 
 might be done. Several gentlemen in England sub- 
 scribed many thousands each in furtherance of this 
 project. Mr. Morrison, of the well-known firm of Mor- 
 rison and Dillon, was one of those who put down his 
 name for £5,000. When his son — Mr. Walter Morrison, 
 the late member for Plymouth — was accused in the 
 interest of shopkeepers among his constituents of aiding 
 and abetting Co-operation, he said that he had only 
 trodden in the footsteps of his father before him. 
 But, reading a " Life of Owen," he found that he had 
 at one time subscribed £5,000 towards some great 
 co-operative project in his day, and his father's interests 
 they knew were bound up with shopkeepers, whom he 
 did not believe could be imperilled by promoting mea- 
 sures which must advance the general welfare. 
 
 The " Co-operative Magazine " of 1826, was adorned 
 by an engraving of Mr. Owen's quadrilateral commu- 
 nity out there. The scenery around it was mountainous- 
 and tropical. The said scenery in the imaginative pic- 
 ture was intended to represent Indiana, where Mr. Owen 
 had bought land — ^the community land in question — 
 with a view to introduce the new world in America. 
 Mr. A. Brisbane prefixes to his translation of Fourier's 
 " Destiny of Man " the Fourier conception of a phalans- 
 tere. Mr. Owen's design of a community greatly excelled 
 the phalanstere in completeness and beauty. Mr. A. 
 Combe exhibited designs of his Scotch community at 
 Orbiston, but Mr. Owen had the most luxuriant imagina- 
 tion this way. Artists who came near him to execute 
 commissions soon discovered that the materialist philo- 
 sopher, as they imagined him, had no mean taste for 
 the ideal. 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PBEIOd; 119 
 
 Curiosities of early Co-operative poetry. 
 
 It would fare ill -with Co-operation if judged alone by 
 • its poetry. One of its earliest efforts is quoted in this 
 magazine from the New Haimony Gazette. The poet 
 breaks out : — 
 
 Ah ! soon will come that glorious day, 
 
 Inserib'd on Mercy's brow, 
 When Truth shall rend the veil away 
 
 That blinds the nations now. 
 
 When Earth no more in anxious fear 
 
 And misery shall sigh; 
 But pain shall cease, and every tear 
 
 Be wip'd from every eye. 
 
 The race of man shall wisdom learn, 
 
 And Error cease to reign : 
 The charms of innocence return, 
 
 And all be. new again. 
 
 The fount of life shall then be quaff'd 
 
 In peace by all that come ; 
 And every wind that blows shall waft 
 
 Some wandering mortal home. 
 
 We have no intimation how the poet came to know 
 that the veil-rending day was soon coming. "Mercy" 
 has had the inscription so badly done upon lier brow 
 that nobody has been able to read the date. In the 
 second verse the poet supposes that there are " tears in 
 every eye." Things are not so bad as that. There are 
 a great number of people who have managed to do the 
 wiping for themselves, and are now employed in bringing 
 tears into the eyes of others with, evidently, profit and 
 satisfaction to tl^emselves. In the third verse the poet 
 expects a grand renovation in public affairs, when " all 
 is to be new again ;" he does not, however, tell us when 
 the " charms of innocence are to return," seeing that 
 the world in these parts has progressed from the hungry 
 stage, and there is very little innocence where there is 
 nothing to eat. But the poet is more satisfactory in the 
 last verse. He reserv-es all his strength to put it forth 
 there The very "fount itself of life is to be quaff'd," 
 
120 HiaioRY or co-opeeation. 
 
 Wild sympathy. 
 
 and all the members of the community at large are 
 to go to heaven at irregular times by meteorological 
 arrangement. 
 
 The co-operators very early opened their pages to 
 protest against principles, and, with the imbecility of 
 impartiality paid for the printing and publishing of libels 
 against themselves which not only defiled their pages but 
 were outrages upon self-respecting adherents. Lamarck's 
 theory of the "Origin of Species" was introduced into 
 the August number of the " Co-operative Magazine " — a 
 harmless subject certainly, but one that was theologically 
 mischievous for forty years after that time. " Scriptm-e 
 Politics" was another topic with which co-operators 
 afflicted themselves. They could say nothing upon that 
 subject which was not likely to bring them to grief. In 
 the September number " Phrenology," another terror of 
 the clergy, appears. Discussions upon marriage fol- 
 lowed, but, as the co-operators never contemplated any- 
 thing but equal opportunities of divorce for rich and 
 poor, the subject was as irrelevant as it was dangerous. 
 Nothing can better testify the political and social harm- 
 lessness of these men than the craze of good-nature 
 under which they laboured. They actually published 
 papers on the " Unhappiness of the Higher Orders,"* 
 proving it and providing remedies for it, as though that 
 was any business of theirs. If the higher orders had 
 unhappiness the co-operators could not mitigate it, nor 
 would their offices be accepted if they could. It was time 
 enough to sigh over the griefs of the rich when they had 
 secured the gladness of the poor. Where one opulent 
 man commits suicide because he has too much a thou- 
 sand poor die by their own hands because they have 
 nothing. The philanthropy of these reconstructors of 
 the world seemed almost a disease. Yet, though they 
 were thus gratuitously and therefore foolishly concerned 
 
 * " Co-operative Magazine," No. III. 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PEEIOD. 121 
 
 Somatopsyobonoologia. 
 
 about the " Unhappiness of the Higher Orders," both 
 statesmen and prelates thought it their duty to assail 
 and censure them. The imbecility of the people after 
 all seems wisdom compared with the imbecility of 
 governments and churches. 
 
 In those days a practical agitator (Carlile), who had 
 the sense and courage to undergo long years of imprison- 
 ment to free the press, thought the world was to be put 
 right by a science of " Somatopsychonoologia." * There 
 were co-operators — Allen Davenport, the simple-hearted 
 ardent advocate of agrarian views, among them — who 
 were prepared to undertake this nine-syllabled study. 
 
 Every crotchet here runs at the heels of a new party 
 of pioneers, and these associationists, who had heresies 
 enough of their own to answer for, opened their pages to 
 advocate the " Civil Eights of Women," to which they 
 were inclined from a sense of justice ; and the advocates 
 of that question will find some interesting reading in 
 co-operative literature. Their pages were open to pro- 
 test against the game laws. The " Co-operative Maga- 
 zine " gave almost as much space to the discussion of 
 the ranunculus, the common buttercup, as it did to the 
 " new system of society." The medical botanists very 
 early got at the poor co-operators. A co-operative society 
 was considered a sort of free museum, or a market 
 place, where everybody could deposit specimens of his 
 notions for inspection or sale. 
 
 In 1827, a gentleman who commanded great respect 
 in his day, Mr. JuHan Hibbert, printed a circular at his 
 own press on behalf of the " Co-operative Fund Associa- 
 tion." He avowed himself as " seriously devoted to the 
 system of Mr. Owen : " and Hibbert was a man who 
 meant aU he said and who knew how to say exactly what 
 he meant. Here is one brief appeal by him to the 
 people, remarkable for justness of thought and vigorous 
 
 • A Greek componnd, expressing a knowledge of body, soul, and mind. 
 
122 HISTORY OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Julian Hibbert's generosity. 
 
 directness of language : " Would you be free ? be worthy 
 of freedom : mental liberty is the pledge of political 
 liberty. Unlearn your false knowledge, and endeavour to 
 obtain real knowledge. Look around you ; compare all 
 things; know your own. dignity; correct your vicious 
 habits; renounce superfluities; despise idleness, drunken- 
 ness, gambling, and fighting; guard against false friends; 
 and learn to think (and if possible to actj indepen- 
 dently." This language shows the rude materials out of 
 which co-operators had sometimes to be made. In 
 personal appearance Julian Hibbert strikingly resembled 
 Shelley. He had at least the courage, the gentleness, 
 and generosity of the poet. Hibbert was a gentleman of 
 fortune, and reputed one of the best Greek scholars of 
 his day. Being called upon to give evidence on a trial 
 in London, he honestly declined to take the oath on the 
 ground that he was an atheist, and was treated in a 
 ruffianly manner by the eloquent and notorious Charles 
 Phillips, who was not a man of delicate scruples himself, 
 being afterwards accused of endeavouring to fix the guilt 
 of murdering Lord "William Eussell upon an innocent 
 man after Couvoisier had confessed his guilt to him. 
 Mr. Hibbert was so outraged by Phillips's treatment of 
 him that he died in a few days after. The courage and 
 generosity of Hibbert was shown in many things. He 
 visited Carlile when confined in Dorchester Gaol for 
 heresy, and on learning that a political prisoner there 
 had been visited by some friend of position who had 
 given him i£l,,000, Hibbert at once said : " It shall not 
 appear, Mr. CarlQe, that you are less esteemed for vin- 
 dicating the less popular liberty of conscience. I will 
 give you £1,000." It was not only in words to this 
 effect that Mr. Hibbert spoke, but he gave Mr. Carlile 
 the money there and then. It was Mr. Hibbert's desire 
 in the event of his death that his body should be at the 
 service of the Eoyal College of Surgeons, being another 
 of those gentlemen who thought it useful by his own 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PERIOD. 123 
 
 Issuo of Dr. King's " Co-operator." 
 
 example to break down the prejudice of the poor against 
 their remains being in some cases serviceable to physi- 
 ological science. It is not pleasant now to tell at this 
 distance of time by what subtlety and boldness this 
 object was partly carried out in Mr. Hibbert's case. 
 Some portion of Mr. Hibbert's fortune came into posses- 
 sion of Mrs. Captain Grenfell, a handsome wild Irish 
 lady after the order of Lady Morgan, though not of her 
 brilliant abilities. Mr. Hibbert's intentions, however, 
 seem to have been pretty faithfully carried out, for so 
 long as thirty years after his death I was aware of five 
 and ten pound notes occasionally and mysteriously per- 
 colating into the hands of one or other' unfriended 
 advocates of unpopular forms of political, social, and 
 heretical liberty — who resembled the apostles at least 
 in one respect — they had "neither purse nor scrip." 
 
 During 1827, and two years later, the " Co-operative 
 Magazine" was issued as a sixpenny monthly. All 
 the publications of this period, earlier and later, were 
 advertised as being obtainable at 19, Greville-street, 
 Hatton Garden, then a co-operative centre, and at 
 co-operative stores in town and country. If all stores 
 sold the publication it would prove that they better 
 understood the value of special co-operative literature 
 than many of them do now. 
 
 It was on May 1, 1828, that the first publication 
 appeared entitled " The Co-operator." It was a small 
 paper of four pages only, issued monthly at one penny. 
 It resembled a halfpenny two-leaved tract. The whole 
 edition printed would hardly have cost more than ten 
 shillings weekly if none were sold.* It was continued 
 for twenty-six months, ceasing on August 1, 1830. The 
 twenty-six numbers consisted of twenty-six papers, all 
 
 * It bore as printer's name Sickelmore, Brighton. The last number 
 (the first that bore any publisher's name) gave that of Taylor and Son, 
 North-street, same town. It was always to be had at the Co-operative 
 Bazaar, 19, GreviUe-street, Hatton Garden, London, 
 
124 HISTORY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Influence of the Brighton " Co-operator." 
 
 ■written by the editor, Dr. King, who stated that they 
 were concluded because "the object for which they were 
 commenced had been attained. The principles of Co- 
 operation had been disseminated among the working 
 classes and made intelligible to them." This was not 
 true twenty years later, but everybody was sanguine in 
 those days, and saw the things which were not more 
 clearly than the things which were.* The chief cause 
 of failure which the editor specifies as having overtaken 
 some co-operative societies was defect in account keep- 
 ing. Of course, as credit was customary in the early 
 stores, accounts would be the weakest point with work- 
 men. Dr. King wrote to Lord (then Henry) Brougham, 
 M.P., an account of the Brighton co-operators. Lord 
 Brougham asked Mr. M. D. Hill to bring the matter of 
 Co-operation before the Society for the Diffusion of 
 Useful Knowledge. Timid members on the council 
 were afraid of it, as many councils are still. It would 
 have been one of the most memorable papers of that 
 famous society had they treated this subject. They 
 never did treat any original subject, and this would 
 have been one. 
 
 Mr. Craig, who had extensive personal knowledge of 
 early societies, states that one was formed at Bradford 
 in 1828, and that a stray number of the Brighton 
 " Co-operator " (the one edited by Dr. King), soiled and 
 worn, found its way into Halifax, and led to the forma- 
 tion of the first co-operative society there, owing to 
 the foresight and devotion to social development of Mr. 
 J. Nicholson, a name honourably known, and still 
 remembered with respect, in Halifax. His son-in-law, 
 Mr. David Crossley, of Brighouse, has long manifested 
 the same intelligent and untiring interest in co-operative 
 
 • One o£ the disciples of Fourier, on being told that organised life was 
 impossible because it was too beautiful, answered: " It is too beautiful 
 not to be possible." 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIO PBEIOD. 125 
 
 The First Birmingham Society. 
 
 progress ; lending to it not only a theoretical but great 
 practical knowledge of the means by which it is to be 
 advanced. 
 
 The first Birmingham co-operative rules were framed 
 in 1828, by Mr. John Eabone, a well-known commercial 
 name in that town, who was a frequent writer in early 
 co-operative years. The reports of the early success of 
 the Orbiston community reached Birmingham, and had 
 great influence there. Some who had seen the place 
 gave so good an account of it that it was the immediate 
 cause of the first Birmingham co-operative society being 
 formed. 
 
 On January the 1st, 1829, the first number of the 
 " Associate " was issued, price one peimy, " published 
 at the store of the first London Co-operative Trading 
 Association, 2, Jerusalem Passage, Clerkenwell." The 
 " Associate," a well-chosen name, modestly stated that 
 it was "put forth to ascertain how far the working 
 class were disposed to listen to its suggestion of means 
 by which they themselves may become the authors of a 
 lasting and almost unlimited improvement of their own 
 condition in life." The "Associate " was from the 
 beginning a well-arranged, modest httle periodical, and 
 it was the first paper to summarise the rules of the 
 various co-operative associations. 
 
 The author of " Paul Clifford " takes the editor of the 
 " British Co-operator " by storm, who states that this 
 work bids fair to raise Mr. Bulwer to that enviable pin- 
 nacle of fame which connects the genius of the author 
 with the virtues of the citizen, the philanthropist with 
 the profundity of the philosopher.* 
 
 The Society for the Promotion of Co-operative Know- 
 ledge held regular quarterly meetings, commencing in 
 1829. They were reported with all the dignity of a 
 co-operative parhament in the Weekly Free Press, a 
 
 " British Co-operator," page 62, 1829. 
 
126 HISTOE-2 OP CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 The British Association for Promoting Co-operative Knowledge. 
 
 Eadical paper of the period. The proceedings were 
 reprinted in a separate form. This society bore the 
 name of the British Association for Promoting Co-opera- 
 tive Knowledge first in 1830. 
 
 This publication, entitled The Weekly Free Press, was 
 regarded as a prodigy of newspapers on the side of 
 Co-operation. The editor of the aforesaid miscellany 
 described it as " an adamantine bulwark, which no 
 gainsayer dare run against without suffering irretriev- 
 able loss." No doubt " gainsayers " so warned prudently 
 kept aloof, and the "adamantine journal" ran down 
 itself, suffering irretrievable loss in the process. That 
 was the manner of its end. 
 
 No one could accuse the early co-operators of being 
 wanting in large ideas. It was coolly laid down-, without 
 any dismay at the magnitude of the undertaking, that 
 the principles of Co-operation were intended to secure 
 equality of privileges for all the human race. That is 
 a task not yet completed for the people of England. 
 Yet, with the air of an " unconsidered trifle " in their 
 power further to give, they made overtures to bring 
 about the general elevation of the human race, liogether 
 with universal knowledge and happiness. Ten years 
 before the British Association for the Advancement of 
 Science was devised in Professor Phillips's Tearoom in 
 the York Museum, and forty years before Dr. Hastings 
 ventured to propose to Lord Brougham the establish- 
 ment of a National Association for the Promotion of 
 Social Science, the Co-operative Eeformers set up, in 
 1829, a " British Association for Promoting Co-operative 
 Knowledge." It had its quarterly meetings, some of 
 which were held in the theatre of the Mechanics' Insti- 
 tution, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, London, 
 known as Dr. Birkbeck's Institution. The speeches 
 delivered were evidently studied and ambitious, far 
 beyond the character of modern speeches on Co-opera- 
 tion, which are mostly businesslike, abrupt, and blunt. 
 
THE ENTHUSUSTIO PERIOD. 127 
 
 Early Co-operators of historic mark. 
 
 Among those at these early meetings were Mr. John 
 Cleave, well known as the popular newsvendor — when 
 only men of spirit dare be newsvendors — whose daughter 
 subsequently married Mr. Henry Vincent, the eminent 
 lecturer, who was graduated in the vigorous and 
 generous school of political insurgency which Carlyle 
 afterwards familiarised in literature as " Chartism." 
 Mr. William Lovett, a frequent speaker, was later 
 in life imprisoned with John Collins for two years in 
 Warwick Gaol, where they devised, wrote, and afterwards 
 published the best book on the organisation of the 
 Chartist party (which included practical education as 
 well as political action) which ever issued from that 
 body. Mr. Lovett made speeches in 1830 with that 
 ornate swell in his sentences with which he wrote reso- 
 lutions at the National Association, in High Holborn, 
 twenty years later, when W. J. Fox delivered Sunday 
 evening orations there. Mr. Lovett was the second 
 secretary of the chief co-operative society in London, 
 meeting at 19, Greville-street, Hatton Garden. 
 
 The fourth report of the British Association announced 
 the Liverpool, Norwich, and Leeds Mercuries ; the Car- 
 lisle Journal, the Newry Telegraph, the Chester Courant, 
 the Blackburn Gazette, the Halifax Chronicle, besides 
 others, as journals engaged in discussing Co-operation. 
 The Westmoreland Advertiser is described as devoted 
 to it.* 
 
 The first Westminster co-operative society, which met 
 In the infant schoolroom, gave lectures on science. Mr. 
 David Mallock, A.M., delivered a lecture on "Celestial 
 Mechanics;" Mr. Dewhurst, a surgeon, lectured on 
 "Anatomy," and complaint was made that he used 
 Latin and Greek terms without translating them.t 
 The " British Co-operator," usually conducted with an 
 editorial sense of responsibility, announced to its readers 
 
 * " Britisli Co-operator," page 47. 
 t " British Co-operator," page 20. 1829. 
 
128 HISTORY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Clerical objection to Co-operative happiness. 
 
 that " it is confidently said that Mr. Owen will hold a 
 public meeting in the City of London Tavern, early in 
 Easter week ; and it is expected that his Eoyal Highness 
 the Duke of Sussex will take the chair. We have no 
 doubt it wUl be weU attended and produce a great 
 sensation among the people." This manner of announce- 
 ment was very likely to deter the duke from attending ; 
 and it was an announcement which ought not to be 
 made until it was certain that the duke would preside. 
 
 The first London co-operative community is reported 
 as holding a meeting on the 22nd of April, 1829, at the 
 Ship Coffee-house, Featherstone-street, City Eoad. Mr. 
 Jennison spoke, who gave it as his conviction that 
 the scheme could be carried out with £5 shares, payable 
 at sixpence per week.* 
 
 The first Pimlico association was formed in December, 
 
 1829. Its store was opened on the 27th of February, 
 
 1830, and between that date and the 6th of May it had 
 made £32 of net profit. Its total property amounted to 
 £140. Its members were eighty-two. 
 
 The first Maidstone co-operative society was in force 
 in 1830, and held its public meetings in the Britannia 
 Inn, George-street. A Eev. Mr. Pope, of Tunbridge 
 Wells, gave them disquietude by crying — " Away with 
 such happiness [that promised by Co-operation] as is 
 inconsistent with the gospel." As nobody else promised 
 any happiness to the working men, Mr. Pope might as 
 well have left them the consolation of hoping for it. He 
 would have had his chance when they got the happiness, 
 which yet lags on its tardy way. The Eev. Mr. Pope 
 was one of those sohcitous preachers who are born 
 before their time and do not know it. 
 
 In 1830 Mr. J. Jenkinson, "treasurer of the Kettering 
 Co-operative Society,"' confirmed its existence by writing 
 an ambitious paper upon the " Co-operative System." 
 
 * " British Co-operator," page 44. 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PERIOD, 129 
 
 The Co-operative Journals of 1830. 
 
 England has never seen, before or since, so many 
 co-operative papers as 1830 saw. Now, if a second 
 paper is proposed quite a scream goes up in deprecation, 
 lest thirty millions of people should not be able to sup- 
 port two co-operative papers. Since the Social Econo- 
 rriist was transferred to the promoters of the Manchester 
 Co-operative News Company, in 1869, there has been in 
 London even no professed co-operative journal. 
 
 The "Agricultural Economist," representing the Agri- 
 cultural and Horticultural Association, is the most 
 important-looking journal which has appeared in London 
 in the interests of Co-operation. Associative topics 
 form, however, but a small department in this paper. 
 
 In 1830, when the " Co-operative Magazine " was four 
 years old, the " Co-operative Miscellany" (also a monthly 
 tnagaziue) commenced, and with many defects had more 
 popular life in it than any other. It would seem that 
 the editor was illiterate, or had a bad reader in his 
 office. He was, I believe, printer as well as editor of his 
 paper. Anyhow, he meant putting things to right with 
 a vigorous hand. The " Co-operative Miscellany " also 
 described itself as a " Magazine of Useful Knowledge ; " 
 a sub-title, borrowed, apparently, from the Society for 
 the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, then making a noise 
 in the world. The editor of this miscellany held that 
 co-operative knowledge should be placed first in the 
 species useful, and was much needed by the public. It 
 was then a novel order of knowledge. The miscellany 
 was of the octavo size; the typographical getting-up 
 was of the provincial order, and the title-page had the 
 appearance of a small window-bill. It was printed 
 by W. Hill, of Bank-street, Maidstone. The editor 
 professed that his magazine contained a history of the 
 co-operative societies, and extracts of their reports and 
 proceedings in general, with a development of the prin- 
 ciples of the system. Co-operation had no system in 
 those days. The allusion evidently was to what was 
 
130 HISTORY OF 00-OPEEATION. 
 
 A belligerent Editor. 
 
 known as Mr. Owen's system. The tone of the editor, 
 as expressed in his preface, shows embitterment at 
 working-class distress. He shows what Lord Castlereagh 
 would have called " an ignorant impatience " of poverty. 
 Forty years ago sympathy with the working class was a 
 great novelty. Those who took a personal interest ia 
 their improvement were designated as "noble philan- 
 thropic minds." The editor gives no hopeful idea of 
 the people. All he can say is, that "many of them 
 are beginning to feel the spark of British independence 
 to glow." Uncomfortable allusions are made to persons 
 who are not described by name, but aa " those who 
 have fattened by the industry" of the labouring class; 
 who look upon them as their vassals or slaves, not 
 worthy to partake of the food they produce, or live in 
 the houses they build, or wear the clothes they manufac- 
 ture. Mr. Owen would clear the world for his system ; 
 this editor would clear off mankind to make way for Mr. 
 Owen. His first article tells us that " Some designing 
 men, insulting the laws of nature, are directing public 
 attention to the Reverend Malthusian doctrines of 
 over-population [probably referring to Francis Place] . 
 Another junto fsicj are busily occupied with the paper- 
 money substitutes for wealth, so strongly urged by 
 Banker Attwood [Thomas Attwood, of Birmingham, 
 president of the famous political union in that town] , 
 BO that the clamorous demands of a starving people may 
 be buried in the joy of getting immediate relief for their 
 necessities. Another junto are clamorous for free-trade 
 in corn, feeling that it would immediately increase the 
 manufactures of the country and prevent the people in- 
 vestigating any other measure of relief, and quiet their 
 inquiries who ought to reap the benefit of their labour. 
 Therefore they recommend Mr. Thompson's ' Catechism 
 on the Corn Laws,' afterwards the eminent writer, Lieut.- 
 General Perionet Thompson. Another junto, with as 
 much love of individual wealth as the rest, are Hunt-ing 
 
1 THE ENTHUSIASTIC PERIOD. 131 
 
 PuMo agitators in 1830. 
 
 for a Eadical reform in parliament, universal suffrage, 
 and election by ballot. Another junto are severely 
 afflicted witb mono-mania ; or, as the grand quack of 
 quacks calls it, the currency mania. Mr. Cobbett is a 
 professor on this yellow fever, and' gives advice with his 
 recipe for one shilling. A competitor has started forth 
 from the anti-christian school of Mr. Carlile who, with 
 the voice of a Lion, offers his nostrum at half the price." 
 After contemptuously adding that " these gentlemen do 
 no good except that of saving the public a waste of time 
 in refuting their doctrines, for each does it admirably of 
 the other," he tells us that " others " (who, of course, 
 are free from error, bad designs, and mania,) "are 
 moving onwards towards the diffusion of the views of 
 Mr. Owen, of New Lanark, which are now generally 
 known as the principles of Co-operation. These prin- 
 ciples breathe universal love of our fellow beings, peace 
 and goodwill to all mankind." After the conceit, con- 
 tempt, and bad feeling with which this editor has 
 described every other thinker in the metropolis who at- 
 tracted popular attention, the reader must have acquired 
 a lively sense of the universal love which the " Co-ope- 
 rative Miscellany" of 1830 represented. These-passages, 
 besides presenting a good picture of the agitators and 
 temper of the time, inform us that it was about that 
 period that Mr. Owen's views became " generally known 
 as the principles of Co-operation " — a name then far 
 too limited to cover them, and far too practical to suit 
 them. 
 
 The early co-operative editors were not clever at 
 appraisiag people outside themselves, but occasionally 
 there are instances of external discernment which are 
 perfect in their way. Speaking of the meeting of the 
 British Association, at which Mr. Owen spoke, "who 
 was received with enthusiastic and long-continued cheer- 
 ing," the editor of the " Go-operative Miscellany " 
 said : " The theatre was filled with persons of an 
 
132 HISTOET? OF 00-OPEEATION. 
 
 Character of " The British Co-operator." 
 
 encouraging and respectable appearance." Persons of 
 an " encouraging appearance " is surely one of the 
 daintiest discoveries of enthusiasm. 
 
 At this time Mr. Owen held Sunday morning lectures 
 in the Mechanics' Institution, followed, says this "Mis- 
 cellany," "by a conversazione at half-past three o'clock, 
 and a lecture in the evening upon 'Astronomy,' by that 
 enlightened teacher of youth, Mr. Fitch, whose powers 
 of elocution are unequalled." Everybody was described 
 in these pages with a painful superlativeness. 
 
 Early in this year there appeared, in magazine form, 
 " The British Co-operator," calling itself also "A 
 Eecord and Eeview of Co-operative and Entertaining 
 Knowledge." Co-operation did not then excel in being 
 entertaining: as the last peaceable resource of the 
 necessitous it was rather a serious business. This 
 publication really made itself a business organ of the 
 movement, and addressed itself to the task of organising 
 it. To the early stores it furnished most valuable 
 advice. "The Co-operator," 1830, was considered to 
 instruct co-operators, and the 6th No. " became a sort 
 of text-book to co-operators." No. 22, however, fell 
 among them like a shell. An article professed to be 
 "from the pen of a gentleman holding an important 
 office in the state," suggested that intending co-operators 
 should bethink themselves of bespeaking the counten- 
 ance of some patron in the infancy of their Co-operation 
 — the clergyman of the parish, or a resident magistrate, 
 who might give them weights and scales and a few 
 shelves for their store shop. The members were to sign 
 an arbitration bond, under which all questions of pro- 
 perty in the society shall be finally decided by the patron, 
 who must not be removable, otherwise than by his own 
 consent to surrender his office to a successor. This was 
 denounced as "a deep laid scheme for cramping the 
 energies the journal had so ably assisted to awaken." 
 This was an absurd alarm. The plan might have led 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PEEIOD. 133 
 
 CoriouB scheme of Village Co-operation. 
 
 to the extension of Co-operation in rural districts where 
 the means of self-help did not exist, and where self- 
 action would be in those days at once put down without 
 the countenance of some local gentleman. And as his 
 authority was merely to extend to questions of property 
 when no law existed for its protection, the members 
 would have had their own way in social regulations. 
 All the patron could have done would have been to take 
 away his scales, weights, and shelves ; and a very small 
 fund, when the society was once fairly established, 
 would have enabled them to have purchased or replaced 
 these things. 
 
 There came, a month later, a grand scream from the 
 British Association for Promoting Co-operative Know- 
 ledge, who published in the Weekly Free Press a special 
 protest against " patrons of any sort, especially the 
 clergyman or the magistrate." With the usual eccen- 
 tricity of fervid agitators the early socialists spoke with 
 two voices. With one they denounced the wealthier 
 classes as standing aloof from the people and lending 
 them no kind of help, and with the other described them 
 as "wolves in sheep's clothing," coming forward with 
 " insidious plans " of interference with them. It was 
 quite wise to counsel the working classes " to look to 
 themselves and be their own patrons," as the protestors 
 in question did; but it was not an encouraging thing 
 to gentlemen to see one of their order " holding ah 
 important of&ce in the state," kicked^ "by order of 
 the committee," for coming forward with what was, 
 for all they knew, a well meant though unacceptable 
 suggestion. 
 
 The "British Co-operator," of 1830, prepared articles 
 for the guidance of trustees and directors or committees 
 of co-operative societies. It gave them directions how 
 to make their storekeeper a responsible and punish- 
 able person. How to procure licences. How to 
 execute orders and schemes of book-keeping. It usefully 
 
134 HISTORY OF CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 Legal difficnlties of early eocieties. 
 
 remarked : " We regret that the neglect on the part of 
 the first Bloomsbury society to take legal measures to 
 secure their property has deprived them of the power to 
 recover their trading stock from four of the members of 
 the society, one of whom was nominally a trustee, which 
 is as bad as having no trustee at all. We learn the 
 parties entered the store at night, and decamped with 
 all the movables they could carry off. This has broken 
 up the society. Had the members adopted the measures 
 we suggested in our former numbers, for security against 
 such frauds, the first Bloomsbury would now be flourish- 
 ing. We stUl repeat, the trustees of a society ought not 
 to be members of the society they are trustees to.* 
 The co-operators under competitive society must have 
 recourse to the protection it affords, or they wiU always 
 be exposed to designing boasters." Mr. Haigh, of Mill's 
 Bridge Society, Huddersfield, wrote to inform the editor, 
 that on the 14th ultimo "they were obliged to discharge 
 their storekeeper, as he had defrauded them of much 
 property during the quarter." A circumstance which 
 subsequently occurred very frequently in that district. 
 Some of -the stores appear to have been troubled by the 
 disappearance of cheese in larger proportions than the 
 sales accounted for, and an announcement was made of 
 the formation of a Mouse-trap Committee. .The well- 
 informed writer in " British Co-operator " said : — 
 
 " It is not generally known that co-operative trading 
 or working societies are from their nature exposed to all 
 the disadvantages of co-partnerships of two or more 
 individuals, and that the laws affecting the protection 
 of creditors and the losses of partners are those which 
 in a court of equity would be applicable to suitors in 
 co-operative trading societies. For a partnership to 
 exist between persons does not require tho signature 
 
 * The reason being, that if he were a member the law would then regard 
 him as a partner, who might, as such, appropriate the funds to his own 
 use. The law is changed now. 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PERIOD. l85- 
 
 State of the law in those days. 
 
 of deeds or agreements to that effect. Merely uniting 
 the interests of two persons in any commercial transac- 
 tion, where profits are the object of the union, consti- 
 tutes a co-partnership. Therefore a union of two or 
 more persons in a trading company or society constitutes 
 a partnership, whether that partnership be called a 
 co-operative trading society or a working union. The 
 object being to carry on a trade, by making a profit on 
 the sale of groceries or other commodities, as manufac- 
 tured goods, and so forth. 
 
 " It is a law in England that no partner shall sue his 
 co-partner for any fraud or breach of agreement by an 
 action at common law ; his only mode of proceeding 
 against his partner being to file a bill in equity in the 
 Court of Chancery. This mode of proceeding against 
 any member of a co-operative trading society, from the 
 immense expense attached to it (for £60 would only 
 meet the cost of filing the bill), is rendered impossible 
 for a working man to adopt. Thei^efore it is better for 
 him to pocket the first loss sustained rather than throw 
 two or three years' hard earned savings into the engulph- 
 ing jaws of a chancery suit. Such being the case, 
 effectual measures should be taken by every member of 
 a co-operative society to avoid the unprotected situation 
 he, and the property of the society to which he belongs, 
 is exposed to, and prevent it from becoming the prey of 
 designing and dishonest men."* 
 
 The want of legal protection was very early felt. It 
 gave to a storekeeper who was a member of a co-opera- 
 tive society the certainty that he could not be punished 
 if he committed a fraud ; and it was therefore suggested 
 in the " British Co-operator " that every storekeeper on 
 being elected should sign his resignation as a member, 
 that he might not screen himself behind the dark and 
 impenetrable security of the law. 
 
 • " British Co-operator," page 3. 
 
136 HISTORY OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Discussion on " Edncated Shopmen." 
 
 As early as 1830 a discussion arose upon " Educated 
 Shopmen." The "British Co-operator" commenced its 
 career with this subject. It was proposed that the 
 storekeeper should be "a person of gainly appearance — 
 clean, active, obliging, and possessing a high sense of 
 honour." Mr. Faber, writer in the " Co-operative Mis- 
 cellany " on this subject, contended that the storekeeper 
 ought not to be regarded " as a servant only, but as a 
 friend and brother of the associates." 
 
 Efforts were then being made in London to establish 
 an agency for the sale of co-operative manufactures. 
 In 1830 the distressed co-operators of Spitalfields and 
 Bethnal Green weavers produced a co-operative silk 
 handkerchief. It was an article that only ladies and 
 gentlemen would buy in sufficient numbers to be of any 
 advantage ; but the disastrous proneness of enthusiasm 
 to be instant in season and out of season, led to there 
 appearing upon it a design representing the paucity, 
 the presumption, and inordinate possessions of the 
 upper classes, so that no gentleman could use it without 
 putting the reproach in his face. 
 
 Mr. Charles Eosser writes in March to the editor of 
 the "British Co-operator" to say that the proprietors of 
 the London " Co-operative Magazine " had entirely given 
 up that work, and that the proprietor of the " British 
 Co-operator " may make whatever use he pleases of the 
 title of their magazine consistent with the interests 
 and advancement of Co-operation. This was friendly 
 and civil, and creditable to the fraternal principles of 
 the party. 
 
 About this time the House of Commons published a 
 paper detailing the attempts happily being made to put 
 down Hindoo suttees. The " British Co-operator " writes 
 upon it thus : " Mr. Owen is right in saying that the 
 period of a great moral change which he has announced 
 is fast approaching. There is scarcely a publication 
 which issues from the press that does not bring forward 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PEEIOD. I37 
 
 Tellall'B definition of Co-operation. 
 
 some new evidence for its necessity." The co-operators 
 at this period believed in the immediate advent of Mr 
 Owen's systems as implicitly as the early Christians 
 believed in the coming of Christ, and every new and hope- 
 ful incident of the day was regarded as the shadow, cast 
 by the new world, before it. 
 
 Dr. Epps and his systems of phrenology, semi-Christian 
 and semi-materialistic, is introduced also in the "British 
 Co-operator," and Dr. Henry McCormac, of Belfast, 
 described as " one of the illuminati of the age," is 
 noticed as the author of a work on the moral and physi- 
 cal condition of the working class. Dr. McCormac was 
 a promoter of social as well as medical ideas, and was 
 known as a teacher of mark. His son, a well-known 
 physician, is the author of similar works in our day. Dr. 
 Epps, a leader in homoeopathy when it was ill-regarded, 
 took a sincere interest in advancing liberal opinion. In 
 the " British Co-operator " a co-operative catechism was 
 published, in the form of a dialogue between one Tom 
 Seekout, and Jack Tellall a co-operator, who defines 
 Co-operation as " everyone labouring — everyone ex- 
 changing labour for labour — everyone having plenty of 
 food, clothes, and good lodging. In short, it is enjoying 
 everything, and contributing to everything, equally ; so 
 that there shall be no distraction between the rich and 
 the poor; the idle and the industrious ; the ignorant and 
 the learned. Neither will man nor woman be unequal 
 in their rights, as members of society." 
 
 After nine numbers had been published of the "Asso- 
 ciate," which bore no date save that of London, 1830, 
 by which its times of appearance could be told, it took 
 the second title of " Co-operative Mirror." The tenth 
 number reproduced the catechism with pictorial embel- 
 lishments, quite of the Catnach order pf art, representing 
 Tom Seekout, a dilapidated rascal, who wore breeches 
 and stockings with holes in them, smoked a pipe, had 
 a battered hat, and was very thia. He is shown as 
 
ISa mSTORT OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Pamons Dialogue of Tom Seekont and Jack Tellall. 
 
 coming out of the " Pipe and Puncheon " public house, 
 a far less dismal place it must be owned than the 
 drawing of the co-operative store opposite — a plain- 
 looking, solid, rather dreary house, bearing the name 
 "Co-operative Society" over the door. Before this stands 
 a smiling, well-contented looking fellow, in good health 
 and compendious whiskers, which are apparently the 
 product of the co-operative store, as poor Tom Seekout 
 has none. Jack Tellall, the co-operator, wears a hat 
 with a brim of copious curvature, a coat evidently cut 
 by some Poole of the period, voluminous white trowsers, 
 and a watch and seals that would be sure to have excited 
 Mr. Fagin. In the distance, between the " Pipe and 
 Puncheon " and the "Co-operative Society," is a remark- 
 able church, very much given to steeple. The pathway 
 to it is entirely devoid of travellers ; but it is quite 
 evident that Jack TellaU, like a well-behaved co-operator, 
 is on his way there, when he falls in with Tom Seekout, 
 who confesses that his elbows are not presentable to the 
 beadle, and that his belly is pinched in like the squire's 
 greyhound. Jack TellaU informs him, in the course of 
 an amusing dialogue, how Co-operation will put all that 
 to rights. The "Associate" also bears the title of the 
 " Co-operative Mirror." Number 11 of this publication 
 was printed on good paper in clear type, and poor Tom 
 Seekout, who appeared in Number 10, and our decorous 
 friend Jack TeUall, continue their dialogue under condi- 
 tions admissible in respectable society, and the engraving 
 was a miracle of improvement. It represented a com- 
 munity of majestic and castellated proportions, quite a 
 a city of the sun, resplendent on a plateau, raising its 
 turrets above an umbrageous forest which surrounded 
 it, with just one glorious pathway visible by which it 
 was accessible. Beyond was the far-stretching sea, and 
 from above the sun sent down delighting beams through 
 clouds which evidently hung enraptured over the happy 
 spot. Not even Ebenezer Elliott, with his sharp-eyed 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PERIOD. 139 
 
 Debatable dootrine of Josiah Warren, 
 
 critieism, could detect a single evidence of primness 
 inflicted upon the wild luxuriance of nature. There has 
 been only one portrait published which represented Mr. 
 Owen as a gentleman, and this engraving of a commu- 
 nity, in No. 11 of the " Associate," is the only one that 
 had the genuine air of Paradise about it. No doubt 
 the "Associate" was indebted for it to Mr. Minter 
 Morgan, who had introduced it into his " Hampden in 
 the Nineteenth Century." 
 
 Among the correspondents of the " British Co-opera- 
 tor" was Josiah Warren, who has recently died. He 
 wrote from Cincinatti, January 30, 1830, to recommend 
 a scheme of cheap printing, of which he was the inven- 
 tor. Considering the power of giving a monopoly by 
 patents absurd, he makes known his scheme and offers 
 it to anyone to adopt. Application was to be made to 
 the "Free Inquirer," conducted in New York by Prances 
 Wright and E. D. Owen. Like Paine, Warren made a 
 present to the public of those copyrights in inventions 
 and books, which in Paine' s case made others rich and 
 kept the author poor. The world, which is apt to despise 
 reformers for being always indigent, should remember 
 how some of them became so. At writing disastrous 
 passages, such as those of which Free Love has since 
 been born, Josiah Warren was a great hand. Any pro- 
 duction of this kind was sure to be quoted in some 
 co-operative journal, and the "British Co-operator" 
 quoted this from Warren : " We perceive the necessity 
 of preserving to each individual, the liberty to act accord- 
 ing to his or her feelings, or judgment, in each case — 
 however we may be found to differ from each other, or 
 to change from time to time ; and ia the place of the 
 customary bonds, or pledges, with regard to our actions 
 in the future, and circumstances yet unknown, we refer 
 to our past actions, for a criterion by which to judge 
 the future ; and we hereby consent that all our actions, 
 so far as they affect the rights of others, may be made 
 known to them." 
 
140 HISTOET OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 An " Anti-man Society." 
 
 This was Warren's mad maxim for making association 
 in communities uncertain, impossible, or ridiculous. 
 Only mendacity is more dangerous than honesty unless 
 good sense or some sort of culture take care of it. Mr. 
 Josiah Warren was a member of Mr. Owen's community 
 at New Harmony in 1826, and it was there he conceived 
 the idea that the error of Mr. Owen's principles was 
 combination ; and he set himself to the unnecessary 
 work of developing the principle of disintegration, which 
 has always been weU provided for, both in savage and 
 civilised societies. Mr. Warren gave this doctrine the 
 name of individuality — his system being to let everybody 
 have his own way in everything, at his own cost, which 
 has hitherto been found to be an expensive form of 
 waywardness. 
 
 Mrs. Wheeler was a familiar name in co-operative 
 literature of a lady who very sensibly advocated the 
 usefulness of women taking part in public affairs. 
 Frances Wright, afterwards known as Madame D'Arns- 
 mont, was an American lady distinguished in the same 
 way. Yet this did not prevent the editor of this maga- 
 zine from introducing into it a paragraph calculated 
 to bring a cause, which had few friends then, into con- 
 tempt. The paragraph bore the title of the " Anti-man 
 Society," and set forth that " a meeting of the ladies in 
 Maine has lately been held, to take into consideration 
 the propriety of establishing a society, to be called the 
 'Anti-man Society.' It is said to be an estabUshed 
 fact, that the male party have for the last century, by 
 unholy combination, contrived to keep all the political 
 offices to themselves, to the exclusion of women. They 
 are now resolved to put down this unrighteous combina- 
 tion ; and, if not to exclude men entirely, at least to have 
 an equal share among themselves." This was not 
 intended to make the enemy merry. The editor who 
 quoted it was one of those disastrous men who meant 
 weU and had no other capacity. To their honour the 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PERIOD. 141 
 
 A day at the London Tavern ■with Mr. Owen. 
 
 co-operators always and everywhere were friendly to 
 the equal civil rights of women. The subject is never 
 obtruded and is never absent. It continually recurs as 
 though women were an equal part of the human family 
 and were naturally included in Co-operation. Mr. J. S. 
 Mill frequented their meetings and knew their literature 
 well, and must have listened in his youth to speculations 
 in their society which he subsequently illustrated to so 
 much effect in. his " Subjection of Women." 
 
 This journal, however, had substantial merits. It 
 had spaciousness of view as to the organisation of indus- 
 try, and published thoughtful and practical papers 
 thereon. It had cultivated correspondents who knew 
 how to interest the reader and were not merely useful 
 and dreary. One gave a picturesque account of one of 
 Mr. Owen's meetings at the London Tavern. Some of 
 the forgotten actors there are not without interest to the 
 readers of to-day. The large tavern hall was crowded. 
 Proceedings were delayed in order that adversaries 
 might elect a chairman of their own. Mr. Owen quietly 
 put it to the meeting whether, as was his custom, he 
 should conduct his own meeting, or whether a stranger 
 should occupy the chair. Hands were held up. It was 
 Owen against the field. The enemy was abundantly 
 beaten. "I have," said a religious advocate present, 
 " often argued with Mr. Owen, but the misfortune is, I 
 can never get him into a temper nor keep myself out of 
 one." Mr. Owen read an address two hours and a half 
 long. The most devoted admirer could not help trying 
 to count the awful pile of pages in the speaker's hands, 
 to estimate when he would be out of his misery. No 
 House of Commons — no university assembly — no church 
 meeting — would have borne such an infliction. Yet the 
 audience kept peace. When the end did come, a fury 
 took possession of the adversaries. A Presbyterian 
 minister rushed to the platform. As he lifted up his 
 Calvinistic voice he became aware that the Eev. Eobert 
 
142 filSTOEt OP CO-OPEKATION. 
 
 Speech and conduct of the Eev. Robert Taylor, 
 
 Taylor, who had taken upon himself the unpleasant 
 name of " The Devil's Chaplain," stood next to him, 
 and close to him. The Eev. Presbyterian Pharisee 
 pushed back with his stick the Chaplain of Lucifer. 
 The meeting understood it. It was : " Stand off, I am 
 holier than thou." Gentlemen would consider the act 
 an insult — a magistrate an assault — Taylor did neither, 
 but bowed and retired a little. The meeting applauded 
 the dignified rebuke. In due course Taylor came for- 
 ward of his own right to reply. As he had wantonly 
 caused himself to be known by a hateful and injurious 
 name, he was not welcome on his own account, and had 
 a bad time of it. One evangelical lady spoke against 
 hearing him with a volubility which showed how valuable 
 she would have been at an earlier period in the age of 
 the world. Had she lived in the days of the building of 
 Babel, her tongue alone would have confounded the 
 world better than the multiplication of languages, and 
 saved the labour of Latin and Greek and other miseries 
 of scholarship entailed upon us. The description of 
 what followed by an eye witness, as given in the 
 " British Co-operator," presents admirable portraits of 
 two famous figures at a great co-operative meeting of 
 that period, which, as they complete the interior view of 
 one of Mr. Owen's meetings, are inserted here. The 
 figures are those of the Eev. Eobert Taylor and Mr. 
 Henry Hunt : — 
 
 '' Taylor at length obtained a hearing. His figure is 
 good, his appearance prepossessing, his dress affected, 
 though not as I had been taught to expect — eccentric. 
 His language was florid and highly wrought, his 
 sentences abounding in figures of speech and closing in 
 well formed and generally pungent periods. He was 
 elaborate, yet fluent, with much of the trickery of 
 eloquence, much too, of the soundness of reflection. His 
 gesture was appropriate to his diction, both were too 
 highly finished. It was acting, the acting of the 
 
•THE ENTHUSIASTia tERIOD. 143 
 
 Mr. Henry Hunt in his war paiat. 
 
 theatrical performer, not on the stage but before the 
 looking glass. It was the elegant play of the eword 
 fencer in his practice, brilliant and dazzling, it wanted 
 the earnestness, the ardour, the recklessness of the com- 
 batant. In short, it was more the rehearsal of the 
 orator than the oration itself. In the midst of affecta- 
 tion, the greatest and the most faulty, was that (next 
 after the display of the diamond on his little finger) 
 which tempted him to quotations from the learned 
 languages. To speak Latin to an audience in the city 
 of London was certainly out of keeping. 
 
 "The attention of the meeting was now drawn to an 
 object equally worthy of attention, another apostle for 
 the cause he had espoused. It was the celebrated Hunt, 
 the Eadical reformer, standing on a chair near the 
 centre of the room, with head erect, his short white hair 
 mantling over his florid countenance, his coat thrown 
 open, and his right hand fixed on his side, in the 
 resolute attitude of determined self-possession. I could 
 see in a moment why it was, he ever secured an ascen- 
 dancy over the wills of those whom he is in the habit 
 of addressing. He was old England personified, and his 
 very figure spoke for him to Enghsh hearts. On his 
 appearance the clamour broke out afresh, for there was 
 a strong expression of disapprobation testified in some 
 parts of the room against him. But he was not to be 
 daunted; like the true English mastiff, he held his grip; 
 John Bull might bellow, fret, and foam, but he was not 
 to be shaken off. 'Gentlemen' — 'down, down,' on one 
 side, 'Go up, go up,' on the other. Still he was fixed 
 and immovable. — ' Gentlemen, if you will but allow me to 
 speak, I will teU you why I wiU not go up.' — 'Bravo, 
 Hunt.' ' I went up and was turned down again.' Mr. 
 Owen apologised to him, explained the mistake and re- 
 quested him to go up to the gallery. 'No,' replied the 
 sturdy orator, 'I am not one of your puppets, to be 
 moved up and down at your pleasure.' Mr. Owen on his 
 
144 HISTOET OP CO-OPEKATION. 
 
 Early discussion on share capital. 
 
 side was as determined, thougli not so* sturdy. 'Mr. 
 Hunt, I do not hear you well, and as I would be sorry 
 to lose anything of what you say, whether it be for or 
 against my propositions, you wiU oblige me by coming 
 up.' Good temper is Mj:. Owen's distinguishing at- 
 tribute, never was it displayed in a more amiable, 
 effective manner. The stern rigidity of Hunt's features 
 instantly relaxed, he testified his assent by a good- 
 hearted nod, descended from his self-selected point of 
 elevation, was by Owen's side, and commenced a 
 harangue by declaring his strong sense of the claims 
 which that gentleman had on the public attention, and 
 his respect for the philanthropy of his views, and for his 
 perseverance in pressing them on through good and evil 
 report." 
 
 In those days the Birmingham Co-operative Herald 
 existed. The storekeeper appears to have been an object 
 of solicitude to it. Mr. Pare was afraid that the society 
 would become dependent upon one man, and urged that 
 all members should become in rotation committee men, 
 so that there might be sufficient knowledge of the affairs 
 of the society in as many hands as would enable them 
 to change any principal officer without arresting the 
 progress of the society. This has been admirably pro- 
 vided for in the Assington co-operative farms, devised 
 a few years later. Every shareholder is a " steward " 
 or member of the committee in turn. 
 
 A subject discussed and not settled at the Bolton 
 congress of 1872 was discussed with great force by Mr. 
 Pare in 1830, that was the permanence of share capital, 
 and the necessity, not merely the advantage, but the 
 necessity, of treating co-operative capital like joint- 
 stock, railroad, and canal company capital, and not com- 
 pelling the directors of a store to give members the 
 value of their share on withdrawing from the concern- 
 Mr. Pare urged this in his Liverpool lectures, and carried 
 his advice as far as Gatacre, a village six miles froip 
 
THE ENTHUBUSTIO PERIOD. 145 
 
 The first Co-operative Missionary, 
 
 Liverpool, where Lady Noel Byrom had, at that early 
 period, suggested the formation of a co-operative store. 
 Though living herself in another part of the kingdom, her 
 solicitude for social progress was communicated to her 
 correspondents. 
 
 Mr. Pare, who was called the first co-operative mis- 
 sionary, that being the title applied to him in the 
 " British Co-operator," rendered in the appropriate 
 publications of the day frequent, modest, and always 
 interesting accounts of his first tours, and his narrative 
 is very interesting to foUow, as it alone records the dates 
 when Co-operation was first preached in some of the 
 chief towns of England. From Liverpool *ax. Pare pro- 
 ceeded to Lancaster. Going in search of sne mayor of 
 that day to obtain from him the use of a public hall, he 
 found him at the County Lunatic Asj'lum, which struck 
 Mr. Pare as being a place so superior to the comfortless 
 lodgings and cottages of mechanics and farm hands, that 
 he thought there were considerable advantages in being 
 mad. The mayor, however, proved to be as much 
 demented as many of the inmates, for he disliked Co- 
 operation, lest its funds, which did not exist, should be, 
 applied to support workmen in case of a turn-out against 
 their employers. By other means Mr. Pare obtained a 
 building to speak in, and though his posters were up 
 only four hours before his lecture, more persons came 
 than could get in, being from two to three hundred in 
 number. He next addressed in Blackburn about three 
 hundred auditors. He was informed that there were at 
 least twenty-six societies in this town and its immediate 
 vicinity. The industrial ground was good in those days, 
 for the co-operative seed sprang up fruitful everywhere. 
 The condition of the bulk of the inhabitants he saw 
 there is worth remembering. It might well make a co- 
 operator distrust what competition might do for the 
 working class. He beheld thousands of human beings 
 pining with hunger, in rags, with little or no shelter for 
 
 K 
 
146 HISTORY OF CO-OPEKATION. 
 
 Early career of James Watson. 
 
 their emaciated bodies, and who had absolutely to beg to 
 be allowed to work to obtain even these miserable condi- 
 tions of existence. His next visit was to Bolton, where 
 he lectured in the Sessions Eoom to about four hundred 
 persons. On this visit he was entertained by the Eev. 
 F. Baker, who had preceded him in delivering two 
 lectures on Co-operation in the Mechanics' Institute of 
 that town. 
 
 Some of the leading men of the city of Chester 
 attended a lecture delivered by Mr. Pare on the 17th of 
 March. A co-operative society existed then in Chester, 
 consisting of seventeen members, who were making 
 arrangements to supply aU the co-operative societies in 
 the kingdom with prime cheese at low prices. The 
 Chester men seemed desirous of getting at the bottom 
 of the subject, for they put questions to Mr. Pa^e which 
 caused his lecture to extend over four hours. At this 
 period Mr. James Watson was known as one of the store- 
 keepers of the first London co-operative society, 36, Bed 
 Lion Square, and Jerusalem Passage, Clerkenwell, when 
 removed there. Mr. Lovett was his successor. On 
 making a journey to Yorkshire, he was requested to act 
 as a co-operative missionary, and he was furnished with 
 tracts for distribution and the necessary credentials. 
 Mr. Watson was an earnest and forcible speaker, who 
 knew how to unite boldness of sentiment with modera- 
 tion of manner. When Eichard Carlile's shopmen were 
 being imprisoned, beyond the rate of metropoHtan 
 supply, Mr. Watson was one, of many others, pubHc 
 spirited young men, who volunteered to supply the place 
 of those imprisoned. He took his place at Mr. Carlile's 
 counter, and also in prison when his turn came. He 
 was incarcerated three times through his participation 
 in public movements, and for periods of unpleasant 
 length. He ultimately became one of the three famous 
 Eadieal publishers, (Watson, Hetherington, and CleavCj) 
 whose names were known aU over the country, as leaders 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PBEIOD. 147 
 
 Co-operation appears in MarseiUes. 
 
 of the unstamped publication movement. Mr. Watson 
 remained in business until the opening of the Fleet-street 
 House in 1854, when it was purchased by the present 
 writer. He maintained all his life a reputation for 
 principle and integrity, and was held in personal esteem 
 by the leading Eadical members of parliament from the 
 days of the drafting the People's Charter, to the time 
 of his death in 1874. Both as publisher and advocate, 
 he always ranked as one of Mr. Owen's most practical 
 disciples. 
 
 It was reported (in 1830) that a co-operative society 
 was being formed at Marseilles, south of France, on the 
 true social principle that the character of man is formed 
 for and not by him ; Mr. Hamilton, of Dalzell, appears 
 to have carried this doctrine there. Persons wishing 
 information about it were to apply to M. Boinet, 
 Boulevard du Mus6e, No. 7, A.D., who would be at 
 home from seven to eight in the morning for that pur- 
 pose. Propagandism begins early in the day in France. 
 
 The Newry Telegraph reported two fervid speeches on 
 Co-operation, by Edward Gardener and John Stephen- 
 son, made at the annual dinner of the Armagh 
 Benevolent Society, held in the Market House, January 
 7th, 1830. Ireland, which is counted a superstitious 
 country, has always been favourable to Mr. Owen's 
 views, and. received him well long after England had 
 grown angry at his apparent heresies. 
 
 A Metropolitan Co-operative Book Society was formed, 
 which met in 19, Greville-street. In the absence of 
 P. 0. Skene, of Lewes, the chair was taken by W. Ellis. 
 The society had in view to establish reading rooms, 
 libraries. This Mr. Ellis is the gentleman mentioned 
 by Mr. J. S. Mill in his autobiography, as an early 
 friend and associate of his, and to whom the metropolis 
 was subsequently indebted for the Birkbeck secular 
 schools founded by his generosity, and directed by his 
 trained judgment. 
 
148 filSTOEY OP CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 Walks to Harbome with John Collins. 
 
 In October, 1830, a magazine, sold at twopence, was 
 published once a fortnight by Strangs, of Paternoster 
 Eow, and sold by co-operative store keepers. It bore the 
 double title of "Magazine of Useful Knowledge, and 
 Co-operative Miscellany." It took for its motto this 
 premature sentence, "Learning has declared war against 
 Ignorance." It had done nothing of the kind, but was 
 only airing itself before a larger multitude with Latin 
 quotations — and with Greek ones, where the printer 
 happened to have that type. Many long years elapsed 
 before Learning attempted any war against Ignorance. 
 The first speech reported in co-operative journals of Mr. 
 Henry Hetherington's appeared in number three of this 
 magazine. The first number of the " Miscellany " had 
 to tell of a Eev. Mr. Pope, of Tunbridge WeUs, who had 
 "proved Co-operation to be totally inconsistent with the 
 Gospel." It is fair to mention that about this period, 
 that one Eev. P. Baker, the same who entertained Mr. 
 Pare at Bolton, appeared as an advocate of Co-opera- 
 tion, and published a pamphlet which had reached 
 forty-three numbers in 1830, and was sold at one penny. 
 But clerical dissentients were, however, never wanting. 
 
 After the Birmingham Political Union "was hungup" 
 as Mr. Muntz expressed it " like a clean gun " — and 
 never taken dowa again, John Collins became known as 
 a Chartist speaker. He was a man of some force of 
 earnestness, but not otherwise distinguished for power. 
 It was to his credit that he assented to that form of 
 progress which was to be advanced by instruction rather 
 than by force which Chartism chiefly relied upon. Mr. 
 Collins and I used to go to Harbome together, a little 
 village some four miles from Birmingham, only famous 
 because Thomas Attwood, the founder of the Political 
 Union, had a seat there. Our object was to teach in a 
 school in a little Paedobaptist Chapel. Heaven I hope 
 knew what Psedobaptist meant. I did not. I was quite 
 a youth then, and sometimes Collins used to take me by 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PERIOD. 149 
 
 " Blackwood " on the Co-operative Movement. 
 
 the hand as I got over the long walk badly. I remember 
 when the sermon, which followed the school teaching, 
 was much protracted, I used to long for dinner time to 
 come. I see now the humble cottage, belonging to a 
 deacon, to which I went, in which the fire grate was 
 very spacious, and the fire nearly invisible. I used to 
 sit very close to it looking at the snow in the garden, 
 which at that time covered the ground, as I ate my 
 dinner off my knees, which usually consisted of a cold 
 mutton chop, which my mother had thoughtfully pro- 
 vided, lest that article should not be prevalent in the 
 cottage, and her dear solicitude was quite prophetic. 
 John Collins came to know much of Co-operation and 
 to take interest in it. He was imprisoned two years in 
 Warwick Gaol with Mr. Lovett, where they jointly wrote 
 their well-known book on " Chartism," which proposed 
 an organisation more social and intelligent than had 
 been before advocated among that party. 
 
 The impression that Co-operation was making upon 
 politicians was set forth in very striking terms in 
 "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine."* The dignity and 
 gravity of the estimate made, show that the new indus- 
 trial views were recognised as a moving force of the 
 time, as in that quarter no undue importance would 
 be accorded to them. The writer said: "Difficult as it 
 is to force upon the attention of those, who live in 
 continual plenty and immoral indulgence, the severe 
 distress of others, whom it is a trouble to them to think 
 of, yet they can hardly be blind to the necessity of acting 
 in a matter, which the people themselves have taken up in 
 a way extremely novel in this country, and dangerous, 
 or the contrary, according as the legislature may make 
 it. Multitudes of the common people now see clearly 
 the state they are placed in. They perceive that their 
 labour is valuable, if they had the means of applying it; 
 
 ♦No. 161. Jan. 1830. 
 
150 HISTOEY OP 00-OPEEATION. 
 
 Introdaetion of the term OoagresS. 
 
 but as their former masters have no use for it, they are 
 driven to see whether they cannot use it for their own 
 advantage. Those who have the virtues of thrift and 
 patience are forming themselves into societies for the pur- 
 pose of enjoying the benefit of their mutual labour; and 
 it is impijssible to look at their virtuous endeavours, to 
 substitute comfortable competence for the horrors of 
 dependence upon precarious employment by masters, 
 without wishing them God-speed. But it may be worth 
 the while of the politician to look carefully at the effects 
 which such societies, should they become extensive and 
 abundant, may have upon the political state of the 
 community. It is not always well (in a political sense) 
 that the knowledge should be forced. upon men of what 
 they may accomplish by co-operation and union; and 
 especially it is dangerous in an aristocratical state, 
 where this knowledge is given to men of strong, coarse 
 minds, to whom meat, drink, clothes, fire, and the 
 liberty of being governed according to their own views 
 of right, are the summa bona." 
 
 These words were evidently intended to influence 
 those who influence affairs, and are of interest and 
 moment still. 
 
 The last fruits of the enthusiastic period was the 
 invention of congresses. Indeed from 1829, and for six 
 years after. Co-operation may be said to have lived on 
 congresses. Heretofore such co-operative deliberative as- 
 semblies, aswe are told, were called "Conferences." Itwas 
 Mr. Pare who introduced the American term "congress " 
 to distinguish social from political proceedings, which 
 were known as conferences. In America, congress 
 implied a political parliament. Mr. Pare held that he 
 brought the term into English notice by the frequent use 
 co-operators made of it. The first co-operative congress 
 was held in Manchester, in May, 1830. There were 
 delegates present from fifty-six societies, representing 
 upwards of three thousand members, who had, by small 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PEEIOD. 151 
 
 The " United Trades' Co-operative Jonmal." 
 
 weekly contributions and trading with these on co-ope- 
 rative principles, accumulated a capital of £6,000 in 
 less than fifteen months. 
 
 Mr. Place has preserved a copy of the "United Trades' 
 Co-operative Journal," issued in 1830, in Manchester. 
 Its price is twopence. It was printed on the best paper 
 with the greatest typographical clearness, and contained 
 the soberest and most intelligent writing of all the 
 journals of this period started to represent Co-operation. 
 The anecdotes selected were in good taste. It admitted 
 nothing which was silly, or uniastructive. Many of its 
 quotations were selected with such judgment and 
 knowledge that their literary interest is unabated to this 
 day, and would be well worth reproducing. Even its 
 original poetry was endurable, which was very rarely 
 the case in these publications. Seldom did it violate 
 ordinary literary etiquette. Once in making a quota- 
 tion from the Guardian newspaper, which it felt justified 
 in contradicting, it suffered its correspondent who wrote 
 upon the subject to entitle the paragraph in question, 
 " Falsehoods of the Guardian." To charge a journahst 
 with lying, because he took a different view of the con- 
 dition of the operatives, was utterly indefensible. Mr. 
 Taylor, the editor of the Guairdiam, was himself a man of 
 honour, but had it been otherwise it was quite sufficient 
 to show that a writer was wrong without calling in 
 question his veracity. This journal rendered a very great 
 service by publishing a summary of the rules in force in 
 various co-operative societies in the kingdom. An act 
 of great thoughtfulness and labour, and one that shows 
 that the enthusiastic period was not devoid of inspira- 
 tion and sagacity. To this day these rules are instructive. 
 They marked the towns, chiefly Brighton and London, 
 Worthing and Belper, and Birmingham, where each rule 
 was known to be adopted. They are worthy the 
 attention of co-operative societies now, as showing the 
 care that early societies took to secure character. 
 
152 HISTORY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Early Eules of Co-operative Societies. 
 
 confidence, education, co-operative knowledge, and self- 
 helping habits in their members. The following are 
 some of the more notable rules : — 
 
 Loans of capital to the society by its own members 
 shall bear an interest of £5 per £100, and are' not 
 returnable without six months' notice. 
 
 In the purchase and sale of goods credit shall neither 
 be given nor received. 
 
 Every member agrees to deal at the retail shop or 
 store of the society for those articles of daily use, which 
 are laid in of suitable quality, and sold at fair ready 
 money prices. 
 
 The name of any member who finds it inconvenient 
 to deal to the amount of at least two shillings a week 
 at this store shall be laid before the committee. 
 
 AU disputes among members on the affairs of the 
 society are to be settled by arbitration. 
 
 Any member misbehaving may be expelled Jby vote of 
 the majority of members at a quarterly meeting. 
 
 No husband shall be admitted a member without his 
 wife's appearing before the committee and expressing 
 her consent. 
 
 A man is not eligible to be a member unless he can 
 read and write; and iu general he must produce a 
 specimen of his work. 
 
 No member is eligible for this committee until six 
 months after admission to the society. 
 
 Members who shaU be found to receive parochial aid 
 without having made known their wants to the society 
 may be expelled at a general meeting. 
 
 Every member engages to subscribe weekly to a fund 
 for the relief of sick and distressed members, when 
 called upon to do so by the society. 
 
 The preface to the " Co-operative Miscellany," of 
 1830, stated that there were then upwards of 20,000 
 persons united in different parts of the kingdom. 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PERIOD. 153 
 
 Rapid extension of Societies and Gommtinities. 
 
 The number of societies spread over England, Scot- 
 land, Wales, and Ireland, were estimated by the British 
 Association as being 266 in 1830. The members of the 
 British Association itself numbered 639. The enthu- 
 siasm with which Co-operation continued to be regarded 
 was manifest by the statement in the " British 
 Co-operator," that in the last quarter of the year 53 
 societies had been formed. 
 
 When William Thompson wrote his practical direc- 
 tions for forming communities in 1830, he stated there 
 was nearly 300 co-operative socities of the industrial 
 classes associated through England, Scotland, and 
 Ireland. He spoke of two grand experiments instituted 
 in 1825, on the principles of co-operative industry, one 
 at New Harmony, in the State of Indiana, in North 
 America, and the other at Orbiston, near Glasgow ; and 
 of others in different parts of the United States, parti- 
 cularly one at Kendal, in the State of Ohio, without any 
 sort of connection with Mr. Owen, other than that of 
 friendly communications of knowledge, as set on foot by 
 gentlemen of benevolence and means. It was in 1827, 
 he says, that the people themselves took up the idea of 
 co-operative industry, and names William Bryen, one of 
 the hardworking industrious classes, as the chief promoter 
 of an incipient modification of the thing, at Brighton, 
 Sussex, under the name of a Trading Fund Association. 
 Within three years of that period the combined efforts 
 of Mr. Philip Skene, Mr. Vesey of Exeter, Mr. William 
 Pare of Birmingham, and other friends of co-operative 
 industry united with Mr. Bryen, led to more than eighty 
 associations on similar principles being formed in differ- 
 ent parts of England. He relates that the first Brighton 
 association had accumulated funds sufficient to take a 
 small piece of land, of twenty or thirty acres, and others 
 had commenced the manufacture of cotton and stock- 
 ings. The Brighton society published every month a 
 periodical called the "Co-operator," while the Birming- 
 ham society issued the " Co-operative Herald." 
 
154 HISTOEY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 The fiist Loudon Manufacturing Society. 
 
 We have this year (1830) an announcement of the 
 first co-operative manufacturing community in London. 
 The object appears to be to give employment to 
 members. A committee was appointed to superintend 
 the manufacture of brushes. They were to be sent to 
 the Co-operative Bazaar, 19, Greville-street, where 
 goods manufactured by other co-operative societies were 
 purchased for sale. Co-operators in Burslem were 
 sending up orders for co-operative handkerchiefs, 
 stockings, galloons, and such things as were likely to be 
 sold among poor people. The British Association had 
 the management of the arrangements, and they opened 
 tneir bazaar from two to three o'clock daily. The terms 
 on which goods were admitted were these : "The carriage 
 of goods must be paid; the wholesale and retail prices 
 fixed and attached to the articles, with an invoice, 
 specifying the quantity, qualities, and kind of each 
 article, which must be sent on sale, or returnable if not 
 sold, marked with a distinguisTiing mark of the persons 
 and association sending them. All damage or loss must 
 be borne by the sender of the articles, the greatest care 
 of which will be taken on their arrival at the bazaar, 
 when receipts, exchangeable, will be given. The money 
 derived from sales subject to a deduction of two and a 
 half per cent will be paid over to the society, through 
 which the goods have been sent to the bazaar. Notice 
 will be given of the over or under price in the public 
 markets, and of proposed exchanges of goods between 
 different societies; and at such times as the proceeds of 
 the bazaar management exceed the expenses, a bonus or 
 dividend will be made to the senders of goods previously 
 sold. 
 
 A list was published of seventeen societies, which in 
 Manchester and Salford alone were formed between 1826 
 and 1830, bearing names like Masonic lodges, the 
 "Benevolent," the "Friendly," the "Owenian," and 
 others. But only the last-named society was intending 
 to commence manufacturing. 
 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC PEBIOD. Igg 
 
 The Ohat Moss MilleimiTun. 
 
 At that time (1830) a few co-operators in Manchester 
 took 600 acres of waste land upon Chat Moss, and they 
 contrived to cultivate it. England had not a drearier 
 spot in which to begin a new world. There was 
 scarcely a thing for the eye to rest upon over a flat of 
 several thousand acres. Eailway surveyors had declared 
 it impossible to make the Manchester and Liverpool 
 line over it. Those who stepped upon it found it a 
 black, wet sponge, which absorbed the pedestrian in it 
 up to his Imees. Horses who walked over it had to 
 wear wooden pattens. It was literally a " Slough of 
 Despond," but enthusiastic co-operators thought they 
 could cultivate the millennium there. Co-operation had 
 the soul of charity in it : it honestly prated much thereof, 
 and like that apostolic virtue it hoped all things and 
 believed all things in 1830. 
 
 The growth of the social idea, as the reader has seen, 
 Eke that of the railway system, or electric telegraphy, 
 or the national postage, has been obscure, intermittent, 
 gradual, and often ridiculous. It has been misrepre- 
 sented before it was heard, and assailed before it had 
 force. Its agents have sometimes been partially crazy 
 and seemed whoUy so. Ignorant themselves of what 
 many knew, they therefore obtained no credit for what 
 they well understood. Suffering to the verge of despair, 
 when at last fired by a generous hope, their imagination 
 betrayed them into assertion far beyond their need, or 
 means, of proof or intent. Those who know nothing 
 and excuse nothing to the pardonable flights of excited 
 sorrow, alone deride as Utopianism the first joyful 
 struggle of ignorance with a near evil. 
 
156 HISTORY OP CO-OPEKATION. 
 
 Labour Markets invented. 
 
 CHAPTEE Vm. 
 THE DEVICE OF LABOUR EXCHANGES.* 
 
 The night is darkest before the mom ; 
 When the pain is sorest the child is bom. 
 
 — Kingsley's Day of the Lord. 
 
 So far as my reading or experience extends there is no 
 example of a commercial movement so simple, necessary, 
 and popular as the device of labour exchanges — excit- 
 ing so wide an interest and dying so soon, and becoming 
 so very dead. The exchange of labour meant really an 
 exchange of commodities upon which labour had been 
 expended. One plan was to take a large room, or series 
 of rooms, where persons having articles they needed to 
 part with could exchange them for others, or obtain 
 a negotiable note for them. The first intimation in 
 England of this new device of commerce of industry 
 came from Mr. Owen. It appeared in the "Crisis " in the 
 following form : — 
 
 "Notice to the Public : Equitable Labour Exchakges' 
 Institution of the Industrious Classes, Gray's 
 Inn Eoad, King's Cross. 
 
 "Agriculturists, gardeners, manufacturers, provision 
 merchants, factors, warehousemen, wholesale and retail 
 dealers of all descriptions, mechanics' and all others, 
 who may be inclined to dispose of their various articles 
 of trade and merchandise in the only equitable manner 
 
 • This midway story, which ranges over 1831-3, might be included in 
 the narrative of the next chapter did it not seem best to treat so distinc- 
 tive a subject as the Labour Exchanges separately. 
 
THE DEVICE OF LABOUR EXCHANGES. 157 
 
 Laboni Notes isBned. 
 
 in which men can mutually dispose of their property to 
 each other, viz., its value in labour for equal value in 
 labour, without the intervention of money, are requested 
 to transmit their names and address, with the descrip- 
 tion of the kind or kinds of property which they desire 
 so to exchange, to the secretary of the institution, Mr. 
 Samuel Austin, of whom, on personal application at the 
 institution, every information relative to the Equitable 
 Labour Exchange may be obtained. 
 
 "All letters must be post-paid — Eobbbt Owen." 
 
 These exchange bazaars were designed to enable 
 artificers to exchange among themselves articles they 
 had made, by which they would save the shopkeeper's 
 expenses. For currency labour notes were substituted, 
 which it was thought would represent real value. The 
 shoemaker brought his pair of shoes to the bazaar, 
 with an invoice of the cost of the material and time 
 (calculated at sixpence per hour) in making them. A 
 person, supposed to be competent and disinterested, was 
 appointed to sanction or correct the valuation. The 
 labour note, of so many hours value, was given to the 
 shoemaker, who could then, or at any other time, buy 
 with them any other deposit in the bazaar — a hat, or 
 teakettle, or a joint of meat, if he found what he wanted. 
 Upon each transaction a commission of 8i per cent was 
 charged, in some bazaars payable in cash, to defray 
 the expenses of the institution. The directors were not 
 quite tjtopian in providing funds for the management. 
 Had they shown as much judgment in other respects 
 their project would have lasted. Though the commis- 
 sion in this case was deemed heavy, the plan proved 
 very popular. In the exchanges conducted under Mr. 
 Owen's auspices the commission charged was only one 
 halfpenny in the shilling. In the published rules of the 
 Equitable Labour Exchange, in Gray's Inn Eoad, in 
 1832, the name of Eobert Owen appears as governor 
 
158 HISTOBY OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 American Origin of Labour Exchanges. 
 
 and one of the trustees ; and Thomas Allsop, Sampson 
 Mordan, and W. Devonshire SauU, as members of 
 council. 
 
 According to Mr. Noyes, Josiah Warren, in 1826, 
 originated the idea of labour exchanges, which he com- 
 municated to Mr. Owen when he was a resident in Mr. 
 Owen's community of New Harmony in that year. After 
 leaving the New Harmony community Mr. Warren went 
 to Cincinnatti, where he opened a labour exchange 
 under the title of a time store. He joined in commenc- 
 ing a second one in Tasearawas, Co. Ohio ; a third at 
 Mount Vernon, Indiana. He opened a fourth in 1842, 
 at New Harmony, to which he had returned. Mr. 
 Warren's mode of paying commission was by charging 
 the exchanger for the amount of time expended in effect- 
 ing his business. The manager had a clock before him ; 
 he noted the time of the customer's arrival and when 
 the transaction was completed, and charged him for 
 the time he had consumed in conducting it. This was 
 done on the well-known principle of Mr. Warren, that 
 " cost is the limit of price." It was not the value of the 
 business done but the time taken in doing it upon which 
 the charge was made. It might cost more on this plan 
 to buy a pennyworth of needles than a sack of flour. 
 
 It is possible that Mr. Owen did derive the idea of the 
 exchanges in this way, but I have not observed that 
 he ever said so. However acquired, he alone gave effect 
 to the plan in England, and by whom alone it was 
 made known. 
 
 In May, 1833, the National Equitable Labour Ex- 
 change, London, was opened at noon on May-day_ with 
 some pomp, at the new rooms in Charlotte-street, 
 Eathbone Place, London. This place extended 200 feet 
 from the front entrance ia Charlotte-street, to John- 
 street, at the back. In Charlotte-street it appeared to 
 be no more than one of the usual private dwellings ; 
 but on passing through the entrance it opened unex- 
 
THE DEVICE OP LABOUR EXCHANGES. 159 
 
 Great Meetings at Charlotte-street, liondon. 
 
 pectedly into a quadrangular building of two stories, 
 with a covered space id the centre of about sixteen feet 
 by one hundred and thirty. Alterations were made in 
 it to suit the convenience of the labour exchange and 
 public meetings. Nearly twelve thousand people were 
 able to stand in it under cover and hear a speaker with 
 an ordinary voice. Three thousand seven hundred 
 could be seated in it. Mr. Owen convened the opening 
 meeting " purposely to announce his determination to 
 reject the system of error, by which society had been so 
 long governed, and plant his standard of open and direct 
 opposition to it." He had done that sixteen years before, 
 at the City of London Tavern ; but that was a thing 
 which would bear doing many times over. Society had 
 a very obstinate way of going on, regardless of the stand 
 Mr. Owen made against it. Mr. Eoebuck, M.P., was 
 the first chairman of the day, and the chief thing which 
 he did was to make "the expression to the working 
 men of his conviction, that nothing would be done for 
 the labouring classes unless they do it themselves." 
 Mr. Gillon, M.P., was also a speaker, but Mr. Eoebuck, 
 either fortunately or from foresight, had an engagement 
 which caused him to vacate the chair before Mr. Owen 
 began the address of the day, which, both in its length 
 and its terms, would have been trying to Mr. Eoebuck, 
 who never dreamed and was a master of directness of 
 speech. On one occasion, subsequently, a trades' festi- 
 val, in which one thousand workmen took part, was 
 held in the institution. 
 
 Mr. Owen, in the character of agent or head of the 
 chief London exchange, sometimes appeared in an odd^ 
 aspect. On one occasion a letter appeared in which a' 
 cargo of potatoes, at a very cheap rate, was offered to 
 Mr. Owen, consisting of a hundred tons of the pink-eyed 
 variety, for which the seller was willing to take labour 
 notes for the value of two-thirds. It seemed somewhat 
 of a degradation ; if not a descent it was a digression of 
 
160 HISTOEY OF 00-OPEBATION. 
 
 The great Philanthropist becomes a Potato dealer. 
 
 dignity, that the greatest philg^nthropist in the world, 
 and the correspondent of all the monarchs of Europe, 
 and who had undertaken to remodel all the social 
 arrangements of mankind, should be publicly engaged 
 in considering tenders for pink-eyed potatoes. The 
 labour exchange officer was to act as the general buyer 
 for the public. The prices of goods taken was, as we 
 have seen, estimated in hours of labour supposed to be 
 bestowed, or reported to be bestowed, upon each article. 
 Sixpence was the uniform standard of value for each 
 hour, adopted by Mr. W. King, who made some preten- 
 sions, in 1832, to be an authority on these exchanges. 
 He it was, so far as can now be discerned, who was the 
 editor of the " Gazette of Labour Exchanges," at least 
 who published letters to himself as editor, signed with 
 his name, exactly coincident in style and argument with 
 the editorial articles of the "Gazette." At this distance 
 of time it is not easy to appreciate the theoretical 
 reasons adduced to explain these exchanges. The 
 exchanges themselves would have succeeded but for 
 their advocates. The " Gazette " of these bazaars stated 
 that the first labour bank was estabUshed at the Gothic 
 Hall, New Eoad, Marylebone, in the month of April, 
 1832. This was the one which Mr. King founded and 
 espoused. At the same time, or contemporaneously 
 with its existence, there were exchange bazaars in 
 Poland-street, Oxford-street, Eed Lion Square, the 
 Eotunda, Blackfriars Eoad (where the Eev. Eobert 
 Taylor, whom we have already met at the London 
 Tavern, the " Devil's Chaplain," as he mischievously 
 •styled himself, officiated about that period), Hatfield 
 House, Westminster Eoad, Tottenham Court Eoad, as 
 well as at the famous Gray's Inn Eoad, where Mr. Owen 
 was himself governor. It does not appear how the 
 depositors of goods at the Gothic Hall estimated the 
 cost of the material they had worked up, in hours of the 
 value of sixpence ; and persons naturally inquired how 
 
THE DEVICE OF LABOUE EXCHANGES. 161 
 
 Liabilities of UmveiBal Philanthropists. 
 
 the quick workman and the slow one estimated their 
 work on a uniform standard of sixpence for sixty 
 minutes. The director of the Gothic Hall did not pro- 
 fess to reply to his many critics, but boldly said : " Our 
 answer shall be given from this building." He frankly 
 announced that the projectors of the bank had no capital. 
 Mr. Owen, who understood business, objected to this 
 bazaar as premature ; as persons who had no property 
 to indemnify the public from loss were unfitted for the 
 work. Those who deposited goods were not paid in 
 money, but received labour exchange notes of the value 
 of one hour's labour each. The editor complained of 
 persons who " looked on with cold indifference " upon his 
 Bank of Labour (as these exchanges came to be called) 
 which had no capital at its back. It was to Mr. 
 Owen's credit that when he judged the King scheme 
 unsound he said so. The editor of the organ of them in 
 question "wondered that he should find an opponent 
 in the ' universal philanthropist,' " evidently being of 
 opinion that a philanthropist should approve of every- 
 thing well intended, whether well devised or not. The 
 projector thought enough to allege that he " was con- 
 scious of the purity of his intentions, and confident ia the 
 soundness of his principles :" but, as the "principles" 
 had never been tried, and as "purity of intention," 
 however excellent in itself, is not capital in a commercial 
 sense, and will buy nothing in the market, the exchange 
 could not be expected to command confidence. Yet it 
 obtained it. Within twenty weeks deposits of the value 
 of £3,500 were made. At the end of the first month 
 the deposits were upwards of fifty-two in number. At 
 the end of the fifth calendar week they amounted to one 
 thousand four hundred and thirty-five. 
 
 The exchange bazaars were stated by the Gazette of 
 them in question to be "the offspring of the co-operative 
 societies, and to have spread at that time [1832] over 
 almost every part of the kingdom simultaneously." 
 
162 SiSTORY 6? CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Mr. Thomas Attwood receives a famous visitor. 
 
 In writing to -the Times concerniug the Labour Ex- 
 change Institution, Mr. Owen cited the great commercial 
 organisation of the firm of James Morrison & Co. as 
 slight approaches towards the change that he intended 
 to effect in the distribution of common wealth among 
 the common people. 
 
 A United Interests Exchange Mart and Bank was 
 projected, and premises taken for it in Aldersgate- 
 street, a few yards south of the corner of Long Lane, 
 consisting of a spacious front shop, with three other 
 floors each of nearly the same extent, for showrooms 
 and exchange purposes. An exchange was opened ia 
 Sheffield, a town always venturesome ia social things. 
 But it was Birmingham that stood next to London in 
 labour exchange fervour. Mr. Owen convened a con- 
 gress in 1832 in Birmingham, at which delegates from 
 various parts of the kingdom were invited, to discuss 
 this new scheme of local commerce. The propagandism 
 of it was in mighty hands, which were wont to strike 
 the world in a large way. At once Mr. Owen held a 
 great meeting in Birmingham, where he excited both 
 enthusiasm and inquiry into the nature of co-operative 
 plans generally. Mr. Thomas Attwood, himself then a 
 man of national repute, with a natural affinity himself 
 for men of spacious manners, introduced Mr. Owen, with 
 many courtly phrases, to the council of the famous 
 Birmingham Political Union, whom Mr. Owen addressed. 
 He delivered lectures in the public office in Dee's Eoyal 
 Hotel, Temple Eow, which was largely attended by 
 ladies ; and in Beardsworth's Eepository, which was 
 attended by eight thousand people. Mr. Gr. F. Muntz, 
 was announced to preside. Mr. Owen's subject was 
 "Labour Exchanges;" and Mr. Beardsworth, having 
 an eye to business, offered to sell him the repository 
 for a labour exchange mart. Mr, John Eabone, Mr. 
 George Edmonds (one of the most ambitious orators 
 of the Birmingham Political Union, and subsequently 
 
THE DEVICE OP LABOUB EXCHANGES. 163 
 
 Quick success of the Birmingham Labour Exchange, 
 
 clerk of the peace of the town), Mr. Hawkes Smith, 
 Mr. Pare, and others, addressed the great meeting at 
 Beardsworth's. 
 
 Birmingham being distinguished among EngHsh towns 
 for the variety of its small trades, and for the excellent 
 industry and miscellaneous appetite of its inhabitants, 
 exchanges of any kind came congenially to the people 
 of those days. Journalism there soon showed itself 
 interested in advancing the idea. A special " Labour 
 Exchange Gazette " was started, and on July 29, 1833, 
 the National Equitable Labour Exchange was opened 
 in Coach Yard, Bull-street. Benjamin Woolfield, Esq., 
 was the director, and Mr. James Lewes sub-director. 
 The bankers were Spooners, Attwoods, & Co. The first 
 day the deposits were eighteen thousand hours, and the 
 exchanges nine hundred. Each day, for some time, the 
 deposits increased, but the exchanges never exceeded 
 one half. In August the association of depositors num- 
 bered eight hundred and forty. Coventry sent £30 
 worth of ribbons ; but a much more saleable deposit 
 was three hundred weight of good bacon, and one person 
 undertook to take any number of well-manufactured 
 Birmingham articles in exchange for the best Irish 
 provisions. The capital upon which this exchange com- 
 menced was only £450, which the first three months 
 realised a profit, clear of all rents, salaries, and other 
 payments, of £262. By this time London was filled 
 with the fame of the Labour Exchange Bazaar of Gray's 
 Inn Eoad, which Mr. Owen had taken to accommodate 
 the growing business which was arising around him 
 beyond that which could be dealt with in the Charlotte- 
 street Eooms. For a time popular interest and the 
 ardent imagination of the promoters opened up illimit- 
 able prospects of a new order of progress. It was stated 
 that in one week the deposits in the Gray's Iim Eoad 
 bazaar amounted to little less than £10,000, and that if 
 four per cent out of the eight-and-a-third per cent said 
 
164 HISTORY OF C0-0PER4.TI0N. 
 
 The cardinal point in Labour Exchange management. 
 
 to be then charged on those deposits, were applied to 
 the extension of exchanges, there would be a disposable 
 accumulating fund of £400 weekly, or if the deposits 
 and exchanges proceeded at that rate £28,000 per 
 annum would arise for that purpose. " Over the 
 water" — as the Surrey side of London was called — 
 things went on swimmingly. The Labour Exchange 
 Association was so active that in 1833 and '34 it pub- 
 lished monthly reports of its proceedings, with carefully 
 drawn up papers and speeches of members. 
 
 The astonishing number of deposits made in a short 
 time, and the avidity with which exchanges were made 
 prove that a large amount of wealth remained stationary 
 for want of a market. No doubt numerous persons were 
 stimulated by these exchanges to make articles of use 
 and value who before did nothing, because no means 
 existed of disposing of them ; and thus, by providing 
 exchanges, new wealth was created. Mr. Owen, with 
 his, natural discernment, — when philanthropy did not 
 prevent him seeing — strongly recommended the manage- 
 ment of the exchange at Birmingham to be given to 
 Mr. Wood, elsewhere mentioned. Had he accepted the 
 appointment the future of these exchanges had been 
 different — certainly that of Birmingham would in all 
 probability have been successful. Mr. Wood better 
 understood the commercial possibilities of these contriv- 
 ances than anyone else. The cardinal: point he insisted 
 upon was, that each exchange should be provided with 
 quick, sound, practical valuators — not men muddled with 
 labour-note ideas of sixpence per hour estimates — but 
 who knew exactly what a thing would fetch in the mar- 
 ket if it had to be sold out of doors. The labour of a 
 second-rate shoemaker, or button maker, might not be 
 Worth sixpence an hour, while the labour of a skilful 
 oculist might be worth two guineas or five guineas an 
 hour. Who could appraise the value per hour of the 
 chair painter and the landscape painter at the same 
 
THE DEVICE OP LABOUR EXCHANGES. 165 
 
 How Labour Notes became depreciated. 
 
 sixpence ? The labour exchange needed the pawn- 
 broker's faculty of quickly seeing what a thing was worth. 
 The institution of the three balls has no great credit for 
 putting an extravagant value on articles it takes in ; but 
 without compelling a depositor to take the least he could, 
 the exchange managers should have a clear eye to not 
 giving more than could be obtained for an article in a 
 reasonable time if they had to sell it to the stranger. 
 No advantage is gained by giving more than the value 
 obvious to the outsider ; for the moment that becomes 
 known — and such a fact soon gets diffused — the labour 
 notes are depreciated in value ; for it is said, and said 
 truly, that the exchange notes have no equivalent 
 behind them. Taking articles into the exchange which 
 the public knew were not ordinarily saleable, and giving 
 notes for them by which useful articles could be obtained, 
 led in the same way to the depreciation of the note, and 
 for the same reason — that there was obviously no avail- 
 able and equivalent value deposited to represent it. If 
 a man of business went into an exchange and saw 
 persons depositing chimney ornaments and firescreens, 
 and carrying out kettles, good hats, and sound pieces of 
 bacon, he knew at once that thing could not go on. 
 While these exchanges were new, anyone not unfriendly 
 to them might reasonably predict that many of them 
 would fail deplorably ; while it was perfectly clear that 
 their rapid popularity showed that they really hit a 
 general need, and good sound management must make 
 them a profitable speculation to all concerned. At first, 
 tradesmen around them readily agreed to take labour 
 notes, and numerous placards were issued, and are still 
 extant (preserved by Mr. Place*), giving this notice to 
 the public. Of course these tradesmen took occasion to 
 
 * As many as three hundred tradesmen gave notice that the labour 
 notes would be taken at their places of business, and in some cases the 
 theatres made the same announcement — ^that labour notes would be taken 
 at the doors. 
 
166 HISTORT OF 00-OPEEATION. 
 
 The plots of Shopkeepew. 
 
 run round the exchange themselves, and see what Mnd 
 of deposits represented the value of the notes ; and when 
 they found unexchangeable articles taken in at an 
 unsaleable price they began to decline to take the notes, 
 or take them at an ominous depreciation. These banks 
 of labour required to be managed by business men, and 
 honest men, with some one to see that they were honest. 
 Mr. Owen had a weakness for "respectable" friends of 
 the system, and some of these — in one case a whole 
 family of shrewd, talkative professors of the "new 
 views " — got put upon the directory, in one exchange or 
 other, to the exclusion of less pretentious, but reaUy 
 honest, good working, adherents, who really cared for 
 the affair. And these adroit managers did business 
 vnth their friends and acquaintances, and sent in articles 
 of their own by other hands, and loaded the shelves with 
 useless things which they appraised at a reverential 
 rate, and gave information to the receivers of the notes 
 what' valuable and saleable articles they could carry 
 away in exchange. Sharp shopkeepers thus got influ- 
 ence at the exchange, and sent down the worthless 
 stock in their shops, exchanged it for labour notes, and 
 before the general public came to hand carried away 
 the pick of the saleable things, with which they stocked 
 their shops. As they put in their windows " Labour 
 Notes taken here," they were thought wonderful friends 
 of the exchange. With some of them the proper notice 
 in the window would have been " Labour Exchangers 
 taken in here." And these were the knaves who first 
 began to depreciate -labour notes and compare them to 
 French assignats, and they well knew the reason why.* 
 The popularity and even profit of the deposit business 
 
 * On the other hand there were honest and favouring shopkeepers who 
 took the notes with a view to promote their circnlation as currency, and 
 gave saleable goods for them, who fonnd themselves unable to obtain a 
 f Eiir exchange at the bazaar, and thus they became victims of the exchange 
 scheme. 
 
THE DEVICE OF LABOUR EXCHANGEa, 167 
 
 Adrantages of Labour Exchanges over Pawnbrokers' Sbopa. 
 
 were sucli that it bore this, until larger operators gave 
 the thing a turn. These were the wholesale and general 
 dealers, who systematically depreciated labour notes with 
 a view to buy them up, which they did, and carried off 
 all the saleable goods they could find at the exchange ; 
 and the silly people who first held the notes did not 
 take time to find out what the depreciation meant. It 
 is true these operators did not approve of the exchanges 
 which appeared to threaten a new system of barter, and 
 ingeniously devised means to discredit them and profit 
 themselves in doing it. If Mr. Owen had been wise and 
 vigorous in his choice of officers in the central exchange 
 the enemy might have been frustrated; but disinte- 
 restedness had become with him a second nature, and 
 he took for granted the integrity of those who offered 
 their services. When his suspicions were aroused no 
 man could see more easily or farther into a rogue than 
 he. But, unfortunately, in those days these suspicions 
 were generally awakened too late. 
 
 In addition to these societies having among themselves 
 no organised inspiration, and Mr. Owen never looking 
 upon them with any very friendly eye, but rather regard- 
 ing them as weak expedients of persons who thought 
 that they could mend or mitigate a state of society 
 which he considered should be peremptorily superseded, 
 they had not the advantage of that strong influence to 
 direct them which it was in the power of his friends 
 chiefly to exercise. Facility and certainty of exchange 
 is a condition not only of commerce but of production ; 
 and these labour bazaars would have been of national 
 value in England had they been more prudently con- 
 ducted. As it was, astute persons failed not to see that 
 a wealth-making power resided in them. It was obvious 
 if pawnbrokers, who received no money with deposits, but 
 had to pay out capital for them and be debared from real- 
 ising upon articles taken in until a long period after, and 
 then only when not redeemed, prospered, there was some 
 
168 HISTOEV OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Early popularity of the Exchanges. 
 
 probability that a company of labour brokers who received 
 cash with every deposit and paid no capital out for it, but 
 merely gave a note for it and were at liberty to seU it 
 the next hour, could make profit with good management. 
 There might have been a department where valuable 
 articles of uncertain demand could be received on sale at 
 the depositor's own price, to be paid for in notes only 
 when disposed of. Had the profits accruing been carried 
 to the credit of customers in proportion to their dealings, 
 as is now done in co-operative stores, aijd the first five 
 pounds of profit so gained by the exchanger capitalised 
 to create a fund to stand at the back of the notes to 
 prevent panic or depreciation, these labour exchanges 
 might have continued, as they might now be revived 
 and spread over the land again, as they once did ; and 
 as co-operative stores do in our day. 
 
 At the Surrey branch in Blackfriars Eoad, which 
 existed simultaneously with the Gray's Inn Eoad 
 place, the total deposits soon amounted to ^32,000, and 
 the exchanges to £16,000. The public everywhere 
 undoubtedly took great interest in the new system of 
 business introduced. Mechanical inventions, steam 
 engines, steam ships, and projected railways had changed 
 the character of industry before men's eyes. Dr. Church 
 was known to be running about the streets of Birm- 
 ingham in a private steam carriage of his own ; and 
 though some of his patients were more alarmed at his 
 untoward brougham than at his prescriptions, he made 
 a favourable impression upon the popular imagination 
 all over the country. The novelty of change on all 
 hands had its effect on the new generation of the day, 
 and disposed many to believe that the new discovery in 
 barter and exchange was the very supplement of industry 
 wanted, and that its uses and benefits would be indefinite. 
 Undoubtedly their progress was marvellous, and their 
 first discouragement came, strange to record, not from 
 the ehemy but from friends. They were the disciples of 
 
THE DEVICE OF LABOUR EXCHANGES. 169 
 
 Errors of management. 
 
 the ■world-makers who helped, in their mournful, mis- 
 giving way, to bring the scheme down. They regarded 
 these exchanges as another expedient for diverging from 
 the straight road which led to the new world. Mr. Gray, 
 in giving an account of these exchanges, says, " They 
 proved entirely delusive, as all attempts to graft a new 
 system upon the old must be, without any corresponding 
 change of principles and habits . of action ; " whereas it 
 was a merit of this scheme, that it required no change 
 of principle and very little habit of action. If the 
 socialists of the day had, with their usual business 
 sense, lent themselves to the management, the failure 
 that came would have been avoided. Mr. Owen, when 
 he became governor of the chief one, appointed or 
 permitted, as has been related, persons to be managers 
 devoid both of the requisite knowledge of the commercial 
 values, and of the demands of the market, who are said 
 to have disregarded — for reasons more criminal than 
 ignorance — the fact that weeks of labour might be 
 expended upon fanciful articles not worth a sliilling if 
 regard was had to the chances of selling them ; and 
 shelves were loaded if not with grosses of green spectacles 
 with things not. likely to be in demand on this side the 
 millennium. That there was a real convenience in these 
 exchanges was proved by the fact that they sprang up in 
 every direction, and it was their success and profit 
 becoming obvious to utterly untheoretical eyes that led 
 finally to their ruin. The Jewish proprietor of Gray's 
 Inn Eoad saw that good commercial results could be 
 derived from them, and compelled Mr. Owen to remove 
 that he might continue one in the same place himself ; 
 but the enthusiasm which Mr. Owen had created, and 
 which allured the public to any scheme with which he 
 was connected at that time, was wanting to the new 
 proprietor, who had no patience or capacity for acquiring 
 adherents for his business ; and in due course he closed 
 it. He had taken to a shop without being able to secure 
 
170 mSTOET OF CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 The Gray's Inn Eoad Exchange ruined by success. 
 
 to himself what in England is called — ^but what in 
 Scotland nobody understands — the goodwill of the 
 business. 
 
 It is an entirely unpleasant fact to relate that the 
 two greatest schemes of Mr. Owen — community and 
 exchange, — founded in a philosophy of pacific forbear- 
 ance beyond any preached in that age, were both 
 terminated by outbreaks of force. In January, 1834, 
 the labour exchange in Gray's Inn Eoad was broken up 
 by violence. The proprietor, Mr. Bromley, having had 
 his building empty in 1831 for four months, artfuUy 
 placed the keys in Mr. Owen's unsuspecting hands, to 
 do what he pleased with it, he reliuquishing any claim 
 to rent till 1832. Nothing was to be paid for the fixtures. 
 Mr. Owen accepted the arrangement without any sche- 
 dule of fixtures or any definite agreement as to terms 
 and tenure of future tenancy. Had the place gone on 
 indifferently, Mr. Bromley would have been very glad of 
 such rent as Mr. Owen would have paid him. For a 
 year and a half, less or more, Mr. Owen used the place 
 as the grand central institution for promulgating his 
 system. Lectures were delivered there on Sundays and 
 other days. Great festive celebrations were held ; and 
 many of the most eminent men of that day and of sub- 
 sequent years were among the occasional frequenters of 
 some of the meetings. Trade unionists, social, political, 
 religious, and philanthropic reformers of all schools, 
 found welcome and hearing there. No opinion, and no 
 want of opinion, was a bar to friendliness and aid, pro- 
 vided the object was one intended to benefit the public. 
 It was taking the labour exchange there that brought 
 the Institution (of which London never had the like 
 before or since) to an end. The exchange was not long 
 in operation in Gray's Inn Eoad before the palpable 
 prosperity of the idea excited dangerous cupidity. 
 When Mr. Bromley saw the exchange succeed he took 
 steps to force Mr. Owen out of the place, as he was 
 
THE DEVICE OF LABOTJB EXCHANGES. 171 
 
 Broken up by violenoe. 
 
 satisfied Mr. Owen had discovered a mode of making 
 money which was unknown to Mr. Bromley. One of 
 his modest proposals, then, was that Mr. Owen should 
 • buy the whole institution at il7,000. Then he demanded 
 that the fixtures should be paid for, which had never 
 been estimated at more than ^700. He, however, made 
 a demand for £1,100; and, to prevent dispute or un- 
 pleasantness, Mr. Owen paid him £700 out of his own 
 pocket. It was ultimately arranged that the premises 
 should be given up, as the directors of the exchange 
 refused to take any further lease of the premises at the 
 rental asked, which was £1,700 a-year. Mr. Bromley, 
 however, was so impatient of re-possession that he did 
 not wait even for their leaving, but procured a mob of 
 men and broke into the place, and let in sixty-four 
 ruffians (the exact number of the gang was set down), 
 who smashed the secretary's doors in, took possession 
 of the fixtures belonging to the exchange, and turned 
 the directors into the street. The police were called, 
 some of the rioters were taken before the magistrates, 
 and the same discredit occurred as though Mr. Owen 
 had not paid the £700. Of course there was a remedy 
 in law against Mr. Bromley, but the directors were too 
 philanthropic to enforce it, and they were content to 
 open a new bazaar in the Surrey Institution, Blackfriars 
 Eoad. Even these conspicuous and damaging disasters 
 proved how strong a hold the idea of the utility of these 
 exchanges had taken. Notwithstanding the excitement 
 and mischievous knowledge the public had that the 
 Gray's Inn Eoad place might be peremptorily closed, 
 the amount of deposits on the last day it was opened 
 was 6,915 hours, and the exchanges 5,850, so that the 
 directors continued to do business to the last day at the 
 rate of more than £50,000 a-year. During the time 
 the bazaar was open there, from September 3rd to 
 September 29th, the deposits amounted to 445,501 hours 
 value, and the exchanges were 376,166. The amount 
 
172 HISTORTT OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 the enemy announces a new Exchange. 
 
 01 deposits remaining on hand suggests that very un- 
 saleable things had been received. The institution, 
 however, came to grief, not through its failure, but 
 through its success, as, oddly enough, has often hap- 
 pened in Co-operation. The lowest rent Mr. Bromley 
 would agree to accept as a condition of their remaining 
 was £1,400, and the rates and taxes amounted to about 
 £300 more, making a yearly outgoing of £1,700. The 
 business of the exchange was clearly likely to bear this, 
 and Mr. Bromley became so satisfied on this point, and 
 as has appeared so impatient to get possession, that, 
 rather than wait a week or two for the convenience of 
 removal, he forced, as has been said, Mr. Owen and his 
 friends peremptorily out of the. place, and immediately 
 issued a placard announcing that "The whole of the 
 splendid and capacious premises, Gray's Inn Eoad, will 
 be occupied in future by the National Land and Equit- 
 able Labour Exchange Company. The present occupants 
 will close their proceedings this week, and the National 
 Land and Equitable Labour Exchange Company will 
 commence receiving deposits on Wednesday morning 
 next, the 16th instant, at ten o'clock, and continue 
 daily at the same hour ; and the company's exchange 
 stores will be opened to the public on Monday, the 21st 
 of January, 1833 ; after which day the company wiU be 
 ready to receive proposals for the occupation of land 
 lying at convenient distances from the metropolis, or on 
 the line of the intended railroad from Birmingham to 
 King's Cross." 
 
 Here was a well-laid scheme, which was really a 
 tribute to Mr. Owen's sagacity in recommending 
 exchanges. This practical man, unembarrassed by any 
 scruples, thought that if the plan succeeded so well 
 when weighted with Mr. Owen's unpopular principles, 
 the world would flock to the same standard when a 
 neutral flag was displayed. He, however, overlooked 
 that outrage, though it sometimes succeeds, is often a 
 
THE DBVIOE OF LABOUR EXCHANGES. 173 
 
 Death of the Labour Market idea. 
 
 dangerous foundation to build upon. Mr. Owen's 
 disciples were not all philosophers — they were human 
 enough to feel rage, and numerous and powerful enough 
 to make their indignation felt ; and they spoke so 
 unpleasantly of the new project and its ingenious 
 projector, that he got few exchanges, and lost his good 
 tenants without getting any other. He found he had 
 not only alienated those who had made the exchange 
 system popular; he had alarmed the public by the 
 spectacles of violence, police cases, and failure. The 
 National Company fell into well-earned contempt and 
 distrust, and the Gray's Inn Eoad buildings have been 
 an obscure, woe-begone, deserted, and apparently an 
 unprofitable holding to this day. No doubt, labour 
 exchanges died there. Had Mr. Owen's friends been 
 far-seeing and self-denying they would have stilled their 
 hatchet tongues, and have promoted the success of the 
 National Land and Equitable Exchange Company. 
 They would have been discredited, but the cause would 
 have been saved. They did not comprehend that steam 
 was not pronounced a failure, though a thousand 
 experiments broke down before a single steam-ship 
 sailed or railway car ran ; that new medicines as often 
 kill people as cure them before cautious, patient, 
 experimental physicians discover the right way of 
 administering them. Yet no one decries the curative 
 art. But in social devices the first scoundrel or the 
 first fool — the first thief or the first blunderer, who by 
 over confidence, fraud, or ignorance, brings a scheme to 
 immediate grief, sets the world against it for generations, 
 and -journalists evermore speak of it as that " abortive 
 failure which was tried long ago and brought ruin and 
 ignominy upon all concerned." Men yet live, a few 
 honourably known in the " city" at this day, another 
 professionally eminent elsewhere, who took part in the 
 Gray's Inn Eoad affair, who have always maintained 
 their confidence in the plan. But so intimidating is 
 
174 HISTORY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Danger of exaggerating advantages. 
 
 failure over vulgar minds, and even the repute of it over 
 those who do not know the facts, that no co-operative 
 society has ever ventured to revive labour exchanges, 
 though they would be auxiliaries of Co-operation ia 
 every town, and sources of profit and local advantages 
 in numerous places. Mr. Lowe, in a recent speech, 
 alluded to the curious exchanges he had seen recorded 
 in a journal called the " Exchange and Mart." Some one 
 has discovered the secret of profit and use which lies in 
 that poor and costly revival of a method of commerce — 
 neglected, disparaged, but not exploded, which labour 
 exchanges revealed. 
 
 Despite the conflict of management, the inexperience 
 which belong to all new schemes, the ignorance, the 
 distrust and the jealousy which the new plan of 
 commerce had to encounter, it attained to considerable 
 organisation. The labour note was a model of curious 
 and skilful engraving for that day, more elaborate than 
 a bank note. Notwithstanding the novelty and disaster 
 of the advent of labour exchanges, the child was well 
 born, was of good promise, but was strangled as signs 
 were appearing of lusty youth. Labour exchanges did 
 not perish because theyfaOed but because they succeeded. 
 As is the habit of enthusiasm, the advantages of labour 
 exchanges were exaggerated. They were predicted to 
 supersede aU the ordinary forms of retail barter, and 
 render a metallic currency needless. This unguarded 
 language turned the attention of the public to the results 
 never hkely to arise, so that they never looked at the 
 advantages the exchanges did bring — that of creating 
 facilities for commerce, most useful to the public, and 
 which otherwise were never likely to exist. 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PEEIOD. 175 
 
 Bise of Socialism. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 THE SOCIALISTIC PERIOD. 1831-1844. 
 
 So many minds did gird their orbs with beams, 
 
 Tho' one did fling the fire, 
 Heaven flow'd upon ihe sonl in many dreams 
 
 Of high desire. 
 Thus truth was multiplied on truth, the world 
 
 Like one great garden showed, 
 And thro' the wreaths of floating dark upcurl'd, 
 
 Rare sunrise flow'd. — Tennyson, 
 
 Fob fourteen years now Co-operation has to be traced 
 through Socialism. Store keeping had in many cases 
 failed, and, where successful, its profits were insufficient 
 to pave the way to the new world, much less defray 
 the cost of that rather extensive erection. Accordingly 
 grand schemes of life were revived, in which idleness 
 and vice, silliness and poverty were to cease hy mutual 
 arrangement. This unattained, and hitherto unattain- 
 able, state of things came to bear the name of socialism. 
 How sociaKsm came to supersede Co-operation from 
 1830 until 1844 can only be traced through its publica- 
 tions, which in one shape or other have iiever ceased in 
 the land. The path is devious and is often overshadowed, 
 has curious little spaces of spring and sunlight here and 
 there. 
 
 Social and co-operative literature has not been 
 very brilliant. Very few writers upon the subject have 
 endeavoured to write as well as they could. - The art of 
 rendering their views acceptable by a simple and fresh 
 expression of them has seldom been attempted. Yet in 
 the earlier literature of Co-operation there were many 
 
176 HISTORY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Character of its writers. 
 
 instances of literary ambition. In those cases the 
 writers were gentlemen of leisure and some cultivation, 
 and they manifestly studied the art of expression. 
 Eobert Dale Owen was incomparably the best writer of 
 the earlyperiod. William Hawkes Smith, of Birmingham, 
 had an animated readable style. Mr. Minter Morgan 
 had literary ambition. These writers belonged to the 
 early period of Co-operation. In the second period the 
 writers were mostly working men, often eloquent by 
 accident, impulse, and passion, but quite incapable of 
 eloquence by design. They told their story ofttimes with 
 energy, but it was a verbose energy. There were often 
 instances of wit and humour in their platform arguments. 
 But their writing was only endurable to persons of 
 the same way of thinking, to whom earnestness was 
 eloquence, and to whom any argument, in which they 
 agreed, seemed witty. In the early days any man who 
 stood up manfully for opinions he believed true, at 
 which society scowled, seemed admirable, and was 
 admirable in the doing of it ; and by the majority, who 
 thought that deliverance from precariousness lay that 
 way, no art save sincerity was esteemed. Nothing 
 save this feeling could have reconciled disciples to 
 the reading furnished to them in their accredited 
 journals, which were overrun with writers whose 
 sentences are as insipid as turnips, and their pages 
 were as fields full of them. 
 
 Englishmen, as a rule, get so few generalised ideas 
 into their heads, and are so afraid of anyone who has 
 any in his, that they make rather too much of one when 
 they get it. If a new principle makes its way into their 
 minds, whether political, religious, or social, they go 
 mad about it for the first few years. They see nothing 
 but that. Everything else in the world is obscure to 
 them ; and they believe that their crotchet is the high 
 road to the millennium for all the world. Such persons 
 are not likely to write good tracts for sober days of facts 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PEBIOD. 177 
 
 Ant Writers. 
 
 and experiment. On the other hand, practical people 
 have not leisure for the work. And many who might 
 do the work well do not always think it worth doing in 
 that way. Certainly no co-operators arose who had the 
 pen of Bunyan, the Bedford tinker. 
 
 In the mid-period of Co-operation many books and 
 papers were published without any date, or any allusion 
 by which a person unacquainted with the time could 
 determine when they were issued. So important a book 
 as William Thompson's " Practical Directions for the 
 Establishment of Communities " merely contains an 
 incidental date which suggests rather than tells when it 
 appeared. All these authors doubtless thought they 
 were commencing a new world, and that their works 
 would be known as issued at the beginning of things. 
 Printing was never a strong point with the party of 
 progress. Even Eobert Fellowes, B.A., Oxon, who 
 published an address to the people in 1799, on the 
 " Genius of Democracy," though he printed and pub- 
 lished on good paper, was not well served by the printer, 
 who made him say that "Nelson's victory on the Nile 
 had laid the posterity of Prance in the dust." He 
 meant to say prosperity. The other thing would have 
 been a famous achievement and saved Europe much 
 trouble. Huber states that some ants are subject to a 
 peculiar malady, which, after being once seized with it, 
 prevents them moving' any more in a straight line. 
 There are a great many writers who are subject to this 
 disease, who not only move, but reason deviously, and 
 never arrive at the point of their meaning. Ant writers 
 of this description overrun socialist literature. 
 
 With the close of 1830 the several periodicals so 
 plentifully representing Co-operation appear to cease. 
 Few, if any, reached 1831. No new ones were 
 announced in London for that year, and no trace of any 
 remain. Another form of activity commenced. As 1830 
 was the year of journals, 1831 was the year of con- 
 
 H 
 
178 HISTOBY OF 00-OPEEATION. 
 
 Appearance of "The Crisis." 
 
 gresses. The fervour of the five years from 1826 to 
 1830 stimulated action, and then cea'sed to direct it. 
 Societies popular in conception can hardly become so in 
 practice, or be largely diffused and sustained without 
 the aid, animation, and counsel which well-contrived 
 periodicals supply. Yet then none could possibly pay. At 
 no time were there sufficient readers to yield funds out 
 of which the journals could be adequately advertised, or 
 pay for competent editorship or competent contributors. 
 At length it comes to pass that journals written by 
 charity come to be read only by charity. The very 
 printing having to be sustained at the cost of the more 
 ardent, their losses alone would either decrease their 
 ardour, or impair their means of showing it. At length 
 in 1832, Mr. Owen entered the field of weekly joumalship 
 himself, and issued a much larger paper than had ever 
 before appeared, purporting to represent Co-operation. 
 Of course it must bear a momentous title if Mr. Owen 
 had anything to do with it, and accordingly it was 
 named "The Crisis." The poor are always in a crisis, 
 and rich and poor in that year were rather better off in 
 this respect than they had been for a long time. There 
 was a profitable crisis approaching, of some importance, 
 for the Eeform Bill was near, but this did not concern 
 Mr. Owen, and it was scarcely mentioned in the volume 
 edited by him. The French Eevolution had occurred 
 two years previously, and Mr. Owen narrowly escaped 
 being shot in it; but as Louis Phillippe was not a 
 believer in the "new views," Mr. Owen made no note of 
 his deportation. It was the change from error and 
 misery, to truth and happiness, by the introduction of 
 co-operative plans, that was to constitute the crisis. 
 Mr._ Owen proposed to offer for the guidance of the 
 affairs of men the extraordinary and heroic development 
 of "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 
 truth, without mystery, mixture of error, or the fear of 
 man" — a commodity which the world has certainly not 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PEBIOD. 179 
 
 Legal iiapediments to Penny Papers. 
 
 seen yet. It was proof that social hope and expectation 
 was still strong, and the public interest in Mr. Owen 
 very great, that 12,000 copies were sold immediately 
 "The Crisis" was out, and a second edition of 5,000 
 was issued. 
 
 In the meantime, however, the provinces were busy 
 with organs of associative opinion. After the first 
 subsidence of the co-operative journals in London they 
 arose in Lancashire, and were continued during 1831 
 and 1832 in a far more practical way than they had been 
 in London. The price was lower, being mostly a penny, 
 while in London they were published as sixpenny 
 magazines, and, of course, only purchased by people 
 who had sixpence to spare ; while in the provinces 
 Co-operation had become a matter of interest chiefly to 
 workmen who had nothing to spare. Then in London 
 and the south of England Co-operation was more senti- 
 mental, as though the warmer atmosphere rarefied it ; 
 while in the north it appeared as though the cold con- 
 densed it, for the whole tone of the Lancashire and 
 Yorkshire journals was more practical. Instead of 
 theories about the happiness of the higher orders, the 
 pages were filled with reports of societies actually in 
 operation with accounts of their experience and profit 
 to the "lower orders." 
 
 The monthly papers had hitherto been the rule, it 
 being illegal then to publish news earlier than twenty- 
 eight days old, unless the paper bore the newspaper 
 stamp ; which made it impossible for a poor proprietor 
 to issue a weekly paper which reported the immediate 
 proceedings of the body. Long before the newspaper 
 stamp was abolished considerable latitude had been 
 allowed by the government with respect to journals 
 representing religious, scientific, or educational move- 
 ments. So impossible was it for the stamp office to make 
 a restrictive definition of news, as Mr. CoUett, the 
 secretary of the society which effected the repeal of the 
 
180 HISTOBY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 An impToved motto. 
 
 stamp, proved, that all weekly publications reporting 
 any proceeding which gave immediate information, 
 came under the definition of a newspaper; and Mr. 
 Owen's crisis might have been put down at any time if 
 it had occurred to anyone to call the attention of the 
 law officers to it. Mr. CoUett made this clear when he 
 stopped Mr. Dickens' " Household Narrative of Current 
 Events," and brought the "Athenaeum" within the 
 operation of the law. 
 
 The "Lancashire Co-operator, or Useful Classes 
 Advocate," as it with some judgment called itseK, took 
 for its motto this well-conceived improvement upon the 
 half maxim " Union is strength," namely — 
 
 Numbers without union are powerless, 
 And union without knowledge is useless ; 
 
 That is, if commendable and not mischievous objects 
 are intended. This publication, edited by Mr. E. T. 
 Craig, first appeared in September, 1831. It published 
 addresses to Christian co-operators, who, however, 
 could never be persuaded to take to the thing, having 
 objections to associate with the only persons who under- 
 stood Co-operation and cared for it, who, however, in 
 theological things were not many of their way of thinking. 
 This journal first appeared in June, 1831, and was sent 
 out by the Manchester and Salford Co-operative Council. 
 It was a small penny weekly periodical, the cost of 
 issuing which could scarcely have cost the members 
 more than a farthing each, even if none had been sold. 
 The editor showed great taste ia selecting illustrative 
 extracts. One was from Shipley, the Bishop of St. 
 Asaph, which set forth that the art "of preventing 
 insurrection and rebellion is not to take from the people 
 the ]. jwer to resist, but to make it their interest to obey." 
 The fifth number reported a co-operative tea-party, at- 
 tended by about a hundred and thirty men and women, 
 in Halifax. In September a successor to this little 
 journal appeared under the title of " The Lancashire 
 
THE SOOIAXISTIO PEEIOD. 181 
 
 Misobief of Batirioal Titles. 
 
 and Yorkshire Co-operator," resembling its predecessor 
 in every respect, with the addition only of the name of 
 "Yorkshire." In those days, persons who thought 
 English an inefficient mode of communication for Eng- 
 lish people were fond of describing Co-operation as an 
 ignis fatuus. The phrase being calculated to give the 
 enemy a false impression, the co-operators, as was their 
 custom, adopted it, and of course wrote an article under 
 that term — " Co-operation an Ignis Fatuus " — to prove 
 it was not true ; but nothing could open their eyes to 
 the fact that fifty people read the title for one who 
 read the article.* French propagandists are very much 
 addicted to this satirical mode of defence, as they con- 
 ceive it to be ; but no nation has such talent in this 
 direction as the Scotch. In the second number of this 
 two-counties' journal Mr. B. Warden, an enthusiastic 
 saddler, of Marylebone, addressed a communication, to 
 the "Eight MOions of Workpeople of the British 
 Nation," though it was perfectly certain that eight 
 hundred would never see it. The editor continued to 
 make extracts from Bishop Shipley ; and, knowing that 
 co-operators were esteemed latitudinarians in religion, 
 because they were more scrupulous in believing only 
 what they could give an account of in reason, he judi- 
 ciously called attention to Bishop Shipley's wise saying : 
 " I am not afraid of those tender and scrupulous con- 
 sciences who are over cautious of professing or believing 
 too much. ... I respect their integrity. The men 
 I am afraid of are the men who believe everything, who 
 subscribe everything, and vote for everything." These 
 scoundrel evasionists overrun the country now, and pass 
 for most respectable persons of irreproachable faith. 
 This journal continued until February, 1832 — writing to 
 the last about Co-operation being an ignis fatuus. It, 
 
 * The adversaries whose eyes fell on the suspicious title exclaimed : 
 " We always said Co-operators were under a delusion, and now they see it 
 themselves." 
 
182 HISTORY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 The Second Binuingham Congress. 
 
 however, reappeared as a four-weekly organ. There 
 was no halfpenny postage of publications in those days, 
 and the editor intiinated that the cost of the carriage 
 proved a barrier to its circulation, and the " Six Acts " 
 prohibiting their giving news, such as reports of lectures 
 or societies' meetings, oftener than once a month, they 
 had determined to issue their journal in future monthly ; 
 but whether the " Six Acts " frightened them from dis- 
 covering the name of the month or year of issue did not 
 transpire. The journal, however, never contained the 
 one or the other, till, incidently, in October, the month 
 and year appeared. In its monthly form it was 
 printed very prettily. It was in double columns, and 
 the chief subject of each page was printed at the head. 
 The new series commenced by another address from 
 Mr. B, Warden, "To the Eight Millions." Its last 
 number appeared in November, and was entirely 
 occupied with a report of the fourth congress of dele- 
 gates, which was held at Liverpool. This year Mr. T. 
 Wayland, of Lincoln's Inn, published a work on the 
 " Equalisation of Property and the Formation of Com- 
 munities." 
 
 The- congresses and their incidents will be more 
 intelligible perhaps if related in the order of their 
 succession. The first congress, as the preceding chapter 
 sets forth, was held in Manchester, in 1830. The second 
 co-operative congress was held in Birmingham, in 
 October, 1831, and for a season divided attention with 
 the Eeform Bill in that town. It met in commodious 
 rooms in the Old Square. At this congress Eowland 
 Detrosier was present, who had already distinguished 
 himself by the possession of unusual scientific and 
 political knowledge, in one of his rank of life, and who 
 had a voice, an energy, and an eloquence, which was 
 considered strikingly to resemble Brougham'si 
 
 Birmingham in those days was quite a centre of 
 co-operative inspiration. Here the first organised 
 
THE SOOIAMSTIO PERIOD. 183 
 
 Protest of Mr. Hume, M.P,, against political indifferentisn. 
 
 impulse was given to the formation of a band of 
 missionaries. Here the congress proposed to contribute 
 to the capital of the "Voice of the People," mth a view 
 to its becoming the accredited organ of the movement. 
 Then there were neither railways nor funds for coaches, 
 and two of the delegates from Glasgow walked the whole 
 distance, nearly 300 miles. Eobert Owen and William 
 Thompson were the chairmen of the congress. In 
 December of the following year a public meeting of 8,000 
 persons was held, lasting from eleven in the morning 
 till four o'clock in the afternoon, consisting of small 
 manufacturers, shopkeepers, and operatives, and many 
 ladies and persons of the wealthier classes. Mr. Owen 
 said, in writing to his son Dale, that " in all his experi- 
 ence in Europe and America he had never witnessed so 
 numerous and gratifying a meeting."* 
 
 The third co-operative congress, held in the Gray's 
 Inn Eoad Institution, London, in 1832, was notable for 
 many things. Further and more open attempts were 
 made to cultivate political indifference among co- 
 operators. Mr. Owen remarked that " despotic govern- 
 ments were frequently found to be better than what 
 were called democratic. In the countries where those 
 governments existed the industrial classes were not 
 found in such misery and destitution as in this country, 
 and therefore on this ground there was no reason to 
 dislike despotisms. As far as the co-operative system 
 was concerned, it was of no consequence whether govern- 
 ments were despotic or not." 
 
 Mr. Joseph Hume, M.P., who was a visitor to the 
 congress, at once challenged this fatal doctrine of 
 political indifferentism. He said "he had himself been 
 a co-operator, perhaps longer than most present. He 
 was surprised to hear what had been said in reference 
 to the character of governments. The English was not 
 
 • « Crisis." No. 39. X832. 
 
184 raSTOEY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Great atteudanoes at the London Congress of 1832. 
 
 a democratic government. Though democratic in name, 
 it was despotic in practice. In Austria and Constanti- 
 nople despotism was exercised by one man. In England 
 it was inflicted by many. He was surprised also that 
 popular instruction was not urged in Mr. Owen's address. 
 It was only by knowledge that the people could be freed 
 from the trammels of bad laws, and State religion." 
 The number of persons attending this congress were 
 eight hundred on the day on which it assembled : 
 certainly showing great popular interest in the proceed- 
 ings. The hew project of labour exchanges was that 
 which was uppermost in the minds of the public both at 
 the Birmingham congress and at this great one in 
 London. 
 
 The first number of " The Crisis" before mentioned 
 announced this co-operative congress of the associations 
 in Great Britain and Ireland, and the societies were 
 admonished "to choose men capable of having their 
 minds elevated, and of such moral courage and singleness 
 of purpose that the passions of men should not be able 
 to turn them from the godlike course which they wUl 
 have to run." A delegate needed to have a good deal 
 of courage to present himself at the Gray's Inn Eoad 
 Institution, where the congress was to assemble, as a 
 person likely to fulfil these sublime conditions, especially 
 as all the members of parliament were invited to meet 
 the men of the "godlike" career. It is curious to 
 observe all through the history of social reform, and 
 possibly in the interest of other reforms if they were 
 traced, how very few persons among the leaders ever 
 seem to consider how far their language or pretensions 
 would be likely to excite the amusement rather than the 
 respect of those who differ from them. 
 
 It would appear that members of parliament were not 
 distinguished by their attention to the congress. Mr. 
 Pare reported "the absence of Mr. Portman, M.P.; 
 Mr. Hughes, M.P. [there was a Mr. Hughes, M.P., 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PERIOD. 185 
 
 Membeia of Parliament at the Congress. 
 
 favourable to Co-operation in that day] . Mr. Slaney, 
 M.P., had agreed to support a petition; but neither Lord 
 Brougham nor Mr. O'Connell, ^.ho were to present it, 
 ever did so, or even acknowleded its receipt " — not a wise 
 way of teUing the fact, since it gave the "public the idea 
 that those honourable members did not think much of 
 the congress — the probability being that both gentlemen 
 were overwhelmed with more applications than they 
 could attend to, or even write to say so. Lord Boston 
 sent a letter to the congress.* 
 
 Only three members of parliament — Mr. Hume, Mr. 
 Mackinnon, and Mr. Jas. Johnson — appear to have been 
 present. Mr. Owen presided. The names best known 
 to co-operative history of the delegates who attended 
 were Dr. Wade, who afterwards wrote a history of the 
 working class; William Lovett, honourably known 
 subsequently for his advocacy of educational Chartism ; 
 Mr. John Finch, a Liverpool iron merchant, a famous 
 advocate of temperance, and a man of great earnestness 
 and simplicity of character — a religious man with great 
 capacity for making socialism disagreeable to religious 
 people; Mr. WiUiam Pare, of Birmingham, elsewhere 
 mentioned; Mr. Joseph Smith, of Salford, whom the 
 reader must see mentioned in due course; and James 
 Watson, B. Cousins, and John Cleave, previously 
 ramed; the Eev. Thomas Macconnell, a ready and 
 powerful speaker, not known subsequently to much 
 advantage. Mr. Hume came in in the course of the 
 congress, and, as we have seen, took part in the pro- 
 ceedings — ^the report of which was made and edited on 
 the order of the congress, by William Carpenter, a 
 famous name among the reformers of that day as the 
 author of "Political Letters," and many publications 
 which still live in political recollection. The motto of 
 the political tracts published by William Carpenter 
 
 • "Crisis." May 5, 1832. 
 
186 mSTOEY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 A wise Besolntion of Congress. 
 
 was: "Every man for every man, himself included" — a 
 co-operative device in which it was provided that the 
 individual should not lose sight of himseK. "Why 
 great interest on the part of the delegates was taken 
 in labour exchanges was that Mr. Owen had given 
 great prominence to them, and had taken the Gray's 
 Inn Eoad Institution to conduct in it the great national 
 experiment of establishing them. Had he succeeded. 
 Co-operation had revived in a new form and attained 
 a career of great influence and popularity. In other 
 respects this was a remarkable congress. It adopted 
 a wise and much-needed resolution upon which nobody 
 ever acted, which; however, was ordered to be the 
 standing motto of the society, to be printed with all 
 publications regarded as official issued by the co-opera- 
 tive body. It was this : 
 
 " Whereas, the co-operative world contains persons of 
 all religious sects, and of aU political parties, it is 
 unanimously.resolved — ^that co-operators as such are not 
 identified with any religious, irreligious, or poUtical 
 tenets whatever; neither those of Mr. Owen nor any 
 other individual." 
 
 This resolution was actually brought forward by Mr. 
 Owen, and showed on his part a prudent disposition. It 
 was, however, impracticable since the principles of Co- 
 operation as explained by Mr. Owen, and accepted by 
 co-operators, did contradict the popular belief of the day 
 as respects the unwilfuhiess of sin, the practical purity of 
 human nature, the unjustifiableness of punishment except 
 as a means of influencing others — ^the power of influenc- 
 ing character substantially by weU-devised material 
 conditions alone. No resolution could save a party whose 
 principles committed it to dissent from the popular 
 theology. These points of difference and divergence 
 should have been defined and limited, and all other 
 responsibility repudiated. Men of clear heads and 
 strong judgments might have fbught out the question of 
 
THE SOOIALISTIO PEEIOD. 187 
 
 MiSBionaiy distriota named. 
 
 Co-operation on this line, and the societies might have 
 been restricted to defending their own propositions 
 and never suffered to attack the irrelevant tenets of 
 others. 
 
 It remains, however, greatly to the credit of Mr. Owen 
 that he proposed the resolution in question, though he 
 could never have entertained any practical idea of acting 
 upon it himself. He certainly never did act upon it. 
 At this congress the United Kingdom was divided into 
 nine missionary co-operative districts, with a council 
 and secretary for each. 1, The Metropolis ; 2, Birming- 
 ham ; 8, Manchester ; 4, Glasgow ; 5, Belfast ; 6, 
 Dublin; 7, Cork; 8, Edinburgh; 9, Norwich. The 
 " old immoral world " was to be assaulted at many 
 points. 
 
 This congress of 1832 is remarkable as being the first 
 historic departure from Co-operation as it had existed 
 and been advocated in its periodicals since 1821. A 
 circular was drawn up and sent to aU the societies at 
 this congress and adopted unanimously, which proposed 
 to them all an entirely new object, which was thus set 
 forth under the head of "Eegulations for Co-operative 
 Societies," introduced in these words : — 
 
 " The congress of delegates from the co-operative 
 societies of Great Britain and Ireland, particularly 
 recommend to all present and future co-operative 
 societies the adoption of the following fundamental 
 rules and regulations as the only constitutional basis 
 upon which their societies can be permanently and 
 successfully established. 
 
 " 1. Let it be universally understood, that the grand 
 ultimate object of all co-operative societies, whether 
 engaged in trading, manufacturing, or agricultural 
 pursuits, is community in Iwnd. 
 
 " 2. To effect this important purpose, a weekly sub- 
 scription, either ia money, goods, or labour, from a 
 penny to any other amount agreed upon, is indispensably 
 
188 BISTOBY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Decline of Oo-operatiTe Stores. 
 
 necessary to be continued from year to year, until a 
 capital sufficient to accomplish the object of the society 
 be accumulated." 
 
 Mr. Owen and his friends had always kept before the 
 public that a new state of society was intended, which 
 was to take the form of a community of united interests ; 
 but in the manner that has been related these dreams 
 were postponed on the part of many, and were regarded 
 as separate objects by more, and not regarded at all by 
 the majority of co-operators, who had formed stores, 
 and established numerous manufacturing societies for 
 the mutual advantage of the members. In addition, 
 many friends of the people, among the middle and upper 
 classes, had devised and established co-operative stores, 
 and had advanced capital to start them, from a kindly 
 regard to the welfare of the members, and sometimes 
 to improve their social habits and train them in eco- 
 nomy; and sometimes with the view to control their 
 social and religious views by their influence as patrons. 
 As working men grew independent in spirit this patron- 
 age, as has been already noticed, was sometimes 
 declined, and sometimes unceremoniously resented. In 
 these various ways there had grown up a numerous 
 party of co-operators all over the country — and England, 
 Ireland, and Scotland were studded, England especially, 
 in Yorkshire and Lancashire, with co-operative manu- 
 facturing and provision associations, similar in character 
 but less opulent, less organised, and far less certain of 
 success, than those which we now know. Several of 
 these stores were destroyed by success. The members 
 for a time made money, but having no idea of capitalis- 
 ing their profits [and indeed having no object in doing 
 so, as the extension of their business might not increase 
 their custom, since they had not discovered the principle 
 of dividing profits in proportion to purchases made] the 
 shareholders simply found success monotonous. Some 
 betook themselves to other enterprises more adventurous, 
 
THE SOCIALISTIO PEBIOD. 189 
 
 The law favoTtrable to Co-operative thieves. 
 
 and their places not being filled the society in time 
 dwindled away. In other cases insufficient capital pre- 
 vented profitable competition with shopkeepers ; in some 
 cases want of religious toleration broke up the society. 
 Others fell through when their novelty wore off, the 
 members having no ulterior objects. In more cases bad 
 management ruined the concern. In possibly quite as 
 many instances scoundrel managers extinguished the 
 society. The law at that time enabled a thief to plead 
 that being a member of the society he only robbed 
 himself, although he stole the shares of everybody else. 
 The amendment of this state of things was not attempted 
 until twenty years later, when the lawyers joined the 
 co-operative movement and took a practical view of it. 
 Mr. E. Vansittart Neale, Mr. J. Malcolm Ludlow, Mr. 
 Thomas Hughes, J. J. Furnival, and others, took par- 
 liamentary action, and these crime-encouraging infirmi- 
 ties of the law were corrected. 
 
 The congress of 1832 had grander views than dwelling 
 on the perversities of acts of parliament. Co-operators 
 were invited to set oiit, like pilgrims, to the land Beulah, 
 where communities flourished and acts of parliament 
 were unknown, or unnecessary. 01 these (keams Mr. 
 Pare spoke happily, and with the good sense from which 
 English communists never departed. "It was true," he 
 said, "they wished equality, but it was vohmtary equality. 
 It was true they were levellers, but they wished to level 
 up and not down. They sought to create and retain 
 fresh wealth for themselves."* 
 
 This congress meant business, for, on " Mr. Owen 
 communicating that a community might be obtained if 
 thought desirable, at Aylesbury, in Hertfordshire, of 
 four hundred acres, with one thousand acres adjoining, 
 which he thought might also be had, he, Mr. Thompson, 
 and Mr. Bromley were appointed to inspect the estate, 
 
 • "Crisis." No. IV., 1832. 
 
190 EISTOEY OP CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 ThankB to the High Cosetable of Huddersfield. 
 
 and a deputation was likewise appointed to wait upon 
 Mr. Morgan, of the Stock Exchange, and endeayour to 
 effect a loan of £250,000."* 
 
 The fourth congress of delegates was held in Liverpool, 
 October, 1832. So impatient and confident of progress 
 were the co-operative communists becoming that they 
 held two congresses in one year. 
 
 The fifth co-operative congress was held at Huddersfield 
 in April, 1833, when a public meeting took place in the 
 White Hart Inn, and one was held at Back Green, called 
 by the town crier. Mr. Eigby's name appears for the 
 first time at this congress as a delegate from Manchester. 
 It was stated that " numerous delegates from the various 
 co-operative societies throughout the kingdom gave 
 encouraging accounts of their progress, and that the 
 societies in the West Eiding of Yorkshire" alone had 
 accumulated a capital of ^£5,000, which was thought a 
 great sum then in the north. It was at this congress 
 that the death of Mr. Thompson, of Cork, was an- 
 nounced by Mr. Owen, which was matter of deep regret 
 to all social reformers. Mr. Stock, high constable of 
 Huddersfield, spoke at the White Hart meeting, and 
 " Mr. Owen moved a vote of thanks to their patriotic 
 high constable." Mr. W. E. Wood, of London, was 
 appointed one of the secretaries of the congress. "A 
 provisional committee was appointed to immediately 
 engage premises for a labour exchange." This congress 
 is described, in " The Crisis" for May, 1833, as the sixth. 
 In September of the same year the full report is reprinted 
 as that of the " fifth congress," which appears to be the 
 right enumeration. 
 
 The sixth congress was held at West End, Barnsley, 
 March 31, 1834. It is not, so far as I can trace, even 
 mentioned in " The Crisis." 
 
 * Eeport of Third Co-operative Congresa, 1832. Eeported and Edited 
 by order of the congress hy William Carpenter. It was a rule in those 
 tuuee always to have the congress reported and edited by men of mark. 
 
THE SOOIALISTIO PERIOD. 191 
 
 Commencement of SocialiBt CongreBses. 
 
 The seventh congress recorded was held at Halifax, 
 April 20, 1835. ' "The Crisis" has no mention of this. 
 Go-operation was coming to be regarded as a minor 
 matter. This was the last meeting of delegates from 
 stores described as "a co-operative congress." This 
 Halifax congress was the end of the co-operative con- 
 gress series. They lasted six years. 
 
 This year, 1836, the Association of All Classes was 
 formed, and in May was held the first of the Sociahst 
 congresses. This name was not given to it at the 
 time; but in 1836 it was spoken of and classified as a 
 congress. It was not convened as a delegate congress, 
 but was open to all who cared to come. It is elsewhere 
 described. It was reaUy the great meeting at which 
 the A.A.C.A.N. [Association of AU Classes of All 
 Nations] was floated. The second sociahst congress 
 was convened at Burton Chapel, Burton-street, Burton 
 Crescent, London. Its proceedings consisted of addresses 
 and resolutions, and had no organised delegate delibera- 
 tions. 
 
 The third socialist congress was held in Manchester, 
 May, 1837. It assembled in the Social Institution, 
 Great George-street, Salford. Strictly speaking, it 
 ought to be called the Salford congress ; but meeting in 
 Salford was a mere matter of local convenience. The 
 congress was intended to be, and is always described as 
 the "Manchester" congress. 
 
 The practical result of this congress was the forma- 
 tion of a National Community Friendly Society. On 
 the motion of Mr. Lloyd Jones, a missionary and tract 
 society was resolved on. 
 
 The chief things otherwise accomplished were the 
 enrolment of the society under the 10th George the 
 Fourth, chap. 56, as amended by the 4th and 5th of 
 William the Fourth, for the purpose of obtaining legal 
 security for the funds of a society having in view the 
 establishment of a system of united property, labour, 
 
192 HISTORY OP C0-0P3EATI0N. 
 
 Home and Foreign Departments created. 
 
 and education among the members thereof. Mr. 
 James Eigby, of Salford, and Alexander Campbell, 
 of Glasgow, were appointed the permanent missionariea 
 of the association, who were to receive instructions from 
 the Central Board of the Home Department. The 
 Foreign department announced was little heard of after- 
 wards, though London was assigned as the seat of the 
 foreign government. The main objects of all the resolu- 
 tions, and departments, were founding communities oi 
 united interests. The fervour which prevailed at this 
 period was indicated in an editorial article on "The 
 Socialists' Campaign," in which it was pointed out that 
 things would go on badly everywhere, "until 'The 
 Book' — the book of the new moral world — shall be 
 received and acknowledged as a guide, not simply to all 
 parties, but to the entire family of human kind." 
 
 The second quarterly report, presented after the 
 announcement of the Home and Foreign departments 
 referred to, showed a total income of only £122. 10s. 4d. 
 The revenue of £500 a year certainly suggested that the 
 world was going to be governed with a very moderate 
 budget. 
 
 The fourth socialist congress was held in Manchester, 
 May, 1838. Mr. HoUick was first appointed a missionary 
 at this congress. At the same meeting Messrs WiUiam 
 Clegg, John Finch, and Joseph Smith, were instructed 
 to seek an estate capable of accommodating five hundred 
 persons. It adjourned to the 30th of July to Birming- 
 ham, where it met under the designation of a " Congress 
 of Delegates of the National Community Friendly 
 Society." Mr. Owen, the president, artfully read to the 
 delegates an account of a council of savages in the 
 South Seas,* where throughout the whole of the pro- 
 ceedings no two persons had attempted to speak at the 
 same time — no speaker had attempted to impugn the 
 
 • From " Montgomery's Trayela." 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PERIOD. 193 
 
 The Long Congress. 
 
 motives or opinions of the rest — but all had honourably 
 confined themselves to the question before them — one 
 of many instances in which savages are capable of 
 teaching the civilised. 
 
 The two last-named associations — that of All Classes 
 of All Nations and the National Community Society — 
 made a Peoclamation at this congress, and the " Out- 
 line of the Eational System of Society" was first issued 
 then. 
 
 The fifth congress of this series was held in Birming- 
 ham in May, 1839. Birmingham had become so 
 influential a centre of co-operation that not only was 
 the " Moral World" printed and published in it, but the 
 Central Boards of the two associations were established 
 in Bennett's HUl, and the longest congress that had then 
 been held took place in Birmingham. The congress 
 there of 1839 sat sixteen days. The Association of All 
 Classes and the National Community Society were 
 amalgamated and transmuted into something more 
 wonderful still, " The Universal Community Society of 
 Eational Eeligionists." 
 
 The sixth* congress met in a music saloon, South 
 Parade, Leeds, in May, 1840. The chief announcement 
 made was that since the last congress the estate of 
 East Tytherly, in Hants, had been secured for the 
 purposes of a community. This first congress of the 
 Community Society was occupied chiefly with the affairs 
 of Tytherly. 
 
 The seventh congress (second of the Universal 
 Community Society of Eational Eeligionists) met in 
 Manchester in the great hall of the Social Institution, 
 May, 1841. The affairs of Tytherly — the Queenwood 
 Community as it came to be called — was the main topic 
 of debates which lasted seventeen days. In the pro- 
 
 * In the " Moral World" report, July 25, 1840, this is spoken of as 
 the fifth. The enumeration of congresses was often inaccurate. 
 
 N 
 
194 HISTORY OP 00-OPERATION. 
 
 The First Queenwood Congress. 
 
 ceedings of this congress the name of the present writer 
 appears for the first time officially as appointed Social 
 Missionary for Sheffield. 
 
 The eighth congress opened May, 1842, in the new 
 building, Harmony Hall, Queenwood. Standing orders 
 were published this year. The later congresses showed 
 business progress and order of deliberation. More than 
 the powers of a prime minister were accorded to the 
 president, that of choosing his administration and 
 changing them at his discretion. This was the first 
 Queenwood congress. The docility which persecution 
 had taught some tongues was shown by Mr. Fleming at 
 this congress, where he said by way of admonition 
 to social missionaries that "fondness for theological 
 controversy always argued an ill regulated mind, to say 
 the least of it ; and he who fostered that spirit could be 
 neither good nor happy." A proposal was made to 
 suspend the missionaries as the general fund was low. 
 
 The ninth congress was a special one, called at the 
 Institution, 23, John-street, Tottenham Court Eoad, 
 July, 1842, to take the affairs of Harmony into con- 
 sideration, as funds were wanted. The congress sat on 
 Sunday. The business occupied nine days. 
 
 The tenth congress of May, 1843, again held at 
 Harmony Hall, was styled the " Eighth Session of the 
 Congress of the Eational Society" (the "special" 
 congress not being counted in official enumeration). 
 The way in which even Mr. Owen spoke of Mr. Lowe, 
 the secretary of the Manchester society, though courteous 
 in some respects, yet represented him as " ignorant and 
 incompetent," should never have been reported. Mr. 
 Lowe was an earnest officer, and had as much intelligence 
 as the members when the society began. If it had 
 advanced beyond him it was in measm-e owing to his 
 zeal. A young lady left Queenwood through ill health. 
 This was reported in a manner very unpleasant, through 
 the editor of the report not considering how statements 
 
THE SOOIALISTIO PEBIOD. 195 
 
 Eesponsibility of reporting. 
 
 that she was diseased before coming there, and that 
 "organic disease" existed, might prove unwelcome 
 reading to herself and family when published to the 
 whole country. It made it a serious thing to join the 
 society if any physical ailment happened to a young 
 woman who was a member of it. In the case here 
 noticed the name of the young person was given. True 
 she had complained of the governor, and some notice of 
 her letter had to b6 taken. She was probably wrong, 
 yet the governor could have been justified in some more 
 considerate way. 
 
 The eleventh congress of the " Eational Society," as 
 it was now called, took place again at Harmony Hall, 
 May 10, 1844. The practical questions as to Harmony 
 occupied the main time of the delegates, who grew fewer 
 as the business became more serious. Lack of funds 
 and hope and diminished members deterred or disqualified 
 many societies from electing representatives. 
 
 The twelfth congress met again at Harmony HaU, 
 May 10, 1845. A series of elaborate business papers 
 and financial and other statements were laid before the 
 delegates. Mr. George Simpson was now the general 
 secretary, quite the ablest man who had held the of&ce. 
 Had Mr. Simpson been secretary from the beginning of 
 the Queenwood community it would probably have had 
 a different fate. A clear-minded and single-minded and 
 capable financial secretary is of priceless value in 
 experimental imdertakings. 
 
 A thirteenth " special" congress was convened at the 
 Literary and Scientific Institution, John-street, London, 
 in July, 1845. The disposal of Harmony was the critical 
 question debated. The proceedings were remarkable for 
 a curious reactionary confession made by Mr. Lloyd 
 Jones, who said "he had serious doubts now as to the 
 good effects of their preaching for several years past, and 
 it was with him a question whether they had bettered 
 the state of those who by their preaching they had 
 
196 HISTORY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Mr. Hetherington's stoutness of conviction. 
 
 loosed from the authority they were formerly tmder 
 and placed them under themselves."* Mr. Henry 
 Hetherington stoutly said "it was always good to release 
 individuals from the influence of bad men and false 
 opinions, and was at a loss to conceive how people could 
 be made better if it was not done." There are times 
 when able men are discouraged at the small impression 
 on those with whom they are directly in contact. Truth 
 often deflects from those it strikes, travels far and hits 
 other men. Different persons and a later time alone 
 show the good done. It is worth while telling mankind 
 they are in the wrong if you can prove it, although he 
 who does so may not see what is right. It gives others 
 a motive to look in that direction, and the world has 
 many eyes and may see what an individual may miss. 
 Besides, it is the duty of those who strive to be reformers 
 to take care when they set men free from ignorant 
 motives and aims, that they place them under the 
 dominion of intelligent and demonstrable ones, and 
 provide for such repetitions of the teaching as shall keep 
 the new conception strong and clear. This alone is 
 organised progress. 
 
 Socialism under Mr. Owen's inspiration and its own 
 enthusiasm continued in its grand ways to the end. It 
 issued proclamations, manifestoes, and addresses to her 
 Majesty. If the Queen has preserved them she must 
 have a fine collection. 
 
 The fourteenth and last of the socialist congresses was 
 held at Queenwood Farm, June 30, 1846. t The " Moral 
 World" had ceased then, and these proceedings were 
 reported in the " Eeasoner," edited by the present writer, 
 which from 1846 to 1872 vindicated the socialist aim 
 and explained and advocated the co-operative principle. 
 
 The early co-operators were never successful with 
 their poets. They had a wonderful opinion of one Mr. 
 
 • " Moral World," Jnly 26, 1845. 
 t " Beasoner," July 8, 1846. 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PERIOD. 197 
 
 Vigorous career of George Petrie. 
 
 George Petrie, a Scotchman by birth, but who had the 
 appearance of an Irish gentleman. He served as a 
 private in the army, and took part in the Peninsular 
 wars. He was a man of considerable address and 
 courage, and ran generous and frightful risks for his 
 comrades, from which only his wit extricated him. 
 Having a strong sense of justice, and being left on duty 
 several days without his proper rations, and being quite 
 capable of eating them all up, he applied for them to 
 the quarter-master, the adjutant, the captain, the com- 
 manding officer of his regiment ; and, not obtaining his 
 lost rations, he determined to apply for them to the 
 commander-in-chief, who was then the Duke of Welling- 
 ton. Upon entering the room he found that illustrious 
 general perusing documents at a table. Wellington, 
 without raising his eyes, said, "What does this man 
 want?" The officer in attendance said he came to 
 appeal about some arrears of rations. Wellington, 
 without raising his head or asking a question or hearing 
 a word, said, " Take him away, and give him a damned 
 good flogging." It was not administered, but Petrie did 
 not like the reference to the triangle, and lay in wait 
 two days with a view to shoot Wellington, when the 
 hungry and angry Petrie was luckily woimded in an 
 engagement. After settling in London among the co- 
 operators he wrote a poem on " Equality," which was 
 dedicated to Eobert Dale Owen. His " Leicestershire 
 Yeomanry Man" was the most effective of his poetical 
 pieces. None of them are readable at this day. He 
 was an energetic man in his way, and attracted many 
 personal friends. He became an inmate of one of Mr. 
 Baume's experimental cottages on the Frenchman's 
 Island, where he became insane in a month. His 
 neighbours said lodging under such an eccentric land- 
 lord accounted for it. 
 
 The Eev. C. B. Dunn, cmrate of Camberworth, is a 
 name which frequently occurs in the congress and other 
 
198 HISTOKY OF 00-OPERATIOM. 
 
 The Co-operative Poeta. 
 
 co-operative reports, as a successful speaker and advocate 
 of Co-operation, and he helped to encourage some 
 religious persons to form societies in connection with 
 churches and chapels. Mr. Dunn also contributed to 
 the lyrics of Co-operation. A verse or two will be 
 Buf&cient to show that the intention exceeded the execu- 
 tion, though much worse verse, that feU less trippingly 
 on the ear than those of Mr. Dunn's, were printed and 
 sung by co-operators. One of his co-operative melodies 
 ran as follows : — 
 
 Since now on every side we see 
 
 The poor man's prospects brighten, 
 Let mosic, mirth, and melody, 
 
 Onr mntual labours lighten. 
 Should want assail, or care annoy, 
 
 Or sorrow's blight come o'er us, 
 Hope's glittering son shall gild with joy 
 
 The halcyon days before us. 
 
 Let none, who Christ's example court. 
 
 Contend for sect or station, 
 But all, who human weal support, 
 
 Support Co-operation. 
 Ere long shall men of every clime 
 
 With tears and prayers implore us. 
 To show them in the glass of time 
 
 The halcyon days before us. 
 
 The polyglot supplieators have not come forward yet ; 
 but it is to be hoped the halcyon days are nearer. 
 Among the writers of co-operative melodies was Mrs. 
 Mary Leman Grimstone, a popular contributor to the 
 " Monthly Eepository," edited by W. T. Fox, who some 
 twenty-five years later became member of parliament 
 for Oldham, and who himself was one of the early and 
 literary friends of Co-operation. Mrs. Grimstone, the 
 lady mentioned, wrote an acrostic on the founder of 
 Co-operation, which, though not very brUhant, was the 
 best of many which appeared in his time : — 
 
 O mnipotent benevolence, this is thy holy reign : 
 W oe, want, crime, vice, and ignorance shall fall before thy fame ; 
 B re long, o'er all the gladd'nd earth shall thy full blaze be glowing, 
 N or leave a spot that shall not bear and bless the name of Owen I 
 
THE SOfllALISTIO PERIOD. 199 
 
 EononraUe propagandist enthusiasm. 
 
 All theSe glowing predictions should be deposited 
 privately in some house of prophecy to be brought out 
 when the day of fulfilment comes. It is, however, 
 through the "Crisis" that our immediate path lies. 
 The trail is not very clear. Co-operation as a manufac- 
 turing and distributive system almost ceased to be 
 recorded in the three volumes to which that pubhcation 
 extended. It placed on the title page of the first volume 
 a ferocious portrait of Eobert Owen enough to scare any 
 one away from its pages. To compensate for this a 
 vignette adorned the " Crisis," representing the Labour 
 Exchange Institution at Gray's Inn Eoad, where Mr. 
 Owen had delivered his best known lectures of that day. 
 Unsympathetic readers said that was the place where 
 the " crisis " was to occur. The design was a sort of 
 Canaletto interior. The place never looked half so well 
 as in the engraving at the head of this journal. Very 
 early in volume two this disappeared, and gave place to 
 a large straggling parallelogram intended to represent a 
 community. ' The " Crisis" was the first London weekly 
 paper officially, as one may say, representing Co- 
 operation, and excited great interest and hopes. 
 
 The friends of the " great change " impending were 
 far from intending that the pubhc should pass through 
 the "crisis" without knowing it. The Social Missionary 
 and Tract Society of the time established three stations, 
 at Primrose HiU, Copenhagen Fields, and White Con- 
 duit House, where they sold sixteen dozen of the "Crisis" 
 in one day. All matters of interest to the party were 
 made known in its columns. When indispensable news 
 of meetings had to be published, Mr. P. Bate would 
 write a note to the editor to say that "the annual report 
 of the London Society would be received at the Burton 
 Eooms on Sunday morning, at ten o'clock." 
 
 Though the co-operators were charged with latitu- 
 dinarianism as respects responsibility, they appear to 
 have had a very sharp conception of it in practice. 
 
200 HISTORY OF CO-OPEKATION. 
 
 Advertising outrage, 
 
 Mr. Eamonson was a burning and a shining light of 
 Co-operation. It was he who delayed the index of the 
 first volume of the " Crisis " for some time, in order to 
 get, what he called, a good hkeness of Mr. Owen put upon 
 the title page ; and who finally produced that alarming 
 representation of which the reader has been told. This 
 gentleman, having a debt which he was unable to get 
 paid, actually inserted in the " Crisis " the following 
 interesting notice : — 
 
 " To Peesons in Debt. — Whereas, if Mr. Puekeridge, 
 alias Mr. Mackellon, proprietor of the Eoyal Clarence 
 Theatre, New Eoad, does not immediately settle the 
 small account which is due to Eamonson, 15, Chichester 
 Place, for papers, he will continue to give publicity 
 to it by this and other means, as also some other 
 persons who are in his debt, and whose conduct has been 
 shuffling and unmanly," 
 
 The sub-editor who suffered this notice to appear 
 should have been put into the street by the first coster- 
 monger who passed by the office with his barrow. 
 
 In the 35th number of the "Crisis," Mr. Owen associated 
 with himself his son, Mr. Kobert Dale Owen, as con- 
 ductor of the paper. This occurred in November, 1832. 
 Mr. Dale Owen and his father's joint names appeared for 
 the last time in 1833. Volume two was much diminished 
 in size, and altogether a poor looking paper. Clearly, the 
 change from error and misery had not yet begun. 
 Articles still appeared in it with the well-welcome signa- 
 ture of "E. D. 0." Soon after, the journal stated that 
 its co-editor, Eobert Dale Owen, had set out for the 
 United States, and, it would appear, took the parallelo- 
 gram with him, for it never appeared after; and the 
 title-page bore the new title of " National Co-operative 
 Trades Union, and Equitable Exchange Gazette." 
 There, however, appeared very little co-operative trading 
 in the pages of the "Crisis," the proceedings of labour 
 exchanges and projected communities being its principal 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PERIOD. 201 
 
 The vignettes of the " Crisis." 
 
 topic. The "Crisis" bore the additional information that 
 it was " Under the patronage of Eobert Owen." A third 
 volume commenced in September, 1833. It now re- 
 turned to its original size, and was again a spacious, 
 well-printed paper. 
 
 From the prevalence of Mr. Owen's articles and 
 expositions of his views in it, the probability is that he 
 found the funds.* Its price was now three half-pence, 
 having previously been one penny. It now bore two 
 small engravings on either side of the title, one re- 
 presenting a small town where the buildings, on one 
 hand, appear in very irregular groups, while opposite is 
 a lunatic asylum. All the people to be seen in the 
 streets before it are crippled, or blind, or ragged ; while 
 in the new town the buildings are in mathematical 
 order ; the walks well laid out, all the people there are 
 well dressed, well to do, and perfectly upright. The 
 artist, however, had no genius for sketching the new 
 world ; for the old, immoral arrangement of the houses, 
 with their quaint appearance, presented a far better sky 
 line than the monotonous regularity of the well-built 
 pile. 
 
 The lunatic asylum had a far more picturesque 
 appearance, and must have been a pleasanter place to 
 live in than the solid prosaic structure with which it 
 was contrasted. 
 
 A fourth and last volume of the " Crisis " appeared 
 in 1834. By that time all the diagrams had disappeared. 
 There was less and less of Mr. Owen in its pages, and 
 more and more of the Eev. J. B. Smith, who was a con- 
 tinual lecturer at the Charlotte-street Institution, and 
 
 * When the labour exchange was broken up at Gray's Inn Eoad by 
 violence, 9,000 hours of labour notes were stolen — " abstracted " Mr. 
 Owen said. These Mr. Owen undertook should be honoured if presented. 
 About the time of the Queenwood Community of 1840, Mr. Owen appears 
 to have come to the end of the money he had reserved for the furtherance 
 of social principle. He appears afterwards to have been limited to an 
 income only sufficient for his personal comfort. 
 
202 HISTOEY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 The iaexhaustible ingenuity ol " Shepherd Smith." 
 
 his fertile and industrious lectures frequently filled the 
 pages of the " Crisis," which became more various in 
 contents, and more readable ; but Mr. Smith lectured 
 upon socialism with so much ingenuity that Mr. Owen 
 did not know his own system, and at last he protested, 
 announcing that he would issue an entirely new publi- 
 cation, to be called the " New Moral World," stating, 
 with his usual grandeur, that " the great crisis of human 
 nature would be passed that week." At length the date 
 was definite and the event near. Three years the crisis 
 had been picking itself together, but then, the world 
 was shy. It had now determined to make the plunge. 
 In the same number Mr. J. E. Smith protested, and 
 announced that any persons left undispersed by the 
 crisis he would gather into a fold of his own, and an- 
 nounced a new publication to be called the " Shepherd." 
 Amid a shower of fables and playful gibes at his 
 illustrious colleague and his disciples, Mr. Smith took 
 his departure. 
 
 The Eev. J. E. Smith, better known subsequently as 
 " Shepherd Smith," was one of those clever and curious 
 spirits who alighted within the confines of Co-operation. 
 He was a born mystic, who explained everything by 
 means of indefinite and untraceable analogies. He enter- 
 tained his hearers, he baffled his questioners, he evaded 
 his adversaries. He constantly said excellent things, 
 but all that was admirable was mostly irrelevant. He 
 became the wonder and delight of thousands who never 
 hoped to understand him. Mr. Smith afterwards 
 achieved a wide and prolonged repute as the fertUe, 
 diverting editor of the "Family Herald." He made a 
 fortune by his wit and inexhaustible variety, and exem- 
 plary editor ! he left it among his contributors, with a 
 considerable portion to Mr. B. D. Cousins, his publisher, 
 a pleasant and active promoter of Co-operation, whose 
 name was honourably associated with those of Hether- 
 ington, Watson, and Cleave. 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PEEIOD. 203 
 
 The vicissitudeB of propagandist papers. 
 
 The " Crisis," like all propagandist papers which 
 preceded it, and many which followed after it, appeared, 
 as we have seen, in several sizes, and variations of title. 
 All these journals were characterised by fluctuations in 
 quality, and colour of paper ; by infij-mity of type and 
 orthography ; by shape, quantity, price, and changing 
 names. Like flags carried in battle, they were made 
 out of such material as happened to be available in the 
 exigencies of forced marches, and were often shot into 
 tatters by the enemy. In the early days the taxes upon 
 knowledge and upen news hampered them, and excluded 
 the matter which would have made them of general 
 interest, and enabled them to command a popular 
 circulation. They were obliged to be published at a 
 small price, and this prevented them using the news- 
 paper stamp, which alone would carry news, and entitle 
 them to include matter of daily interest. The heavy 
 newspaper stamp of those times shut them out from 
 advertisements which might otherwise have assisted in 
 defraying their expenses. " The True Sun," of 1834, 
 stated that the "Crisis" was prevented assuming the 
 character of a newspaper through the cost of the stamp, 
 and that in the hands of Mr. Owen and his son the 
 " Crisis " would probably have had a prosperous existence. 
 
 The organ of the future, projected by Mr. Owen, lost 
 no time in rushing forward. Two " New Moral Worlds " 
 appeared. The. first was issued August 30, 1884, and 
 was larger and altogether better printed than the volume 
 which was issued three months later, and which formed 
 the first of a series of annual volumes, which were 
 continued until 1845. It showed increasing vitality in 
 a movement which was changing its- front, and was 
 attempting larger schemes when lesser ones had failed,- 
 that its weekly journal of the "New World," ofaquantity 
 cheap as periodicals are now sold, should have a career 
 of twelve years before it. The August issue of the 
 journal in question was described as the " Ofiicial Gazette 
 
204 HISTORY OP C!0-OPERATION. 
 
 First appearance of the " New Moral World." 
 
 of the National Association of Industry, Humanity, and 
 Knowledge," a most compendious representation, it must 
 be owned. The first article addressed to the " Unions 
 of Great Britain and Ireland," was signed W. E. Wood, 
 the young and eloquent speaker, whose name has 
 appeared in the proceedings of some of the earlier 
 congresses, always an intelligent and consistent promoter 
 of labour exchanges, and from belief in their utility and 
 relevance he has never departed during a long, honour- 
 able, and successful professional life. 
 
 The " New Moral World " may be regarded as the 
 most important, the longest continued, periodical which 
 the co-operators have yet established, and marks what 
 may be regarded as a new departure then in social 
 advocacy. Co-operation, however, was really less formally 
 noticed than in the " Crisis. The fact is that at this 
 time co-operative societies were dying out all around. 
 Mr. Owen and his disciples were more and more in- 
 fluenced by the belief that these small affairs could effect 
 no permanent change in society, and that they must 
 concentrate their endeavours on the establishment of the 
 great social scheme of Co-operation, which should de- 
 monstrate once for all and for ever the possibility and 
 advantages of organised industry and organised society. 
 The failure of the Indiana and the Orbiston experiments 
 certainly discredited their schemes in public estimation, 
 and discouraged numerous advocates, but Mr. Owen's 
 persistent assertions that a larger combination of means 
 only was wanted to attain a striking success, kept up the 
 faith of many adherents. The missionary propaganda 
 proposed in 1832, and put in operation in 1833, created 
 a new generation of adherents. Numerous young men 
 of considerable ability were inspired by the addresses 
 made in various towns, and the facilities of discussion 
 afforded in the various lecture rooms opened, which gave 
 them opportunities for public speaking. Popular excite- 
 ment arising, and large audiences being attracted, active 
 
THE SOOIALISTIO PERIOD. 205 
 
 Oo-operatWe Government of Coaquila and Texas. 
 
 and provoking adversaries made their appearance, and 
 all who cotdd address an audience took the platform in 
 defence of the new principles, and thus acquired training 
 as public debators, and a formidable and disturbing stand 
 was made on behalf of a great social change. How 
 could anyone within that enthusiastic circle doubt that 
 Mr. Owen saw his way to the introduction of the new 
 co-operative world, seeing that he had appUed for the 
 government of Coaquila and Texas, and that the Mexican 
 government had actually conceded to him the jurisdic- 
 tion of the entire line of frontier stretching from the 
 Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, some 1,400 miles ia 
 length, and 150 miles in breadth, in which to establish 
 his wonderful government of peace and plenty.* To 
 plant the English millennium on 1,000 or 2,000 acres 
 would be, to use Mr. Disraeli's unpleasant and igno- 
 minious simile, be a mere "flea bite " of progress. 
 
 In 1834, a correspondent of Mr. Owen's, whose com- 
 munication, signed "J. C," appeared in the "New 
 Moral World," in November of that year, proposed a 
 " Floating Co-operative Community," which was to have 
 its station on the Thames, where it was thought the 
 inhabitants would be safe from the extortions of retail 
 traders, lodging-house keepers, and gin shops. Conve- 
 nient spots were to be selected where the families of the 
 floating society could go on shore for the instruction of 
 the children in horticulture, agriculture, and botany. 
 " Community " coffee houses existed in London in 1834. 
 Co-operators were never deterred by poverty of means. 
 A halfpenny a week land fund had its enthusiastic 
 members and friends, who expected to join Mr. Disraeli's 
 territorial aristocracy by patient subscriptions of two 
 shillings and twopence a year, t 
 ' At 14, Charlotte-street, Fitzroy Square, was situated 
 
 * (( 1 
 
 ' New Moral World." September 26, 1835. 
 t " New Moral World," No. 10, p. 64, Dec. 20, 1834. 
 
206 HISTOE-Z OF 00-OPEEATION. 
 
 Social character of Co-operatiTe assemblies. 
 
 " The Institution " where Mr. Owen lectured every 
 Sunday and festivals, and discussions were held on 
 week-days. Socialism was always social. Its worst 
 enemies could not deny this, and it first set the example 
 of teaching working people to meet like ladies and gen- 
 tlemen, on a pleasant equality, and abandon habits of 
 isolation, suUenness, and conspiracy ; and to chat and 
 sing, and dance, and think their way to schemes of com- 
 petence. This result was so littte credited by the public, 
 that the " Poor Man's Guardian," of 1834 (so late as 
 that), thought it necessary to print an assurance on that 
 point, and said, "We believe greater order or more 
 genuine good feeling and politeness, are not to be met 
 with in any of the public assemblies in the metropolis 
 or elsewhere." Considering that these assemblies were 
 composed mainly of lodging-house keepers, newsvendors 
 '(who in those days were seldom long out of prison), 
 grocers, tailors, costermongers, shoemakers, tallow 
 chandlers, and in some cases, as I know, sweeps; good 
 people of conventional tastes were perplexed at this new 
 species of association. It was not then understood that 
 variety of industry was really the dress and decoration 
 of the public service; and those who rendered none 
 were merely nude and useless, and if they wilfully 
 evaded work they were disreputable compared with those 
 who lived by their honest labour. Habits of labour do 
 not imply refinement in aU cases ; but industry, as a 
 rule, implies honesty, and honesty is worth, which, when 
 combined with intelligence, makes good company as 
 times go. At length these assemblies commanded 
 respect. 
 
 At the end of 1834 the first female co-operative asso- 
 ciation was formed. The object of the promoters was to 
 form associative homes, and enable their members to 
 acquire the art of living in contiguous dwellings — an art 
 which is frequently cultivated and never progresses. 
 Eventually it will. The plan of this excellent society 
 
THE SOOIAMSTIC PEEIOD. 207 
 
 A confident Oo-opeiative motto, 
 
 needed funds ; and to raise these funds these female 
 co-operators commenced selling tea and coffee, inviting 
 the custom of the faithful to that end. 
 
 There was one co-operative notice, in 1834, of con- 
 gratulation to the members of the Charlotte-street 
 Institution, on their having given spontaneous support 
 to a grocery store and that it was in contemplation to 
 open a butcher's store. 
 
 A French advocate of association, Mons. J. Gay, sent 
 a letter by Dr. Bowring, in 1834, in which he described 
 a plan of association which he had himself projected, and 
 which was to consist of 12,000 souls. His dining room 
 was to be the size of the court of the Louvre, and capable 
 of seating 12,000 guests — a very satisfactory dinner party. 
 
 The "London weekly publication," as its advent was 
 described, bore the title of the "New Moral World." Old 
 things were now to pass away. This was to be the 
 organ of the rational system of society, conducted by 
 Eobert Owen and his disciples. Its tone and terms were 
 apostolic : otherwise its topographic style and appearance 
 were rather shabby and inferior in quantity of matter 
 and quahty of writing to the "Crisis." The new moral 
 world that was to be, so far as this journal represented 
 it, was not very respectable. It bore a proud, confident 
 motto, which averred that " Silence will not retard its 
 progress and opposition wUl give increased celerity to 
 its movements." This was one of several famous 
 sentences which Mr. Owen constructed. The great 
 crisis of human nature, which was to take place m the 
 fourth week in August, appears really to have come off, 
 for the first serial number of the volume, appearing on 
 Saturday, November 1, 1834,* declared in its opening 
 sentence that "the Eubicon between the old journal 
 world and the new moral worlds is finally passed." 
 
 * It was printed and published by Eowland Hunter, junr., at the office 
 of the Association of AU Classes of All Nations, 14, Charlotte-street, 
 ritzroy Square. 
 
208 HISTORY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Commtmistic calculations. 
 
 These astounding tidings were followed by twenty-one 
 proofs of the principles and practices of the new state of 
 things, dreary enough to make the reader regret that the 
 days of the old and livelier immoral world were num- 
 bered. As, however, Mr. Owen had had his forces in 
 the City of London Tavern in sight of the rubicon 
 eighteen years before, it must be admitted that they had 
 been a long time in getting over it. Of his twenty-one 
 proofs of his principles, the motet that can be said is 
 they were very oppressive. In the second number he 
 announced that " truth had at length gained the victory 
 over error. Its reign upon earth had commenced, and 
 would now prevail for evermore." The two volumes for 
 1835 and 1836 contain mainly papers by Mr. Owen and 
 lectures delivered by him in the chapel in Burton Street. 
 
 Two pages of the ^'New Moral World" of 1885 con- 
 tain the most intelligible and brief calculation of the 
 material requirements in the way of agriculture, manu- 
 factures, and provisions for 500 persons of the working 
 class which appears in the records of these schemes. 
 The proportions of persons were 110 men, 110 women, 
 and 280 children, who were to occupy 1,000 English 
 acres, upon part of which a village was to be built for 
 their habitations. 
 
 Early in the year, owing to the excessive cold which 
 prevailed in 1835, Mr. Owen ceased to lecture in the 
 Charlotte-street Institution, and delivered his addresses 
 in his chapel in Burton-street, Burton Crescent. 
 
 Earlyin 1834, Mr. Owen had proposed thatthe "Friends 
 of the human race" — a very large detachment — should 
 form " An Association of all Classes, and of aU Nations." 
 An elaborate scheme was published of this very compre- 
 hensive society, of which Mr. Owen was to be the 
 "preliminary father." This new paternal authority 
 published long and unreadable proposals for a " change 
 of system in the British empire," which were duly offered 
 .to the Duke of Wellington's administration. Whether 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PERIOD. 209 
 
 The wonderful Pacificator. 
 
 the duke's administration were influenced by timidity, or 
 whether they did not understand the proposals cannot 
 now be determined, but it is matter of history that they 
 were not adopted. 
 
 Many notices were published that at one o'clock on 
 the 1st of May, 1835, a great meeting would be held in 
 the Charlotte-street Institution, when the superseding of 
 the old world by the new would be made, and the 
 contrast between " the world that is, and the world that 
 is to come," would be made evident to the public. 
 
 The Association of All Classes of All Nations, the 
 great cosmopolitan device of 1836, was formed at this 
 meeting. Its immense object was " to effect an entire 
 change in the character and condition of the human 
 race." Mr. 'Braby opened the proceedings and Mr. 
 Owen took the chair. His speech occupied, when 
 published, nearly two entire numbers of the " New 
 Moral World," and must have been long enough to weary 
 both worlds at once. Its delivery tried the temper, and 
 would have affected the character of aU the nations 
 together, had they been present. Nor did the trouble 
 end there. One Mr. Charles Toplis, of Leicester Square, 
 had contrived or conceived an infernal engine, a sort of 
 Satanic mitrailleuse, which was to throw a thousand 
 balls in the time one man could fire. This fine invention 
 he called "the Pacificator." Mr. Toplis had the wit to 
 send an account of the horrible thing to Mr. Owen, who 
 thought it something like an act of Providence that it 
 should reach him just as he had finished writing his 
 address, as it seemed to confirm the announcement he 
 had made of the probable termination of war all over all 
 the world. Mr. Toplis had, Mr. Owen thought, niade 
 war impossible by multiplying the powers of destruction; 
 and insisted upon the Toplis paper on "the Pacificator" 
 being read, which being long must still have further 
 wearied the Association of AU Classes of All Nations. 
 Indeed, the Toplis document was dull enough to have 
 
 o 
 
210 HISTORY OP CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 A Propagandist's preoaution. 
 
 dispersed any army had it been read to them -without 
 any other apphcation of " the Pacificator." The report 
 says the meeting was numerous and respectable, but the 
 only person of note who spoke at the. end was Eichard 
 CarUle ; he, however, was a man of historical powers 
 of endurance. 
 
 The term socialism was first introduced on the 
 formation of the Society of All Classes of AU Nations, the 
 members of which came to be known as socialists. 
 
 A congress was announced to be held fourteen days 
 later, to set the " Association of AU Classes and All 
 Nations " going, when Mr. Owen stated that he should 
 retire from public life. On that day |he would be sixty- 
 five years of age. He said that he had, while he was 
 wealthy, taken the precaution of making his wife and 
 children sufficiently independent of his public proceed- 
 ings, which always involved a certain degree of personal 
 and pecuniary risk. Mr. Eichard Carlile made an 
 eloquent speech on Mr. Owen's retirement from pubhc 
 life. Henceforth, the lectures in the Charlotte-street 
 Institution were given in the name of the Association 
 of All Classes and All Nations. Of course, Mr. Owen 
 never retired, but pubhc letters appeared every week 
 from his pen ; sometimes to Lord Brougham, at another 
 time to Sir Eobert Peel, and to Sir Edward Lytton 
 Bulwer. Three months later, Mr. Owen served upon 
 a sub-committee with Thomas Atwood — a committee 
 appointed of members of parliament and others who had 
 met at the Exchequer Coffee House, Palace Yard, to con- 
 sider means of relieving the distress which then existed 
 among the working class. Mr. Owen even wrote an 
 address to the " Eeligious of aU Denominations," though 
 it is very difficult to conceive how any argument could 
 be constructed which would interest half of them about 
 anything. Twelve months after his retirement, he was 
 addressing letters to His Majesty, William IV., from 
 4, Crescent Place, Burton Crescent. 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PEEIOD. 211 
 
 The " Pioneer" of Trade Unions. 
 
 In September James Morrison, the editor of a trades 
 union journal called the "Pioneer," died. He was the 
 first platform and literary advocate of unionism, who 
 obtaiaed distinction for judicious counsel, and a firmness 
 which was made strong by moderation. He died pre- 
 maturely through worMng beyond his strength. His 
 widow was long known at the Social Institution, Salford, 
 for activity and intelligence nearly equal to his own. 
 She was one of the lecturers of the society. 
 
 This year some friends in Finsbury obtained possession 
 of Zebulon Chapel, in the Curtain Eoad, and converted 
 it into an E astern Associative HaU. It caused disquietude 
 in certain quarters that "Zebulon" should become a 
 social institution. 
 
 A Social Land Community Society was the quaint 
 name of a scheme this year, which never got far beyond 
 its name. We have known a good deal in London of 
 co-operative tailors since " Alton Locke " appeared. In 
 the " Social Land " year (1835) ; an association of the 
 tailor craft conducted a business at 5, Brydges-street, 
 Strand. 
 
 Mr. Owen*s lectures on marriage, and that kind of 
 perplexing thing, were first printed in volume one of the 
 " New Moral World," in 1835. Nothing could be more 
 unfortunate than the tone, terms, and illustrations of 
 the subject. Those who recognised Mr. Owen's rectitude 
 of intention, found it hard to defend his views in the 
 face of his awkward and inapt statements ; while those 
 who thought ill of his objects, found ia them a whole 
 armoury of weapons for the assault of co-operative views 
 which lasted them ten years. In the abstract and 
 dreary pages of the " New Moral World," the lectures 
 were harmless and inaccessible, but some one — on 
 mischief bent it must be — had them reprinted in Leeds, 
 and Mr. Joshua Hobson published them. It was then 
 brought to light that the lectures were not verbatim, but 
 ma,de up of abrupt notes taken by a hearer. On such a 
 
212 HISTORY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 The inelevant Iieotnres on Marriage. 
 
 subject, Mr. Owen should have prevented appearing, or 
 repudiated any statement not his own. There was no 
 necessity to preach a new doctrine of marriage to render 
 associative life possible. Those who had discordant 
 homes should have been kept out of communities. It 
 did not need Mr. Owen to tell us that we cannot love 
 whom we please : yet it continues true that we may all 
 our lives remain pleased with those who allure us to like 
 them. There will often be imsuitable marriages, and 
 divorce is far more moral than association with hate. 
 But this doctrine is more wanted in the old world than 
 the new. 
 
 Things moved on in those days at an express rate 
 towards perfection. The rubicon being passed so late as 
 November 1, 1834, was followed on October 81, 1835, by 
 the second volume of the " New Moral World," which 
 opened with the sub-title of the "Millennium." The 
 full title read, " The New Moral World and Millennium." 
 That hitherto evasive form of perfection had been 
 secured. A junior member of the council of that won- 
 derful Association of All Classes of All Nations, unaware 
 that it had been secured, delivered a lecture at the 
 Charlotte-street Institution, on "Millennial Prospects." 
 Nothing, one would think, could be of more interest to 
 mankind. Yet, the editor of the " Millennium," who had 
 published part of its " Prospects," unfortunately declared 
 that " his limits did not admit of more extracts ; " so 
 that to this day the world does not know what was in 
 store for it. 
 
 In due course, a proposal was made for establishing a 
 sort of co-operative Preemasonty, and the principles of 
 association were to be propagated by means of "Lodges," 
 and one was determined upon, and the "punctual attend- 
 ance of all the brothers was respectfully requested." 
 
 Trade unions and trade benefit societies took these 
 imposing titles. The printers, who acquire increase of 
 sense by setting up the sense of others, were first to 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PEEIOD. 213 
 
 The amazing Etzler FaradiBe. 
 
 have their grand lodge, and schemes were published for 
 extending new world principles, by establishing lodges in 
 all nations of the world. An attendance of " all the 
 Brothers " of the " Grand Lodge of Miscellaneous 
 Operatives and Friends of Industry and Humanity " was 
 called, in February, 1835. No doubt, brotherhood was 
 put to a strong test in this composite lodge, from which 
 the strangest creatures could not be logically excluded. 
 This catholic device certainly gave everybody a chance ; 
 for he must be very badly used by nature or circumstance 
 who was not qualified to be classed among "miscellaneous" 
 people. 
 
 Volume two of " Moral World " of this date (1836) had 
 a department called "Herald of Community," but the 
 "Herald" was many years blowing his trumpet before 
 the forces were collected. Social reformers were great 
 at trumpets. They were always blowing them, or 
 making trumpet calls at which nobody appeared. In 
 1835 one W. Cameron, author of the first " Trumpet," 
 announced a second, which he dedicated to Eobert 
 Owen, who certainly did not require it. His friends 
 had a large stock. 
 
 About this time Mr. Owen became acquainted with a 
 little book which afterwards made some noise, known as 
 Etzler's " Paradise within the Eeach of All Men." The 
 great co-operator must have had in these days 
 some side of his nature open to wonder. The clever 
 German, who regarded mechanics not as a department 
 of science, but as a species of poetry, undertook to put 
 the whole world in ten years in a state of Paradise, 
 which might be permanently maintained without human 
 labour, or next to none, by the powers of nature or 
 machinery. Etzler was a man who stood by the way- 
 side of the world, and offered the philosopher's stone to 
 any passer-by who would take it. "Look here," he 
 cried in his preface, " ye philosophers, ye speculators, 
 ye epicureans, behold a new, easy, straight, and short 
 
214 HISTORY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 The great peripatetio Bestanrant. 
 
 road to the summit of your wishes." By Mr. Etzler's 
 invention the sea was to become a drawing room, and 
 the air a sort of upper chamber, for the accommodation 
 of those who dwelt on the land. So far from distrusting 
 these preposterous proposals, Mr. Owen merely regarded 
 Etzler as a fellow renovator of the universe, who had, 
 in some wonderful way, got before him. 
 
 Now and then French socialists contributed some 
 astounding scheme of co-operative cookiag, which was 
 received with applause in the periodicals of the EngHsh 
 party. The idea was in a limited degree practicable, 
 but it was projected on a scale of magnitude which made 
 it ridiculous. Before the day of Mr. Corbett's Glasgow 
 soup kitchen, or cafes for the people were talked of by 
 Lord Shaftesbury, a proposal was made ia Paris to 
 supply the city with food by one immense restaurateur. 
 One who had studied the project said, with something of 
 the fervour and confidence of Mr. Etzler, "Go and see it. 
 The sight and the steam wUl cost you nothing. There 
 are Greek statues holding frying-pans, brilliant portraits 
 of Lucullus, of Gargantua, Vatel, Careme, and aU the 
 great men who have honoured universal gastronomy. 
 There you will see the great cook, M. de.Botherall, 
 skimming his gigantic pot, his forehead enveloped at 
 the- same time with a cotton nightcap and a viscount's 
 coronet. To prove the profits arisiag from the solvency 
 of the scheme he offers to wrap his cutlets for twelve 
 days in bills of 1,000 francs each. In a short time the 
 restaurative omnibusses will circulate through Paris. A 
 cook will be upon the front seat, and a scullion behind. 
 These vehicles will contain broth and sauce for the whole 
 city. There wUl be the soup omnibus, the omnibus with 
 made dishes, and the omnibus with roast meat, running 
 together, after which wUl come the tooth-pick omnibus, 
 and lastly the omnibus with the bill." This must have 
 been ridicule, but it did not deter social editors from 
 quoting it as one pf the schemes of the time. 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PERIOD. 215 
 
 Disconragement and decline of Oo-operation, 
 
 At a later period, in 1836, Elliott made a speech in 
 Sheffield in favour of news-rooms, in which he stood up 
 stoutly on behalf of political knowledge, and said, " Be 
 not deluded by the Owens,' the Oastlers, the Bulls, and 
 the Sadlers, these dupes of the enemy." 
 
 In 1836, Mr. Owen published the book of the " New 
 Moral World," which, while it animated his disciples by 
 many observations which it contained, gave persons of 
 any vivacity of temperament rather a distaste for that 
 state-of existence. Episodes of co-operative experience 
 in conducting stores for the sale of provisions, would 
 have contributed to the interest of the book and been a 
 practical and relevant variation. The phrase " taxes on 
 knowledge," so often heard twenty years later, appeared 
 in the " New Moral World," in February, 1836, imported 
 from the " London Eeview." 
 
 Traces of co-operative societies grow fewer and fewer, 
 in volume two of the " New Moral World," but in lieu of 
 them we have announcements that the " Eeligion of the 
 Millennium" is now ready, and may be had of the 
 publishers. In volume four of the " New Moral World," 
 November, 1836, occurs a notable passage which illus- 
 trates how poor an opinion Mr. Owen entertained of 
 Co-operation, which had excited so many hopes, and 
 had been the subject of so many endeavom-s, and how 
 seriously he discouraged it. He related that on his 
 journey to New Lanark, he passed through Carlisle. 
 Devoting Tuesday and Wednesday "to seeing the friends 
 of the system, and those whom I wish to make its 
 friends : to my surprise I foimd there are six or seven 
 co-operative societies, in different parts of the town, 
 doing weU, as they think, that is, making some profit 
 by joint-stock retailing. It is, however, high time to 
 put an end to the notion very prevalent in the public 
 mind, that this is the social system which wg contem- 
 plate, or that it will form any part of the arrangements 
 in the ' New Moral World.' " 
 
216 HISTORY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Meritorious disappearance of the Millennium. 
 
 Later, in December, a prospectus appeared of an 
 intended Hall of Science in Brighton, prefixed by the 
 phrase " Science belongs to no party." This might be 
 true, but there were certainly many parties who never 
 had it, and a curious thing about these halls of science 
 everywhere has been that they never had any science in 
 them. The fact is they were thinking, not of physical 
 science, which the name implied, so much as of social 
 science, but that name being too long to introduce, it 
 was omitted, and the public were always expecting what 
 never took place. 
 
 Mr. J. Eansom, of Brighton, was one of six who wrote 
 a letter to the " New Moral "World," proposing means of 
 increasing the sale of the publication, and showing that 
 the early interest which Brighton took in Co-operation 
 was still sustained, and on the part of that writer and 
 others has been honourably continued there to this day. 
 
 A writer in the Radical, a weekly stamped newspaper, 
 addressed several brief, well-written letters to the 
 working class on the means of obtaining equality. The 
 writer took the signature of "Common Sense," and pub- 
 lished his letters in dateless pamphlets; but I believe the 
 Radical appeared in 1836. The most striking thing that 
 " Common Sense " had to say was that " the besetting 
 sin of the working people is their admiration of the 
 unproductive classes, and their contempt and neglect of 
 theirown." The third volume of the " Moral World " gave 
 signs of sense. It must be owned that during this 
 period of departure from Co-operation to Socialism, the 
 adherents of this scheme got a little feeble, sentimental, 
 and sometimes melodramatic. Their styling Mr. Owen 
 the " Preliminary Father," and addressing him, as Mr. 
 Fleming did in public letters, as " Our Dear Social 
 Father," showed that their wits were nearly gone. They 
 pulled themselves together a little towards the end of 
 1836, when they silenced the MHlennium gong, and called 
 their journal the "New Moral World and Manual of 
 Science." 
 
THE SOOIALISTIO PERIOD. 217 
 
 Honourable and adventurous concern for Science. 
 
 By whose cottrage or good judgment the ecstatic term 
 "millennium" came to be dropped does not appear. It was 
 creditable that the term "manual of science" succeeded 
 it ; but when, instead of that remarkable literature of 
 lectures, songs, and religion of the millennium, the 
 reader was introduced to papers on "the functions of 
 the spinal marrow," the transition was very great. The 
 directors of the paper retained the word New, but put it 
 in small letters, which showed that a sense of modesty 
 was returning. They really meant physical science by 
 their title, and though they had small conception of 
 what a "Manual of Science" should be, and no means of 
 furnishing it if they had, yet it is to be remembered 
 that science then was not the great, definite, classified, 
 organised, mighty thing it now is. The British Associa- 
 tion for advancing it was not born till four years later. 
 The " Penny Magazine " people and the Chambers 
 Brothers both excluded discussions on politics and 
 religion from their pages, and the journals of the 
 co-operators were the only papers of a popular character 
 which dealt with religion and politics, and recognised 
 science as one of the features of general progress. 
 The little they did, therefore, passed for much and meant 
 much in those days. It was a merit, and no small 
 merit, to recognise what they could not advance, because 
 recognition was aid when the love and honour of science 
 was deemed a form of sin. The volume bearing the 
 sub-title of "Manual of Science" did something to sustain 
 the profession by giving a page or more in each number 
 upon subjects of physical science. In several towns, 
 notably in Manchester, the Socialist party erected halls 
 of science. There was an instinct that science was the 
 available providence of man, and would one day be in 
 the ascendant. It, however, was never in their power 
 to advance it other than by defending its study. The 
 volumes of the " Moral World " at this time were devoid 
 of advertisements. The scrupulous editor withheld 
 
218 HISTOET OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 The FreneK demand practical experiments of the EngUsli. 
 
 necessary information from his readers of public and 
 other meetings to take place on behalf of their own 
 principles, "We refrain," he said, "from making for- 
 mal announcements, which by some persons might be 
 mistaken for advertisements, though we never deal in 
 this kind of merchandise," as though publicity were 
 venal. 
 
 In the same year, Mr. J. L. Gay, of Paris, addressed 
 a letter to Mr Owen, from which it appeared that the 
 French world makers did not think so much of the 
 English contrivance to that end as English co-operators 
 thought of the French. Mr. Gay reports, that the most 
 rational of St. Simonians and Fourierites refuse either 
 to hear or read any exposition of sociahsm ; but they 
 very sensibly demanded a practical trial of it. They 
 would look at that. The French socialists of Mr. Owen's 
 school, were then about to establish a "Maison Har- 
 moniene de Paris " (House of Harmony at Paris).* 
 
 The fourth volume of the " Moral World" was printed 
 by Abel Heywood, of Manchester,! always known to 
 Eadicals and Social Eeformers as a man of honour and 
 energy, and the chief Liberal publisher of Manchester, 
 when that trade required not only business ability, but 
 the courage of meeting imprisonment. Volume four was 
 more belligerent than the previous one. The politicians 
 united against a system which disregarded immediate 
 political right, under the belief that a state of universal 
 community would render rights imnecessary, or secure 
 them in full ; but community was distant, and the need 
 of political liberty was near. One number of the " Moral 
 World " stated that " Mr. Hetherington, with the Eadi- 
 cals at his back, decried their proceedings." The " Moral 
 World "published an article from the "Shepherd," stating 
 
 * " New Moral World." December 24, 1836, p. 66. 
 t Volume III. had been printed by John Gadsby, of the same city. The 
 price of each number of the fourth volume of ttie " New Moral World" 
 was three half-pence, A number contained eight pages. 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PEBIOD. 219 
 
 Benewed contempt of political rights. 
 
 that Mr. Owen had been to Paris, and found that "the 
 French were looking beyond politics, and lucky would it 
 be for us also if, instead of palavering with such trifles 
 as ballot, and canvas, and law amendments, we were to 
 cast this smallware overboard, and raise one loud and 
 universal shout of social re-organisation. This patching 
 and mending system is a miserable delusion." Yet, the 
 same article recorded that Mr. Owen had been prevented 
 lecturing in Paris by the police, lest he should excite 
 commotion through the numbers he attracted. The fact 
 was a prompt rebuke of the contemptuousness expressed 
 as to pohtical freedom. The " smaUware " had great 
 value in practice. The editor of the "Moral World" 
 had published offensive and foolish articles himself, 
 disparaging Eadical politics. 
 
 Li an article upon the name of the paper, the editor 
 stated that he rejected the abandoned name of co-opera- 
 tor, the most sensible that had been adopted, and the 
 members of the Grand Society of AH Classes and All 
 Nations, wisely refused to be called Owenites, although 
 they persisted in their affection for Mr. Owen, whom 
 they designated at the same time their " social and 
 right reverend father." At the Manchester congress 
 of all classes of all nations^at which only one class 
 of one nation appeared, and only a very small por- 
 tion of that took part in the proceedings — they 
 determined to call themselves socialists. At this period, 
 June 1837, the " Moral World " was printed at Man- 
 chester, and then Mr. George Alexander Fleming became 
 editor,* and also general secretary of the central board 
 which had been formed. Henceforth the " Moral 
 World " was edited with more controversial vigour, and 
 with general energy and ability as a propagandist 
 organ, but the last volume, edited in London, the 
 " Manual of Science " volume, was the most various 
 
 * Ml-. Fleming's editorship commenced June 10, 1837, and his resig- 
 nation was dftted from Ayeniie Cottage, Queenwood, Noyember 8, 1845. 
 
220 HISTOEY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 The Pising of the " Star in the East." 
 
 and readable of the whole that had been published. 
 It published weekly a column taken from the "Daily 
 Politician," composed of short passages of current 
 political interest selected from the general newspaper 
 press ; Notable sayings of philosophers, well chosen 
 anecdotes, extracts from books of mark and force, such 
 as Mr. Mill's "History of British India," rendering 
 that volume readable to this day. 
 
 " Live for others," that afterwards became the motto 
 of the Comtean religion of humanity, was the subject of 
 an editorial article in the " New Moral World " for 
 January 21, 1837. 
 
 Mr. SauU, of London, announced that he had received 
 exchequer bills to the amount of £1,000, of which the 
 interest was to be devoted to the purposes of an educa- 
 tional friendly society. £500 more were announced 
 when Mr. Baume appeared at Bradford as a deputy 
 representative of the society. His proceedings being 
 reported in the " Northern Star," and quoted in the 
 " New Moral World," the editor added a caution against 
 confounding that project with the National Community 
 Society, and professed doubts as to the practicability of 
 the plan. 
 
 The Star in the East commenced in 1837. Its 
 price was fourpence-halfpenny. It was a newspaper 
 and stamped, and the first which professedly advocated 
 social views. Its editor and proprietor, Mr. James Hill, 
 of Wisbeach, was a member of the distinguished 
 Eowland HOI family, to whom the public has been 
 indebted for so many national improvements. 
 
 The east and north had " Stars," both edited by HiUs. 
 Both " Stars " arose in the same year. "The Northern 
 Star" had Feargus O'Connor for proprietor, and 
 Mr. Hill, an energetic Yorkshire schoolmaster, for 
 editor, but no relative of Mr. Hill, of Wisbeach. The 
 northern luminary was political, being the organ of the 
 Chartists, but always friendly to social ideas — both 
 
THE SOCIALISTIO PERIOD. 221 
 
 Commvmistio writers. 
 
 proprietors being community makers in their way; 
 Mr. James Hill having a peculiar social theory of his 
 own to work out at Wisbeach, chiefly educational, after 
 the genius of his family ; Mr. O'Connor having a land 
 scheme which, with the usual talent of reformers for 
 administeriag to the merriment of adversaries, he located 
 among other places, at Snig's End. 
 
 The Eev. Joseph Marriott, who represented Eochdale 
 at the Manchester Congress of 1837, published a drama 
 entitled " Community," which appeared in the " Moral 
 World." It was a siUy affair, but some of the predictions 
 of telegraphic facilities which it contained are now seen 
 realised in every street, which then only the sociaUst 
 imagination would incur the risk of regarding as a 
 possibility of the future. The fact of to-day was a 
 "craze" then. 
 
 The Eev. Mr. Marriott was a gentleman of far more 
 enthusiasm on the whole than discernment, for he 
 described Mr. Thompson's essay on " The Distribution 
 of Wealth " as a work " as superior to Adam Smith's 
 ' Wealth of Nations ' as one book can be to another.' " 
 The subject was certainly an important supplement to 
 the great topic stated by Smith, but the difference in the 
 capacity and range of thought of the two writers ought to 
 have been perceptible even to enthusiasm. Adam Smith 
 traced the laws which were found to operate in human 
 and commercial affairs. Mr. Thompson planned the laws 
 which he thought ought to operate under circumstances 
 which had never existed. Mr. Thompson's book has 
 only been kept in print by the bequest he left for the pur- 
 pose, and all his admirers have never been able to induce 
 the public to read it. If they did they would be of opinion 
 "that there was something in it." 
 
 In June, 1838, the seat of social government and the 
 journal of the society were removed to Bennett's HiE, 
 Birmingham. Mr. Guest became the pubUsher ; known 
 as the leading Liberal publisher of the town, as 
 
222 HISTOEY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 The Birmingham leaders of Co-operation. 
 
 Mr. Heywood was of Manchester. The printer was 
 Francis Basset Shenstone Flindell, of 38, New-street, 
 Birmingham. The editor announced that various con- 
 siderations had induced the central board to limit 
 the number of impressions to 2,000. There was a 
 pardonable periphrasis in this statement, since only 
 one consideration could have determined it, and that 
 was that they had no more purchasers. There had 
 arisen in Birmingham several correspondents. It was 
 the residence of Mr. Pare, the earliest and ablest 
 organiser of the movement, and Mr. Hawkes Smith, its 
 most influential advocate through the press ; and the 
 town furnished two lecturers, Mr. Frederick Hollick, and 
 the present writer. Birmingham was long distinguished 
 for its influence in co-operative things. There was, also, 
 actively connected with the central board an Irish 
 gentleman, Mr. John Lowther Murphy, the author of 
 several minor works of original merit — the best known 
 being, "An Essay Towards a Science of Conscious- 
 ness." They were illustrated by diagrams, broadly 
 designed, which had an air of ingenuity and newness. 
 The argument was materialistic, put with an immis- 
 giving boldness, and, what was more to the purpose, 
 with a definiteness. 
 
 Occupying a position of respectability, and having 
 audacity in council and in action, Mr. Murphy was 
 always a popular figure on the platform. Single, and 
 a dentist in sufficient practice, no social persecution 
 could reach him, since Christians with the -toothache 
 would waive any objection they entertained to his prin- 
 ciples, providing he could afford them more skilful reUef 
 than anyone else. Eager and daring, it must be owned 
 Mr. Murphy troubled himself very little as to the 
 consequences of following himself the advice he gave. 
 What was enjoyment to him he thought must be good 
 for the party. In meetings of danger his courage was 
 conspicuous and effective, and that was a great merit. 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PERIOD. 223 
 
 Mr, William Hawkes Smith. 
 
 There is a greater conquest than that of intimidation, 
 namely, that of conviction, and the leader herein was 
 Mr. Hawkes Smith, a man who knew a fact when he 
 saw it — that is, he could discern its relevance, and put 
 it in its proper place in argument. Mr. William Hawkes 
 Smith, of Birmingham, was incomparably the wisest and 
 most practical writer in defence of social views. He 
 wisely maintained that the denunciation of religion was 
 irrelevant to scientific co-operative ends. His son, Mr. 
 Toulniin Smith, became a man of eminence as a black 
 letter lawyer and author of remarkable works on 
 municipal and parliamentary government. 
 
 A writer who really contributed accurate information 
 on many subjects employed the instructive signature of 
 a " Student of Eeahties," whose name was Vieussieu, a 
 gentleman in official employment at Somerset House, 
 whose sons after him took a generous and expensive 
 interest in social progress. 
 
 In these days a small book was published separately 
 called " OutUnes of the Eational System and Laws of 
 Human Nature." They were divided into five funda- 
 mental facts (they would call them "fundamental") and 
 Twenty Laws of Human Nature. Human nature in 
 England was never so tried as it was during the five 
 years when these were discussed in every town in the 
 kingdom. When a future generation has courage to 
 look into this unprecedented code as one of the curiosities 
 of propagandism, it will find many sensible and whole- 
 some propositions, which nobody now disputes, and 
 sentiments of toleration and practical objects of wise 
 import. 
 
 The fifth volume of the "Moral World" was enlarged 
 to sixteen pages, and published at twopence. The 
 phrase " Manual of Science" was now omitted. Indeed, 
 the previous volume had paid scarcely any attention to 
 science, and it was right to drop the pretence of it. It 
 indeed published under the head of "Physical Science" 
 
224 HISTOEY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Appearance of the " Working Bee." 
 
 Mr. Mackintosh's " Electrical Theory of the Universe," 
 and this was all. The volume showed a great increase 
 in reports of propagandist lectures in numerous towns, 
 and bore as its large-type title, the simple name of the 
 "Moral World," "New" being modestly subordinated. 
 
 " Labour's Wrongs and Labour's Eemedy" is the name 
 of an energetic little book by Mr. J. F. Bray. It was a 
 good deal read by co-operators of the time. It was a book 
 of the period, having no permanent relevance. 
 
 There was a " Social Pioneer" made its appearance in 
 1839, printed by Mr. A. Heywood, of Manchester, which 
 deserves mention. It was rather late in March, 1839» 
 to bring out a " Social Pioneer," thirty years after those 
 operators had been in business, nevertheless, a publica- 
 tion of this name appeared. In October of the same 
 year a more ambitious journal appeared, entitled the 
 "Working Bee," "printed by John Green, at the Com- 
 munity Press, Manea Fen, Cambridgeshire, for the 
 Trustees of the Hodgsonian Community Societies." It 
 took the usual honest and determined motto " He who 
 will not work neither shall he eat;" but it turned out 
 that those who did work did not get the means of eating, 
 there being no adequate provision made for this at 
 Manea Fen. The fifth volume consisted of 37 numbers 
 only, and volume six commenced with No. 38. 
 
 Volume six of the socialist journal started with the 
 full pretentious title of " The New Moral World," and 
 the ponderous sub-title of " Gazette of the Universal 
 Community Society of Eational Eeligionists, enrolled 
 under Acts of Parliament 10 George IV., c. 56, and 
 4 and 5 William IV., c. 40." This was the first time 
 the movement put on a legal air. The sixth volume 
 commenced in Leeds in July, 1838. 
 
 Volume seven also continued to represent the National 
 Eeligionists of the Universal Community Society, the 
 public never quite understanding whether the society 
 was intended to cover the universe, or whether its 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PEEIOD. 225 
 
 The Commumstio Year — 1840. 
 
 principles were to be understood as of universal 
 application. Either conception required great confidence 
 or great knowledge to assent to it. 
 
 The eighth volume of the " Moral World" commenced 
 a series of a larger size than had before appeared. It 
 was as large as a moderate sized newspaper, all in small 
 type, and was the costliest weekly journal the co-operative 
 party had yet commanded. It was charged threepence 
 per number of sixteen pages, and was, like volume sixth 
 aiid seventh, printed by Joshua Hobson, in Leeds, who 
 was himself an author upon social and political 
 questions, and was well known among the politicians of 
 the Chartist times as printer, and publisher also, of the 
 Northern Star. The year 1840 was the culminating 
 period of the socialist advocacy. The expectation of a 
 new community being near its establishment brought 
 an accession of writers to the " Moral World;" and the 
 eighth volume was edited with spirit. The articles had 
 a general and literary character. 
 
 In volume ninth, which commenced January, 1841, 
 the Eational Eeligionists still confronted the public on 
 the title page of each number. 
 
 Volume tenth was a serious issue, abounding in 
 addresses and congress reports, animated a little by 
 reviews and accounts of provincial and metropolitan 
 lectures. It commenced in July, 1841, and ended June, 
 1842. Never despairing, early in the volume, the editor 
 again commenced to give directions how to obtain the 
 millennium, although it had arrived and had had its 
 own way some years previously. In October, 1841, the 
 printing of the " Moral World " was brought back to 
 London after wandering in the wilderness of Manchester, 
 of Birmingham, and of Leeds five years. 
 
 The eleventh volume let slip one of its anchors. It 
 began with the simpler sub-title " Gazette of the Eational 
 Society." The society remained rational, the Eational 
 Eeligionists peremptorily disappeared. Whether they 
 
226 HISTOEY OF CO-OPERATION.- 
 
 Last days of the " New Moral World." 
 
 had sworn themselves into disrepute, they having taken 
 to oath-taking, or found it onerous to maintain the 
 clerical pretensions they had assumed, or found that 
 the pretension itself raised the very questions of religious 
 controversy which it was the policy and duty of the 
 society to avoid, was never explained. 
 
 The twelfth volume continued to mankind the comfort 
 of knowing that there was in their midst one "Eational 
 Society." Of course the meaning was that the society 
 aimed at promoting rational conditions of rational 
 life, and it was well that there should he some persons 
 pledged to find ouj; these if possible. But unfortunately 
 the name did not represent the aspiration, but seemed 
 to express the fact ; and, as the world is apt to put the 
 worst construction on any new profession, "Eational 
 Society" was a cheering but not a fortunate term. This 
 volume, which commenced July, 1843, formed volume 
 five of the'" New Series." 
 
 The thirteenth volume of the "Moral World," the 
 largest and last of the official issue, commenced on 
 June 29th, 1844. The end of all things communistic was 
 then casting its ominous shadows before. In February, 
 1845, this journal was first printed at the Community 
 Press, by John Melson, for the governor and company 
 of Harmony Hall, Stockbridge, Hants. The last number 
 printed there appeared on August 23rd, 1845. The type 
 was sold, and bought by Mr. James Hill, who bought 
 also the second title " Gazette of the Eational Society." 
 Mr. Hill contended that he had bought the copyright of 
 the paper. The title "New Moral World" Mj. Owen 
 claimed as his copyright, and by arrangement with him, 
 a further volume was commenced, under the title of the 
 "Moral World," the word "New," which had been 
 hitherto part of its title, was omitted, and it appeared 
 under the further editorship of Mr. Fleming. The result 
 was that on the 30th of August, 1845, two " Moral 
 Worlds" again appeared, the old one being the new 
 
teE SOCIALISTIC PERIOD. 227 
 
 A master of disputation. 
 
 " Moral World," and the new one ceasing to be the new 
 one. Mr. Fleming editing the " Moral World," which 
 Mr. Owen retained, and Mr. Hill editing the "New Moral 
 World," which he had bought. Mr. Hill's "New Moral 
 World " continued to January, 1846, when he merged 
 it into a new paper entitled the " Commonweal." It 
 ought to have borne the title of the Commonsqueal, for 
 a shriek was heard in every column. Indeed there was 
 a pang in the title. Under the words " Gazette of the 
 Eational Society," which Mr. Hill retained, was printed 
 Mr. Owen's motto : " Any general character, from the 
 best to the worst, may be given to any community by the 
 application of proper means, which are to a great extent 
 under the control of those who have influence in the 
 affairs of ' men." ■ Underneath this Mr. James Hill 
 placed his rival and refutatory motto : "It must 
 certainly then be concluded that ' proper means ' have 
 not been applied, since such means to a great extent 
 have been ' under the control' of Mr. Owen and those 
 who have had influence in the affairs of the Eational 
 Society." Mr. Hill himself had been an educational 
 and social reformer of no mean note in his time. His 
 Star in the East had been a journal of great iaterest, 
 and great instruction, but he had a faculty for vigorous 
 and varied disputation, which grew by what it fed upon. 
 He was a writer of ability and flexibility, who attacked 
 any one who dissented from him with great celerity ; 
 and if disputation could be entertaining of itself the new 
 issue in his alien hands would have been the most 
 alluring of the series. 
 
 The fourteenth volume of the "Moral World," 
 amended by suspending the profession of being the 
 gazette of the Eational Society, which it appears was 
 after all a saleable title, since Mr. Hill certainly bought 
 and continued to use it, long after the society was practi- 
 cally extinct. Mr. Fleming described his new volume as 
 the " advocate of the Eational System, of Society, as 
 
228 HISTOEY OF CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 Writers of mark. 
 
 founded by Eobert Owen." It was printed by Mc.Gowan 
 and Company, the printers of the Northern Star, in Lon- 
 don. Only eleven numbers of this volume were issued. 
 
 The close of 1845 and the early months of 1846 
 introduced to the social reader a new journal, bearing 
 the ambitious and provoking title of the " Herald of 
 Progress." Seeing that no progress of the quality so 
 often promised had been made, and that there was 
 absolutely less prospect of it than ever, the name of the 
 journal was a new imitation. Mr. John Cramp was the 
 projector and editor of it. The present writer was one 
 among the contributors after it commenced. 
 
 During these later years, there was collateral activity 
 in social literature in several quarters, but Co-operation 
 seldom attracted attention. Mr. Frederick Bate 
 published in 1841 a play, in five acts, entitled "The 
 Student." Mr. Goodwyn Barmby, a poet who possessed 
 real lyrical power, and advocate of original tastes, hung 
 up his hat in the social hall, where no hat save his could 
 hang. He married " Kate," the clever correspondent of 
 the "Moral World," who has been named. Mr. Barmby 
 founded a Communist church, and gave many proofs of 
 boldness and courage. He and Mr. George Bird, who 
 afterwards obtained professional eminence in medicine, 
 issued a prospectus of the London Communist Propa- 
 gandist Society. Mr. Bird contributed the best literary 
 reviews which appeared in social publications of the 
 day. Mr. Lewis Masquerier, of New York, was a frequent 
 correspondent, dating as early as 1836, who is known to 
 this day as a fertile and original author of social works 
 and plans of considerable interest, and is distinguished 
 as a leader of the land reformers of America, who take 
 for their motto certain famous words from Jefferson's 
 last letter, namely, " The mass of mankind has not been 
 born with saddles on their back, for a favoured few 
 booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately by 
 the grace of God." 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PERIOD. 229 
 
 James Fierrepont Greaves. 
 
 In 1840 the Fourierites established in London a paper 
 called the Morning Star, edited by Mr. Hugh Doherty, a 
 writer who had puzzled the readers of the " Moral 
 World" through many a weary column, and who was 
 going in mercy to restrict his efforts to readers whom he 
 might train to understand him. He entitled his journal 
 " A Phalansterian Gazette of Universal Principles and 
 Progressive Association." Its sources of authority were 
 the book of scripture and the book of nature. Dr. 
 Doherty has since published many works of great inte- 
 rest to those who accept Fourierist principles. 
 
 In 1842 a magazine, entitled " The Union, and 
 Monthly Eecord of Moral, Social, and Educational 
 Progress,"was edited by Mr. G. A. Fleming. It contained 
 papers from the fertile and ingenious pen of "Pencil'em," 
 by January Searle, Charles Lane, Charles Bray, and a 
 writer who used the name of Arthur Walbridge, who 
 wrote a story of " Torrington Hall," and a very suggestive 
 book on " Social Definitions ;" and annonymous papers 
 by eminent and popular writers, whose names the editor 
 suppressed on the sound but uninteresting principle that 
 truth should stand upon its own merits unsupported by 
 names which might induce people to look at it. 
 Eeformers in those days took pride in adopting all the 
 means they could to prevent the truth they had in 
 hand becoming popular, and then complained that it 
 had few friends. " The Union," however, appeared at 
 a time when union was worn out. 
 
 In 1843 there appeared a publication entitled the 
 "New Age," a pleasanter and less pretentious title than 
 the "New Moral World." The "New Age" was also 
 called the "Concordian Gazette." It. represented a 
 small band of mystics, who were inspired by James 
 Pierrepont Greaves, one of whose doctrines was, "as man 
 cannot do right when he himself is wrong, a right 
 nature must be superadded to him in order to establish 
 right institutions in society." One mode prescribed for 
 
230 HISTORY OP CO-OPEEATIOH. 
 
 A Mystic's eye. 
 
 superadding the "right nature, or rather one of the 
 conditions, as Mr. Greaves would say, were pure air, 
 simple food, exercise, and cold water, which he contended 
 were much more beneficial to man than any national 
 doctrinal creeds, or any churches, chapels, or cathedrals. 
 Mr. Greaves was seldom so clear and intelligible as this. 
 He was himself the most accomplished, pleasant, and 
 inscrutable mystic which this country has produced. 
 He possessed competence, which enables a man to be 
 unintelligible and yet respected. Persons who have to 
 earn their dinner before they eat it, experience great, 
 hindrances in dreaming. An American gentleman, Mr. 
 H. G. Wright, and who was a natural disciple of Greaves, 
 by a kindred capacity of profundity, described him as 
 possessed of "a lofty forehead, a well defined contour, a 
 nose inclined to the acquiline, a deep, sonorous, slightly 
 nasal voice, a stature rather above the middle height, and 
 a marvellous eye. Mystery, God, Fathomlessness, aU 
 were written upon it." A man of mark, after his Mnd, 
 it must be owned. 
 
 The disciples of Mr. Greaves took premises at Ham 
 Common, in Surrey, which they called Alcott House. 
 The society was called the First Goncordian. Jt was 
 also the last. Also their two best writers were Charles 
 Lane, who dated from Concord, Massachusetts, and 
 Goodwyn Barmby. The "New Age" was very intelli- 
 gently edited, but it was discontinued when it had 
 existed little more than a year and a half, on the ground 
 that "no book could represent what was passing in that 
 establishment. Even the proceedings of a single day 
 were found to be of far greater moment than could be 
 transcribed or recorded in any work whatever." Those 
 who visited the Concordian were certainly not of 
 this opinion. The inmates were scrupulously clean, 
 temperate, transcendental, offensive to any one who 
 ate meat, attached to Quakers, especially white ones, 
 repudiated even salt and tea, as stimulants, and thought 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PEEIOD. 231 
 
 The Ham Common Society. 
 
 most of those guests who ate their cabbage uncooked. 
 They preached abstinence from marriage, and most 
 things else. Their cardinal doctrine was that happiness 
 was wrong. The managing director, Mr. William 
 Oldham, was called Pater, and, like Howard, preferred 
 damp sheets to dry ones. Mr. Lane invited the Pater 
 to join the Shakers at Harvard, Massachusetts, where 
 he would find no want of liberty to carry out his self- 
 denying plans to the utmost. A very little liberty is 
 sufficient to do nothing in, and a very small space would 
 have enabled the society to carry out its only experiment, 
 which consisted in standing still in a state of submission 
 to the spirit until it directed them what to do. . Mr. 
 Greaves' disciples, however, had the great merit of 
 pausing before they did anything until they had found 
 out why they should do it, a doctrine which would put a 
 stop to the mischievous activity of a great many people 
 if thoughtfully followed. 
 
 The old sin of contempt for political freedom and 
 parliamentary justice beset the new world socialists 
 to the last. So late as 1843, Mr. G. A. Fleming, the 
 editor of the official organ of the party, and Mr. Lloyd 
 Jones, its best regarded missionary, opposed the Anti- 
 Corn Law League. An active representative of the school, 
 Mr. Ironside, a well-known representative of socialism 
 in Sheffield, reported on one occasion he had been to 
 hear Dr. Smiles, editor of the Leeds Times, lecture on 
 Complete Suffrage, and "was at a loss to imagine 
 how socialists could waste their time in listening to 
 expositions of such petty measures as these." 
 
 The Central Board issued charters authorising the 
 foundation of branches in the different towns, when 
 satisfied as to the zeal and respectability of the parties 
 making application for them ; and to this day they-hang 
 up in places of honour in some of the old halls. 
 Occasionally a grand notification was made to the 
 branches of the Association of All Classes of All Nations, 
 
232 
 
 HISTORY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 Ukases of the Central Board. 
 
 and to all others whom it may concern, running thus : — 
 "Whereas, the Congress of the Association [with the 
 far-reaching name] did, for the more extensive and 
 systematic diffusion of the social principles, divide 
 Great Britain and Ireland into certain districts with 
 missionary stations ; and whereas a memorial has been 
 presented to the Central Board from the branch of the 
 Association, situate at Sheffield, requesting that that 
 town may be made a missionary station, and that a 
 district maybe assigned for the labours of the missionary. 
 Now, therefore, we, the Central Board, in pursuance and 
 by virtue of the power and authority vested in us by the 
 congress, and in consideration of the memorial herein- 
 before mentioned, do hereby make the following revision 
 of the districts ; that is to say, the town of Sheffield, 
 and generally that part of the county of York not included 
 in the Leeds district, to be taken from the Manchester 
 district; the towns of Derby and Nottingham, and 
 generally the county of Nottingham, and that part of the 
 county of Derby north of a line drawn immediately south 
 of the town of Derby, to be taken from the Birmingham 
 district ; and the county of Lincoln to be taken from 
 the London district ; and, further, we do hereby order 
 and determine that the counties and parts of counties 
 and towns so taken from the said districts shall 
 constitute a new district to be called the Sheffield 
 district, which shall comprise : — 
 
 Sheffield 
 
 Spalding 
 
 Ashboum 
 
 Rotherham 
 
 Market Deeping 
 
 Belper 
 
 Doncaster 
 
 Bourn 
 
 Wirksworth 
 
 Bamsley 
 
 Folkingham 
 
 Cromford 
 
 Thorn 
 
 Granthapi 
 
 Alfreton 
 
 Barton-upon-Humher 
 
 Lincoln 
 
 Mansfield 
 
 Great Grimshy 
 
 Gainsborough 
 
 Bakewell 
 
 Louth 
 
 Bast Retford 
 
 Buxton 
 
 Market Basen 
 
 Newark 
 
 Dionfield 
 
 Boston 
 
 Nottingham 
 
 Chesterfield 
 
 Holheacb 
 
 Derby 
 
 Worksop 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PERIOD. 233 
 
 Needless fears of distnrbing society. 
 
 Then they did "furthermore order and determine" 
 certain other things, not necessary here to recite. Who 
 was the fabricator of all this legal pomposity, it would 
 be difficult to determine. It could never have been of 
 Birmingham growth. The board there had acquired a 
 Mr. Bewley, as a secretary, a gentleman of capacious 
 ways, who might have inspired those extraordinary 
 terms, which would have been intolerable if the society 
 had done something, but were ridiculous in the position 
 it occupied. It was like making alarm calls, to which 
 the society was addicted, when people were not only 
 fast asleep, but intentionally asleep, and would not 
 move if they were awake. The enumeration of places 
 which comprised the district of Sheffield was, however, 
 real. There was work doing and to be done there. It 
 was no uncommon thing to meet in social literature a 
 protestation that "we must not be understood as 
 advocating any sudden changes." * Seeing that during 
 130 years the party had never been able to produce any 
 direct change whatever, it was idle to encourage society 
 in the belief that there was possible danger in their 
 efforts. 
 
 A disastrous peculiarity in advocacy, by which the 
 pages of co-operative journals were disfigured, was that 
 of quoting the most offensive things said against the 
 doctrines and advocates of its own party. The enemy 
 never did that by them ; but this fact never instructed 
 them. The information the socialist editors were able 
 to give their readers was not much. They could never 
 afford to pay the printer for what they did give ; and 
 yet they went to the expense of reprinting and 
 circulating, by all the agencies they could command, 
 among their own adherents, the most unpleasant and 
 telling imputations, which ignorance or embittered wit 
 could make against them. AU timid adherents were 
 
 * " Outlines of various Social Systems," 1844. 
 
234 EISTOET OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 MisoUevous self -defamation. 
 
 alarmed when they saw these things. Half-informed 
 adherents could not possibly tell what answer could be 
 made ; and prudent readers withdrew at once from a 
 cause against which such imputations were being 
 levelled, and which they were called upon to circulate 
 among their own family and friends. Seeing that this 
 was done from a feeling of foolish honesty, sharp- 
 witted adversaries had every encouragement to go on, 
 multiplying their accusations, with a very reasonable 
 certainty that they might in time come to fill entirely 
 the publications, and exhaust all the means of the 
 society in publishing effective disparagements of itself. 
 The outside public possessed writers more numerous and 
 skilful than these semi-penniless reformers could 
 command. Such, however, was their infatuation and 
 literary incapacity that they not only suffered the 
 sharpshooters of the enemy to take aim at their own 
 readers from their own pages, but allowed the rabble 
 of evangelical pamphleteers and tract writers to possess 
 their gates, and to pelt them with mud and stones. It 
 was doubtless the duty of an honest editor to hear, within 
 limits, the most powerful adversaries in his pages, to 
 take notice of all clear and relevant objections to the 
 views he represented, to make a fair statement of them, 
 and give a fair and, if he could, a sufficient answer to 
 them, so that his readers should be fairly informed, and 
 not taken by surprise when objections he had never heard 
 of were being made to him. 
 
 On one occasion the editor, Mr. Fleming, having made 
 a vehement comment upon the Manea Fen scheme, after- 
 wards expressed his regret in a very manly way that he 
 had violated the pacific principles imposed by socialism 
 upon its representatives ; but these were at times 
 violated in many subsequent volumes. Imputative 
 terms were often applied to opponents. From some, it 
 was said, "the truth was not to be expected." Of 
 another it was said that "it was absurd to hope for 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PERIOD. 235 
 
 Character of Co-operative JonmaKsm. 
 
 anything like fairness of statement from him." Charges 
 of "dishonesty," of "wilful misrepresentation," of 
 "garbling," and so on, through all the phrases of 
 controversial disagreeableness and feebleness, which 
 spite and blindness mistake for strength. Their employ- 
 ment in controversy simply obliges all the friends a man 
 of honour has to come forward in his personal defence ; 
 and enables all the friends a scoundrel has to intrude 
 themselves in your controversy, where they never could 
 have had a place but for the opportunity thus created 
 for them. The testimonies of the honest and the 
 protests of knaves alike divert and distract the attention 
 of the auditor from the argument in hand. If it appeared 
 desirable for historical uses that a distant age should 
 hear the echo of the howls of rabid adversaries, they 
 should have been printed by subscription of those who 
 desired to confer that advantage upon posterity. Never- 
 theless, it ought to be said, as it honestly may, to the 
 credit and honour of the social party, that though its 
 leaders had no clean grasp of principles of neutrality in 
 invective, it was only on great provocation that they 
 spoke ill of others. Compared with the vituperation 
 and personalities of every other party, political and 
 religious, of their day, they were examples of forbearance 
 to adversaries, who showed them no quarter. And 
 no advantage came to them when they gave way to 
 retaliation. They rendered the " Moral World " 
 wearisome by articles on Mr. Brindley. It made the 
 reputation and influence x)i that disagreeable adversary 
 to be so often noticed. The natural desire of editor and 
 correspondent was to show that he was a totally worthless 
 person; but this once done, it was sufficiently done, but 
 when done in number after number, the journal of the 
 society bepame tiresome. This policy accorded to him 
 the triumph of occupying the organ of the society with 
 himself. Any mischief he was able to do on his own 
 personal authority, or activity, or. influence was a very 
 
236 HISTOEY OP CO-OPEEATIOH. 
 
 Editorial laws of impntation. 
 
 small thing compared with the importance which we 
 conferred upon him. A page of laughter is a better 
 defence against a worthless adversary than a volume 
 of anger. It would have been sufficient to have 
 noticed any statements of his which might seem to the 
 public to demand it, only when some clergyman or 
 gentleman of repute repeated them, and thus made them- 
 selves answerable for them. An editor who uses or suffers 
 needless personal disparagement of opponents or cor- 
 respondents may be excused on accotmt of provocation 
 sustained, but he cannot be praised. He either pays no 
 attention to what he inserts, or he does not know imputa- 
 tive terms when he sees them, and consequently does not 
 prohibit them. Terms which impute want of honour to 
 others, or accuse them of conscious untruth, dishonesty, 
 or bad motives, are charges with which the judge and 
 not the journalist may deal. 
 
 When occasions arise which warrant the personal 
 condemnation, or justify an incriminating description to 
 be made of opponents, the greatest care is required in 
 restricting the application to special individuals, lest 
 honourable men are included in them. When one 
 person makes imputations of dishonesty upon another, 
 the only legitimate notice is to kick him, and nobody 
 ought to make these imputations unless he is prepared 
 for that operation being performed upon him ; and no 
 editor ought to permit such imputations unless he is pre- 
 - pared to recognise that form of reply. If, therefore, it is 
 not desirable to conduct the controversy in this way, it is 
 most profitable not to recognise such persons, and give 
 them no place in controversy. The least pleasant and 
 least profitable pages in the records of co-operative 
 literature are those which are occupied in putting 
 evangelical malefactors in the stocks. Some of them 
 deserved better treatment, and those who deserved what 
 they got are not worth looking at when undergoing that 
 ungraceful operation. Besides giving unwise aid and 
 
THE SOOIALISTIO PERIOD. 237 
 
 Disregarded Bervioes of Co-operative Journals. 
 
 importance to offensive and vituperative opponents, 
 social editors hampered themselves by opening their 
 pages to every wild thinker who arose. This, however, 
 has served the public, though it did not serve the cause 
 at the time, yet it has brought subsequent credit, to 
 some extent compensatory. 
 
 Very many things, social, polemical, and progressive, 
 with which society now concerns itself, appears to have 
 began in one or other of these co-operative publications ; 
 or if not originated were espoused in them, and publicity 
 accorded to them, when they were denied any hearing 
 elsewhere. The reader should remember that what 
 now seems eccentricity of publication, was toleration 
 and generosity when those who thought in any uncon- 
 ventional way were derided, and those who spoke were 
 peremptorily silenced. In other quarters, editors who 
 had sympathy with those who crudely, rudely, but 
 always courageously, took the side of unfriended truth, 
 gave them no countenance through fear of their readers, 
 while editors opposed to them held them up to derision 
 and contempt, in mischievous articles, which often 
 brought the unfortunate pioneer into loss of employment 
 and sometimes civil peril. 
 
 But the greatest disasters to the party arose from 
 confusion of mind as to the theological policy to be 
 pursued. It was not possible to arrest controversy on 
 matters of belief in an association necessarily composed 
 of all the active and thinking spirits of the time, where 
 principles were included which involved metaphysical 
 and economical questions. Those who saw the society 
 drifting into theological controversy and deplored it 
 proposed no practical remedy. There was no remedy, 
 except some strong and discerning leaders had separated 
 the economical from the metaphysical principles and 
 reconstituted the branches by exacting assent from each 
 member to those economical and associative principles 
 only, for which members of the society were alone to be 
 
238 HISTOEY OV CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 The duty of deflued theological uentralityi 
 
 responsible. No lectures or discussions should have 
 been allowed to be delivered or conducted by the 
 missionaries ia the name of the gociety, upon other than 
 its official and associative propositions. The Central 
 Board might have permitted the formation of debating 
 societies in all its institutions by special committees, in 
 which any questions should be discussed within the 
 conditions of their being conducted without personal 
 imputations, and such as a mixed assembly could listen 
 to ; provided that whenever the institution was used for 
 this purpose it was announced to the public that it was 
 under the auspices and responsibility alone of the 
 Debating Committee, and not of the Economical and 
 Communist Association. This distinction, observed with 
 patience and firmness, would have saved the society from 
 misconception and preserved the utmost liberty of 
 inquiry and debate. 
 
 While Mr. Owen was warning his disciples against 
 religious disputation he adopted the title of Eational 
 Eeligionists for his followers — a conceited and pre- 
 sumptous designation in the eyes of the enemy, and 
 one, certainly, which re-opened the whole question of 
 religious controversy everywhere and on all occasions. 
 This did not pass without protest, on the part of the few 
 socialists who remained rational on this subject. One 
 ventured to remind the editor that "Abram Combe, by 
 calling his organ of Orbiston the 'Eegister of the 
 Adherents of Divine Eevelation,' alienated the country 
 around him." The editor ignorantly retorted that 
 "Abram Combe was perfectly right in adopting what- 
 ever name he thought proper, as a free and unbiassed 
 expression of his conscientious opinions." This was 
 simply a silly judgment. If Mr. Combe's object was not 
 to establish a public community for the public advantage 
 and concurrence, but simply a group of persons for the 
 profession of Combism — ^he was not a publicist, but a 
 fanatic of a rather more liberal quality than usual, but 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PEEIOD. 239 
 
 The responsibility of candour. 
 
 that was all. The editor added, "We are great lovers of 
 candour and moral courage." But candour and moral 
 courage have to be exercised in private and public life 
 in two ways. In the expression of personal opinion, 
 candour, unless it is mad, says only that which is 
 relevant to individual behef. As respects a society or a 
 party, the business of candour is to urge only the 
 principles collectively adopted, and for which the 
 society intends to hold all its members responsible. A 
 candour that goes beyond this is irrelevance and foolish- 
 ness. The courage which goes further than this is 
 recklessness or impertinence, because it commits every 
 person to the opinions of some few; and founders of 
 societies who do this, make them to represent only the 
 opinion of a few influential individuals, and have no 
 right whatever to employ the Catholic language of 
 universalism. However, the disposition to dare every- 
 thing for the truth, even in its, aberrations of courage, is 
 to be respected — and avoided, so far as wild deflections go. 
 A very different spirit, and far less honourable than 
 this, pervaded the same pages two years later, when 
 some advocates, encouraged by this authoritative 
 approval, of following individual conviction irrespective 
 of party responsibility, insisted in some cases upon 
 the right even of atheistic exposition, as one of the 
 conditions of determining theological truth. The 
 editor, Mr. Fleming, abandoned them when imprison- 
 ment overtook them, although two of them were social 
 missionaries, the present writer being one ; Mr. Charles 
 Southwell, of spirited memory, was the other. I was 
 put upon my trial for delivering a lecture in Cheltenham 
 upon "Home Colonies." It was never pretended by the 
 witnesses that the lecture was otherwise than neutral, and 
 it was admitted by the judge, Mr. Justice Erskine, that no 
 remark whatever was made in it which transgressed the 
 proper limits of the subject. In the town of Cheltenham, 
 in which it occurred, a small socialist poet, one Mr. 
 
240 HISTOEY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 The fate of Speny. 
 
 Sperry, suspected of heresy, had been induced to recant, 
 and had then been naturally, not to say properly, 
 abandoned and despised by those who had promised 
 him advantage if he did so. This affair had produced an 
 impression in the town that socialist speakers were 
 wanting either in courage or honesty, and the same 
 feeling existed elsewhere. The Bishop of Exeter had 
 really frightened many adherents. When Mr. Pare was 
 forced to resign the registrarship of Birmingham, it 
 became a question with other gentlemen, who held 
 of&cial situations, how far they were prudent in standing 
 connected with this party; and the Central Board 
 began, under alarm, to urge the policy of theological 
 neutrality, which they ought to have adopted earlier on 
 principle. Instead of retiring within this line with 
 dignity and patience, giving pubUc opinion time to 
 understand it, some of the missionaries took a running 
 leap into the clerical ranks, upon which they had so long 
 made war. They obtained licenses as preachers, and 
 advertisements were issued, setting forth that lectures 
 would be delivered to the Societies of the Eational 
 Eeligionists, by the "Eev. A. Swearatlast" and the 
 "Eev. B. Swearatonce." As the gifts of these gentle- 
 men were not understood to lie in this direction, this step 
 caused scandal. To many members of the party it 
 seemed a humiliating spectacle which compromised 
 them, and led to the concerted avowal of extreme 
 opinions, with a view to vindicate the courage of free 
 thought, a proceeding which otherwise would not have 
 taken place. When, at the Cheltenham lecture referred 
 to, a question was put by one of the audience, having a 
 theological object, I gave a definite answer, which, 
 at least in that place, restored the reputation of socialist 
 speakers for uncalculating explicitness. Neither the 
 trial and imprisonment which followed, nor the parlia- 
 mentary proceedings in reference to it, were ever 
 mentioned in the " New Moral World." Eoom was 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PERIOD. 241 
 
 Alarmed scrupnlosity of the Central Board. 
 
 found for articles on "Chinese Manure" and the "Sense 
 of Beauty," but in its Levite pages not a reference was 
 made to the Samaritan missionary, who had literally 
 " fallen among thieves " in the discharge of his ofl&cial 
 duty, and who had committed but an excusable indiscre- 
 tion, seeing that Mr. Owen, the president, had said to the 
 congress, only a month before, "When we are questioned 
 on any subject, we should declare what convictions we 
 are obliged to have. Such is the ground I mean to take. 
 What I have told you is my determination, and, though 
 not a single individual go with me, I shall pursue the 
 same course."* A special congress was held during the 
 imprisonment of the missionary lecturer at Cheltenham, 
 and no allusion was made, no resolution proposed respect- 
 ing him, though some personal recognition would have 
 been a mitigating act in those six months of indignity. 
 The Central Board addressed weekly its " Friends, Bro- 
 thers, and Sisters" upon many subjects, but they never 
 suggested that some help might be needed in a certain 
 household, though the subscription of a penny a day, by 
 the members of the board, would have saved oneyoung 
 life in it. Neither secretary nor president of the society, 
 nor editor of its organ, wrote a line to Gloucester Gaol, 
 so careful had they become lest the public should impute 
 to them complicity with heresy. Thus it constantly 
 occurs that those grand and wild enthusiasts who suffer 
 no discriminating policy to regulate their eagerness for 
 the truth, pass at no distant date into that stage in which 
 no respect for truth and conviction regulates their policy 
 of discreditable and timorous prudence. It was right 
 in these gentlemen to prefer the interests of the party to 
 those of a member of it ; but it was possible to have 
 shown some self-respect and consideration in doing it. 
 
 What was wanted was neither defiance nor compliance, 
 unless there was a change of conviction. Then a manly 
 
 • " New Moral World," May 28, 1841. 
 Q 
 
242 HISTORY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 The kind of oath taken hy two MisBionaries. 
 
 and explicit retraction of what errors the convert 
 supposed himself to have held was due as an act of 
 honour ; so that the abandoned opinions might no 
 longer possess the influence, whatever it might he, that 
 his authority and example could be considered to lend 
 to them. 
 
 The following narrative of the attitude taken by these 
 socialists, when persecution came to them, is not an 
 inspiring passage in their history. The Hall of 
 Science, in Manchester, was registered in the Bishop's 
 Court as a place of worship belonging to a body of 
 Protestant Dissenters called "Eational Eehgionists," 
 and by that means it was brought under the act of 
 parliament which licensed it to be open for divine 
 worship. This act rendered all who officiated in the 
 building liable to be called upon to take the following 
 oath : — 
 
 I solemnly declare, in the presence of Almighty God, 
 that I am 
 
 First. A Christian, and 
 
 Second. A Protestant ; that as such, I believe 
 
 Third. The scriptures of the New and Old Testament, 
 commonly received among the Protestant churches, do 
 contain the revealed Word of God ; and that I do receive 
 
 Fourth. The same as the rule of my doctrine and 
 practice. 
 
 Mr. Swearatlast took this oath in Manchester. Mr. 
 Maude, the magistrate, who administered it, first de- 
 manded to know whether this was an oath blading on 
 his conscience, and whether he really believed in a future 
 state after death of rewards and punishments? This 
 missionary, who had been several years lecturing against 
 every one of these points, as one of the expounders of 
 "truth vrithout mystery, mixture of error, or the fear of 
 man," replied that he did believe in aU these things, and 
 that the oath was binding upon his conscience. The Cen- 
 tral Board never repudiated the missionaries who took 
 
THE SOOIALISTIO PERIOD. 243 
 
 A " performanoe " ■with the Oath. 
 
 this oath. Indeed, the editor of the " New Moral World" 
 justified it, and stated that he would take it. Mr. 
 Swearatlast had sufficient self-respect to make scruples 
 about it. He was anxious to prove to the court that he 
 had a conscience, and to stand well before the public ; 
 and the court was adjourned to give him time to make 
 up his mind. On Tuesday, August 11th, 1840, he 
 appeared, took the oath, and made the declaration under 
 19th George II., c. 44, and received his certificate of 
 having done so.* Mr. Fleming, although he had said 
 he would do the same, so far respected the moral sense 
 of his readers of the " Moral World" as never to publish 
 this discreditable scene. Mr. Swearatonce gave his own 
 account of how he went through the part on February 
 13th, 1841, in Bristol. "On Tuesday [Tuesday seems 
 to have been the day of humiliation. Mr. Swearatlast took 
 the oath on a Tuesday] I attended at one o'clock for the 
 purpose of taking the oath. The office was crowded by 
 gentlemen who seemed anxious to see the performance. 
 It passed off very comfortably. I took it without any 
 words. I am now, therefore, the Eev. B. Swearatonce." 
 The small capitals are the " Eev." gentleman's and the 
 word "performance" too.t 
 
 Other gentlemen than those who were present long 
 remembered these scenes. Many years after, when the 
 present writer was concerned in getting the Secular 
 Affirmation Bill passed through parliament. Sir George 
 Cornewall Lewis demanded, reproachfully, (looking at 
 me as I sat in the gallery of the House of Commons as 
 
 * Sun, August 14th, 1840. 
 
 t These proceedings made Mr. Southwell indignant, and, heing a man 
 of fiery courage, he wrote an article in the " Oracle of Beasou " (started 
 as a protest against the "New Moral World" policy of the day), 
 which caused his imprisonment for tweWe months. He intended to defy 
 persecution ; and Sir Charles WetheraU, who was his judge, was a man 
 quite ready to meet him halt- way in supplying it. Mr. Southwell was 
 imprisoned in Bristol and I in Gloucester Gaol. 
 
244 HISTOEir OF co-opebation. 
 
 Sincerity a dignity equal to that of divinity. 
 
 he spoke) " Where are your cases ? Where are the men 
 of honour who refuse the oath ? It is your free thinker 
 who takes it 'without any words.' " 
 
 Those of us who had consented to act as missionaries, 
 or had had the presumption or indiscretion so to appear, 
 were in some sort, in our secular way, apostles of a new 
 state of society, or "system" of things which, we 
 weekly assured the public by the title of our accredited 
 journal, was to be at least "moral," if not otherwise 
 notable. Then it did not become any of us — so it seemed 
 to me and my heretical colleagues of the protesting 
 school — to fall, in self-respecting honour, below those 
 other apostles with whose teaching we were in many 
 respects " non-content," and had not concealed from 
 the public our dissatisfaction with it. The " system," 
 of which we were self-constituted heralds, might be as 
 erroneous as most of us believed that of the early apostles 
 to be. Though, sincerity does not connote or imply error- 
 lessness, it gives dignity to those who, unhappily for 
 themselves, and yet more unhappily for mankind, profess 
 error honestly. The Christian apostles had this personal 
 dignity, as has been admitted through all time subse- 
 quent, by their stoutness in suffering for their opinions. 
 It seemed to me, for one, that we had no moral right to 
 dissent from them openly, were we content to advance 
 our cause by meaner means than theirs. We could not 
 be their equals in advantage. Our inspiration was not 
 owing to contact with teachers, whom so many genera- 
 tions have recognised as divine : but it was in our 
 power to be their equals in honesty, and refuse to profess 
 the opinions we did not hold, whatever peril, or personal 
 loss, or social discomfort followed. We were counselled 
 by one who thought more of conscience than consequence, 
 to explain "truth without mystery." That were not 
 possible to any who live- Our limited faculties are con- 
 fused in the infinite maze of the universe, and can but 
 see and not interpret more than the near surface of 
 
THE SOCIAlilSTIfl PERIOD. 245 
 
 ErrorlesBneBS unattainable. 
 
 things. We were to teach " truth -without mixture of 
 error." Even if we follow mathematical truth — dealing 
 with definite and palpable magnitude — ^we travel but a 
 short way, and that as it were upon the outermost ridge 
 of life, into the realms of certainty ; while in moral and 
 social things — ^where sense is submerged daily by sensi- 
 bility, where we are ourselves but effects of unseen and 
 to us unknown causes, where our most forecasting 
 knowledge hourly turns out to be but helpless ignorance 
 taken by surprise — who can fathom truth of doctrine or 
 precept without error; or escape the need of hourly 
 precaution, qualification, moderation, and humility ? 
 We were to teach " without fear of man." That was 
 the one thing, happily in the power of the humblest 
 advocates. Fearlessness of man — in the discharge of 
 the duty of speaking our minds in the spirit of relevance 
 and service to others, within the limits of conceeding 
 the same freedom to them — that alone was within our 
 power. It needed only a stout love of truth. To fail 
 herein before the world, in the publicity of a court of 
 law, when persecution gave us the priceless opportunity 
 of winning respect, which we could not of ourselves seek 
 without the crime of provoking persecution, seemed 
 alike a failure of policy and honour. 
 
 Free thought has no claim to free speech unless its 
 object is to utter true speech and to maintain a higher 
 veracity among the common people by example. Though 
 I never took an oath of any kind in my life, since I could 
 not take it in the sense in which the court administered 
 it, and it did not seem honourable to take it in a private 
 sense of my own ; yet I am no fanatic against oaths, 
 and respect those who take them sincerely. Conscience 
 is, fortunately, a holy thing in the eyes of the world. 
 The common instinct of society respects the memory of 
 those poor and humble religionists of despised sects, who, 
 having hardly any grace but that of truth, have in so 
 many ages suffered peril, and torture, and death, rather 
 
246 HISTOBY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Pagan regard for Truth. 
 
 than Bay the thing which was not. No eccentricity, no 
 extravagance, no error of ignorance, no wild hope of 
 impossible good, hut is forgiven by history as a generous 
 aberration. But the solemn and public profession of 
 opinion, which is not held, for the sake of poUcy or 
 personal advantage, lowers the party which connives at 
 it, or stoops to profit by it. Socialists who professed 
 and proposed to introduce a higher moraUty were 
 bound to set a higher example. Addison usefully tells us 
 of Euripides that : " The great tragic poet, iihough famous 
 for the morality of his plays, had introduced a person 
 who, being reminded of an oath he had taken, replied, 
 I swore with my mouth, hut not with my heart. The impiety 
 of this sentiment set the audience in an uproar ; made 
 Socrates (though an intimate friend of the poet) go out 
 of the theatre with indignation, and gave so great offence 
 that he was publicly accused and brought upon his trial, 
 as one who had suggested an evasion of what they 
 thought the most holy and indissoluble bond of human 
 society, so jealous were these virtuous heathens of any 
 the smallest hint that might open a way to perjury." 
 
 They who had reproached Christians for saying what 
 could not be proved should have shrunk from swearing 
 what they had declared to be false. It were better to 
 have closed and sold the halls we had built, and 
 preached as the apostles did in the market places, or 
 highways, or byeways. 
 
 Often when meditating the text of this history I have 
 thought whether I could omit or modify this part of it. 
 If we, the protestors, were right in resistance to the 
 policy of which oath taking was part, this narrative reads 
 like a reproach to some whom I otherwise honour. If 
 we were wrong our example may do harm. I do not dis- 
 guise the fact that the theological protestors, of which I 
 was one, created a schism in the poHcy of the co-operative 
 party of that day, which is a bad example to set, unless 
 it admits of justification as a necessity of honour and 
 
THE SOCIAIISTIO PERIOD. 247 
 
 The responsibility ol dissent. 
 
 truth. If it was a necessity of this character the respon- 
 sibility rests with those who compelled it, and I have 
 recounted the facts that the reader may judge them, and 
 that those charged with the administration of the affairs 
 of a party may take warning, forecalculate the effects of 
 their policy, and not lightly or unknowingly compel a 
 step which is a disaster in an association. Undoubtedly 
 we did harm of one kind — at the time. In setting up a 
 new camp we weakened the force which held the recog- 
 nised co-operative fort ; and those who may be influenced 
 by our example in the future should weigh well the 
 responsibility we incurred, and be satisfied whether we 
 were justified in our course before they imitate us. The 
 reaction which we considered forced upon us, had the 
 effect of misleading the public, who concluded that heresy 
 was an attribute of Co-operation, when it was but an 
 accident. The public have small discernment. As an 
 original observer of public affairs has said: "With us 
 men are more conversant with principles than details 
 [and I should add, not much with either] — more 
 conversant with names than things — names are neces- 
 sary for the press, for society, and they often cloy curi- 
 osity, which but for them would apply itself to facts. 
 Pacts, by our complications, are of difficult access, and 
 the reference of effects to causes too fatiguing for com- 
 mon attention."* We accelerated the fall of Queenwood 
 by dividing forces while the enemy was in the field — 
 when the utmost unity was wanted — and by creating 
 dissatisfaction when cordiality and confidence were in- 
 dispensable to success. Yet I do not apologise for what 
 we did, nor recant the principle on which we proceeded, 
 nor withhold this narrative. 
 
 The socialist party was not as a whole wanting in 
 concurrence. Only two missionaries took the oath, 
 and this raised a revolt in the society. The present 
 
 • " Turkey and Its Besources," by David Urquhart, 
 
248 fiiSTOEy OF co-opbeation. 
 
 The clergy take their revenge like carnal people. 
 
 ■writer and Mr. Southwell were the first to incur imprison- 
 ment in protesting against it. Others, as stout Mr. 
 Finlay, of Edinburgh, and Mr. Paterson, then of the 
 same city, Mr. Adams and Mrs. Adams, of Cheltenham, 
 not missionaries but of the party, underwent imprison: 
 ment on the same account. Dr. Watts especially, and 
 at personal risk to himself; Mr. Jeffery and Mr. Farn, 
 who were aU missionaries, rendered every help in their 
 power to sustain those who had made the protest. Mrs. 
 Emma Martin' fearlessly aided. Nor will I omit to 
 mention, with what honour I can, my untiring friends in 
 the Gloucester affair — Maltus Questell Eyall, a man 
 remarkable alike for ability and courage, and William 
 Chilton also. Both not merely eared for socialist 
 honour ; no obloquy nor personal peril intimidated them 
 from -vindicating it. They both perished prematurely 
 by generous efforts beyond their strength. 
 
 It was the intention of the opponents of the propaga- 
 tion of social views to close the halls by forcing the 
 oath described upon the lecturers. This was evaded 
 in Manchester, in the manner recounted. The Eev. Mr. 
 Kidd, and some other divines, took the step of indicting 
 the owners of the halls for receiving money for admission 
 at the doors. As the partisans of Co-operation were 
 not wealthy, and incurred expense beyond their means in 
 disseminating their views, it was only by taking admis- 
 sion money at the doors from the curious and hostile 
 public, who thronged to them, that they could maintaia a 
 vigorous advocacy. The clergy knew this, and calculated 
 that if they could prevent admission money being taken, 
 they would succeed in closing the halls ; and in this they 
 were quite right. It was a shabby, but a weU-calculated 
 proceeding. Accordingly, they did lodge an indictment 
 against the hall owners in Manchester, for receiving 
 money at the doors. They found an act of parliament 
 of the reign of George III. (fruitful in infamous acts), 
 which levied serious fines upon the conductors of halls 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC PERIOD. 249 
 
 The Glergy, like other Monopolists, exclude their rivals from the market, 
 
 if money was taken at the door on the Sunday, unless 
 such hall -was licensed as a place of worship. The Eev. 
 Mr. Kidd's prosecution failed, the directors producing a 
 license which described it as the authorised place of 
 worship of the Eational Keligionists. But, as the speakers 
 in a licensed hall must be licensed preachers, Mr. Kidd 
 next prosecuted the lecturer at the hall, who, we have 
 seen, eventually took the oath. Mr. Kidd thus triumphed 
 in inflicting the humiliation which has been described. 
 
 In various halls in the country to this day money is 
 taken without their being licensed, and addresses are 
 delivered by lecturers who never took any oath as 
 preachers ; but, owing to the ignorance or generosity of 
 the clergy, no legal steps are taken against them, which, 
 if taken, must have the effect of disgracing the parties 
 or closing their proceedings. These Georgian acts are 
 still in existence, and persons of pernicious intent still 
 put them in force. A few years since eminent scientific 
 teachers in London were prevented by them from in- 
 structing the people on the Sunday. Eecently the 
 Aquarium at Brighton has been closed by them on the 
 same day; and in no Co-operative Hall is it legal to 
 take money for lectures or even a tea-party on the 
 Sunday, and the most valued forms of co-operative life 
 are arrested by those unwise laws. Thus Co-operation 
 has not only to be judged by what it has done, but what 
 it has been prevented doing. 
 
 Amid the crowds of incidents and of persons, standing 
 in connection with this movement, record can only be 
 made of so many as may serve to illustrate the features 
 of the great industrial movement in question ; many 
 circumstances and many actors must remain unnamed 
 lest the weight of detail oppress, rather than interest, 
 the reader. Where two events or two persons equally 
 served to explain the story, like the two women grinding 
 at the same mill, one is taken and the other left, the 
 necessity of history being imperious. 
 
250 HISTORY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Insolent candour of De Maistre. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 
 
 Seeing that human eooiety labours under a chronic want of disinte- 
 restedness and mutual consideration on the part of its members, there is 
 a demand for select or heightened pictures of loTe, devotedness, and 
 sympathy, as an ideal compensation. — Professor Bain. 
 
 It is a long time since Joseph de Maistre declared that 
 " the human race was created for a few, that it is the 
 business of the clergy and the nobility to teach the 
 people that which is evil and good in the moral world, 
 and that which is true and false in the intellectual 
 world. Other men have no right to reason upon such 
 things : the people must suffer without murmuring." 
 The teachers are mostly dead who inculcated this 
 doctrine. If any exist, they no longer talk with this 
 boldness. The people decline to suffer. They murmur 
 if they are compelled to suffer; they do more than 
 murmur, they resent the infliction of suffering upon 
 them. They see that the inequahties of nature are 
 made greater by the wilful contrivances of men. The 
 people protest against inferiority being imposed upon 
 them. They see that some men by opportunity, energy, 
 and enterprise are able to forfend themselves against 
 suffering. The people demand that these opportunities 
 shall be equalised; and not finding much progress made 
 in this direction, they, as is the wise way of the English, 
 endeavour to equalise opportunities for themselves, and 
 the method they have adopted in their own country or 
 elsewhere has been the attempted establishment of 
 
THE liOST OdMMTOlTlES. 251 
 
 The old Englieh Gilds Co-operative. 
 
 communities. Though they have not much to show for 
 their efforts they have gained experience, and set a great 
 self-helping example. Their failures are not to be 
 mourned over, but imitated, and will be, doubtless, in 
 the near future. France, which for seventy years has 
 held political supremacy in Europe, has forfeited it 
 through the ignorant temerity of an imperial adventurer, 
 who happened to possess a talent for assassination. The 
 supremacy has now passed to Germany, and Saxon 
 genius, which is industrial, pacific, patient, and social, 
 seems likely to lend a new inspiration to social move- 
 ments. 
 
 Though France, in its own brilliant and insurgent 
 way, has borne the palm of distinction for the propagan- 
 dism of social reform, England, in a quieter and more 
 solid way, has in ages gone by and forgotten, through 
 want of more general historic knowledge among the 
 people, shown that it had the capacity for comprehending 
 equality, and there is reason to suppose that there 
 exists among us hereditary genius for entertaining 
 social projects. They had of old deep and honest root in 
 England. A distinguished lawyer, who had great 
 knowledge of the municipal history of his country, the 
 late Toulmin Smith, of Birmingham, in his great book 
 on the " History of Early English Gilds," traced the 
 social features of English life with a depth of research 
 in which he had no compeer nor any master, amid his 
 predecessors in the same field. His daughter, Lucy 
 Toulmin Smith, in the befitting preface which she 
 supplies to her father's work, states that the early 
 " English gild was an institution of local self-help which, 
 before Poor Laws were invented, took the place, in old 
 times, of the modern friendly or benefit society : but 
 with a higher aim, while it joined all classes together in 
 a care for the needy and for objects of common welfare, 
 it did not neglect the forms and the practice of religion, 
 justice, and morality." 
 
25? HISTORY OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Women fonnerly concerned in public afiairs. 
 
 These were objects higher and nobler than any to 
 which the best moffem trade association has aspired. 
 " Gilds," says this authoress, " were associations of 
 those living in the same neighbourhood, and remembering 
 that they have, as neighbours, common obligations. 
 They were quite other things than modern partnerships, 
 or trading companies ; for their main characteristic was, 
 to set up something higher than personal gain and mere 
 materialism, as the main object of men living in towns; 
 and to make the teaching of love to one's neighbour be 
 not coldly accepted as a hollow dogma of morality, but 
 known and felt as a habit of life." 
 
 It is a fact also worthy of notice in these days, in 
 which we flatter ourselves that social reform is being born 
 — that there were " scarcely five out of five hundred gilds 
 known to history which were not formed equally of men 
 and of women." During the last seven years the British 
 Association for the Advancement of Science has admitted 
 ladies to read papers at its meetings. The Social 
 Science Association did so earlier. It has been counted 
 an astonishing and reckless step. It is creditable, but 
 not astonishing, seeing that in the old social days of 
 England women were counted upon to take part in the 
 civil progress of the city. Many women who take part 
 in these movements think it a new thing; and many 
 more who stand aloof, think it unwomainly in them to 
 appear in anything of the kind, not knowing that they 
 are merely the degenerate daughters of noble mothers 
 who thought it their duty to take a public part in the 
 duties of society. 
 
 The English of to-day dream no dreams, conceive no 
 generous schemes, expect no Utopias, trust no grand 
 projects ; they only believe in the next step in advance. 
 They do nothing because it is reasonable — in fact, the 
 reasonableness of a scheme would be a reason for their 
 not adopting it. This is the habit of all uneducated 
 populations. The great Social Pioneers did not at all 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 253 
 
 The modem problem of Co-operation. 
 
 understand this, and the people still stone the prophets 
 for their generous mistakes. 
 
 The problem which has come down to this day. for 
 solution is that stated, in 1870, by the Deputy Johann 
 Jacoby, who, addressing his constituents in the Second 
 Arrondissement of Berlin, said : " The great end before 
 the people is the abolition of the wage system and the 
 substitution in its place of co-operative labour." It is 
 to this end that International Working Men's Associa- 
 tions have been formed. One of their most inde- 
 fatigable representatives, a gentleman of high social 
 connection himself, the late Mr. Frederick Cowell 
 Stepney, a great friend of British and foreign workmen, 
 said, in their behalf, that " The emancipation of the 
 working classes must come from the working classes 
 themselves. The struggle for the emancipation of the 
 workman is not a struggle for class privileges but for 
 the obliteration of all class dominion. The economical 
 subjugation of the workman to the appropriator of the 
 means of labour is the cause of servitude. The econo- 
 mic emancipation of the working classes is, therefore, 
 the great end to which every political movement must 
 serve as a means. The emancipation of the workman is 
 neither a local nor a national, but a social problem." It 
 is, therefore, worth while looking a little at some Lost 
 Communities, whose eccentric and romantic story has 
 instruction and encouragement in it. Of course these 
 pages will not have interest for those who are glad these 
 communities are lost, and who hope theymay never be 
 found again. The author has rather in view those per- 
 verse and persistent readers, who will go in search 
 of much-needed progress in unexplored paths, if the 
 pioneers who have perished there have left hopeful 
 reports of some discovery. 
 
 When the tireless Welsh reformer, of whom we have 
 spoken, was one day dining at the house of a Pranfort 
 banker, he met a renowned German statesman, Frederick 
 
254 HISTOEY OF 00-OPEEATION. 
 
 Definition of a Pantisocracy. 
 
 Von Gentz. " I am in favour of seeing social progress 
 commence," said the founder of the modern agitation ; 
 " for if union could replace disunion, all men would have 
 a sufficiency." "That is very possible," replied Von 
 Gentz; "but we by no means wish that the masses 
 should become at ease and independent of us. AU 
 government would then be impossible." This was the 
 old terror of the higher classes, which has now long 
 abated. Everyone sees now that good government will 
 never be possible, and permanent popular government 
 ought never to be possible, until competence and inde- 
 pendence are enjoyed by the whole people. They are 
 quite possible. 
 
 When the term " Social Science " was first employed 
 in England it sounded as the wildest and most visionary 
 word dreaming philosophy had suffered to escape in its 
 sleep. Statesmen had none of that quality which scien- 
 tific men call prevision — a compassing foresight, seeing 
 what ought to happen, and taking care that it should 
 happen. Society was a sort of legally arranged blunder, 
 the costly device of pubhc incompetence and private 
 despair. We are still in that state that Fourier used 
 to call our " incoherent civilisation." It is from this 
 that community contrivers strive to deliver us. 
 
 A Pantisocracy was the idea of cultivated men, a 
 name derived from Greek words, implying a state in 
 which all govern and all serve. This is one of the 
 prettiest names and prettiest definitions of association 
 extant. Nothing has been done yet in the way of 
 realising this conception of life, which will entitle any 
 one to speak, very confidently, that it will become the 
 state which men wUl ultimately adopt. Communities 
 on a superstitious basis have hitherto been the most 
 successful and the most enduring. Hitherto associa- 
 tions on a secular basis have not proved themselves 
 stable. That they will become so some day is possible 
 and probable, but long years must elapse before age, 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 255 
 
 Association the sacrifice of what we can spare for the gain of what we want. 
 
 the great test of success, can_ stamp them with the 
 seal of endurance. The belief in things unseen and in 
 supernatural duties, has been hitherto the most powerful 
 influence on the human mind. It is easier to trust in 
 what you are told than to find out what you ought to 
 trust in. Science is the latest born power which controls 
 the human understanding. The knowledge of it, belief 
 in it, the use of it, and the trust in it, are of slow growth. 
 Reality seems to be the last thing men learn. When 
 they do come to comprehend its nearness, its importance, 
 its influence over their destiny, men will do things 
 hitherto unknown, to avail themselves of its teachings. 
 There will be heard then from platform and pulpit 
 words of passion, of power, picturesque force of dramatic 
 inspiration, of fiery council, such as fitful, fluctuating, 
 albeit potent belief in unseen influences have never yet 
 called forth. It is quite true, as Italians say, " he who 
 has a partner has a master ;" and this is true of marital 
 partnership, yet men and women enter gladly into it. 
 Civilised society is sacrifice compared with the liberty 
 of savage life. All association is sacrifice of minor things 
 for the attainment of greater. In religious societies 
 sacrifice is made by authority, in secular association 
 there is no authority but that of common sense, and that 
 is not common ; it has to be created in most minds. 
 The reason of every great step has to be made plain 
 to the general understanding. As experience and 
 intelligence increase, association becomes more possible. 
 Co-operation was impossible to the extent it now prevails, 
 until later years. Association is still an almost unknown 
 art, but it is becoming more famiHar day by day. 
 Eeligious communists have sought peace and plainness, 
 security and competence. Secular communists will seek 
 peace and art, intelligence and prosperity, and the 
 attraction, emulation, and individuality of their lives 
 wiU exceed anything hitherto realised by communities of 
 mere industry and faith. 
 
256 HISTOET OF CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 Mrs. Martinean's great testimony. 
 
 One who gave the English people the earliest and the 
 first unprejudiced account of American communities, has 
 written an instructive passage upon the successes of the 
 ignorant and unmarrying Eappites, contrasting what 
 they have done with what better informed persona might 
 accomplish on the same principle in association. ]\&s. 
 Martineau says : "If such external provision, with a 
 great amount of accumulated wealth besides, is the 
 result of Co-operation and community of property among 
 persons so ill prepared for its production as these, what 
 might not the same principles of association achieve, 
 among a more intelligent set of people, stimulated by 
 education, and exhilarated by the enjoyment of all the 
 blessings which Providence has placed within the reach 
 of man ? If there had been no celibacy amongst them, 
 they would probably have been much more wealthy than 
 they are ; the expenses of living in community .being so 
 much less, and the produce of co-operative labour so 
 much greater, than in a state of division into iamilies. 
 The truth of these last positions cannot be doubted by 
 any who have witnessed the working of the co-operative 
 system. It can never now rest till it is made matter oj 
 experiment."* 
 
 Communities are, as yet, in their infancy, and the 
 only notice of them intended here is merely a brief 
 account of the few which have historical connection 
 with Co-operation or illustrate it. The causes of then- 
 failure it is premature to dwell upon in detail. Many 
 sufficient causes will strike the reader as he proceeds. 
 There are two which will account for the failure of 
 any of them. 
 
 First. The want of sufficient capital to maintain the 
 place for a few years on a frugal scale, until the mem- 
 bers could be trained to self-supporting efficiency. 
 
 Second. That the members were not picked men 
 
 * Society in America. 
 
THE LOST COMMXINITIBS. 257 
 
 The two sufficient causes of non-Buccess. 
 
 and women pledged to obey the authority established 
 among them, and readily removable in case of becoming 
 intractable. 
 
 There is no occasion to go farther to account for the 
 non-success of any of the experiments which have been 
 in vain attempted. Not in vain absolutely, since each 
 experiment makes still clearer the conditions required 
 to accomplish the end in view. Everything, as well as 
 new schemes of social life, which require combination of 
 many means and general intelligence on the part of the 
 person concerned in it, has to be attempted many times 
 before it succeeds. Could the present railway system 
 have been perfected in the minds of inventors at the 
 beginning of the century, it could not have been got 
 into work, as there did not exist sufficient persons of 
 intelligence enough to believe in it and to trust their 
 money to carry it out ; nor were workmen to be had 
 of sufficient skill to make the engines or conduct the 
 traffic. 
 
 Pew English people have any idea of what the objects 
 of English communists have been. They have derived 
 their idea second-hand from reports of newspaper writers 
 concerning continental projects. Continental writers 
 attack a system of communism which nobody ever heard 
 of save themselves, and they are quoted in England by 
 persons who never paid attention to any system, nor 
 know what was intended by their projectors. M. Sieg- 
 wart's small book, " Der Communisten Staat," lately 
 published at Berlin, judges communism from the iron 
 age of the crude feudal village communities of ancient 
 Germany, and represents that marriages are to be pro- 
 hibited, and only prostitution is to be tolerated. Indeed, 
 those who become husbands without permission, are to 
 be thrown naked into a hole full of thorns. It is strange 
 that writers of intelligence should imagine that a system 
 whose tendency is to too much compassion, and imposes 
 upon itself the onerous obligation of proceeding by 
 
258 EISTORV OP CO-OfEEATION. 
 
 Bnonarroti's comparison of Oominunities. 
 
 common consent, should be described as a. system of 
 ferocity and tyranny. The most sensible account given 
 of the English system by a foreigner is that which 
 Buonarroti made at the end of his long life in a letter 
 to Mr. Bronterre O'Brien. 
 
 "Babeuf," he said, "attempted to combine a numerous 
 people into one single grand community ; Owen would 
 multiply in a country small communities, which, after- 
 wards united by a general bond, might become, as it 
 were, so many individuals of one great family. Babeuf 
 wished his friends to seize on the supreme authority, as 
 by its influence he hoped to effectuate the reforms they 
 had projected ; Owen calculated on success by preaching 
 and by example." 
 
 But it is useless to reason on the distinctions and 
 possibilities of a scheme of life which can only effect a 
 popular conviction in its favour by success. I therefore 
 proceed with the story of such Lost Communities as 
 throw light on the objects of this history. 
 
 Mr. David Urquhart, a writer who never fails to interest 
 the reader, and to whom the public are indebted for 
 much out-of-the-way knowledge, as well as political 
 inspiration, gave in his work on "Turkey and its 
 Eesources," in 1833, a remarkable account of the great 
 Co-operative Society of Ambelakia, whose organisation 
 had a completeness which has never been exceeded, and 
 whose varied activity was a miracle of co-operative 
 sagacity. It was broken up through its elaborate 
 commercial arrangements being in advance of the law of 
 the period, which included no court in which questions 
 in dispute could be speedily and cheaply settled. It has 
 been the fate of Co-operation often to be, not only before 
 its time, but before the law. 
 
 "Ambelakia," says Mr, Urquhart, "is the name of 
 a spot overlooking the Vale of Tempe, where an extra- 
 ordinary association, after a brilliant existence of twenty 
 years, was dissolved in consequence of complicated legal 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 259 
 
 The great Co-operative Society of Ambelakia. 
 
 proceedings, -which it had no competent court to decide, 
 and in which the ruling body was an interested party. . . 
 The failure of the Vienna Bank, where their funds were 
 deposited, the evil effects of protracted litigation, and, 
 much more than these, the revolution in commerce that 
 English cotton yarn was beginning to effect, conspired 
 with political troubles for its ruin. ... I extract 
 from Beaujour's " Tableau du Commerce de la Greece" 
 the details he has preserved respecting it, in as far as 
 they were confirmed to me by the information I obtained 
 on the spot. 
 
 " Ambelakia, by its activity, appears rather a borough 
 of Holland than a village of Turkey. This village 
 spreads, by its industry, movement, and life, over the 
 surrounding country, and gives birth to an immense 
 commerce, which unites Germany to Greece by a 
 thousand threads. Its population has trebled in fifteen 
 years, and amounts at present (1798) to 4,000, who live 
 in their manufactories like swarms of bees in their 
 hives. In this village are unknown both the vices 
 and cares engendered by idleness ; the hearts of the 
 Ambelakiots are pure arid their faces serene; the slavery 
 which blasts the plains watered by the Penens, and 
 stretching at their feet, has never ascended the sides of 
 Pelion (Ossa); and they govern themselves, like their 
 ancestors, by their protoyeros (primates, elders) and 
 their own magistrates. Twice the Mussulmen of Larissa 
 attempted' to scale their rocks, and twice were they 
 repulsed by hands which dropped the shuttle to seize 
 the musket. 
 
 " Every arm, even those of the children, is employed 
 in the factories ; whilst the men dye the cotton, the 
 women prepare and spin. There are twenty-four 
 factories, in which yearly 2,500 bales of cotton yarn of 
 100 okes each were dyed (6,138 cwts.) This yarn found 
 
 * Chap. IV., p. 46, of Ms work named. 
 
260 HISTOEY OF CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 Its remarkable Organisation, 
 
 its way into Germany, and was disposed of at Buda, 
 Vienna, Leipsic, Dresden, Anspach, and Bareuth. The 
 Ambelakiot merchants had houses of their own in 
 all those places. These houses belonged to distinct 
 associations at Ambelakia. The competition thus 
 established reduced very considerably the common 
 profits; they proposed, therefore, to unite themselves 
 under one central commercial administration.* Twenty 
 years ago this plan was suggested, and in a year after- 
 wards carried into execution. The lowest shares in this 
 joint-stock company were 5,000 piastres (between i£600 
 and £700), and the highest were restricted to 20,000, that 
 the capitalists might not swallow up all the profits. The 
 workmen subscribed their little profits, and, uniting in 
 societies, purchased single shares ; and besides their 
 capital, their labour was reckoned in the general 
 amount; they received their share of the profits 
 accordingly, and abundance was soon spread through 
 the whole community. The dividends were at first 
 restricted to ' ten per cent, and the surplus profit was 
 applied to the augmenting of the capital, which in 
 two years was raised from 600,000 to 1,000,000 piastres 
 (£120,000). 
 
 " Three directors, under an assumed firm, managed 
 the affairs of the company ; but the signature was also 
 confided to three associates at Vienna, whence the 
 returns were made. These two firms of Ambelakia and 
 Vienna had th^ir correspondents at Pesth, Trieste, 
 Leipsic, Salonique, Constantinople, and Smyrna, to 
 
 • This competition was of a peculiar character. These houses were 
 agents of one factory, and the competition between the agents did not 
 allow the produce of the factory its fair advantages against other factories. 
 The factories had a common administration at home, and it sent its goods 
 to market at its own expense and risk, combining the profits of merchant, 
 broker, or manufacturer; as it was carried on by an association of capital 
 and labour which equalised the profits so much that the poorest could wait 
 for a return, to reap the benefits of the speculation as well as receive the 
 wages of his labour. — B, 
 
■THE LOST COMMUNITIES, 261 
 
 Its eagaoions Oommercial Policy. 
 
 receive their own staple, effect the returns, and to 
 extend the market for the cotton yarn of Greece. An 
 important part of their trust was to circulate the funds 
 realised from hand to hand, and from place to place 
 according to their own circumstances, necessities, and 
 the rates of exchange." 
 
 " Thus the company secured to itself both the profits of 
 the speculation and the profit of the banker, which was 
 exceedingly increased by the command and choice which 
 these two capacities gave of time, market, and specula- 
 tion. When the exchange was favourable, they remitted 
 specie; when unfavourable, they remitted goods; or 
 they speculated on Salonique, Constantinople, or Smyrna 
 by purchase of bills, or by transmission of German 
 goods, according to the fluctuations and demands of the 
 different markets, which their extensive relations put 
 them immediately in possession of, and the rapid turning 
 of so large a capital gave them always the means of 
 profiting by. 
 
 "Never was a society established upon such economical 
 principles, and never were fewer hands employed for the 
 transaction of such a mass of business. To concentrate 
 all the profits at Ambelakia, the correspondents were 
 all Ambelakiots ; and to divide the profits more equally 
 amongst them, they were obliged to return to Ambelakia 
 after three years' service, and had then to serve one 
 year at home to imbibe afresh the mercantile principles 
 of the company. 
 
 " The greatest harmony long reigned in the associa- 
 tion; the directors were disinterested, the correspondents 
 zealous, and the workmen docile and laborious. The 
 company's profits increased every day on a capital which 
 had rapidly become immense ; each investment realised 
 a profit of from sixty to one hundred per cent, all which 
 was distributed, in just proportions, to capitalists and 
 workmen, according to capital and industry. The shares 
 had increased tenfold." 
 
262 HISTORY OP CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 Important statement of Mr. Vrqahixi'e. 
 
 However, it is as important as relevant to see Mr. 
 Urquhart's estimate of the causes of failure. He says : 
 " I believe the causes of their disunion, with all the evils 
 that ensued, and the subsequent ruin of Ambelakia, to 
 have been, — first, the too great extension of the muni- 
 cipal body, its consequent loss of activity and control, 
 and the evasion of responsibility by the managers ; and, 
 secondly, the absence of judicial authority to settle in 
 their origin disputes and litigated interests, which, in 
 the absence of law, could only be decided by the violence 
 of faction. That the exclusion of the workmen from a 
 due influence in the administration, and share in the 
 profits, was the real cause of the breaking up of the 
 commercial associations is established by the fact of the 
 workmen separating themselves, immediately afterwards, 
 into as many small societies as there were associations 
 of workmen possessed of shares in the joint stock. As I 
 have already stated, a litigated question depending on 
 the violation of one of the bye-laws separated the whole 
 community into two factions." 
 
 That is a very important statement Mr. Urquhart 
 makes, and very suggestive to those concerned in decid-. 
 ing upon the constitution of co-operative productive and 
 manufacturing, namely — ^that "the exclusion of the work- 
 man from a due influence in the administration and 
 share ia the profits was the real cause of the breaking 
 up of the association." 
 
 This remarkable society had a great defect — the 
 Ambelakiots made no attempt at propagandism, it was 
 this generous inspiration in modern co-operators which 
 has made them powerful and respectable. Every new 
 society in the most distant place extends the possible 
 range of brotherhood, and makes confederation more 
 profitable. The Ambelakiots had, however, many points 
 worthy of modern notice. They were citizens as well as 
 co-operators, and fought when occasion required for 
 independence. The ingenuity and economy of their 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 263 
 
 The Wabash Community. 
 
 arrangements are quite worthy of study in these days. 
 They understood the theory of industrial partnerships 
 better than many modern companies do, and profits 
 were divided between capital and labour long before 
 modern discussions arose upon that subject. More 
 modern instances, however, claim our attention. No 
 one should accuse sociaHsts of wanting in intrepidity 
 when they settled down amid the miasmatic swamps of 
 Indiana, which the much enduring German celibates 
 were deserting. 
 
 New Harmony — a name never applicable to it — 
 consisted of 80,000 acres of land, purchased by Mr. 
 Owen in April, 1825, In 1822 it was peopled by 700 
 persons, who had previously occupied a back settlement 
 in Pennsylvania, near Pittsburg, and were chiefly German 
 emigrants. They had had for their spiritual teacher 
 and temporal director, Mr. Eapp. They were ignorant, 
 bigoted, despised intellectual attainments, and were 
 celibates. They greatly enriched themselves, and might 
 have multiplied their wealth, as we have seen, had they 
 multiplied themselves. " New Harmony," which Mr. 
 Owen appears so to have named, stood in a thicMy- 
 wooded country on the banks of the Wabash and about 
 thirty miles from the mouth of that river. The site of 
 New Harmony was generally flat for about a mile and a 
 half from the river ; but the neighbouring hills were 
 covered with vineyards and orchards. The Wabash 
 here was an ample stream, winding its course in front 
 of the town and beneath the luxuriant and lofty woods 
 on the opposite banks of the IlUnois. The town was well 
 laid out in straight and spacious streets, crossing each 
 other at right angles, after the manner of modern 
 American towns. There were excellent wells in this 
 Wabash settlement, and public ovens at convenient 
 distances from each other. There were well-built 
 granaries, barns, and factories, and a pretty village 
 church, the white steeple of which was pleasantly seen 
 
264 HISTORY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 " Lord Brougham's Memorable Advice." 
 
 from afar. Mr, Owen explained his intended plan of 
 proceedings in the Hoiise of Eepresentatives at Wash- 
 ington, an opportunity which would not be accorded to 
 the angel Gabriel of speaking in the Houses of Parlia- 
 ment in London, if he contemplated founding a settle- 
 ment on the Thames. In three months Mr. Owen was 
 joined by upwards of 900 individuals, which further 
 increased, and notice had to be given to prevent more 
 persons coming. It is clear the old world is not all- 
 attractive, since so many persons are ever ready to try 
 the new. 
 
 Lord Brougham, being asked (about 1826) to give his 
 opinion of schemes of industrial societies, answered: 
 " Co-operation will, by and by, do for the worst, but it 
 must begin with picked men." The Indiana communists 
 were not of this description. In fact, they were adver- 
 tised for. Notice was given that all ready to join the 
 new system of society might make their way to the 
 banks of the Wabash, and all who came were accepted, 
 just as though you could begin the New World with a 
 job lot. As was to be expected, the men of good sense 
 were ultimately overwhelmed by the mass of way- 
 ward adherents, composed, in the words of Mr. Horace 
 Greeley, for the most part of "the conceited, the 
 crotchety, the selfish, the headstrong, the pugnacious, 
 the unappreciated, the played-out, the idle, and, the 
 good-for-nothing generally, who, discovering themselves 
 utterly out of place and at a discount in the world as it 
 is, rashly conclude that they are exactly fitted for the 
 world as it ought to be." Nevertheless, the men of 
 good sense ruled at first, and prevailed intermittiagly 
 throughout. A committee was appointed to govern this 
 heterogeneous assemblage of 1,000 Kepublicans. It is 
 clear they had business instincts, for the first thing they 
 did was to pass a resolution "that no spirituous liquors 
 
 * " Co-operative Magazine," July, 1828. 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 265 
 
 The first resolution of the Co-operative Bepuhlioans. 
 
 shall be retailed in New Harmony;" and this resolution 
 has been repeated in every great co-operative society 
 down to this day. 
 
 The orthodoxy of the co-operators, whose general story 
 is told in these pages, was none of the soundest. For 
 the first forty years of their career no clergyman, with a 
 character to lose, would speak of them with respect, or 
 guarantee them Christian charity. St. Peter had been 
 copiously apprised jo have a sharp eye upon them if they 
 came to his gate. Yet these men were not wanting in 
 self-denial, which the very elect, who sat in judgment 
 upon them, often failed to practise ; and they were 
 resolute that Co-operation should always mean Tem- 
 perance. They had none of the teetotalers' tenderness 
 for wilful inebriates, treating them with more respect 
 than the self-sustained, self-respecting, temperate man. 
 They had no theories, but they knew that intemperance 
 was uneconomical. Many thought it a sin ; others saw in 
 it ill-repute ; the peaceable considered it a trouble ; and 
 some knew it as a danger. They knew that drunkenness 
 is madness at large, and in countless families children 
 and women are shut up with these maniacs, and live in 
 daily jeopardy and terror. It was better to have a tiger 
 or a snake in a community than a drunkard. You could 
 kill the beast or the reptile, but the drunkard might kill 
 you. It would not pay to manage him in a community. 
 He must be put down. The co-operators were under no 
 sentimental illusions. Some of them knew the inebriate 
 in every stage. In the first he is amusing. Play- 
 writers make merry with him; comic artists put his 
 foolishness into demoralising cartoons. In the second 
 stage his officious good nature is succeeded by suspicions, 
 which make his society a nuisance and a peril. In the 
 third stage he stabs those who oppose him, or does it on 
 surmise of his own, against which there is neither 
 warning nor defence. If it is a woman who drinks, not 
 merely the body but the mind is conspicuously poisoned. 
 
266 HISTORY OF CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 Temperance a secessity ia Communities. 
 
 The foulest suspicions grow real to it. In some cases 
 daughters hear infamous accusations against their father, 
 or against the mother by the father ; and all who know 
 either are astounded by imputations they cannot but 
 heed, upon testimony apparently so authentic. Waste 
 and violence, reaching and often passing the verge of 
 crime, mark the days of horror and sorrow in the house- 
 hold. Little children undergo frights which affect their 
 reason (as doctors know), and not untrequently the little 
 ones are killed outright, as frequent coroners' inquests 
 tell. But for their sakes no wife or husband would 
 inhabit an inebriate house ; and some working men and 
 women have been hanged for murder which mere self- 
 defence against deadly provocation, has forced upon 
 them. The most brilliant men, the sweetest and most 
 self-denying women, whom suffering, weakness, or 
 sorrow bows low, until nervous exhaustion befals, come 
 to this dreadful end. Thirst-madness is stronger than 
 love, or duty, or decency. Could it be foreseen before 
 the treacherous chain of habit is forged, they would, as 
 poor Charles Lamb wrote — 
 
 Clench their lips and ne'er nndo them 
 
 To let the deep damnation trickle through them. 
 
 In a community there could be no lunatic asylums for 
 these persons — mad with a madness unrecognised by 
 the law. If sent under any pretext to an asylum any- 
 where, they were, as soon as they were sober, found 
 to be (as later it came to be known) saner than 
 commissioners of lunacy themselves, and discharged— 
 their insanity not lying in want of sense, but in want 
 of self-restraint. In a man's home nothing can be done. 
 He cannot lock up his wife, nor the wife lock up her 
 husband. The only chance of not making things worse 
 is to let things take their dreadful course. Disapproval 
 incites to rage and murder. Husband or wife must fight 
 or one or other make miserable submission, living with 
 madness (where humanity, or family reasons, or inextin- 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 267 
 
 The conditions under which Prohibition is a mercy. 
 
 guishable love forbid desertion), without any means of 
 opposing it. Drunkards are masters, and they know it ; 
 and, without the power of restraining them, they must 
 perish. Inside community there can be no protection 
 save in prohibition. Outside there is no land of refuge, 
 no escape for them. The fatal temptation is ever in 
 their sight. At every corner of every street that which 
 to them is the accursed spirit, is blazoned. Every 
 advertisement page of newspaper or magazine carries 
 the dreadful information where can be got the dainty 
 drink of death. The path of self-destruction is not only 
 unobstructed — ^the glittering meshes of misery entangle 
 every footstep. The co-operators had knowledge enough 
 of the causes of sin to pity the poor wretch on the 
 inclined plane, but they would have no inclined plane 
 laid down in their stores. The drink illusion they well 
 knew hides, while it lasts, the path of death from the 
 eyes of the drinker. Yet the mind has intervals of 
 horrible sensibility. Physical pain and remorse, and 
 longing for love and life recur. But sharp torment sets 
 in, with shaking hand the fatal glass is seized again ; 
 and with the reason clear, but bereft of will, terrified 
 and helpless, the inebriates go down to a deeper degrada- 
 tion, and to an open grave which they see and know. No 
 sympathy can serve them, no prayer can aid them. 
 There is no deliverance save by lock and key, doctor 
 and nurse. But no nurse can mitigate, no doctor can 
 help, until the gate is closed through which the brandy- 
 seller can be reached. The only thing to do is to pray 
 that death may come to the unhappy inebriate in his 
 daily stupor, without crime preceding it, and without 
 the terror of a final and hopeless consciousness. These 
 scenes could never be suffered in a community. There 
 have been drunken saints and drunken sceptics, whom 
 both sides have deplored, but a drunken co-operator 
 would be a nuisance, a scandal, and a fool ; and none 
 of the race have ever been reared by them. All these 
 
268 EISTOEY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 How New Hannony first became inhannonions. 
 
 reasons against the thing did not occur at once ; but 
 convictions of the same nature and of sufficient intensity 
 prevailed everywhere, and always ; and thus it has come 
 to pass that in no co-operative community, colony, or 
 store has drink ever been in favour. There is obviously 
 no need for co-operative stores to undertake the duties 
 of inns. They are more than sufficiently supplied out- 
 side. When communities become populous it will be 
 necessary to provide inns on the wise plan of those 
 of Lady Byron, where the landlord is simply a purveyor, 
 secure of maintenance for discharging that duty, and 
 without any interest in the supply or sales. Such 
 co-operative inns would be commodious, pleasant, airy, 
 fresh and clean, where pictures and newspapers, coffee 
 and chocolate, ale or wine, tobacco, and chess, could be 
 had as in working men's clubs, for refreshment and 
 diversion — where temperate use would be the observance, 
 would be expected as naturally as courtesy or truth ; 
 and immoderation treated as a failure of social faith and 
 self-respect, liable to the penalty of expulsion. In a 
 community which lacks the dignity of temperance or the 
 influences which enforces it — prohibition, always an in- 
 dignity to others — becomes self-protection. As commu- 
 nity life advanced inns would be needless, as all that 
 pertains to diet would be supplied from the common 
 store to the common table. Drinking could never be a 
 difficulty among civihsed people. 
 
 New Harmony, however, soon began to be inhar- 
 monious from another cause, which, in every age of the 
 world, has been perilous to social peace. News came in 
 May, 1826, that a division of sentiment on the subject of 
 religion had led to the formation of another community. 
 A third community was also forming of those who were 
 willing to enter the new buildings put up, and live under 
 a strict community of property. The best men had 
 always this in view, and the settlers should have been 
 limited from the first to those among whom there was a 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 269 
 
 Toleration the indispeiiBable condition of Co-operative Life. 
 
 common agreement of whatever kind. The religious 
 difficulty was made to submit to the co-operative con- 
 ditions of liberty, conscience, and criticism. To the 
 co-operators of these days, as also down to these times, 
 is due the credit of practising the toleration which they 
 taught. At New Harmony the different sects ultimately 
 met in church and hall, attending as they chose, when 
 they chose, and upon whom they chose; and preachers 
 of all denominations had free liberty to teach, and dis- 
 cussions are mentioned* as having occurred after the 
 morning services. 
 
 In July, 1826, a Manchester paper stated, upon the 
 authority of a letter from Philadelphia, that many of 
 the settlers at New Harmony had been attracted by the 
 hope of gain, and that Mr. Owen would shortly be 
 obliged to give up his project. Mr. Owen had incurred 
 great expense, and would probably lose the whole ; but 
 as he had bought 37,000 acres of land, with houses on a 
 portion of them for 1,000 inhabitants, he was not at all 
 likely to lose that property, however disorderly the,hete- 
 rogeneous multitude, which he had suffered to assemble 
 upon it, might become — and did not. 
 
 As late as 1842, New Harmony, in Indiana, was the 
 subject of report in the " New Moral World." Eoberfc 
 Dale Owen was there at that time, and stated in a 
 speech there that many of those present, himself amongst 
 the number, hoped to live and die in New Harmony. 
 They expected there to leave their children, their 
 daughters as well as their sons, behind them, the future 
 inhabitants of the place. Mr. E. D. Owen was occupied 
 in the old way, which unfortunately always consumed 
 the chief time of the co-operators, that of replying to 
 the objections of ministers of religion. Prom the 
 beginning of their career almost to this day, the 
 co-operators would have certainly done twice as much 
 
 • " Co-operatiT6 Magazine," 1826, p. 50, 
 
270 filSTOBt OB* CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 The duty of Oo-operators as respects Clerical Objectora. - 
 
 as they ever accomplislied for tlie furtherance of their 
 interests, and advancement of their system, had it not 
 been for the amount of time they appeared always -willing 
 to spend in answering clerical critics, who had nothing 
 whatever to do with their business. Mr. E. D. Owen 
 occupies four Long columns in replying to objections 
 that "the Harmonists frequented balls, went to their 
 own theatre, and broke the Sabbath," because they did 
 not go to the objector's church ; "that Mr. Owen, junior, 
 himself dehvered historical and literary addresses on 
 Sundays." Mr. E. D. Owen, who had not dehvered a 
 Bingle lecture on the subject of religion for ten years, 
 condescended to answer for himself against one Eev. B. 
 Halsteatt, who all that time liad been lecturing upon it 
 every Sunday.. It cannot be said that these social 
 reformers did nothing for the future. They spent a 
 great part of their time in writing papers on theological 
 subjects, long enough to fill the bookshelves of posterity. 
 As an economical and social society, the co-operators 
 should never have suffered any official notice to be taken 
 of objectors, who belonged to an entirely different and 
 alien party. On their own ground, ministers of religion 
 had a certain authority to speak, and were to be regarded 
 with respect so long as they were unimputative ; but 
 religion, being an affair of individual conscience, and 
 incapable of being determined by committees, or councils, 
 or parhaments, and since individuals and not committees 
 are made responsible in the futmre, if anything is wrong, 
 the discussion of these questions should always have 
 been left to individuals, acting in their private capacity 
 only ; and if necessary for the satisfaction of individual 
 conscience that these critics and libellous objectors should 
 be dealt with, there ought to have been set apart in each 
 colony a Critical Eoom, and a Howling House, with a 
 secretary for each, whose duty should be to receive all 
 relevant communications, and lay them before such 
 persons as might care to stroU in and attend to them. 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 271 
 
 The famous Orbiston Commtmity. 
 
 It ■would seem from Mr. E. D. Owen proposing to live 
 ■with his famUy in the community that the health of the 
 place must have become tolerable, though European 
 visitors to this day speak with dismay of living there 
 themselves. As a community on a principle of imited 
 property and associated life, New Harmony has never 
 made any mark in the world. A spot vyhich Shakers 
 ■were glad to desert could not be a favourable one. A 
 miscellaneous crowd of persons assembled there. The 
 absence of Mr. Robert Owen during the years when 
 personal inspiration and training were most important, 
 were causes quite sufficient to account for the fluctuations 
 and effacement of New Harmony. 
 
 After the Wabash community the next of note was one 
 formed on the banks of the Calder in Scotland. 
 
 Abram Combe (the brother, as we have said, of George 
 Combe, who became distinguished as a phrenologist) 
 deserves to be ranked next to Mr. Owen, for the cost to 
 himself and devotion with which he strove to prove co- 
 operative life a practical thing. He published a perio- 
 dical informing the public of the progress of the Orbiston 
 community. It was a small neatly printed paper, which 
 he named "The Register of the first Society of Adherents 
 to Divine Revelation at Orbiston," which was not very 
 civU to all the other Christian societies, which for eighteen 
 centuries have regarded themselves as being the same 
 description of persons. Mr. Combe was, however, on 
 the whole one of the most sensible, and certainly the 
 most practical, of Mr. Owen's disciples. He professed 
 to derive his principles from Mr. Owen, and appeared to 
 treat the principal things Mr. Owen had said as dis- 
 coveries. These discoveries Abram Combe had the merit 
 of stating in his own way, and stating very weU ; and in 
 a much more acceptable form than the master had put 
 them. Though " The Register" was devoted entirely to 
 the proceedings of Orbiston, it was the least tiresome 
 and most sensibly written of any of the publications of 
 
272 HISTOEY OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Character of the Orhiston " Begister." 
 
 the class. There were practical articles about the situa- 
 tion and prospects of the place, the views of the inmates, 
 the different occupations, diversions, and departments ; 
 the proceedings of the theatre which was opened in 
 Orhiston. Letters, when they were good, were intro- 
 duced, and extracts also from private letters when they 
 contained passages pubhcly interesting. Notices of 
 co-operative publications were given, and of experiments 
 elsewhere, commonly done in a very pleasant spirit. 
 Lectures were reported, some of which must have been 
 well worth hearing since at this time they are interesting 
 reading. The sole department in which the editor was 
 unsuccessful was that where he contributed what he 
 called poetry of his own. A friend wrote to him and 
 advised him to write no more poetry, as he thought it 
 was the worst possible vehicle for the propagation of 
 useful truth. If the friend in question had never seen 
 any other poetry than that of the editor, it must be 
 admitted that his opinion was well founded. Mr. 
 Combe, however, not agreeing with the objector, answered 
 him in another and vindicatory poem, which we may 
 regard as a triumphant specimen of his powers. The 
 first four lines will probably be sufficient to enable the 
 reader to form an opinion .: — 
 
 I am sorry to differ from you, my dear friend I 
 
 And for this reason now a poetic I send ; 
 
 So, for once, I beseech you ! repress your " dislike," 
 
 And a trupe mth " contempt " I would have you to " strike." 
 
 The poet afterwards speaking in praise of poesy, which 
 he believed was a magical power in his hands, sings — ■ 
 
 Indeed such the power that to her belongs, 
 Oh could I but write all our national songs. 
 
 We can all see now that it is a mercy he did not. 
 
 In 1826, the Orbiston Community buildings were began 
 on the 18th of March. An. average ot 100 men were 
 employed. The art ideas of Mr. Abram Combe were of 
 the most sterile utilitarian order. He held that "it 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 273 
 
 Utilitarianism confounded with Dreariness. 
 
 ought always to be borne in mind that the sole use and 
 end of domestic accommodation is to protect the body 
 from painful sensations." " To me," he said, " it has a 
 slight appearance of irrationality to seek mental pleasure 
 from such a source, seeing that liberty, security, and 
 knowledge, united with social intercourse, and confirmed 
 by the affection and esteem of all with whom we are 
 brought in contact, constitute the only source from 
 which the wants of the mind can be supplied." This 
 excellent gentleman must have been born without any 
 sense of art in his soul. Eyery longing for beauty in his 
 nature must have been satisfied at the sight of putty and 
 stones. What a genius dissenting architects and poor- 
 law commissioners missed in Abram Combe. He would 
 have been the Pugin of bare Bethels and union work- 
 houses. He was wise in ^proposing the plainest 
 conveniences imtil prosperity was attained, but he need 
 not have struck his harp in praise of naked monotony. 
 A building was described as possessing a centre — left 
 centre and left wing — ^right centre and right wing. The 
 left centre contained about 120 private rooms. The 
 whole building was plain, was all of hewn stone, and was 
 said to have " a rather magnificent appearance," which, 
 after what we know of the architect, this criticism must 
 have been written by a gravedigger. It is, however, 
 but just to add that the Glasgow Chronicle of that day 
 said that "the rooms intended for the inmates were neat 
 and even elegant." If so there must have been some 
 departure from Mr. Combe's principle of dreariness. 
 
 Orbiston was near Hamilton. The funds for the 
 settlement were raised by a joint stock company, and 
 were divided into two hundred shares of ^G250 each, paid 
 in quarterly instalments of £10 ; Mr. Combe, of course, 
 being the giant contributor. 
 
 One visitor speaks of Orbiston as being nearHolytown. 
 The community buildings are described as situated on 
 the banks of the Calder, at that place the river being but 
 
 s 
 
274 HISTOEY OP CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 Personal appearance of Abram Combe, 
 
 a paltry, quick, shallow, mill stream, but the banks beau- 
 tiful. The visitor approaching the place saw only a tall 
 white building, covered with blue slates, standing entirely 
 by itself, without a house or tree to keep it company. 
 The general feature of the spot was flat, but surrounded 
 on all sides by near or distant, high mountainous scenery. 
 On arriving at the building it was found to be plain, of 
 great extent, and devoid of every ornament. Not a very 
 alluring commencement of the new world this, yet it is 
 pleasant to trace every particular of these famous 
 attempts to reconstruct society. The aim, the zeal, the 
 sacrifices of the promoters, and the hopes they inspired, 
 make these places sacred. 
 
 By March, 1826, news came that — " The roof of the left 
 centre and left wing of the dwelling-houses at Orbiston 
 were about finished, but what was now in hand would 
 enable them to demonstrate (in a plain way it must be 
 owned) the efficacy of the systemof Mutual Co-operation." 
 The " new system " was so near and so sure that the left 
 wing of the dreariest building in Europe was sufficient 
 to demonstate its efficacy, in the moderate eyes of san- 
 guine believers in it. 
 
 Mr. Combe was described as a stout-built middle-aged 
 farmer-looking man, giving no indication of the general 
 knowledge he was understood to possess. Known in 
 Edinburgh as a sharp-eyed tanner — that being his busi- 
 ness — weU understanding the art of pursuing the " main 
 chance," of a cynical turn of mind, and satirical and 
 vivacious beyond either of his eminent brothers, he 
 visited New Lanark in 1820. Though he was then 
 thirty-five years of age, he experienced an entire " change 
 of mind," as complete, remarkable, and salutary as any 
 recorded in the aimals of religious conversion. 
 
 Some of the many persons visiting Orbiston were 
 naturally disposed to make some compensation to the 
 community for the time of the members consumed 
 in taking visitors roimd, and they made ofi'er of money 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 275 
 
 StatiBticB of Commimities. 
 
 on account of the attendants placed at their disposal. 
 This was resented in a very dignified and foolish article, 
 for the community might have been eaten up, either in 
 food or time, by visitors — a few curious to learn, but 
 more curious to ridicule. A proper way would have been 
 to have charged attendance in showing people round, at 
 so much per hour, according to the value of the services 
 of the persons so engaged, and the profits would have 
 been ofttimes welcome to the common fund. However, 
 a very sensible suggestion was made, namely, that 
 visitors who felt desirous of serving the place should 
 purchase some article of its produce. 
 
 In the " Co-operative Magazine" of this period (1826) 
 were prudently published several calculations of the 
 proportion of the agriculturists, mechanics, and other 
 workmen who should be included in a community, 
 according to the quantity of land which is to be occupied. 
 There are also statements of the conditions to which 
 members were to conform in the Orbiston and New 
 Harmony Communities. These calculations and condi- 
 tions are not devoid of historic interest as showing what 
 conceptions were entertained of the art of association, by 
 two such eminent leaders and students of it as Eobert 
 Owen and Abram Combe. But it would be imfair in the 
 historian to waylay the reader with twenty pages of 
 these technical details, which would weary him if he 
 read them and obstruct him if he did not. When the 
 day returns, as return it will, when co-operative colonies 
 are again devised, a little volume devoted to the recital 
 of these curious papers wiU find both readers and 
 students, though the constitution and habits of society 
 are now so much changed, that the papers in question 
 would rather illustrate the difficulty to be overcome than 
 furnish the solution required. I content myself therefore 
 by indicating where they may be found, and shall recite, 
 in due course, some of the more memorable maxims which 
 are readable in themselves and of perennial application. 
 
276 mSTOETf OF co-opeeation. 
 
 Orbiston terminated by George Combe. 
 
 The Orbiston estate consisted of 290 acres, for which 
 the serious sum of £20,000 was paid. The land was 
 cold and poor, and has been judged to be not worth half 
 the money; and an additional j£20,000 was expended on 
 ill-contrived buildings. An ill-assorted random collection 
 of most unsuitable persons flocked to the spot, which 
 speedily acquired the emphatic name of "Babylon" 
 from the surrounding population, a title, we should 
 imagine, most applicable alike to its inhabitants and 
 its proceedings. At its breaking up the land and 
 buildings were sold for £16,000 ; a fact which shows the 
 judgment with which its affairs had been commenced 
 and administered ; and but for Mr. George Combe, who, 
 at the death of his brother Abram, forced on the total 
 destruction of the concern, the foundry, with its " forge 
 and water-wheel" might yet have remained to waken 
 the echoes of that " romantic deU," and remained too as 
 an example of the practicability of the principle of 
 "mutual co-operation" in connection with a large and 
 successful colony. Orbiston was ridding itself of its 
 idlers and its unsuitable members — it was gradually con- 
 solidating itself, and would, but for the forcible legal 
 interference of the great phrenologist, have righted itself, 
 and been at this day a flourishing establishment.* 
 
 Orbiston was very near succeeding, nearer so than other 
 European experiments. Had Mr. Abram Combe lived, his 
 practical sense and fine example, no doubt, would have 
 sustained the community until its success was assured. 
 Re was quite right in wasting no money on ornament m 
 the erection of the earlier buildings, but he was wrong 
 in writing against ornament ; true ornament is art, and 
 art is pleasure ; and pleasure in art is refinement, and 
 refinement is the grace of life. It was of no consequence 
 that the buildings were plain at first. The enthusiastic 
 would be quite content if the buildings were wholesome, 
 
 • "New Moral World," Vol. VII., p. 995, January 4, 1840. 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 277 
 
 Death of Abram Combe. 
 
 but they might have been so contrived that the addition 
 of comeliness could have been given, when there was 
 money to pay for it. Mr. Combe died of his own enthu- 
 siasim. Unfitted for much field-work, he persisted in it 
 excessively, even after his lungs were affected. When 
 what he had done was explained to him, he regretted 
 that the physiology of health had not been taught to him 
 in lieu of much other knowledge, which could not now 
 save him. He was a man of fine parts and many personal 
 accomplishments, saving that of poetry, and was the 
 greatest of the martyrs of Co-operation. 
 
 Subsequently, a greater master in social devices than 
 Mr, Combe arose — Mr. William Thompson, with whose 
 name tke reader is already familiar. He had a definite 
 scheme of social life in his mind, which he had given 
 the best years of his life to describe and define, and which 
 he left — vainly left — his fortune to forward. 
 
 In those days and long subsequent, it was impossible 
 to leave money for purposes of social or mental progf ess, 
 not of a conventional or orthodox character. Eeligious 
 judges at once confiscated the bequest on the ground of 
 alleged immorality of purpose ; or any persons to whom 
 the money might revert if the will was set aside, could 
 successfully plead the lunacy of the testator. Nobody 
 believed in the sanity of any one who sought unknown 
 improvement in an untrodden way. The only way to 
 promote these objects is to give the money for the purpose, 
 right out while you live. If testators could have been 
 persuaded of this, some projected communities never 
 attempted would have been heard of, and some commenced 
 would not have been lost. 
 
 Mr. Thompson died in March, 1833, and left freehold 
 estates to the value of £8,000 or £10,000 to thirteen 
 trustees, to be applied in loans to communities, and the 
 purchase of shares in communities, and the reprinting 
 for gratuitous distribution such of Mr. Thompson's works 
 as might be supposed to further co-operative objects. 
 
278 HISTOEY OP CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 Fate of Mr. Thompson's generous bectuest. 
 
 One of the trustees. took possession of the property on 
 his death. The heirs at law disputed the will, and 
 collections had to be made to defend it. A plea of 
 insanity was set up against Mr. Thompson. Ultimately 
 a decision was obtained in the Kolls Court, Dublin, when 
 the counsel for the heirs brought forward the same 
 imaginary charges of intended sexual immorality in 
 community arrangements which were brought forward 
 thirty years later in the Eolls Court, London, with respect 
 to the Queenwood community. The Cork case ended in 
 the court taking possession of the funds, and applying 
 them to purposes paramount to the will altogether. 
 The precise effect of the decision was never explained, 
 but it appeared that Mr. Pare' obtained some residue of 
 the property as he from time to time brought out new 
 editions of Mr. Thompson's works, which still continue 
 extant. Public money was collected to defend Mr. 
 Thompson's will in the interests of Co-operation, and it 
 was an omission in Mr. Pare, Mr. Thompson's most 
 trusted trustee, not to explain publicly what was the 
 amount of the advantage that resulted, and the details 
 of the expenditure of the trust funds. 
 
 Better than any other communitymaker, Mr. Thompson 
 knew what steps lay before the adventurers on the un- 
 trodden path of organised social life. He prescribed in 
 early works that land should be taken at a perpetuity, 
 or at a very long lease, on which buildings were to be 
 erected and agricultural and manufacturing operations 
 conducted. The conductors were to honestly and equally 
 distribute to every member of this community all the 
 means of happiness arising from wealth produced by 
 their united labour. The members themselves were to 
 contribute from five shillings down to sixpence a week 
 until five pounds were paid for every adult individual, 
 and fifty shillings for every child under ten years of age. 
 " The rest of the funds — but a few thousand pounds, 
 jiecessary to make the members' labour productive, and 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 279 
 
 Plan of the Cork Commumty. 
 
 ultimately to secure to them the whole of its products (tax- 
 ation excepted) — would be contributed," Mr. Thompson 
 said, "by those who now live, vexatiously to themselves, 
 on the products of the labour of others, but would wish 
 to cease so to live and to join in this scheme of equal and 
 universal justice and happiness ; or the money would 
 be advanced on simple loan by benevolent persons." 
 Members and promoters of this affair were instructed to 
 pay their subscriptions to the secretary of the London 
 Co-operative Society, 36, Eed Lion Square, London, and 
 were promised that a community on these principles 
 would be begun in the spring of 1827, with any number 
 of the industrial classes who may come forward, from 
 two hundred to two thousand individuals. Should any 
 wish in a few years to retire they were to be entitled to 
 their full share of the increased value of the .establish- 
 ment, which, even in three or four years, though the 
 worst and most inefficient years of production, it was 
 expected would amount to not less — "cannot be less" 
 was the phrase used — than one hundred pounds to each 
 individual. 
 
 In September, 1831, announcement was made of a Co- 
 operative Community being established in Cork, under the 
 influence of Mr. Thompson. It was intended to consist of 
 two thousand individuals. Land was to be taken at the 
 rate of one acre for each individual, young or old. Two 
 years before Mr. Thompson's death, a congress was held 
 in Manchester, May, 1831, for the purpose of arranging 
 the immediate formation of a community upon the 
 social system. The first Birmingham Co-operative 
 Society had published, in "Carpenter's Political Letter," 
 a recommendation that the incipient co-operative com- 
 munity should be upon the plan laid down by Mr. 
 William Thompson, and that application should be made 
 to 199 other co-operative societies to elect one member 
 of community each, and supply him with £80, in order 
 that the incipient community should start with £6,000, 
 
280 HISTOEY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Mr. Thompson fmstrated by Mr. Owen. 
 
 Messrs. Prescott, Grote, and Co. were appointed bankers, 
 but it does not appear that any funds ever came into 
 their custody. Mr. Owen declined to be a party to the 
 petty purpose of writing to two hundred societies only. 
 Mr. Owen proposed that they should form themselves 
 into a committee for universal correspondence, which 
 would have delayed the community for a generation; 
 and he refused to have his name associated with any 
 committee who was for making a beginning with a 
 smaller sum than £240,000. Mr. Thompson, who had 
 come up to London, with other gentlemen resident at a 
 distance, to promote practical operations, appear to have 
 been frustrated by Mr. Owen's grander aspirations.* 
 At the Manchester Congress, Mr. Thompson wisely 
 urged that they should commence with a small experi- 
 ment in proportion to their possible means, and the 
 congress was disposed to advance £6,000 to Mr. 
 Thompson, when it could be raised upon their scheme. 
 A document was agreed to in which his plan was 
 recommended, but Mr. Owen, saying that £6,000 or 
 £20,000 would be insufficient, discouraged the attempt. 
 Had Mr. Thompson become the practical director of the 
 experiment, it seems probable that some humble but 
 hopeful result would have occurred. 
 
 Mr. Thompson's theory was that the system of Mutual 
 Co-operation is the only one yet proposed which admits, 
 as one of its fundamental bases, the equal improvement 
 of the physical, intellectual, and social faculties of men 
 and women, which judges the actions of both by the 
 same equal system of morals, which allots to both the 
 same enjoyments and the same liberty, ' and which 
 subjects both to exactly equal restraints; restraints 
 supported by reason and persuasion alone, and never 
 prescribed with any other view than to increase the hap- 
 piness of those to whom they are recommended, as well 
 
 * Mr. Thompson's speech, London Congress, 183^. 
 
THE LOST COMMTJNITrES. 281 
 
 Elligibility of Women admitted. 
 
 as of their fellow creatures, their companions and friends 
 surrounding them. In the Cork community, which 
 Mr. Thompson meditated, entire freedom of thought 
 and expression on all subjects were to prevail, guided by 
 regard for the feelings of others ; and entire freedom of 
 action, not interfering with similar freedom in others, 
 were amongst the mutually guaranteed rights of every 
 member of this community. Eeligion was declared to 
 be the peculiar concern of the individual alone. Women 
 were to be entitled to equal means of improvement and 
 enjoyment, and to be equally eligible with men, to all 
 of&ces to which their inclination or talents might lead 
 them as in the American Granges, which have been of 
 late originated. Idlers and persons of vicious habits, 
 irreclaimable by mild treatment, were to be discharged 
 from the association. 
 
 No rewards or punishments, but those naturally 
 following in their good or bad consequences, were to be 
 permitted in the community. These the community 
 could not prevent. The punishments referred to were 
 not such as magistrates inflict. Of course, if the laws 
 of the country had been broken the civil magistrate 
 would interfere, and if no civil rule prevailed where a 
 community -existed, restraints for the violent must have 
 been provided, or the community would become a refuge 
 for scoundrels. 
 
 Mr. Thompson had all the experience and prudence 
 necessary for conducting successfully an experimental 
 community. Had it not been for the magnificence of 
 Mr. Owen's views and the unfortunate way in which 
 he discouraged small attempts, no doubt one under 
 Mr. Thompson's directions would have been successful. 
 The congresses at that time were wisely in favour of 
 such minor and well-considered attempts as were in 
 their power. Mr. Thompson would have made a wise 
 selection of men. He perfectly understood the scarce- 
 ness of men of the right quality, and would have contented 
 
282 HISTORY OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 The enrprising Irish Conunvmity, 
 
 himself witli very few of them rather than had many of 
 the wrong ones. 
 
 Besides his famous Scotch convert, Ahram Combe, 
 Mr. Owen made an Irish convert hardly less remarkable, 
 and who founded an Irish community which attained 
 greater success than that of Orbiston. It was in 1830 
 that Mr. Vandeleur, of Ralahiae, devoted six hundred 
 and eighteen English acres to the uses of a modified 
 community on Mr. Owen's plan. His tenantry were 
 of the lowest order of Irish poor, discontented, disor- 
 derly, and vicious. Mr. Vandeleur had heard Mr. 
 Owen's lectures in Dublin, and was persuaded of the 
 suitability of his scheme of co-operative agriculture 
 for Ireland, and he did not hesitate to trust his fortune 
 in order to verify the sincerity of his convictions. His 
 expectation of success was very high, and, although 
 he proposed to apply the co-operative principle to the 
 most unfavourable state of society in the world, it is 
 admitted on all hands that his experiment perfectly 
 succeeded. Success so complete has not been achieved 
 anywhere in modern times. 
 
 The greatest and most needed application of Co-ope- 
 ration is to agriculture. England has been backward 
 herein. In one or two places a sensible farmer has 
 achieved notable success. Mr. Gurdon, of Assington, is 
 the most conspicuous instance. Strange to say, the 
 most important application of Co-operation to agricul- 
 ture has occurred in the restless land of potatoes and 
 Whiteboys. Amid the bogs of Ealahine, an experiment 
 of co-operative agriculture produced great results. Mr. 
 William Pare, once governor of Harmony Hall, a writer 
 of great social experience, has published a history of this 
 Irish experiment — very surprising and very instructive. 
 If there be a place in the world where the pacific and 
 reasonable procedure of Co-operation might be expected 
 to have no friends and no success, it would surely be 
 Ireland — the land of agrarian conspiracy and suspicion, 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 283 
 
 Brutal treatment of Balahine labourers. 
 
 Misrule, class legislation, and legal outrage have 
 mostly made it so. Its characteristics have ample justi- 
 fication: it was nevertheless the most needful place to try 
 Co-operation in, and the most unlikely in the world in 
 which it could succeed. Yet its powers of social pacifi- 
 cation and ability to promote peasant prosperity were 
 never more strikingly displayed. The sort of treatment 
 to which farm labourers were subjected on the Vandeleur 
 estate, before Co-operation "put its foot down" there, 
 was not calculated to promote good- will. A reaper on a 
 hot harvest day paused to get a drink of water from a 
 can, when the steward kicked it over, declaring that he 
 would not have water there as an excuse for the reapers 
 wasting their time. No wonder that a few wandering 
 shots flew about this estate : and after better treatment 
 set in, the men went on shooting as a precautionary 
 measure, but when they saw good homesteads put up 
 for them, a share of the produce of their labour secured 
 to them, peace and even prosperity reigned in what was 
 a most wretched district. Oddly enough, this patch of 
 Irish communism is the only one that the societarian 
 reformers ever got to flom-ish. It did not come to grief 
 of itself ; its proprietor ended it. Though a gentleman of 
 good family, Mr. John Scott Vandeleur was a gambler, 
 and lost the co-operative farms and everything else in a 
 dicebox. He fled himself, and passed into outer darkness, 
 and was never more heard of by men. There being no 
 equitable land laws, such as Mr. Gladstone has devised, 
 for Ireland, the co,-operators had no claims for improve- 
 ments or stock, and the " New Systemites," as they were 
 called in Ireland, vanished also. There is no doubt 
 that the scheme answered among the worst-used people 
 and under the worst circumstances imaginable; and 
 there is no doubt that it wiU answer among better used 
 people and in better circumstances in England, if any 
 persons have the sense and patience to try it. The Eev. 
 Francis Trench, brother of the present Archbishop of 
 
284 EISTOBT OP CO-OPEEATION, 
 
 The New Systemitea. 
 
 Dublin, visited the "New Systemites," and not only 
 expressed but wrote out his approval of what he saw ia 
 detail. The society had made itself rules. One was, 
 that "no naember be expected to perform any service 
 or work but such as is agreeable to his or her feelings." 
 Irish human nature must not be of bad material, since 
 both honest and disagreeable work was daily done, and 
 done cheerfully. One day a mail coach traveller found 
 a man up to his middle in water repairing a dam. 
 
 "Are you working by yourself?" inquired the tra- 
 veller. 
 
 " Yes," was the answer. 
 
 " Where is your steward?" 
 
 "We have no steward." 
 
 " Who is your master ?" 
 
 " We have no master. We are on a new system." 
 
 " Then who sent you to do this work ?" 
 
 " The committee," replied the man in the dam. 
 
 " Who is the committee ? " asked the mail coach visitor, 
 
 " Some of the members." 
 
 " What members do you mean ?" 
 
 " The ploughmen and labourers who are appointed by 
 us as a committee. I belong to the New Systemites." 
 
 When Mr. Craig, the co-operative steward, first went 
 among these men, who had shot the previous steward, 
 they sent him an interesting sketch of a skull and cross 
 bones, and an intimation that they intended to put him 
 to bed under the "daisy quilt." As he went along the 
 road, the people who did not know him saluted him 
 with the kind country greeting of "God be with you." 
 One of his labourers told him that he should always 
 reply in Irish — " Tharah-ma-dhoel." Accordingly Mr. 
 • Craig answered everybody " Tharah-ma-dhoel;" but he 
 observed that his rejoinder did not make him popular, 
 when a friend explained to him that " Tharah-ma-dhoel" 
 meant "Go to the Devil." The man who taught this 
 dangerous answer became one of the best members of 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 285 
 
 Intrepidity of Mr. Craig. 
 
 the society ; and once, when the co-operative steward 
 was supposed to be lost behind the Cratton Wood, he 
 met " Tharah-ma-dhoel" looking for him, and on being 
 asked why he came out on that errand, answered — 
 
 "We thought you lost in the Bog Mountain." 
 
 " Suppose I was lost, what then ?" said the steward. 
 
 "Sure, sir," answered Tharah-ma-dhoel, "if we lost 
 you we should lose the system." 
 
 The curious thing is that these people did not lose 
 their love of co-operative farming by being set to sing to 
 the tune of " Kule Britannia " feeble, sentimental, eccen- 
 tric lines Uke these : — 
 
 The social brotherhood of man 
 
 Alone can hless the boon of earth, 
 And nature, in her generous plan, 
 Has taught us how to use the earth. 
 Hail ! brothers, hail I in bark, or hut, or hall ; 
 Hail 1 for each must live for all. 
 
 There was more to match, also sung, and it did not 
 kill Co-operation. There is no proof known of its vitality 
 so strong as this. Had the poor fellows shot the poet 
 nobody could have found fault. The Scotch make watery 
 verses after Burns ; the Welsh write verses which, hap- 
 pily, nobody tries to translate ; but the Irish have wit 
 and poetry in them, and can make a song. The 
 washer-woman of the Vandeleur Colony would have 
 beaten the steward's verses. He should have appointed 
 " Tharah-ma-dhoel " poet-laureate to the co-operative 
 ploughmen. 
 
 Mr. Craig deserves some words of honour for his cour- 
 age and confidence in undertaking the post of steward 
 and general manager, seeing that his predecessor had 
 been shot, and that the proprietor, Mr. Vandeleur, had 
 been compelled to leave the country under the protection 
 of an armed force. Between Terry-Alts, White Feet, 
 Black Feet, and other disagreeable factions, and a 
 " Tharah-ma-dhoel" set of labourers about him, Mr. Craig 
 had a very unpleasant prospect before him. 
 
286 HISTORY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 GoTemment of the Clare Comintiiiity. 
 
 The government of the colony Tvas absolute in Mr, 
 Vandeleur, who retained the right of summary dismissal 
 of any person brought upon the estate of whom he dis- 
 approved. Yet during the three years and a half the 
 Clare community (it was situated in the county of Clare) 
 lasted, he never had occasion to use this summary 
 power. It would not have been very wonderful if he 
 had, seeiag that the members of the community were 
 elected by ballot among the peasants of Ealahine, The 
 business of the farm was regulated by a committee, also 
 elected by ballot. The committee assembled every 
 evening, and appointed to each man his work for the 
 following day. There was no inequality estabhshed 
 among them. The domestic offices, usually performed 
 by servants, were assigned to the members imder seven- 
 teen years of age. 
 
 It seems quite incredible that the simple and reason- 
 able form of government should supersede the government 
 of the bludgeon and the blunderbuss — ^the customary 
 mode by which Irish labourers of that day regulated their 
 industrial affairs. Yet, imder co-operative arrangements, 
 peace and prosperity prevailed, through mere arts of 
 considerate arrangement and equity. .From this quiet 
 community, established in the midst of terror and 
 murder, ihe skedaddled landlord, Mr. Vandeleur, re- 
 ceived back in fuU all money he advanced for the 
 wages of the labourers; £200 a-year interest on the 
 working capital, the stock, and farm implements; and 
 £700 a-year rent. 
 
 What induced the labourers to work with such profitable 
 zeal and good will was, that the members of aU ages above 
 seventeen received an equal share in the division of profits 
 over the above payments. Besides, a co-operative store 
 was established similar to the one at New Lanark, whence 
 they obtained provisions of good quality and nearly cost 
 price. Pure food, honest weight, and reduced prices, 
 filled them with astonishment. None had known such 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 287 
 
 The Loss of the Merry Community. 
 
 a state of things before. None had conceived the possi- 
 bility of it. The members lived at one table, which 
 saved much expense in cooking food and serving meals. 
 People who had always lived in doubt whether they 
 should have a meal at all, made no scruple of eating 
 with one another when a well-spread table was before 
 them. In addition, great care was bestowed on the 
 education of their children. The school was conducted 
 upon purely secular principles, and the results were 
 highly valued by the parents. As was the habit of com- 
 munities, spirituous liquors were not permitted on the 
 estate, and neither was smoking, which was gratuitous 
 and petulant prohibition. 
 
 Had the Ealahine farm contiaued, arrangements would 
 have been made for enabliag the members to acquire the 
 property of the place and hold the commimity as their 
 own by common capital. This community, though it 
 ceased, did not fail; it was indeed lost, but it was lost in 
 the dicebox. 
 
 It was in the "enthusiastic period" when this Clare 
 community flourished, and it needed enthusiasm to carry 
 social ideas to these desperate districts. Communism 
 should no longer be counted sentimental since it did the 
 stout-hearted practical work it achieved in Ireland. It 
 is a thousand pities all counted that Vandeleur was a 
 gambler, as otherwise the merriest community in the 
 world would have been established in the pleasant land 
 of Erin. Men who taught their new steward to reply to 
 the pious greetings of the peasantry by telling them to go 
 to the devil, had an infinity of fun in them. In racier 
 humour than this, and in harmless droUery and wit, the 
 Irish surpass all tribes of men ; and communism in their 
 hands would have been industry, song, and laughter. 
 
 Later communities were attempted in England, which 
 involved more peril to the principle of association than 
 those more remote. True to the instinct of unhappy 
 selection of place, or yielding to a necessity always 
 
288 HISTOEY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 The wild leader of the Fen Community. 
 
 adverse, experiments were next proposed in the fens of 
 Cambridgeshire. The projector, Mr. Hodgson, was a 
 handsome and lusty farmer, who, having heard from 
 clerical adversaries that in a commnnity the oddest 
 things were intended to be done, conceived the ingenious 
 idea that it might serve some person'al as well as public 
 purposes ;_and as he had some land, a little money, and 
 plausibility of address, he turned out as a peripatetic orator 
 in favour of beginning the new world in his native fens 
 of Cambridgeshire. No one suspected his possible col- 
 lateral object. He was regarded by many merely as an 
 eager advocate for realising the new system of society. 
 Mr. Owen at once set his face against the ingenious 
 schemer, whose hasty and indefinite proceedings he dis- 
 approved. Mr. Owen's high-minded instincts always 
 led him to associate only with men of honour and good 
 promise. He went down to Manea Fen, the name of the 
 site chosen, and,. having acquaintance with landowners 
 of the neighbourhood, was soon able to properly estimate 
 the qualifications of the new communist leader. Some 
 gentlemen farmers, who knew Hodgson's antecedents and 
 unfitness for trust, did Mr. Owen the service of telling him 
 the truth. Mr. Fleming, the editor of the " New Moral 
 World," wisely declined, on business grounds, to sanction 
 the Manea Fen project. It did not add to the repute of the 
 scheme, that Mr. Eowbot'iam made himseK advocate of 
 the discountenanced projector. Many honest, and some 
 a,ble, men, naturally thinking that the discontent with 
 Mr. Hodgson's plans originated in narrowness of rivalry, 
 having no reason to doubt the sincerity of professions 
 made with zeal, and impatient to try their fortunes on 
 the land themselves, went down and endeavoured to put 
 the place in working order. Buildings were erected and 
 many residents were for a time established th^sre ; but the 
 chief of the affair soon found that he had misconceived 
 the character of those whom he had attracted ; and they, 
 dissatisfied with the business security of the concern, 
 
THK LOST COMMUNITIES. 289 
 
 Mr. Hodgson, of Brimstone Hilli 
 
 soon abandoned it. Those who had the smallest means 
 suffered most, because they remained the longest, being 
 equally unable to help or transfer themselves. The 
 " WorMng Bee," the organ of the association, edited by 
 Mr. James Thompson, had animation, literary merit, 
 and the advantage of appealing to all who were impa- 
 tient of delay and not well instructed in the dangers of 
 prematurity. It was in August, 1838, that Mr. E. T. 
 Craig made the first announcement that Mr. Hodgson, 
 who had the suspicious address of Brimstone Hill, 
 Upwell, had an estate of two hundred acres within a few 
 mUes of Wisbeach, which he intended to devote to a 
 community. This was the disastrous affair afterwards 
 known as the Manea Fen Community. Mr. Hodgson 
 addressed the readers of the " Moral World" as " Fellow 
 Beings," the only time in which that abstract designa- 
 tion was applied to them. The editor of the paper 
 prudently prefaced his remarks upon the communications 
 by quoting the saying of the Town Clerk of Ephesus, 
 "Let us do nothing rashly." Mr. William Hodgson 
 had been a sailor in his younger days — and many things 
 else subsequently. He was acting in the character of 
 the farmer when he invented the Manea Fen Community. 
 It was mortgaged, but this did not prevent him offering 
 to sell it to the socialist party. The Fen Farm, as we 
 have said, consisted of two hundred acres. There Avere 
 four fifty-acre lots, divided by dykes as is the fen 
 country plan. The dykes acted as drains also. Three 
 fifties lay together, the fourth was somewhat distant — 
 half a mile. Twenty-four cottages, twelve in a row built 
 back to back. They were single-room shanties. There 
 was a dining shanty, which would accommodate one 
 hundred people. 
 
 There were brave, energetic, and honourable men at- 
 tracted to this place. To set up a paper, which was one 
 of the features of the Fen Fax'm, was to enter the ranks 
 of civUised and aspiring cities ; and had Mr. Hodgson 
 
290 HISTOEY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 O'Connor appears as a Social Reformer. 
 
 been a man capable of furthering the moral aims of 
 those who were aUured by his professions, and, could 
 have given a secm:e tenure and sustained the settlers by 
 subsistence and capital until the plots became produc- 
 tive, there is good reason to believe that the project 
 would have succeeded — for there were men and women 
 among the members who were "working bees" in the 
 best sense, and were capable of success anywhere where 
 moderate industry and patience could command it. 
 
 Besides being disastrous to individuals, this Fen Com- 
 munity was great harm and hindrance to the greater 
 scheme of the Queenwood Community, which had then 
 been projected, and which represented what of unity, 
 wisdom, and capacity the great socialist party could lay 
 claim to. Having executives of their own, and the vete- 
 ran leader of communism, Mr. Owen, at their head, and 
 many gentlemen generously perilling a large portion of 
 their wealth to further their fortunes, it was want of 
 sense as well as want of allegiance on the part of those 
 communists to follow one whose antecedents and pur- 
 poses were unknown, who had given no hostages to 
 progress, who was half sailor, half farmer, and less than 
 half reformer. StUl, the zeal which goes wrong in its 
 impatience to go forward is to be treated with a certain 
 degree of respect. 
 
 The possibilty of Co-operation aiding in new forms of 
 social life was next destined to be illustrated in an unex- 
 pected manner, and by a very imlikely person — ^namely, 
 by Mr. Feargus O'Connor. Though the English never 
 attained ascendancy in Scotland as leaders of popular 
 opinion, and were never heard of in Ireland in that capa- 
 city, the Irish have always been most welcome in Enghsh 
 movements, and, indeed, haye overrun them. Were the 
 Irish as impartial as they are fervid, they would have 
 pleasant words to say of the English in every country 
 in which they go. Mr. O'Connor soon became master of 
 English Chartism ; and he and countrymen of his carried 
 
' THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 291 
 
 The Chartist Settlements. 
 
 it clear away from all the moorings to which the English 
 leaders would have held it secure, practical, and progres- 
 sive. Not content with making Chartism antagonistic 
 and obstructive, and acting with Tories as their method 
 of advancing Eadicalism, they vehemently protested 
 against social reform as digressive and impossible. 
 Against all attempts to obtain property for the purposes 
 of community they urged, you cannot get land — laws of 
 primogeniture and entail forbid. If law did let you get 
 land, government would not let you keep it ; and if law 
 and government consented, how can those get land who 
 cannot get bread? 
 
 Mr. O'Connor was a man of candour and foresight, 
 and had a mind susceptible of new ideas, and ultimately 
 came himself to project a "Co-operative Land Scheme." 
 He gave to it at one time the name of " Co-operative." 
 It was subsequently known as /the National Land 
 Scheme. It was through contact with the social advo- 
 cates that the Chartist leaders turned their attention 
 to life upon the land. Mr. O'Connor started his land 
 scheme partly to satisfy the longing for social experiment 
 which had began to show itself in the ranks of his adhe- 
 rents. He bought four estates and contracted for two 
 others. O'Connorville, near Eickmansworth, formerly 
 bearing the name of Heringsgate, Herts ; Snigsend, near 
 Staunton, Gloucester ; Lowbands, near Tewkesbury, on 
 the borders of Gloucester and Worcester ; Minster Lovell, 
 near Whitney, Oxford ; Bromsgrove, Worcestershire ; 
 and Mathon, near Great Malvern. The purchase of the 
 two last was not completed. O'Connorville cost £9,736 ; 
 Lowbands, £18,903, Minster Lovell, £22,978; Snigsend, 
 £27,237; Dodford, £12,046; and there was a deposit on 
 Mathon of £2,005. Mathon, however, did not come into • 
 the occupation of the company. 
 
 There was confusion in making the allotment, which 
 were given by ballot. They fell, of course, often to the 
 unprepared and unfit. The properties, owing to an 
 
292 msToRy op co-opebation. 
 
 The Newcastle Chronicle Report. 
 
 ill-devised mode of purchase, came into Chancery: 
 Nevertheless, there remains to this day several persons 
 upon these estates who lived successfully and profitably 
 upon their holdings. Had the subscribers to the land 
 fund been limited to those who knew what to do with it, 
 when they came into possession of it, and had sufficient 
 capital to enable them to subsist while they built their 
 habitations and gathered in their first crops ; had the 
 holdings been of four acres instead of two acres only in 
 extent, and had the price charged to members been 
 sufficient to make the scheme remunerative, and had the 
 transfer been free from the Chancery vicissitudes, the 
 scheme would have been sufficiently successful to have 
 been a lasting benefit to many persons, which is almost 
 equivalent to saying, had everything been otherwise the 
 result would have been better. Had the experiment been 
 persisted in, the errors of the first attempt were quite 
 remediable. The public have lately been furnished with 
 a very interesting account of the present condition of aH 
 these settlements, the proprietors of the Newcastle Daily 
 Chronicle having sent (1875) a special commissioner, Mr. 
 Longstaffe, to visit all these places, and very interesting 
 is the account he has rendered. He recounts how the 
 shares were fixed as low as twenty-six shillings each. 
 The member who had paid up four shares (five pounds 
 four shillings) was entitled to ballot for two acres. It 
 was assumed that good arable land might be rented in 
 the most fertile parts of the country at fifteen shillings 
 an acre, or bought outright at twenty-five years' purchase 
 at eighteen pounds fifteen shillings an acre. As soon as 
 the share capital realised £5,000, a hundred and twenty 
 acres were to be bought to locate sixty persons on two- 
 acre holdings, and leave a balance of £2,750; this would 
 allow to each occupant a sum of forty-five pounds sixteen 
 and eightpence with which to start on his enterprise. 
 It was believed that thirty pounds would be sufficient to 
 build a commodious and comfortable cottage, and that 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 293 
 
 Wild Miscaloolations. 
 
 the fifteen pounds remaining would provide implements, 
 stock, seeds, and subsistence until the land became 
 sustaining to its occupiers. It was thought that the 
 allotments with dwellings might be leased for ever to 
 the members at an annual rental of five pounds. The 
 Chartist land cry was: — "Ab'eautiful cottage and four 
 acres, with thirty pounds to work it for a prepayment of 
 five pounds four shillings." 
 
 "Wlien the society had the amazing number of 70,000 
 members, the total sum they subscribed was a little over 
 ie36,000. It took £78,000 to locate fewer than two 
 hundred and fifty persons. Seventy thousand members 
 spread all over Great Britain involved unforeseen cost to 
 register. It was found to require £6,000 to put their 
 names upon the books. The cost of land, the expense of 
 conducting the great society on Mr. O'Connor's plan, 
 actually required an enormous sum of money and time 
 to carry out. When the subject was examined into before 
 the parliamentary committee which sat upon it, Mr. 
 Finlason, the actuary of the national debt, calculated 
 that it would require twenty-one millions to place the 
 whole seventy thousand members on the land, and that, 
 supposing Mr. O'Connor's most sanguine scheme of 
 profit could be realised, it would require every minute of 
 three centuries to get all the shareholders on their 
 holdings. 
 
 Thus the politicians failed, as no social reformers ever 
 did. However, some advantages accrued from their 
 efforts. The attention of the great mass of working-class 
 politicians, who were mere politicians and nothing more, 
 was turned to the fact that progress had a social side as 
 well; and, as we shall see hereafter, their political leaders, 
 as Mr. Ernest Jones for instance, instead of opposing 
 Co-operation in public debates became eloquent advocates 
 of it. 
 
 The last of the English attempts at community neces- 
 sary to recount here was the one at Queenwood, in 
 
294 HISTORY OP CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 The Great Qneenwood Commnnity, 
 
 Hampsliire. This was the greatest effort of the kind 
 made in this country. Many years were devoted to 
 preparing and maturing it. It was early the subject oi 
 many hopes. A wide-spread organisation was employed 
 to compass it ; and its failure, disastrous and complete, 
 has discouraged one generation and seems hkely to 
 intimidate another. 
 
 For more than twenty years before it began the early 
 working class disciples of Co-operation had been fore-, 
 casting the means of a decisive experiment in England. 
 Eich men had believed in community as a reasonable 
 commercial speculation, but without, owing chiefly to 
 pre-occupation, bringing their personal and business 
 resources to the control of the experiment sufficient for 
 the purpose. Benevolent men with a turn for states- 
 manship had- believed in these home colony schemes as 
 a means of easier and better government of the people, 
 and of the improvement of their moral and physical 
 condition. After the rise of the socialistic agitation the 
 working people believed in community as a means of 
 self-help and self-government. Their idea was, that the 
 ordinary conditions of subsistence, and dwelling, and 
 clothing might be made common to all ; that moderate 
 labour on the part of the many, and moderate attain- 
 ments in the science of society on the part of the few, 
 would enable this to be done. Experience is thrown 
 away upon those who do not see that there will always 
 be a savage element in society so long as the lower 
 classes are left to scramble like barbarians for the sup- 
 ply of their physical wants. So long as labour is pre- 
 sided over by want and death, civilisation will alternate 
 between splendour and tragedy. Working men had 
 heard it urged against their communistic scheme that 
 to have food, shelter, garments, and knowledge in com- 
 mon, would ruin everything, enervate everybody. This 
 was said, although men then were having old things in 
 common and new things in common without these 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 295 
 
 Commmiisin the tendency of OiyiliBation. 
 
 results. The socialists tuiderstood by commrmism sim- 
 ply that state of society in which the fruits of intellect, 
 art, and industry should be diffused by consent, poverty 
 made impossible, and ordinary crime unnecessary. They 
 saw that every day they were nearing to this. The laws 
 of the universe were not partial. Light, and sky, and 
 air, were common. Life and death were common. In 
 the hour of his birth the young prince has to scream for 
 air like any pauper; and unceremonious Death walks 
 into the parlour of the gentleman without sending in his 
 card. It had been proposed in Parliament that noble 
 galleries of art should be open to the gaze of the shoe- 
 black as well as to the connoisseur. Works of highest 
 art, and books of rarest value, were being made accessi- 
 ble to all. Fire offices insm-ed the cottage or the 
 mansion. The careless were made as secure as the 
 careful. Life insurance was a new form of equality. 
 The strong and the temperate were made to use their 
 prolonged lives to pay up premiums which go to the 
 progeny of the weak and the reckless. The virtuous and 
 the vicious, the base and the noble, had been all declared 
 equal in the sight of the law. The same police watch 
 over the life of the scoundrel and the patriot. Before 
 civiHsation began the weak had to take care of them- 
 selves, and had to get strength or discipline. Now the 
 feeble and the stout, the coward and the brave, are 
 equally protected. In savage times a man had to take 
 care how he got into a quarrel. In all danger, whether 
 he sought it or whether it was thrust upon him, he had 
 to defend himself. It was the reign of animal competi- 
 tion. The law has done away with this competition. 
 The obvious effect of this was to encourage the coward 
 and the sneak. That personal daring which made the 
 inspiration of Homeric song, which made Sparta a name 
 of energy through all time, which makes the blood tingle 
 over the pages of Sir Walter Scott, was no longer a daily 
 requisite or means of renown. A man need not either 
 
296 HISTOET OF 00-OPBEATION. 
 
 Rise of Co-operatiTe Halls. 
 
 carry arms or use them. He neither requires personal 
 bravery nor discipline. A set of men are paid to defend 
 him. An old warrior of the romantic days would rather 
 die than call the police. If a man gets into a disputa- 
 tion he is not allowed to settle it in honest hot rage, but 
 must refer his quarrel to the decision of a cold-blooded 
 magistrate, who will probably fine him for his fervour 
 and compliment his adversary. How the brave were 
 abashed — how courage blushed with shame — how the 
 pride of manliness was stung, when craven, criaging 
 Peace, in the name of law, first put valour down. But 
 we all know now that the peacemaker was right. There 
 is plenty of exercise for courage without expending it in 
 broils and bloodshed. The equality of the law has pro- 
 duced justice — and the equality of competence may lead 
 to happiness, security, and morahty. Society wall not 
 be disorganised, though co-operators and communists 
 shoiold succeed in finding the means of competence with- 
 out competition. In a rough, crude form convictions of 
 this nature were stoutly embedded in the co-operative 
 mind between 1830 and 1840. The " Crisis," the " New 
 Moral World," and the Social Missionaries had accom- 
 plished this. 
 
 A Hall of Science was erected in Eockingham-street, 
 Sheffield, in 1839 : a commodious and handsome building 
 for the time. Mr. Joseph Smith had erected the first at 
 Salford, less pretentious, but a pleasant structure, cost- 
 ing jG850, and capable of holding six hundred persons. 
 The Liverpool Hall, a building of mark for those times, 
 cost ^65,000. The London HaU, in John-street, Totten- 
 ham Court Eoad, cost £3,000. Lawrence-street Chapel, 
 Birmingham, built, or held by the Southcotians, was 
 bought for £800. More than £22,000 was spent in one 
 year in securing "Social Institutions," and Mr. Pare, 
 with that business wisdom in which he excelled, had a 
 deed drawn on the model of that by which Methodist 
 chapels are vested in the Conference. Had the community 
 
THE LOST communities; 297 
 
 Bevival of the old Co-operative Store. 
 
 plan at Queenwood succeeded, a powerful social orga- 
 nisation had existed in England. A good looking chapel 
 was held in Glasgow, in Great Hamilton-street. In 
 other places halls were continously occupied. The most 
 famous and costly erection was that of the Hall of Science 
 in Campfield, Manchester, which has since been pur- 
 chased for the City Free Library — the most honourable 
 use to which any of these halls have come. Dr. John 
 Watts was chiefly or mainly instrumental in promoting 
 this welcome destination of it. At the time when the 
 community project herein in question was in force, up- 
 wards of one hundred thousand members of Socialist 
 Societies could be counted upon for Co-operation. The 
 Community Society contributions were fixed at threepence 
 a week from each member. As Mr. Owen calculated that 
 aG2S0,000 was the lowest sum which would enable a 
 successful experiment to be conducted, the prospect of 
 collecting it- by threepence a week was a distant one. 
 The hope of increasing the fund tnore rapidly led to a 
 recurrence to the old and abandoned co-operative store 
 plan, and a store for the sale of tea and groceries was 
 opened at the Institution in John-street, London. Thus 
 the old necessity of self-created capital brought back the 
 old store, long extinct m London. In 1837, when the 
 National Community Friendly Society was formed, 
 heretofore mentioned, the subscription was fixed at one 
 shining a week, and those only who had subscribed £50 
 were declared eligible to go upon the land. In 1838, 
 the members amounted to four hundred. In 1839, 
 £1,200 were collected in this way, which in two hundred 
 years or more would furnish the £240,000 Mr. Owen 
 required. Nothing discouraged by this circumstance, a 
 year before, Messrs. Wm. Clegg, John Finch, Joseph 
 Smith, by one of the formidable ukases from the Gentral 
 Board, were instructed to enquire for an estate, capable 
 of sustaining a colony of at least five hundred indivi- 
 duals. There was some idea of going Fenwards again 
 
298 HISTOEY OF CO-OPBEATION. 
 
 Choice of the Qneenwood Estates. 
 
 in search of a site for the new world. They actually 
 made an offer for an estate in Norfolk, for which they 
 were to pay £11,500. 
 
 The Commxmity Committee contracted to huy the 
 Wvetton estates, near Wisbeach, of Mr. James Hill, but, 
 as that gentleman had social and training views of his 
 own, he stipulated that he should have a paramount 
 right to carry those out. As this would confuse the public 
 judgment of what was done by two different sets of 
 regenerators acting in the same field, the purchase 
 was not proceeded with. After much enquiry, other 
 negociations and more misgiving, land was rented in 
 Hants. 
 
 The estate, consisted of two farms, one of 801 acres, 
 named Queenwood, tithe free; the other 232 acres, extra- 
 parochial, named Buckholt. The annual rent was £360, 
 having been fined down from £375 by payment of £750. 
 The society had the power to further fine down the rent 
 to £300, £250, and £200" on making three payments of 
 £1,500 each at three successive periods. Complaints 
 were made that the land selected at Tytherly, on which 
 to erect the community, was unsuited in several respects. 
 It was unfruitful, it was inaccessible for those needing 
 to frequent it; it was too far from markets. In the 
 same way the land taken at Orbiston was described as 
 poor, most difficult to render profitable, besides other dis- 
 advantages attaching to the site. In the same way Mr. 
 Owen's community at Indiana was thought objectionable 
 from its great distance from the chief towns of America, 
 and the beat and insalubrity of the climate. Indeed 
 there are considerable difficulties in the way of obtaining 
 suitable sites for these experiments, which are not suffi- 
 ciently taken into account. Unless there is a large 
 amount of capital to commence with, it is impossible to 
 buy the most suitable site (which should be somewhat 
 near a great town), on account of the dearness of land 
 there. When capital is limited, a great outlay upon land 
 
THE liOST COMMUNITIES. 299 
 
 Difficulties ol selecting Commnnity Land. 
 
 is disproportionate to the other requirements of the 
 scheme ; and if the land is poor, the agricultural and 
 most important part fails. Besides the promoters of 
 social schemes are mostly unpopular, reluctance is felt 
 by landowners at having a body of people established in 
 their midst, whose proceedings might be regarded as 
 affecting the value of property in the neighbourhood. 
 Even in London, where the vast number of people living 
 together necessitates a certain amount of tolerance from 
 the impossibility of their taking notice of the peculiarities 
 of one another — it has been difficult at any time to obtain 
 a site for a haU of science or social institution. In the 
 town of Bury, in Lancashire, chiefly possessed by the 
 house of Derby, who were not favourably disposed to 
 Unitarians, it was once found impossible for a long 
 period of years to obtain a strip of ground on which to 
 erect a Unitarian church; and those enterprising and 
 ill-regarded religionists werp under the necessity of 
 waiting until they could convert a gentleman who hap- 
 pened to possess a little land, when at length they 
 obtained a site. These difficulties have always stood ia 
 the way of buying or leasing land for the purposes of 
 any social experimental colony. When the projectors of 
 those schemes have succeeded in securing some spot, it 
 has generally been one which had many disadvantages, 
 and which was offered to them because nothing better 
 could be done with the place, and nobody else would 
 have it. The calculation of the owners has sometimes 
 been that the social occupants would, after spending all 
 their capital in improving the land, be obliged to 
 relinquish it, when it would return, considerably and 
 gratuitously improved, into the hands of its original 
 possessor. 
 
 The most important accession which was made at 
 this time was that of Mr. William Galpin, a banker, of 
 Salisbury, who wrote to the "Moral World" one of those 
 modest, comprehensive, business-like letters which a 
 
800 HISTORY OV CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Mr. William Galpin. 
 
 gentleman of the unsuperseded world would send, saying 
 "he regretted that Mr. Owen did not intend being him- 
 self a resident ia the community formed in his name;" 
 arguing properly that "he who knew most should be at 
 hand to give effect to what he knew, and that he thought 
 a joint stock fund was possible to be formed for the 
 especial purpose of advancing the practical objects of 
 the home colony contemplated." The editor, who did - 
 not at all comprehend the quality of his correspondent, 
 answered with more confidence than judgment, that it 
 was not probable that much could be done in way of a 
 joint-stock fund, tfll the members of the proposed com- 
 munity had proved the success of their undertaking ; 
 which meant, if it meant anything, that when they had 
 succeeded without money they would be able to get it 
 when that time arrived. The unseeing and sanguine 
 editor argued "they would get more than they knew how 
 to use." 
 
 In 1841 the buildings were commenced at Tytherly, 
 from the designs of Mr. Hansom, a clever arcliitect, who 
 had a sympathy with social views. He had erected a 
 Philosophical Museum in Leicester, not much dis- 
 tinguished for gracefulness of design, for which he may 
 not be held responsible, as it is known that the structure 
 was never completed as he intended it. His best known 
 performance, and which brought him the most credit, 
 was the erection of the Birmingham Town Hall, which 
 for many years was considered the handsomest town 
 hall in the kingdom. He was a man of great mechani- 
 cal resource. He was the inventor of the Hansom cab, 
 and some parochial machines which were successful. It 
 was probably through Mr. Fare's municipal connection 
 with Birmingham that he became architect of the Queen- 
 wood Hall at Tytherly. It was a building of more 
 taste than had previously been erected for a community; 
 a sketch of it appeared in the " New Moral World " for 
 October 9th, 1841, about the time of its completion. 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 801 
 
 The Queenwood Hall. 
 
 The building, as any one may see to this day, was a 
 pleasant semi-baronial structure, and had a certain come- 
 liness and stateliness. The manner of the erection was 
 more creditable than many churches, it was built with the 
 care that befitted a sacred edifice. The parts out of sight 
 were finished as scrupulously as those that met the eye. 
 Owing to Mr. Galpin's wise and wholesome sense of 
 thoroughness, the laths which formed the partitions were 
 of the best quality, and the nails used in the obscurest 
 part of the building were the best that could be had. 
 There was nothing hidden that was mean, and nothing 
 exposed that was shabby. It is one of the pleasant 
 recollections of the place, that its directors endeavoured 
 to make it honest throughout. Seven or eight hundred 
 pounds were spent in making roads and promenades — 
 handsome, spacious, and enduring. The old Eomans 
 would have respected them. Even the kitchen and 
 basement rooms, used by the members for evening meet- 
 ings, were wainscoted with mahogany, many feet high. 
 Comfort and grace were consulted as far as means per- 
 mitted in everything. 
 
 To the credit of the English communists they were 
 no Barebones party. Had they succeeded in making a 
 community, it had been a pleasant one. They were not 
 afraid of art, and beauty had no terrors for them. Mr. 
 Bate, who was an artist, and who ultimately gave his 
 fortune, when he inherited one, for the advancement of 
 the Queenwood experiment, sent eight original drawings 
 in water colours, framed and glazed, as a beginning 
 towards forming a gallery of drawings. _ Mr. Minter 
 Morgan had exhausted the architectural imagination of 
 his time in designing structures of grace. Mr. Devon- 
 shire SauU meditated bestowing his mysterious geological 
 museum upon Tytherly. Geology did not make much 
 progress in his time, as the clergy imagined there was 
 something wrong with Nature, which it was thought had 
 not behaveditself consistently with the Hebrew ScriDtures. 
 
302 HIST0E7 OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Financial enthusiasm. 
 
 Indeed, many suspected Sir Charles Lyell of thinking 
 himself wiser than Moses. These drawbacks, notwith- 
 standing geological science, progressed faster than Mr. 
 SauU, and his museum was not worth many hundreds 
 of pounds, although valued by him at some thousands; 
 but such as it was the community would have had it 
 had Queenwood established itself. To Mr. Saull 
 belonged the merit of enthusiasm for the suspected 
 science, and according to his knowledge he promoted it. 
 
 It being stated that £3,500 was required on loan for 
 five years, bearing interest at five per cent, intimations 
 were at once received that the following sums would 
 be sent from the following places :^01dham, £B8 
 Birmingham, £80; Sheffield, £60; Worcester, £61 
 Coventry, £121 ; Leicester, £60 ; Nottingham, £60 
 Northampton, £17 ; a London Friend, £100 ; Glasgow 
 £20 ; Brighton, £5 ; Chatham, £50 ; Suffolk, £100 
 Edinburgh, £230; Hyde, £184; Norwich, £50; Ashton, 
 £56; Macclesfield, £24; Liverpool, £61; Boston, £20 
 Hull, £7 ; Louth, £20. This celerity of subscription is 
 good evidence of the wide-spread enthusiasm with which 
 the Queenwood project was regarded.^ 
 
 In 1842 Mr. Owen resigned the governorship of Queen- 
 wood, and Mr. Finch became president of the society, 
 when a new executive was formed for carrying out the 
 affairs of Queenwood. At the Congress of 1843 Mr. Owen 
 was re-appointed president. Subsequently Mr. WiUiam 
 Pare became governor ; and his suavity, accessibility, 
 and zeal, rendered him one of the most popular that 
 held the office. 
 
 Among the new and honourable expedients for divert- 
 ing the mind of the public from the polemical character 
 of the communistic association, was that of creating a 
 Home Colonisation Society, which proposed to take the 
 affairs of Queenwood into its hands. It was thought 
 that men of money might be induced to join the society 
 divested of controversial names which have proved 
 
THK LOST COMMUNITIES. 303 
 
 Mr. W. H. Ashurst. 
 
 hindrances to the general investment of capital. The 
 projectors of the new Home Colonisation Society contri- 
 buted largely to its funds, and for some time the " New 
 Moral World " contained frequent announcements of the 
 receipt of a thousand pounds at a time from this society. 
 But its name had no enthusiasm in it, and its example 
 produced very little outside effect. Had Queenwood 
 been destined to continue, the public would no doubt 
 have appreciated the good sense of this prosaic but pru- 
 dent association. The constitution of this society was, 
 as were the best business projects undertaken by the 
 adherents of Mr. Owen, devised by Mr. W. H. Ashurst, an 
 eminent sohcitor in the city of London, whose name often 
 occurs honourably in the annals of co-operative procedure. 
 A man of remarkable sagacity and of generous sympathy 
 with all who sought the social improvement of the people 
 — even where he differed from them — his advice was con- 
 jontinuaUy sought by such persons, and always with 
 advantage to them ; which many gratefully remembered 
 all their lives. In other matters more distinguished, his 
 clients were spread over the nation. Struck with com- 
 passion for poor people in every part of the empire who, 
 by reason of the high rate of postage formerly subsisting, 
 were prevented from receiving or giving information 
 affecting their interests or affections when separated from 
 members of their families, Mr. Ashurst rendered invalu- 
 able and prolonged assistance to Sir Eowland HiU in the 
 great advocacy which gave the people the Penny Postage. 
 No writer made a more striking impression than he by a 
 union of sympathy and facts in his statements which 
 always influenced pubHc affairs when presented together. 
 Many humble insurgent reformers sought his protectmg 
 counsel ; he warned them against the pitfalls of the law, 
 and when in the course of what they thought then: duty 
 they fell into them, he stretched forth a strong and gener- 
 ous hand to pull them out ; and his son who succeeded 
 him inherited the same disinterested thoughtfulness and 
 power. 
 
304 HISTOEY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Neutrality of policy distinot from the neutrality of convictioui 
 
 In 1843, came the resignation of Mr. W. Galpin; of 
 his office of general secretary. A certaia grandeur of 
 aim, which he had in common with Mr. Owen, had led 
 him to sanction a scale of administration which J)romised 
 soon to exhaust the aYailable funds of the party to which 
 he had himself contributed with honourable and notable 
 liberality. His influence, which was wholly and wisely 
 given to rendering the society neutral in matters of 
 theology, destroyed the zeal of many, whose activity was 
 necessary to sustain the popularity of the movement 
 among the branches, and his connection with the society 
 was of too short a period for the education of new sup- 
 porters, who should be content to advance economical 
 projects by considerations purely economical. The chief 
 capitalists, who had supplied the funds of the society, 
 were persons individually believers in co-operative colo- 
 nies ; but of outside capitahsts, who would invest money 
 in the scheme as a matter of business, none came 
 forward. The public . difficulty was that enforced 
 neutrality, dictated by policy merely, is different from 
 the intelligent neutrality of education and discernment. 
 A man of genius, at the head of affaii's, who could have 
 conserved the intrepidity of the society, and who could 
 have found it the means of exercising itself at its own 
 cost, as Josiah Warren would say, and at the same 
 time afford a sphere for the operation of practical 
 members without being involved in responsibility for 
 individual opinions from which they dissented, might 
 have saved the Queenwood community. The result 
 unfortunately was, that many persons who deserved 
 honour for the sacrifices they made, were ill regarded or 
 inadequately regarded at the time when they were risking 
 their fortunes in the service of the party. Mr. Galpin 
 took leave of the society, in a letter of perfect good taste 
 and dignity. It was "enough for him," he said, "that 
 there existed a feeling that the cause might be better 
 served by his ceasing to be one of its officers." 
 
THE LOST COMMXJNITIES. 305 
 
 Signs of the End. 
 
 It matters not now to trace minutely the details of 
 this final failure. Those actors in the affair who still 
 survive would take interest in dates, events, and cir- 
 cumstances which no longer concern the public. To-day 
 it is of small consequence to the outside world to be told 
 on what day of the month, or what month of the year, 
 funds began to decline, faith to waver, new difficulties 
 were discovered, or new disasters set in. Mr. Owen 
 had had the Tytherly Hall made to bear conspicuously 
 outside of it the mystic letters CM., which meant 
 Commencement of the Millennium. The obstinate mil- 
 lennium, however, declined to begin its career there. 
 
 Towards the end of 1845 ominous editorial articles 
 appeared upon the question, "can the Harmony experi- 
 ment be saved ?" Obviously the end was very near. If 
 mischief to any popular enterprise of the people was 
 about to occur, a Conservative journal was prompt to 
 give the sinister news, as though the failure of any 
 attempted improvement confirmed the wisdom of the 
 stationary party. 
 
 The Standard announced that " Mr. Owen had taken 
 his leave of Eose Hall, Hampshire, for America. The 
 speculation, after spending upon it £37,000, has proved 
 a decided failure. Mr. Owen left it a few days ago." 
 
 "Eose Hall" was the name of a house on Eose Hill, 
 a pretty little residence on part of the estate generally 
 assigned as the home of boarders, or as the occasional 
 residence of the governor. Many ladies and gentlemen 
 went down to Queenwood, and became residents in 
 apartments not required by members. Others contri- 
 buted very pleasantly both to the funds and the society 
 of the establishment. 
 
 When affairs at Harmony (for Mr. Owen had given 
 Queenwood this unfortunate name, which served to ex- 
 aggerate every minor difference into discord) began to 
 present financial compHcations, the boarders gradually 
 fell off. Members' meetings ceased to be interesting, and 
 
806 HISTORY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 The last Governor of Harmony. 
 
 residents who "went to Queenwood for peace and pleasant 
 intercourse, no longer found repose or entertainment. 
 Credit, wliicli formerly destroyed so many co-operative 
 stores, -was the agreeable, but insidious canker worm 
 which eat up Harmony; like jealousy, the dangerous 
 reptile grew by what he fed upon, works were under- 
 taken, provisions were ordered, accounts with tradesmen 
 grew, preference shares were invented, loan holders 
 multiplied, and the more enthusiasm was required to 
 contribute funds, the more it was appalled as the know- 
 ledge of these ever growing encumbrances spread. Had 
 the commimity began on the principle on which modern 
 co-operative stores are conducted — Of neither giving or 
 taking credit — aU its operations would have been humbler, 
 but they would have been lasting. Then the democratic 
 constitution of the society added to the mischief. The 
 government of the society required to be mainly absolute 
 in hands of those who mainly supplied the capital, that 
 confidence might continue where the strength of the 
 experiment lay. When the capital is redeemed, and the 
 members are financially equal, a democratic administra- 
 tion becomes a necessity, and an advantage. It came 
 to pass in the process of Queenwood affairs, that the 
 branches of the society in which poorer members pre- 
 dominated were able to send delegates, who represented 
 their anxieties, and were able to elect a new governor, 
 who was unable from his own means to exert influence 
 among the capitalists who were wanted, and the cre- 
 ditors who were dreaded. Mr. John Buxton, the new 
 governor, was a man of honesty and courage, and, ia 
 happier and more solvent days would have been suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 The three trustees of this society (Messrs. Finch, 
 Green, and Clegg), being mainly or altogether liable, 
 naturally became solicitous to protect themselves. Had 
 they proposed to take the affairs of Queenwood into their 
 own hands, undertaken to conduct it first for their own 
 
TAB LOST COMMUNITIES. 807 
 
 Fall of Qneenwood. 
 
 security, subjecting their administration to annual audit 
 on the part of the members, and paying any profits they 
 could realise in proportion to all claimants, the proposal 
 ■would have been eventually, after expressions of dis- 
 content, suspicion, and scrutiny, accepted. In this case 
 Queenwood would have ceased to be a public community, 
 but it would have ceased without discredit ; instead of 
 this they seized the property by violence. Discouraged 
 members of the community society ceasing to subscribe 
 had ceased to have the power of electing delegates, and the 
 trustees had no difficulty in obtaining a small congress 
 to justify action on their part. A rival congress, sup- 
 porting chiefly the interests whom the new governor was 
 appointed to represent, proposed the estate should be 
 $old, they being prepared to purchase it at the utmost 
 price that could be obtained for it in the market. In 
 the meantime as the trustees continued liable for the 
 loss of the rent, they might reasonably be unwiUiug for 
 a delay which might not, in their opinion, end in busi- 
 ness, and must, in the meantime, increase their liability. 
 Ultimately they hired labourers and such stray ruffians 
 as were to be had cheap, and put Mr. Buxton and his 
 family forcibly into the lanes, where they all remained, for 
 days and. nights, in ignominy and misery in honourable 
 and coiurageous protest on behalf of the humble commu- 
 nity shareholders, who had subscribed their money in as 
 much good faith as the largest lender, and were at least 
 entitled to have some honourable treaty made with their 
 chief representative ; but in the event of realising profit 
 their humble claims should have proportionate recog- 
 nition: thus ended the affair of the Queenwood commu- 
 nity in 1846. Mr. Buxton and his family were exposed 
 exactly to the same fate as lately befel Mrs. Gurney and 
 the Hampshire Shakers. The temper of the time was 
 then greatly different, no one showed any sympathy or 
 kindness, or offered any protection to the expelled chief 
 of the communist party, who represented not fanaticism 
 
808 HISTOET OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Qneenwood College. 
 
 and waiting on Providence, whicli mean a new expense 
 to the ratepayer, but a creditable and industrial effort 
 which a taxpayer had a great interest in protectiag and 
 promoting. 
 
 The trustees were assisted in their summary proceed- 
 ings by a leading missionary. There is no doubt they 
 all acted to the best of their judgment on behalf of the 
 interest they recognised as most important. Their fault 
 was that they did not see the only justification for their 
 summary and violent proceedings was that they made 
 it clear to all men that they had rescued the property 
 from further loss and danger, with a view to do what 
 justice was possible to every class of subscribers who had 
 made contributions to it ; whereas when they had con- 
 verted it into private property, or at least placed it under 
 private control, the trustees used it for private purposes. 
 They bought up the claims of the tradesmen ; they met 
 the demands of the Goldsmids from whom the estate was 
 leased ; they relinquished portions of the estate, and let 
 the Queenwood Hall and grounds for a school to Mr. 
 Edmonson, a celebrated educator, of Lancashire. It 
 was afterwards known as Queenwood College ; it com- 
 bined industrial with commercial and scientific training. 
 As a college it "more resembled the famous school of 
 Fellenberg, of Hofwyld ; or that of Mr. Heldenmayor, of 
 Worksop, in Nottinghamshire, unrivalled among English 
 schools for the industrial, social, and classical education 
 it imparted — of which Chas. Eeece Pemberton gave a 
 memorable account in the " Monthly Eepository " when 
 edited by W. J. Fox. The socialists were proud that 
 Queenwood had become a college so much in accordance 
 with their own conception of education. The best 
 known teacher cormected with it was Dr. Yeats, of 
 Peckham; himself a writer of great distinction and 
 authority on education. 
 
 Many years elapsed and it was found that the trustees, 
 Messrs. Finch, Green, and Clegg, who had seized the 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 309 
 
 An Action in Chancery. 
 
 estate, rendered no account of what proceeds they 
 derived from it, not even to the principal loanholders, 
 and it came to pass that Mr. Pare and others entered an 
 action in chancery to compel them to render an account 
 to the society. The trustees held that no society existed. 
 But so long as a single branch of the community society 
 continued to pay subscriptions the society had a legal 
 continuation. The rival congress mentioned, of which 
 Mr. Buxton, the governor, was the legitimate officer, 
 continued the society. The present writer was appointed 
 and continues the general secretary, and for one has 
 always continued a subscribing member; and he, on 
 behalf of the humble community subscribers, became a 
 party to the action in chancery. The case was tried 
 before Lord Eomilly. Corrupted, it would seem by im- 
 munity, the trustees resisted the honest demand to 
 produce their accounts, and, incredible to relate, they set 
 up the plea to the old enemies of social reform that the 
 society was constituted for the propagation of immoral 
 principles, and was therefore illegal, and could not 
 enforce accountability of its trustees. This plea from 
 men who had been vehement and passionate defenders of 
 this society, when other persons had brought this un- 
 founded and calumnious charge against it, was a new 
 scandal when this accusation was preferred by them. 
 One of the trustees was certainly not of this opinion, for 
 in 1841 Mr. C. P. Green wrote a letter from Spithead, 
 announcing to his dear brothers and sisters of the " New 
 Moral World " that he had given up competition, and 
 exclaimed — 
 
 Farewell, dear brothers, I have marked yon well, 
 
 Nor yet for ever do I leave you now ; 
 And busy thoughts of thee my bosom swell, 
 
 And thronging recollections crowd my brow. 
 
 Mr Green had no intention then of filing a statement 
 in the Court of Chancery that he and his brothers and 
 sisters were members of an immoral association. When 
 
310 HISTORY OF 00-OPBRATIOH. 
 
 Lord Koimlly's Jndgment. 
 
 these affidavits, too long to quote here, were read by 
 their counsel to Lord Eomilly, he said : " Ah ! it is all 
 very well, my learned brother, but where is the money ?" 
 and, when the learned counsel again implored the court 
 to listen to hackneyed extracts from Mr. Owen's iU- 
 reported lectures on marriage, Lord Eomilly said : " The 
 court is quite aware of that, my learned brother, what 
 we want is a statement of receipts and expenditure since 
 the trustees took possession of this properly." The 
 reluctant accounts had to be produced, and the balance 
 withheld had to be paid into court. Lord EomiUy 
 was a just judge, regardless of the speculative opinions 
 of those who sought justice at his hands. He had 
 known Mr. Owen from his youth, and was quite aware 
 that his opinions were not open to the imputations 
 sought to be put upon them by the apostate trustees. 
 The Queenwood Hall was sold by order of the court, and 
 the proceeds equitably distributed among the loan 
 holders and preference share holders. There was none 
 to be divided among original contributors to the com- 
 munity funds. Hundreds of men and women, who 
 invested all their savings in this generous and hopeless 
 enterprise, received nothing. And thus Queenwood 
 passed away for ever as a communistic scheme. 
 
 Concerning the last of the lost communities, some 
 other incidents and circumstances deserve to be stated. 
 When the trustees seized upon the effects of the society, 
 they made an attempt themselves to seU it, and they 
 actually advertised Harmony Hall for sale in the Tiines, 
 suggesting to purchasers that it might be made avail- 
 able for a lunatic asylum. In the opinion of the public, 
 it had been used for this purpose already, and when such 
 a use was officially pointed out for it in the future, it 
 was quite clear that the directors were qualified to remain 
 in it. 
 
 The " Herald of Progress " aforesaid, was the con- 
 tinuation of that official record of the proceedings of the 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 311 
 
 Co-operative advocacy contiuaed in the " Beasoner." 
 
 communist affairs which had been so long made in the 
 " Moral World." The new journal was edited by Mr. 
 John Cramp. The society of many names — Co-operative, 
 All Classes of All Nations, National Eeligionists, but 
 always communist at heart — ^had been, as we have seen, 
 declared extinct by lapse of members, at a congress at 
 Bose Hill. This was not strictly true, as in London and 
 Sheffield members continued to pay, and therefore legally 
 represented the interests of the society's subscribers 
 in every town, who held what was called community 
 scrip, and the " Herald " in question was maintained 
 from a sense of duty, to represent the interest of these 
 superseded but deserving members. To this end 
 a new Central Board was appointed, a president, and 
 general secretary. In the "Herald of Progress," which 
 was published from October, 1845, to May, 1846, the 
 official addresses of the society appeared. In May, 1846, 
 the " Eeasoner " was commenced, which in its early 
 volumes continued the official representation of the 
 Queenwood society, and the history of its final proceed- 
 ings were given in that journal alone. Thirty volumes 
 of the " Eeasoner " were issued between 1846 and 1872, 
 edited by ,the present writer, in which the advocacy and 
 vindication of Co-operation in the applications contem- 
 plated by its founders, through its subsequent vicissitudes 
 and ultimate ascendancy, were almost uninterruptedly 
 continued. The thirtieth volume was under the com- 
 mercial charge of the leaders of Co-operation in Lanca- 
 shire and Yorkshire, who had arisen since the Queenwood 
 days, and who ipherited the traditions of those honour- 
 able and unsuccessful struggles. 
 
 No important blunder, or failure of plans, or dis- 
 content of members caused the cessation of Queenwood. 
 The mischance was insufficient capital to last while the 
 new order of life consolidated itself and the conditions 
 of industrial profit were found. Astute farmers some- 
 times find that they must vary the nature of their 
 
312 HISTORY OP CO-OPERATION 
 
 Bemembranceg of Qaeenwood, 
 
 produce — change grain-growing into grass land — ^to 
 realise the best profit. It conld be no argument against 
 a communistic estate that its managers did not all at 
 once make a profit by it. The chief charge brought 
 against the management was that too much money was 
 spent upon the Hall, which was but another form of 
 saying that the capital was too small — since the HaU was 
 not out of proportion to the estate rented, the educational 
 convenience required, and the effect to he produced upon 
 the alien and outside public. Miscellaneous as were the 
 members collected together, they were aU beHevers in 
 the principle on which they associated ; and there were 
 none who did not deplore the day of parting when it 
 came. None entertained a doubt of the advantages they 
 enjoyed. Working members said they would rather live 
 on an Irish diet of potatoes than go again into the old 
 world, of which they had had experience, if that would 
 enable the society to hold on. Mr. Ironside, who had 
 a few thousand pounds — all his available means — said he 
 would throw it into a common fund, if others who had 
 similar means would do the same, so that they might go 
 on. Kesidents — and there were many who were boarders 
 in the community — all regretted the end of their tenancy. 
 To this day few who survive, who were there in any 
 capacity, but regret the loss of the happy days which, 
 till the end approached, were spent at Queenwood. 
 Ladies, who are always difficulties in a new state of 
 miscellaneous association, came to prefer Queenwood 
 life. Some who were at first unhappy in the changed 
 condition in which they found themselves there, and 
 made their husbands unhappy who brought them there, 
 eventually liked their new life exceedingly. Others who 
 were tartars in their social relations in.the old world — ^just 
 women at heart, but impatient of the crude wayward 
 ways of domestics — there became the most agreeable and 
 honoured of residents. It was not because they had to 
 control their tempers, but because the occasions of 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 813 
 
 Mistimed Ciiticism. 
 
 natural irritation no longer existed under the happier 
 circumstances of equality of duties and enjoyment. 
 
 The inmates of Queenwood ate as they listed. No 
 restriction was put upon their preferences. There was 
 a vegetarian table, at which some twenty dined, and, to 
 the credit of their simple diet be it said, theirs was the 
 merriest table in the hall. At meal times it resounded 
 with laughter, and often others came and surrounded it 
 to listen to the pleasantries which abounded there. 
 When the difficulties which threatened the extinction 
 of Harmony became apparent, opinions as to the errors 
 committed and caused to be pursued were made public 
 with more sincerity than good sense. Among those 
 who did this was the present writer, who pubHshed 
 an account of a personal visit he made to Harmony 
 Hall,* in which the state of affairs there were judged 
 from the point at which they ought to have arrived in 
 the opinion of the writer and of the party he represented. 
 So far as its influence went the narrative did harm ; so 
 far as the criticism affected the reputation of those who 
 previously controlled the affairs of the place, it irritated 
 them, and they behaved unpleasantly towards their 
 friendly critic. They still had the power to serve the 
 objects all had at heart, and it was therefore unwise to 
 diminish their interest in doing the best they could. 
 The appointment of Mr. Buxton to a position of control 
 over, four or five previous governors, who were still 
 officers and influential persons in the management,_ and 
 agents of great-loan holders, was a very delicate 
 business, and it was done without any delicacy. They 
 were gentlemen by position, and did not regard Mr. 
 Buxton as belonging to that class. Of course, this 
 ought to have made no difference to advocates of social 
 equality, but acting up to principle requires a long 
 training, or great capacity for regulatmg conduct by the 
 
 • Visit to Harmony HaU, reprinted from the "MoTement," 1844. 
 
314 H1ST0B7 OP CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 The advancement of Truth an Art. 
 
 judgment of wliat is right. Englishmen, who are all 
 exclusive and conservative in a very great degree, do not 
 easUy recognise the equality of manhood apart from 
 social caste. Mr. Buxton, belonging to the intelligent 
 artisan class, required infinite tact and refinement to 
 make things pleasant to his proud and superseded 
 rivals. Mr. Buxton was an honest and intelligent man, 
 but not gifted in this way. Had not the Manchester 
 party sent Mr. Buxton to the front, probably Harmony 
 would not have come to an end. If the control of afifairs 
 had been left in the original hands, they would have 
 done for the society what the trustees afterwards did for 
 themselves — make it pay by reduction of its objects — and, 
 probably, have established a training coUege for the 
 families and missionaries of the co-operative party. 
 No sooner was Mr. Buxton made governor, than the 
 previous governor demanded repajmient of loans he had 
 advanced, and financial embarrassments were at once 
 created by those who were expected to support him. 
 Harmony Hall had faUen in the ways of paternal 
 government, and it was foUy to send a democratic 
 governor like Mr. Buxton, without, at the same time, 
 supplying him with ample funds to hold his position 
 against creditors and loanholders. 
 
 To speak through a passage in the first person my 
 publication of my visit to Harmony Hall was an error. 
 At that point of time it was the duty of all members to 
 continue to support the executive who had hitherto 
 governed, since the party who would change the ad- 
 ministration had not the means to take affairs into their 
 own hands. It was far better to suffer disappointment 
 at the Limitation of community objects than to witness 
 the enterprise brought to a premature end. Any know- 
 ledge I had of the pubhc use of truths came to me from 
 speeches from political platforms and preachers whom 
 I mostly delighted to hear. I never once heard allusion 
 made to the art of advancing truth ; not one among 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. SIS 
 
 Varieties of Enthusiasts. 
 
 whom I came seemed to know that it was an art. 
 Truth was with them a conviction, not a perception; 
 and I was led to believe it might be promoted by impulse, 
 and never knew it was a matter of calculation. It was 
 long before I discovered for myself that truth was not 
 to be spoken on all occasions because it was truth. No 
 man may speak a lie or act a lie; but of all that he 
 knows to be true he is only warranted in stating that 
 which is relevant jand useful. It may be quite true and 
 a well ascertained fact that the Home Secretary has 
 changed his boot maker, but it would be irrelevant to 
 state it on the trial of the Guicowar of Baroda. It is 
 well known to be true that Mr. Disraeli is "on the side 
 of the angels," but nothing comes of it, and we are 
 obliged to have Moody and Sankey to put things right; 
 therefore, however true, there is no use impressing upon 
 men's attention Mr. Disraeli's seraphic alliance. In 
 the days which I wrote the visit to Harmony HaU, 
 nothing was known among the people of the conditions 
 of advancing truth, and that only so much as was rele- 
 vant and useful, and was put with the utmost considera- 
 tion and fairness, could be beneficial. 
 
 Many of these enthusiastic and generous projects fell 
 through, owing to the change of feeling which arose 
 before land of the required kind could be found. Offers 
 would be made of estates, sure to involve loss and con- 
 siderable responsibility for a time, and which it required 
 consideration to undertake. Inequalities of education, 
 and commercial experience were greater then than now, 
 and conflict soon arose in council between the prudent 
 and the infatuated. The " earnest, "as they were called, 
 were (as they commonly are) anxious to go forward 
 with other people's money. The prudent were considered 
 "timid," because the prudent were generally those who 
 would have to pay if the project failed. The infatuated 
 had only principle to put into the concern, and of that 
 they were prodigal, since if they lost their stock of that, 
 
816 HISTORY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Speculators in Progress. 
 
 mayhap they could acquire a sounder one by the ex- 
 perience gained; but those who lost their fortune might 
 not be able so easily to repair that mischief. The 
 enthusiastic are commonly honest, and would themselves 
 incur all the risks they advise, were they in a position 
 to do it. But this does not give them any right to vote 
 a liability to others which ■ they do not, and cannot 
 equally share. Yet this is constantly done in popular 
 societies. The cheap-tongued orators of mere "principle," 
 talk tall, and carry off all the applause, because their 
 irresponsible followers are the majority; while the 
 prudent, who "want to see their way," are put down as 
 "discouraging persons." There is yet a subtler creature 
 than the infatuated, to be encountered with in societies of 
 progress — ^the spontaneous enthusiast: sharp, quick, 
 fertile, unscrupulous, or unthinking, who sets schemes 
 going because they ought to go, who regards those who 
 have money as persons who should be made to pay, and 
 calculate that if a good project is started, many who 
 would not join in commencing it, will subscribe rather 
 than it should go down ; and that those who have made 
 advances wiU make more, in the hope of not losing what 
 has been already lost. These are not the architects, 
 they are the conspirators ; they are not the administra- 
 tors, they are the speculators of progress ; for business 
 is dealing with accumulated means — speculation is 
 dealing with imaginary or prospective capital. The 
 brilliant and plausible operators in this line commonly 
 end in diffusing an ineradicable distrust in the minds of 
 those who have been trepanned into their enterprises. 
 Principle is good, and there is an end of progress when 
 its voice is not heard, or being heard is not regarded ; 
 fertilify is good, progress is slow and stupid without it ; 
 enthusiasm is good, it is the first sign of sincerity, and 
 the best of causes will perish which lacks it. It is the pro- 
 vince of principle to determine objects to be attained ; 
 it is the business of fertility to devise the profitable use 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 317 
 
 The dnty of scrnpnlons Propagandism. 
 
 of means provided ; it is the occupation of enthusiasm 
 to increase those means ; but it is the duty of prudence 
 and honestjr to employ them, so that they may go as far 
 as possible in the attainment of the common objects of 
 the association, and to see that the means available are 
 never embarked without the clear consent of those who 
 will be the losers if there be loss. In matters of social 
 progress, as in commerce, risks have to be run, and loss 
 and failure must be calculated upon. Some may risk 
 fortune, some health, some even life, as many do in the 
 public service; and it will be an evil day for society 
 when people are wanting to do it. Whoever enter upon 
 these generous enterprises with their eyes open we 
 honour as philanthropists, or patriots, or martyrs ; but 
 they who trepan others into these sacrifices without their 
 knowledge and consent, or without prudent, patient, and 
 adequate preparations for success so far as honest know- 
 ledge can foresee them, are responsible for their ruin 
 or murder; and though a philanthropic motive may 
 mitigate indignation, it does not excuse the crime of 
 destroying others, in the name of benevolence. 
 
 Thus it came about in many instances that the delay 
 in procuring suitable estates for communities brought 
 promoters of communities in contact with each other, 
 and confidence did not always grow thereby. And thus 
 many a bright scheme faded from the pages of history. 
 
 No social community in Great Britain had a long 
 enough time allowed to give it a reasonable chance of 
 succeeding. Had any gentleman existed who would 
 have supplied as much money to be experimented with 
 and to be sunk as Sir Josiah Mason, of Birmingham, 
 supplied during fruitless, disappointing, and perilous 
 years to the Messrs. Elkington for perfecting the dis- 
 covery of electroplating, some of these social colonies 
 would have pulled through. Establishing a new world 
 is naturally a more elaborate and protracted work than 
 establishing a new manufacture. Electroplating turbu- 
 
318 HISTORY OF CO-OPBBATION. 
 
 Lord Cloncurry'a Letter- 
 lent and competitive man with pacific and co-operative 
 habits is a more serious affair than electroplating 
 metals. 
 
 The social movement often had the good fortune to be 
 countenanced and aided by persons of high position and 
 large means. When Mr. Owen held his great meeting 
 in Dublin in 1821, the Archbishops and other prelates 
 and many noblemen appeared on the platform to support 
 him. At one meeting the Lord Cloncurry wrote to say 
 that he was, to his great regret, prevented being present. 
 But this was no formal evasion, though expressed in the 
 well-known terms of avoidance ; he wrote a letter in- 
 tended to serve the object, and afterwards sent £500 to 
 further it. Frequently when steps were about to be 
 taken hkely to compromise the scheme before the pubhc 
 the prudent had the wisdom, which they do not always 
 display, to come to the front and dictate the steps which 
 would lead to a surer success than those about to be 
 taken at the instigation of the eager and uncalculating. 
 
 Despite all the eccentricities by which these new 
 opinions were accompanied, and by which all new 
 opinions are accompanied, it is impossible not to honour 
 these ardent agents of improvement, who both made 
 sacrifices and incurred discomfort and disadvantages for 
 no selfish end of their own, for their enthusiasm arose 
 from the belief that everybody would be advantaged by 
 the change they sought. Though Coleridge had warned 
 them that it is vain to be sane in a world of madmen, 
 yet they resolved to run this risk, and do the best they 
 could to introduce more sensible arrangements of life. 
 
 Social progress, though an old historic dream, and an 
 anxious pursuit of so many persons, can hardly be 
 said as yet to have a policy. New social plans, which in 
 their experimental days must be costly and dependent 
 for success on monetary aid, are so far philanthropic. 
 How should persons be dealt with who are sought to 
 promote them? It cannot be presumed that the rich 
 
THE LOST COMMUNITIES. 819 
 
 Hauger of permitting too much zeal. 
 
 ought to aid unless they are satisfied of the need and 
 soundness of the plan put before them. To assume that 
 Brown ought to subscribe because Jones thinks he should 
 is a sort of philanthropic confiscation of Brown's property. 
 AH that can be reasonably done is to ask Brown's atten- 
 tion to the scheme, which should be clearly and honestly 
 put_ before him, with a full statement of the chances 
 againstits success as well as those in favour of it, and if 
 he declines to take part in the affair it may be matter of 
 regi?et, but not of reproach. With those who are friendly 
 to such projects, and ready to help them, scrupulous 
 care should be taken never to induce or allow them in 
 generous enthusiasm to advance more than they are 
 ready and able to lose in case of failure. If they do 
 more, and do not show regret when the day of loss or 
 ruin comes, their relatives will; and an unknown party 
 of fierce and defamatory adversaries of social progress 
 will be developed in society, active perhaps for two or 
 three generations. No less disadvantage occurs if 
 humbler and poor adherents are encouraged or suffered 
 to do their utmost "for the cause." The Jewish tribute 
 of a tithe of their means is as much, experience has 
 shown, as can be safely taken from the household 
 resources. If more be taken the family suffer, ank what 
 is worse, the family complain, and diffuse among all 
 their neighbours and friends a dislike and distrust of 
 the philanthropy which puts upon them privations with- 
 out their consent.* Aiid when the day of reaction 
 comes to the over-taxed contributor, he himself forms 
 the most dangerous disparager of the very undertaking 
 he himself has aided beyond his means. He cries to all 
 
 * My attention was engaged very early in popular movements by tlie 
 fact that the most discouraging persons applied to for Co-operation were 
 those who had belonged to and had suffered disappointment in earlier move- 
 meuts. And they had been heroes of forlorn hopes. In most cases there 
 was reason to believe that had their sacrifices been limited to a tenth of 
 their resources of time and money, they had never lost interest in struggles 
 which did them honour. 
 
320 HISTOEY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Community proiects very dead. 
 
 who approach him "take warning by me, these benevo- 
 lent projects ruined me." The extreme advocate 
 commonly becomes the extreme adversary — defamatory, 
 virulent, and vindictive ; and his discouraging word 
 goes farther than that of the stranger, who dislikes the 
 thing, being ignorant of it — the reactionary, enemy teUs 
 you he has known it, and counsels you against it. Thus, 
 as far as social progress is concerned, it is policy to have 
 a policy, that it may be promoted by calculable methods. 
 With the commonplace and ignominious fall of Queen- 
 wood, communism became extinct in England; numerous 
 persons remained faithful to the idea, and were as 
 satisfied as ever that the conception was sound, and 
 would one day be carried out successfully by wiser, more 
 forecasting, and fortunate men, but the idea was dead 
 in the public mind. No one had the confidence ever 
 after to appeal for popular support ; no society has since 
 been formed to carry out the conception. When high 
 and confident promises are made in the name of a new 
 and great project, the public expect some signal fulfil- 
 ment, and when nothing comes of the great pretension, 
 their interest in it and their faith in it are no more to 
 be awakened in any generation which remembers the 
 disappointment. This should be a warning to those who 
 believe they have some important and untried truth 
 on hand, never to risk the experiment which is to 
 decide its validity until they have at command the best 
 conditions known to be necessary for realising it. 
 Better to disappoint the eager by delay than the faith of 
 the enthusiastic should fail; better that accusations of 
 timidity and cowardice for insincerity should be borne, 
 rather than premature action should need a failure. A 
 great project unrealised will live frorh age to age, and the 
 longer adherence delay may damage, but it never kills ; 
 whereas inadequate action is always regarded by the 
 majority, who never inquire, as the failure of principle 
 rather than the failure of men 
 
THE LOSI COMMUNITIES. 321 
 
 The Last Day at Queenwood. 
 
 Luckless was the day on which the last disciples of 
 the new views turned their footsteps from Queenwood, 
 to find their way again, abashed and desponding, into 
 the grim and unsociable, unsympathetic, old world. 
 What hopes they had raised which had never been 
 realised ; what predictions they made, now regarded as 
 being false for ever ; what privations they had endured ; 
 what weary miles they had travelled on propagandist 
 service ; what adversaries they had confronted ; what 
 calumnies they had borne; aU in vain! They had 
 opened their halls to every howling theologist ; they had 
 suffered the eccentric and the incapable likely to commit 
 them to appear on their platforms. These irrelevant 
 reformers had been welcomed coadjutors. ■ When dis- 
 section was regarded with as much terror as murder 
 they admitted the advocates to their halls ; and when 
 the socialist leaders were dead, they were, by theirown 
 pre-arrangement, cut up by the surgeon for the gratuitous 
 extension of science. When teetotalers were deemed 
 more offensive than Southcotians they were allowed to 
 scream in the social institutions. 
 
 All this care, patience, toleration, labour, generous 
 sacrifice, and endurance had proved fruitless. They 
 had created but a new and startling confirmation of the 
 prediction of the enemy — schemes of associated life must 
 always end in failure. None of them, probably not the 
 youngest of the number, would live to witness the 
 renewal in England of their honourable efforts. They 
 had, however, the proud consolation so generously 
 expressed for them by the great Midland poetess : *— 
 
 " The greatest gift the hero leaves his race 
 Is to have been a hero. Say we fail : 
 We feed the high traditions of the world, 
 And leave our spirit in our country's breast." 
 
 ♦ George Eliot, 
 V 
 
82Si HISTORY OP CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 Debate Distrusted. 
 
 CHAPTEE XI, 
 
 SOME OF THE PBINCIPAL ADYEESARIES, 
 
 Look closei to't ; yon make the evil first ; 
 A base, then pile a heap of censures on it, 
 'Tis your own sin supplies the scaffolding 
 And mason work : yon skilful, rear the grim 
 Unsightly fabric, and there point, and say 
 " How ugly is it." You meanwhile forget 
 'Tis your own bandy work. I could say more ; 
 But there's a check within : 'tis such an one. 
 As you I trow, have banished from its birthplace. 
 
 —Old Flay. 
 
 Some account of the obstacles wliich the social pioneers 
 had to encounter, and of the adversaries who promoted 
 their discomfiture, will further elucidate the early history 
 of co-operative enterprise. 
 
 The system of challenging everybody to discuss every- 
 thing produced some excitement. The clergy, who then 
 never discussed long with anybody who answered them, 
 naturally felt that these debates ought to be put down ; 
 and not the clergy only : many other partisan persons 
 did not like controversy, and though they would take no 
 part themselves in actually suppressing, they were not 
 unwilling to see it done. The teetotallers of Liverpool, 
 members of a verbally offensive society themselves, who 
 invented a new social crime, called Moderation, and 
 rather apologised for the sot, actually suspended Mr. 
 Finch, who had done more than all of them put together 
 to advance temperance, and interdicted him from speak- 
 ing_ on platforms in their name, because of his social 
 notions. In Birmingham, ^n honest Quaker shoemaker, 
 
, Some of the peincipal adversaries. 323 
 
 Quaker Ways. 
 
 named Empson, not being able to live by working on 
 his own account, had to obtain a situation, but requiring 
 testimony to his character as a sober man, he applied to 
 Mr. John Cadbury, a well-known, influential, and kind- 
 hearted, and exemplary Quaker of the town, to give him 
 a testimonial. Mr. Cadbury being secretary to the 
 temperance society, who had known him many years as 
 a good teetotaller, was naturally sought to certify to the 
 fact. Mr. Cadbury . (whose handsome calves were the 
 admiration of Birmingham, and who wore breeches 
 the better to show them) answered as only a conventional 
 Quaker can — "William Empson, I want to hold no 
 communion with thee, and I have ordered others to hold 
 no communion with thee. Thou recollects the conver- 
 sation I had with thee about John Finch, of Liverpool, 
 when I told thee he was a blasphemer." "Yes," said 
 Mr. Empson, "I said if Mr. Finch comes to Birmingham, 
 I wHl do all I can to get him a temperance meeting ; but 
 Mr, Cadbury, you have long known me as a prominent 
 member of the temperance society, wiU you give me a 
 character for sobriety?" Mr. Cadbury answered, "No, 
 William Empson." "But, are you not a Christian, 
 sir?" inquired the appHcant. Mr. Cadbury answered, 
 "Yes, William Empson, I am, and I always respected 
 thee, but I do not want to hold any communion with 
 thee." 
 
 The chief reason why persecution is so hateful, is 
 that it so frequently succeeds in putting down the truth. 
 Well-directed persecution is a great power, like assas- 
 sination. The Bishop of Exeter, whose claims for 
 dignity in the church were not godliness, but vigorous- 
 ness and virulence, well understood that. Tory pam- 
 phleteering had done more for him than divinity, and 
 he naturally came forward in the House of Lords to 
 revile the grey-headed philanthropist, Mr. Owen,, who 
 had given his fortune to mitigate the lot of the poor. 
 Lord Normanby had presented Mr. Owen at Court. 
 
824 HISTOBY OP CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 Bishop PhUpott's Speech. 
 
 Her Majesty, with that queenly impartiality with which 
 she recognises every man of distinction who has served 
 the nation, was glad to meet the ancient friend of her 
 father. In their intimacy loans had passed between 
 them, which the Queen repaid when sh» knew it. Good 
 taste, if good feeling did not, should have kept the bishop 
 silent concerniQg a presentation so honourably accorded, 
 and which in no way concerned him. The bishop's 
 speech was thus reported in the Morning Chronicle, of 
 January 27th, 1840 :— 
 
 He wished of his fask he could he rid: 
 
 For he felt a hon-or, indeed he did, 
 
 Yet had seen and heard, with profotmd disgnst, 
 
 Their deeds of shame, and their words of last. 
 
 He was able to tell them all, he said, 
 
 The nanseons tale, from A to Z. 
 
 And he thought the Marquis of Normanby 
 
 Might relish the tale, as well as he. 
 
 The socialists were the vilest race 
 
 That ever on earth or hell had place. 
 
 He would not prejudge them — ^no, not he ; 
 
 For his soul overflowed with charity. 
 
 Incarnate fiends, he would not condemn ; 
 
 No, God forbid he should slander them ; 
 
 Foul swine, their lordships must confess, 
 
 He judged them with Christian gentleness. 
 
 He hated all show of persecution, 
 
 But why weren't they sent to execution ? 
 
 To hasty censures he objected, — 
 
 But was not Lord Normanby suspected ? 
 
 He never believed a rash report, 
 
 But who took Bobert Owen to Court ? 
 
 He would not call Owen a bloody man. 
 
 But he wrote in words of blood his plan. 
 
 He would not ofiend, but would faiu be knowing, 
 
 If Normanby was not as loose as Owen ? 
 
 And would ask, nought meaning by the hint, 
 
 Did he believe in God ? for Owen didn't. 
 
 This was the spirit in which the church commended 
 itself to the people in those pleasant days. The socialists 
 were sometimes irritating, because they were suffering. 
 They ofttimes put forth their views unwisely, because 
 many of them were ignorant. But they were not 
 
SOME OP THE PKINOIPAL ADVERSAUIES. 325 
 
 A Prelate held accountable. 
 
 covetous, and they were not sensualists; they were 
 honest men, seeking to better their condition by honest 
 work. 
 
 The bishop made no idle speech. He meant mischief, 
 and he did it. This was the time when Mr, William 
 Pare, the registrar of Birmingham, lost his situation, 
 and the town lost a publicist of a quality of knowledge 
 which has never been replaced. This was not the worst. 
 All over the country working men of skill and character 
 were dismissed from their employment, for attending 
 lectures upon the new principles of association. Some 
 of the men became masters, and blessed the day when 
 they were dismissed; and, as they became capable and 
 relentless rivals of their former employers, the said 
 employers did not bless the Bishop of Exeter for his 
 services. Many workmen were ruined, and others had 
 to emigrate; and I have heard them say that if they can 
 get at the Bishop of Exeter in the other world, either 
 above or below, they will make things very uncomfort- 
 able to him — and as the sharp-tongued bishop, clever 
 in all things, prolonged his life to a great age, some of 
 them thought he desired to delay the day of meeting 
 them as long as possible. 
 
 W. J. Fox, who wrote the epitaph on the grave of 
 Charles Eeece Pemberton, in Birmingham, says that if 
 the poet's dowry be the hate of hate, and the scorn of 
 scorn, it includes also the love of love. Happily this is 
 shown often to those who serve mankind. Often when 
 bishops are angry the people are grateful. Mr. Pare 
 experienced this. On his leaving Birmingham, a dinner 
 was given to him, November 1842. Mr. Pare was then 
 councillor of the ward of St. Thomas. Mr. G. F. Muntz, 
 M P was present, and said, "if he was asked who he 
 should appoint to take charge of business requiring 
 great care, great investigation, and great honesty, he 
 should say Mr. Pare was the man to do it. It was not 
 the second, nor the third, nor the tenth time he had 
 
326 HISTORY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 The Poet Laureate Assailed. 
 
 made that statement. If every man had worked in the 
 cause of reform as Mr. Pare had done, no man could 
 calculate what would have been the effect." 
 
 It did not mean very much that a bishop was angiy 
 with co-operators ; men of mark who showed any civility 
 to them were scolded in a grand way. One of the 
 quarterlies was disagreeable to- the poet laureate. It 
 said — "Mr. Southey brings to the task two faculties 
 which were never, we believe, vouchsafed in measure so 
 copious to any human being — ^the faculty of beheving 
 without a reason, and the faculty of hating without a 
 provocation. He seems to have an instinctive antipathy 
 for calm, moderate men — for men who shun extremes 
 and render reasons. He has treated Mr. Owen, of 
 Lanark, for example, with infinitely more respect than 
 he has shown to Mr. Hallam and Dr. Lingard; and this 
 for no reason that we can discover, except that Mr. 
 Owen is more um*easonably and hopelessly in the 
 wrong than any speculator of our time."* Happily poet 
 laureates have succeeded Southey equally incapable of 
 being intimidated out of sympathy for the fortunes of 
 honest, self-helping industry. 
 
 A number of wandering and flockless preachers hawked 
 challenges from town to town. One was a Mr. John 
 Bowes, a pachydermatous believer, who was not without 
 the gift of imputation, and with whom many discussions 
 were held. He was a sort of itinerant preacher among 
 the Methodists : but who discoursed chiefly for his own 
 hand — using street preaching as a means of collecting 
 a congregation for himself. The impression he gave 
 when he assailed the socialists was that he did it chiefly 
 as a means of attracting attention to himself. He 
 showed a rough sort of adroitness in dealing with the 
 necessarian arguments, then common on social plat- 
 
 * The student of social progress in this country scarcely needs to be 
 reminded that it was Southey who held out a helping hand to the x^'O- 
 moters of co-operation. — Leigh, Hunt. 
 
SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL ADVEESAUIES. 32? 
 
 Joseph Barlsei's Capacity and Career. 
 
 forms. As was the way with opponents of his class, he 
 was little scrupulous in what he imputed, and not at all 
 sensitive when he had laid himself open to just reproach. 
 In a discussion of some nights which I held with him in 
 Bradford, he gave me the idea that he was a species of 
 moral rhinoceros. Apart from the religious vices of 
 imputation which passed in those days for holy zeal, he 
 was known as a friend of temperance and political free- 
 dom, and died last year in Dundee well stricken in 
 years, after forty years of Wesleyan-like activity as a 
 peregrinating preacher. 
 
 The best qualified adversary who occupied co-operative 
 attention for a long period was the Eev. Joseph Barker, 
 a restless Wesleyan local preacher, who had not been 
 used well by his own party, and he avenged himself by 
 never treating any other party well. He published 
 pamphlets against social principles, always readable for 
 their offensive invective, but not -instructive, as the 
 objections he brought were entirely theological. The 
 social advocates, who always had an appetite for an 
 adversary, found Mr. Barker much occupation, and 
 were not very tender in the terms of speech they applied 
 to him. Mr. Barker excelled most men in his character 
 as a Christian, who destroyed respect for Christianity in 
 numerous persons, who otherwise would have dissented 
 from it in part, without disliking it as a whole. _ The 
 overwhelming majority of social reformers were believers 
 in the precepts of Christ, and desirous of being asso- 
 ciated with what would now be admitted as practical 
 Christianity. Mr. Barker was a man of strong feelings, 
 with wonderful command of Saxon-English, and an 
 almost poetic imagination; so that whatever side he 
 adopted, and he adopted every side in turns, he pre- 
 sented it with a force of speech which commanded 
 attention. He was not a man who originated thought, 
 but in discerning all that could be made of thought 
 which he found originated, he was unrivalled as a 
 
828 HISTORY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 AdventnreB of Dr. Brindley. 
 
 pojiular expounder. The imputations he" made upon 
 those who differed from whatever views he happened to 
 hold at the time would have amounted to a crime, had it 
 been an intellectual act of his mind ; but, as his imputa- 
 tions were applied to every party by turns to which he 
 had ceased to belong, it was merely the expression of 
 a jpowerful nature concentrating itseK upon the new 
 opinions which possessed him, and which made every- 
 body and everything seem hateful that stood outside the 
 convictions which at that hour possessed him. He left 
 to the adherents of every opinion that he espoused a 
 legacy of exposition and denunciation which no other 
 man contributed in his time. 
 
 Of all the opponents who were encountered by this 
 party, the most impudent was a person known sub- 
 sequently as Dr. Brindley. Mr. Hawkes Smith, of 
 Birmingham, having delivered some lectures on phreno- 
 logy, after a visit of Mr. George Combe to that town, 
 Mr. Brindley attacked that science. The present writer 
 advised Mr. Hawkes Smith to answer him. Mr. Smith 
 knew all about the subject, and Mr. Brindley nothing. 
 Not being able to reply, Mr. Brindley attacked Mr. 
 Hawkes Smith for his advocacy of Mr. Owen's views, of 
 which he was an important exponent. This excited the 
 applause of the clergy of that day, who were willing that 
 the new social principles should be denounced by some 
 one, and Dr. Brindley was engaged to do it. He became 
 the Caliban of the church. He did not issue from a 
 Cave of AduUam, where aU who were discontented were 
 invited ; but from a cave of Vituperation, where all who 
 uttered rude words of Mr. Owen, or had offensive impu- 
 tations to make against his followers, were welcome. 
 He went on his mission of defamation to our manufac- 
 turing towns, and counselled employers to dismiss men 
 of far honester repute than his own; and scores of 
 families were brought into distress by his calumnious 
 tongue. His prayer was literally — 
 
SOME OP THE PEINCIPAL ADVEESAEIES. 329 
 
 Death of Dr. Brindley. 
 
 Lord, in Thy day of vengeance try them ; 
 Lord, visit them who did employ them. 
 
 Brindley was originally a travelling comb seller. It was 
 to kis credit that he became a schoolmaster — but he 
 need not have continued a pedlar in piety. As a dispu- 
 tant he was not without some good qualities. He was 
 not afraid of discussion. He never sheltered himself 
 under German mysticism or occult or transcendental 
 interpretations, but stated and defended the broad vulgar 
 orthodox Christianity of the day, from which abler, 
 wiser men weakly and unworthily shrunk. He perished 
 at last in the streets of New York. Ministers of religion 
 in America were more scrupulous than in England, and 
 would not work by his means. Dr. HoUick, who was 
 living in New York, did not hear of his fate until it was 
 too late, else, he wrote, he would have rendered succour 
 to the old adversary in his last extremity. He had pro- 
 fessed to follow Mr. Bradlaugh to America. It is 
 impossible not to feel respect and sympathy for the fate 
 of the old combatant. He died like the war horse, 
 sniffing battle afar off, when age had weakened his 
 powers without being able to tame his spirit. It would 
 not be fair either to the clergy or to our lay critics to 
 conceal what the excitement was all about. 
 
 Mr. Owen had great designs, which made him under- 
 value the importance of regulated explanations. Moved 
 by a general eagerness to turn men's attention to the 
 power which dwelt in circumstances, he was careless of 
 the perversion of his words by unfriendly hearers, and 
 put into the heads of all who listened to him, the bewil- 
 dering but instructive phrase, that "man's character 
 was formed for him and not by him."* Lest the 
 alarming idea should not strike sufficiently a hostile 
 
 * This tronWesome proposition, Mr. Bray relates, "was onenpon which 
 his followers, without exception, took their stand." By a resolution of 
 the proprietors of Orbiston, the tenants were obliged to sign their assent 
 to it before admission into the society. 
 
830 HISTOET OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Polemical Fniunpals. 
 
 public, he coined or used (for I have not been able to 
 trace its origin) the unforgetable and alliterative phrase 
 "man is the creature of circumstances." _ This was not 
 an alarming idea to the school of material improvers, 
 for they believed they could create and put in permanent 
 force right circumstances. Instead of being alarming 
 to them, to contemplate man as having "his character 
 formed for him" — the great dogma was, their charter of 
 encouragement. To mankind at large, in whom hating 
 amounts to a talent — who dislike each other gratuitously, 
 and to whom abuse of those they differ from is a moral 
 pleasure — it seemed a restrictive doctrine to be asked to 
 admit that there were extenuating circumstances in the 
 career of every rascal. To the clergy of those days, 
 with whom censure was a profession, and who held that 
 all sin was wiKul, man being represented as the " creature 
 of circumstances," appeared an absolute denial of moral 
 responsibility. When they were asked to direct hatred 
 against error, and pity the erring — who had inherited so 
 base a fortune of incapacity and condition — ^they were 
 wroth exceedingly, and said it would be making a com- 
 promise with sin. The idea of the philosopher of 
 circumstances was that the very murderer in his last 
 cell had been born with a staple in his soul, to which 
 the villainous conditions of his life had attached an un- 
 seen chain, which had drawn him to the gaUows,* and 
 that the rope which was to hang him was but the visible 
 part. There was manifestly truth in the idea, as legis- 
 lators since that day have come praeticaKy to admit it, 
 in the unrevenging doctrine that penal infliction should 
 be limited as far as possible to the prevention of crime, 
 and that punishment itself is justifiable only as far as 
 it is conducive to that end, or to use the great words of 
 Hobbes, "Punishment regardeth not the past, only the 
 
 * See tMs idea, which is better expressed by my old friend Thorn, the 
 poet, of luveraiy, in the preface to his poems. 
 
BOMB OP THE PRINCIPAL ADVEESAEIES. 331 
 
 Dr. Travis's Theory, 
 
 future." Unfortunately, the sociologists of half a cen- 
 tury ago had no skill, or no thought of clothing their 
 new truth in considerate explanations, but sent it naked 
 into the world, where it merely shocked an unprepared 
 public. They should have remembered that society 
 ever liked holding individuals responsible for its own 
 neglect. The social advocates, however, believing that 
 they held the secret which priests, legislators, and 
 moralists had missed, for saving mankind by a science 
 of material life, they thought society would be very 
 glad to hear from them in the plainest terms, and did 
 not find out their mistakes until they had got well 
 kicked for their unceremonious ardour. 
 
 After this unpleasant Operation had gone on for forty 
 years. Dr. Travis, an early and influential disciple of 
 Mr. Owen, proposed a new statement of the doctrine of 
 character; which, while it recognises the causation of 
 the will, admits a self-determining power in man, which 
 justifies instruction being given to him, and appeals 
 being made to him. One who is in the foremost rank 
 of those who have thrown light over ravelled questions 
 of controversy, remarks, " Instead of saying that man 
 is the creature of circumstance, it would be nearer the 
 mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance."* 
 
 It would therefore be unjust to imply that adversaries 
 of co-operative doctrines, clerical or lay, always gratui- 
 tously misunderstood them. There were unskilful state- 
 ments of them made, which often left them open to 
 honest misconception. The greatest masters of state- 
 ment sometimes fail to convey an exact impression of 
 their meaning. I have seen Mr. Cobden look at his 
 words as though they were palpable to him in the air, 
 retracting doubtful terms, amplifying the deficient, and 
 qualifying those that went too far. Those who had none 
 of Mr. Cobden's experience and sagacity, must have 
 
 • a. H. Lewes' "Life of Goethe." 
 
832 HISTORY OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Creation of Polemical Facts. 
 
 misled many fair meaning opponents. Those who looked 
 to what co-operators did, and interpreted by that light 
 what they said, knew, that instead of teaching regard- 
 lessness, they brought a new sense of responsibility to 
 bear upon the world. 
 
 But in the days in question more than in these, it was 
 the habit of theologians to regard their own inferences 
 as facts. Their own interpretation of what a certain 
 principle would lead to they asserted to be what the 
 author of the principle intended it to lead to. And, as 
 it seldom occurred to these critics that they could be mis- 
 taken, some of them gave their own inferences as their 
 adversary's own statement. And if anyone pointed out 
 that he never had said it, the only redress obtained was, 
 that he ought to have said it, and had he been an honest 
 man, and capable of understanding his own doctrines, 
 he would have said it. Thus it came to be represented 
 that " Mr. Owen taught that man was the creature of 
 circumstances over which he had no control, and there- 
 fore was not responsible for his belief, conduct, words, or 
 actions."* Mr. Owen gave emphasis to the doctrine of 
 the mighty influence of material things over man for good 
 or evil, because that was not acknowledged then. As far 
 as belief was concerned, that, he said, was so entirely 
 commanded by evidence, that a man could not be held 
 responsible for conclusions which evidence justified. 
 On any question of moment it was urged that every one 
 -should fully inform himself, and study both sides of it. 
 Christians could say no more, and it was well Imown 
 that in matters of faith they never did so much. No one 
 was better aware than Mr. Owen that the man who did 
 not master all the facts he could upon a question upon, 
 which he had to decide was a fool, and would probably 
 come to the conclusion of a fool. As to conduct and 
 
 * Dr. Brindley reproduced in Leicester, in 1873, this fossil objection in 
 these diseased word^. 
 
SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL ADVEESAEIES. 833 
 
 Old Controversies. 
 
 action, they were the affairs of society, not of faith. 
 The working effect of these views was to awaken in the 
 minds of those who understood them the instincts of 
 pity and prevention. They wasted no time in hate or 
 retaliation ; even when they saw men do base and brutal 
 things, and knew that they meant them. If knaves 
 could be arrested or instructed, they attempted it : if 
 not, they took counsel against them, to make, as far as 
 they could, the repetition of the offence impossible. 
 They knew there dwelt in the human mind no mad, 
 devil-born wiU, but a caused will, obedient to the laws 
 of evidence, sympathy, and circumstance, and which 
 had to be studied and educated as the source of charac- 
 ter and energy. Circumstance was with them a name 
 for causation. Seeing that belief arose from the pre- 
 judice or evidence that produced it, and whoever could 
 supply the right evidence would in the long run command 
 the right belief, they held that penalties for mere belief 
 were immoral and misleading. They saw that no man 
 was free in the wild theological sense of being able to 
 act without reason, but free only in the philosophical 
 sense, which teaches that a man is free to do what he 
 will according to reason, when no law prevents him, or 
 ho external force restrains him, and no penalty terrifies 
 him. They made war upon wild-will, and were always 
 opposed by the wild-will men, whose mad case is, that 
 responsibility begins where men have choice and liberty 
 to choose. Libertine theologians say that a man's 
 freedom constitutes his responsibility, whereas, respon- 
 sibility to God or man is the creation of contract. A 
 person who never heard of Christianity is not responsible 
 to believe in it. The church understands this, as it 
 appoints sponsors for a child, as a child is not able to 
 enter into any contract. When it is old enough to enter 
 into an engagement to believe, it is asked to do so ; that 
 being called confirmation. If an adult does not enter into 
 the contract, he is not responsible to believe. The Bible 
 
834 lIISTOETf OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 The Leicester Prmciple of Advocacy. 
 
 ■with some, the Thirty-nine Articles with others, is the 
 contract of belief. The Bishop of Peterborough has put 
 this point with great clearness. He says, " Starting 
 from the maxim, man is free, we arrive logically at the 
 conclusion that there can be no authority for that man. 
 Starting from the axiom, authority is supreme, is to 
 arrive at the logical conclusion that there is no room 
 for liberty." 
 
 If men in the days here referred to had had the habit 
 of thinking for themselves, they would have seen that 
 in civil society all responsibility is the result of contract 
 to obey law and respect the rights of others. ' If, like a 
 savage, a man chooses to remain free, he is responsible 
 to no one. "When he enters into society he gives up his 
 freedom and accepts the limits law imposes upon him. 
 Man's responsibility does not depend on his freedom. 
 It does not commence untU he has given his freedom up. 
 If freedom means responsibility, then God, being most 
 free, would be the most responsible of aU beings. " In 
 so far as man is &ee he is not responsible. In so far 
 as he is responsible he is not free."* 
 
 The most sacred part of the mind is reason. What- 
 ever the understanding holds in the highest repute and 
 regards with the greatest devoutness should be founded 
 in reason. Otherwise the most foolish or dangerous 
 superstitions or erroneous conceptions might find per- 
 manent lodgment in the mind. There is one town 
 (Leicester) where social views early took root — where a 
 few men of strong understanding, of unusual dispas- 
 sionateness and judgment, have, during more than a 
 generation, maintained public interest in social ideas. 
 What may be called the Leicester principle of contro- 
 versy is to question and try all assertions and pretensions. 
 To this day no person in the society meetings there can 
 advance any propositions except under the condition of 
 
 " Josiah Gimson, in coutioTerejr with Br. Brindley, 1873< 
 
! feOME OF a;HE PKiNCIPAli ADVEESAiUHS. 835 
 
 Public Fear of Combinations. 
 
 submitting them to discussion. Dr. Brindley's last 
 appearance in England was in Leicester. He proposed 
 in his usual rabid way to debate the question of Atheism. 
 Secular and social questions being both larger and dis- 
 tinct from Atheism, th& present writer refused to discuss 
 a subject with him which would confuse the undiscern- 
 ing public, and lead them to confound Atheism with 
 social and secular principles. That the pretensions of 
 dogmatic Theism should not be advanced unquestioned, 
 Mr. Josiah Gimson, a resident engineer in the town, met 
 Dr. Brindley several nights in discussion, contributing 
 greatly to the public information upon the subject. 
 Elsewhere no instance has occurred in which a private 
 gentleman had stepped forward in this way to discuss 
 such a topic — the town fully understanding and respect- 
 ing the courage and independence of the proceeding on 
 his part. This was in 1873. In the earlier days of 
 social controversy this could not have happened. This 
 persistence in discussion, temperately but firmly, on the 
 part of co-operative thinkers, has advanced the capacity 
 and toleration of English society. Professor Tyndall, 
 after one of his great addresses at the Dundee meeting 
 of the British Association, which had somewhat amazed 
 the Duke of Buccleugh, the president for the year, said 
 generously to the' present writer, in reference to the wise 
 and instructed toleration of modern controversies of the 
 nature, "We do but reap where others have sown." 
 
 It could not have been that there was newness in the 
 social doctrine which excited opposition: perhaps it was 
 the co-operative application of it to the judgment and 
 improvement of character, and to the allaying the 
 antagonism and intolerance which made association of 
 men impossible — that led to it being condemned. Cer- 
 tainly the state did not approve of unity among workmen. 
 Laws had long been directed against combination; the 
 pretence was that the combination prohibited was for 
 dangerous purposes, but the fact was that in the eyes of 
 
336 HISTOEY OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Eemarkable Argmnent of Jeremy Taylor. 
 
 rulers all combination was dangerous. Divisions among 
 workmen were advantageous to those who could not 
 trust them. The divided were weak, and the weak 
 could be held in check. Nobody supposed that work- 
 men would combine for peaceable, self-helping objects, 
 without harm to anyone. The clergy had less excuse 
 for their angry words, for many of great name among 
 them, as James Mill had shown, in his exhaustive 
 tract on Toleration, had laid down the same doctrine 
 with a force far greater than Owen possessed. One may 
 be named here, whom Mr. Mill does not cite, had ex- 
 pressed with unrivalled precision, the social tenet that 
 opinion was not a crime, but a conviction, and that 
 tolerance and instruction were the conditions on which 
 social unity could be hoped for. Jeremy Taylor, nearly 
 two hundred years before Owen, wrote: "Force in 
 matters of opinion can do no good, but is very apt to do 
 hurt; for no man can change his opinion when he will, 
 or be satisfied in his reason that his opinion is false, 
 because discountenanced. If a man could change his 
 opinion when he lists, he might cure many iucon- 
 veniences of his life; all his fears and his sorrows would 
 soon disband, if he would but alter his opinion, whereby 
 he is persuaded that such an accident that afflicts him 
 is an evil, and such an object formidable ; let him but 
 beheve himself impregnable, or that he receives a 
 benefit when he is plundered, disgraced, imprisoned, 
 condemned, and afflicted, neither his sleeps need to be 
 disturbed, nor his quietness discomposed. But if a man 
 cannot change his opinion when he lists, nor ever does 
 heartily or resolutely but when he cannot do otherwise, 
 then to use force may make him a hypocrite, but never 
 to be a right believer; and po, instead of erecting a 
 trophy to God and true religion, we build a monument 
 for the devil. . . . We either punish a man for 
 keeping a good conscience, or force him into a bad; 
 we either punish sincerity, or persuade hypocrisy; we 
 
BOMB OF THE PBIKOIFAL ABVEBSABIES. 837 
 
 Trnth Suppressible. 
 
 per seer be a truth, or drive into error; we teach a man 
 to dissemble and to be safe, but never to be honest."* 
 
 The relevance and conclusiveness of these authorities 
 availed us nothing with the vehement majority. It was 
 regarded as a new sin in the social party to show that 
 eminent men had agreed in principle with them. The 
 vindictiveness of the enemy harmed the movement in 
 two ways : one by alarming men of capacity and position, 
 who therefore ceased to instruct or countenance it by 
 coming to the front; the other and more serious by 
 making the high spirited among the party resentful and 
 retaliative, prone to foUow the advice of those bold and 
 indignant leaders whose principle is courage, and whose 
 policy is outrage; men of the order of St. Just, who 
 destroyed many excellent reformers by his maxim that 
 they who attempt half measures dig their own graves. 
 But St. Just's maxim did not keep him alive long enough 
 to observe that they who insist upon whole measures 
 while they are only half supported commonly get them- 
 selves or their cause, and commonly both, into the 
 sexton's hands very early. 
 
 Those do not see far who say that truth cannot be 
 suppressed. Most persons of public observation must 
 have seen it suppressed many times. Lord Brougham 
 succeeded in terrifying Parliament in his day into tole- 
 ration of unpopular opinions, by contending that nothing 
 could extend them but the power of persecution. If 
 brave men stand by unfriended truth and choose a proper 
 time to die in its defence, persecution will spread it. If 
 cowards or ease-loving, time-serving, unobservant men 
 are the only advocates who have truth in hand, persecu- 
 tion, well directed, will soon put it down. This is the 
 real reason why persecution is intrinsically hateful. 
 Theoretical people, who have never been engaged in the 
 battle for truth, talk of it being immortal. It is the 
 
 * Liberty of Prophesying. 
 W 
 
338 HISTOBY OF CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 The error of too mach confidence. 
 
 good popular well-timed lie which is the longest lived. 
 Li the nature of human things it must be so. Truth 
 is the chUd of Culture and Courage. Falsehood has 
 a thousand charms for ignorance and interest, and 
 timidity of mind. 
 
 Certainly Co-operation suffered in the assaults to 
 which it was subjected. Though retarded, it was not 
 disabled. Of other agitations it may be said that they 
 brought into play the passions or ambitions of the 
 people : of the social agitation it must be owned that it 
 brought into play the imderstanding only, and made 
 men enquiring and reflective. The intellect let loose 
 proved no wild animal needing a chain to restrain it, as 
 Dr. Newman asserts, but a salutary and self-managing 
 agent, active ia improving individual character and the 
 means of life. These debates delayed the march of 
 Co-operation just as that of an army is delayed when 
 needs arise for halting the men for rest and further 
 training. There is no doubt of the effect of that precau- 
 tion upon the fortunes of the campaign. If, when the 
 fighting ceased, no victory was declared, there can be no 
 doubt with which side lay the advantage ; for in all the 
 subsequent career of Co-operation the clerical adver- 
 saries never returned to the charge ; and the co-operators 
 have grown fearless and secure. The mistake the 
 pioneers made was that of too much confidence in the 
 force of truth, and making too little provision for the 
 continuous educational discipline of their forces. 
 
 We certainly gave the theologist reason to attack us, 
 as the reader will think whose courageous curiosity has 
 carried him thus far. Still, it would have been credita- 
 ble to the enemy had they attacked us with a httle more 
 temper — ^perhaps one ought to say with a better quality 
 of temper — for there was enough of it, such as it was. 
 
 The adversaries of the socialists were not as a rule 
 dainty in their imputations. The Eev. Mr. Anderson, 
 of Glasgow, a man of character and great ability, and of 
 
SOME OF THE PBINCIPAL ADVBKSABIES. 339 
 
 Medals Earned by Garblers. 
 
 generous political sympathies, and from whom in later 
 years I oft had the pleasure, through my friend Mr, 
 "William Logan, the wisest city missionary I have known, 
 to receive valued communications ; yet in his vehement 
 days Dr. Anderson called the "Very Eeverend and 
 Preliminary Social Father" an " Incestuous Profligate." 
 But this was not a very objectionable phrase, in a 
 rhetorical sense ; for when an angry adversary departs 
 from the truth the farther he departs the better. He is 
 more picturesque, and he is placed by the concurrence 
 of common judgment outside the pale of those who are 
 to be regarded. It is not improbable that many pf the 
 adversaries who appeared were dishonest, and had, 
 some of them, a natural and some an acquired habit of 
 not knowing the truth when they saw it, and of not 
 speaking it even by mistake; and, doubtless, some of them 
 did garble with an ability that would have entitled them 
 to a prize medal, had there been any board of examiners 
 to award distinction to that kind of merit ; but in con- 
 troversy he who recognises these peculiarities arrests 
 altogether the progress of his arguments, and invites 
 attention to the adversary instead of to the subject. To 
 show that accuracy of statement appears not to be an 
 opponent's forte, and to make a stronger presentment 
 than before existed of what the truth of the matter in 
 question really is, is to damage the adversary sufficiently, 
 and advance the argument at the same time. 
 
 In February, 1834, the "Eev. Mr. Bedford," as he 
 was then called, published a letter in the Worcester 
 Journal, against Mr. Owen; not more objectionable 
 than clerical letters of that time were, but not at all a 
 letter likely to serve the "cause," as rage then ran. 
 The " Crisis " following the usual policy of the social 
 party, that of hel^mg the enemy to abuse its friends, 
 published this letter, which I shall not reproduce. 
 
 In Worcester, the religious opposition to co-operative 
 speeches amounted to violence. It was only by the effort 
 
840 HISTORY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Old Eiots. 
 
 of a strong-lianded carpenter, whom I well knew, and in 
 whose house I subsequently lived, one Eobert Jones, 
 that Mr. Owen's life was saved from an infuriated mob.* 
 The Eev. Dr. Bedford was an adversary who went great 
 lengths. In a public discussion, he committed upon Mr. 
 Owen an indignity which created a stronger hostility to 
 Christianity than anything else which had occurred in 
 the Midland counties. 
 
 Mr. Alexander Campbell, the most fatherly-minded 
 of all the missionaries, whose voice sounded like a truce, 
 was forcibly prevented preaching the new gospel of 
 industry, on Glasgow Green, on Sundays. It was a 
 common thing to have halls refused after they had been 
 duly let, and no County Court Judge in those daj^s would 
 award any damages for a breach of faith. Eiots took 
 place at the Broadmead Eooms, Bristol, upon the "social 
 innovators," as Mr. Sargant pleasantly names them. 
 Attempts were often made to retaliate, but the imitation 
 generally fell far short of the original. 
 
 If harsh things were sometimes said, if speeches good 
 taste should have chastened were spoken, if fierce 
 phrases sometimes escaped these advocates, let it be 
 remembered that assailing divines, estabHshed or dis- 
 senting, were not much distinguished for felicity in thek 
 phrases, and seldom showed towards us toleration or 
 patience of speech, t Therefore, the coarse representa- 
 
 * I have heard that Jones, as years advanced, joined the Methodists. 
 If so, he has a double chance of salvation if his creed be good, for he has 
 generous works to plead, as well as faith. 
 
 t Indeed piety was not always self-respecting in the company it pro- 
 posed to take above, nor very dainty in its invitations to the public. 
 There were those among us who remember, in our early chapel days, 
 reading in our hymn books sturdy verses beginning — 
 
 "Come dirty, come stinking, come "just as yon are." 
 An invocation of fine Saxon vigour, but not remarkable for delicacy. Nor 
 did noblemen and clergymen then shrink from countenancing such style of 
 address, any more than they have recently done in the case of Moody and 
 Sankey, and it not deeming it good enough for the people, at least thinking 
 it might do the people good. 
 
SOME OF THE PEINOIPAL ADVEESAEIES. 841 
 
 The Battered Pioneers. 
 
 tions of the adversaries from the Bishop of Exeter 
 downwards to the Eev. Brewin Grant, should not be 
 accepted as though co-operative controversial advocates 
 fell below their adversaries or sinned in the face of higher 
 example. In Bristol, there was a dangerous fight 
 through the narrow passage leading to the Broadmead 
 Booms, occupied by the socialists in that city. Work- 
 men were sometimes dismissed who were observed to 
 have a copy of the "New Moral World" in their pos- 
 session. In some cases clergymen refused to bury 
 co-operators, and in one case a sexton caught the post- 
 humous contagion, and refused to dig a grave for a 
 socialist's, child. Mr. Connard, a well-known speaker, 
 who became an insolvent, was stigmatised as deranged 
 because he honourably refused to make oath, as not in 
 accordance with his conscience, and Mr. Commissioner 
 Eeynolds sent him back to prison with many words of 
 outrage when he could otherwise have discharged him. 
 Mr. Connard was kept in prison many months, as a 
 punishment for his creditable scruples. The Eev. Mr. 
 Giles, a Baptist minister of disagreeable ability, said 
 "Socialism was a union of all practices, save those of 
 chastity and virtue." Many clerical graces of speech, 
 not easy to excel, were expended upon the poor pioneers. 
 Epithets of such variety and such profusion, hurled 
 with such vicious effect, have not fallen upon the heads 
 of any modern parties of workmen. Had the showers 
 of denunciation been material, hke hail or rain, the 
 pioneers would have lost the brims of their hats, and 
 their garments had hung in sodden shreds. They came 
 to be known as the Well Battered Party. One good, 
 however, came out of the long fray, the missiles of speech 
 thrown at them were so broken in the rebound, that 
 they have never been di use any more. 
 
 When Mr. Owen was a boy, he swallowed some 
 scalding food in his anxiety to reach his school early. 
 His digestion was very much weakened by it, he was 
 
342 HISTORT OP 00-OPEBATION. 
 
 OontroTereial Meiriment. 
 
 obliged to be very careful in the food which he took. In 
 illustrating his belief of the influence of circumstances, 
 he related this event as one which early disposed him 
 to observation and care. With his oft indifference to 
 what advantage might be taken of his expressions, he 
 mentioned that the kind of food which he partook, which 
 was common in Wales in his youth, was called flummery. 
 As this word was a slang term for untrustworthy speech, 
 adversaries made much of it. Clerical speakers thought 
 it an excellent point to say that the social system began 
 in flummery.* This seemed very witty, and always 
 produced peals of laughter. 
 
 The people would have permitted discussions about 
 the science of society to go on in the hope that some- 
 thing would come of it for their advantage had they not 
 been told by preachers that there was something wrong 
 in it. In Euncorn, a Mrs. Johnson left the Established 
 Church and went over to the Wesleyan chapel. She 
 was called upon to explain her proceeding. She at once 
 replied that it was on account of her Sunday pie being 
 exactly done when the Methodist chapel came out; 
 whereas when she attended the church it was always 
 overdone. The good woman regulated her piety by her 
 pastry. Arguments about will, necessity, and cir- 
 cumstances, such as were used by these crude propa- 
 gandists, would have sent all the people to sleep had not 
 the ecclesiastical gongs kept them awake. + When the 
 familiar vehicle we now see in the streets without terror 
 first appeared in a university county, a peasant, in the 
 vicinity of an Oxfordshire village, ran one night to warn 
 
 * Charles Enight, in his "Passages of a Working Life," gives an 
 account of his tour in 1828, to gain support for the Useful Knowledge 
 Society. He tells us that at Liverpool he fqund a few clerical opponents, 
 and one of them preaohed also against mechanics' institutes ; at Man- 
 chester, no clerical support could be obtained; and at York he could do 
 but little, for "the commercial atmosphere was better adapted for the 
 diffiision of secular knowledge than was the ecclesiastical." 
 
 t See "Majoribank's Tour." 
 
SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL ADVERSARIES. 843 
 
 Influence of a Dispassionate Adversary. 
 
 the inhabitants that a frightful monster ^vith saucer 
 eyes, and making a snorting noise, was coming towards 
 the place. Those who had courage got behind the hedge 
 to look. The monster turned out to be a post chaise,* 
 with two lamps. The clergy always mistook social 
 science for an Oxford post chaise', and alarmed quiet 
 people at it. 
 
 A fair, a clever, and gentlemanly opponent met with 
 great respect and regard when one appeared, which was 
 very seldom. The Eev. J. H. Eoebuck held a public 
 discussion with Mr. Owen, in Manchester, in 1837. He 
 was a Wesleyan of remarkable ability and remarkable 
 fairness, and the distinctness of his objections were weU 
 seen in consequence. Though he was, therefore, a more 
 influential adversary than many vituperative ones, he 
 was always spoken of with respect, and his early death 
 was sincerely deplored. 
 
 There can be no great progress in state or store, which 
 does not maintain social, as well as theological toleration ; 
 because under freedom of thought and action, everyone 
 has a chance of being of public service, while under 
 restriction, only a few have that opportunity. The old 
 pioneers of Co-operation vmderstood this, and stood up 
 always for liberty and relevance of speech. But the new 
 members of stores did not like it, and could not trust it. 
 The earnest among them thought toleration meant 
 indifference to what opinion prevailed. This was the 
 mistake which some still make. Toleration does in 
 one sense mean indifference, but it is only that 
 indifference which every sincere man ought to feel, 
 namely, indifference which particular party view pre- 
 vails — ^providing it be the true one. Toleration means 
 anxiety for the truth : it means ardour for the truth : it 
 means confidence in the truth. It believes that truth, 
 like fire, is excited by collision, and that no truth can be 
 
 * Joseph Brosbridge, 1824. 
 
344 HISTORY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Toleration, Trust in the Truth. 
 
 known to be true, save that which has passed through 
 the ordeal of controversy. Toleration means giving new 
 truth fair play. Intolerance, which is prohibition, gives 
 it none. Therefore toleration is not indifference to the 
 truth, but regard for it; and very courageous regard too. 
 It is intolerance which is really indifferent to the truth, 
 unless it coincides with its own predilection. And the 
 wisdom of the pioneers has been shown in this, that 
 those stores which have grown most, become the strongest, 
 and most famous, have been those in which its members 
 have permitted and exercised the utmost Uberty of 
 opinion, within the limits of fairness and relevance. It 
 would indeed be a formidable objection to social toler- 
 ation, if it rendered men indifferent to that which is, and 
 ought to be, an object of chiefest solicitude to all who 
 care for the security of progress — namely, the truth of 
 prevailing opinions. It is, therefore, of importance to 
 insist, with whatever distinctness of expression can be 
 commanded, that since the conditions of truth are now 
 well ascertained to be liberty of idea, of expression, and 
 of criticism, it is not he who is tolerant of these, but 
 he who is intolerant of them, who is indifferent to the 
 truth, and upon whom the stigma of looseness and lati- 
 tudinarianism of mind ought to fall. 
 
BAELY ADTOOATES. 845 
 
 Sooial Advocates not Demagognes. 
 
 CHAPTBE XII. 
 EAELY ADVOCATES. 
 
 So when the Parthian turned his steed, 
 And from the hostile camp withdrew, 
 
 With cruel skill the backward reed 
 He sent ; and as he fled he slew. 
 
 LoTJis Blano has described the Jacobin as powerful, 
 original, sombre ; half agitator and half statesman ; 
 half Puritan and half monk : half inquisitor and half 
 tribune. The co-operative advocates were not men of 
 this strong stamp, but they were not wanting in some of 
 these qualities; and in purpose, perseverance, and 
 propagandist capacity they surpassed all working-class 
 advocates of their time, and produced an historic im- 
 pression upon public opinion. They certainly were not 
 demagogues, as any one may see from the definition of a 
 modern writer who excels in comprisiag in one short 
 passage a complete study of those troublesome persons.* 
 These early advocates chose the unpopular side, which 
 
 • The demagogue, in aU ages and in aU countries, ia likely to be a man 
 voluble and vehement in speech-expansive and popular m las humo^- 
 more plausible in advocating measures than wise in choosing them— 
 rscruCous in his alliancis with aU who wiU serve his immediate 
 IfeSnZme in his views-magnificent m his P'^^^^f^-Tj^f^y T"* 
 snecious theories and proposals of sweeping change-restless m agitation, 
 but SipatteTof obscure fabour-aiming at immediate and showy results^ 
 wMch mav keep up his popularity-and, from a certam loose and random 
 way ofS! rften not a safe man in pecuniary affairs, although he may 
 have noSnation for deUberate dishonesty.-C. Mammon. "Labour 
 and Capital." p. 126. 
 
846 HISTORY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 The Dnke of Wellington's idea of them. 
 
 ■was venomous and ill-requited; they believed in their 
 measures themselves, and their lives and industry alike 
 commanded respect, and their disinterestedness was 
 sho-wn in persisting in a course which was far from 
 bringitig them flattering recognition. The Duke of 
 Wellington, when they were brought under his notice, 
 admitted they were clever, but added, in his coarse, 
 vindictive way, "they were clever devils." With more 
 discrimination and courtesy, as befitted his station, the 
 Bishop of London said of these social reformers, that, 
 though they were generally men of " some education," 
 their deficiency was that they were wanting -in humble 
 docUity, that prostration of the understanding and will, 
 which are indispensable to Christian instruction." No 
 doubt they were open to this charge ; want of " humble 
 docility" was conspicuous in them. It never occurred 
 to them to " prostrate their understanding," The use 
 of it seemed to them the only way open to themselves or 
 others of making out how things stood. 
 
 These adventurous . and unskilled social navigators 
 had to pull their doubtful skiffs through rough water. 
 At that time society abounded with persons, they are 
 not yet quite extinct, who would never do anything for 
 the workman except think for him. They would neither 
 find him work, nor bread, nor money, but they would 
 supply him with opinions, either religious or political, 
 ready made. These people gave a very poor account of 
 social projects. The political economist considered 
 them the dream of folly — the clergyman, of wickedness — 
 the statesman, of insubordination — the employer, of idle- 
 ness — the rich man, of plunder — the capitalist, of con- 
 fiscation — the journalist, of demagogiam. Being converts 
 themselves, with no faculty for standing outside the 
 movement, and making out what it should be, the 
 pioneers were themselves a bit confused; and the 
 strajoge party, amid whom they had to act, was cal- 
 culated to increase that state of mind. 
 
EAELY ADVOCATES, 847 
 
 Bamsliackle Stores. 
 
 Co-operation in its early days was somewhat of a 
 ramshackle, ricketty vehicle, not much unlike the droU 
 estabUshments suddenly opened by the Cheap John 
 benefactors of the fair. It was laden with doubtful 
 articles — ^brought together by poor fellows who had too 
 little money to buy many things, and small skill to 
 select the right ones. Mostly pale and thin, these 
 amateur shopmen looked as though they needed them- 
 selves to eat up the commodities they tried to sell. 
 Their humble anxiety to get customers was an argu- 
 ment against going to their shop. And what business 
 they did was done in a noisy and suspicious way. Every 
 crotchet that thickened the air of Utopia was proclaimed 
 at their doors. Poets, enthusiasts, dreamers; reformers 
 of all things, and the baser sort of disbelievers in any, 
 gave them a turn : for, as we all know, a nimble eccen- 
 tricity always treads on the heels of change.* Preachers 
 who had no churches, and lectm-ers who had no hearers, 
 formed an audience here. There was nobody so mad 
 but their right to improve the world was respected; and 
 there was not a regenerating lunatic at large who did 
 not practise upon them, eliciting their unsuspecting 
 applause. The philosophers were scandalised at them — 
 the political economists shook their heavy heads at 
 them — the newspapers were scornful — politicians in the 
 House of Commons proposed, as we have seen, to put 
 them down — bishops interdicted them in the House of 
 Lords, and the clergy consigned them individually and 
 collectively to perdition. The estabUshed shopkeepers, 
 who alone understood the nature of the enemy, assailed 
 them in tin kettle tones. Luckily the honest fellows 
 had a well-instructed patience. Their recognised advo- 
 cates, however, served them well, teaching them that 
 every creature must be allowed to articulate after its 
 kind, and would do bett er if it only knew how. The 
 
 * " Licentiousness always treads on the heels of reformation."— B. W. 
 Emerson. 
 
848 HISTORY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Crowds of Grazes. 
 
 heretics, who were their only friends, eventually silenced 
 the clamour; and the men of sense and purpose made 
 their way to the front, and Co-operation got a hearing, 
 and grew in favour with men. 
 
 The progress was slow and intermittent. As in all 
 new parties, and as for that in old ones too, at times 
 there were figures in the social landscape that attracted 
 attention, without enticing adherents. Fastidious friends 
 of progress were not pleased that the prominent advocate 
 of the system should be an Irish philosopher, — Mr. 
 Thompson, of Cork — ^who was against large famOies, 
 and in favour of dissection. So soon as a party makes 
 the dangerous profession of being " Eational," every- 
 body looks to them to countenance or aid everything that 
 can claim to be rational; so that unless it is strong 
 enough to hold fast, and hold mainly to one great pur- 
 pose, it is overwhelmed with all the aspirations of the 
 time. Thus it was that Social Eeformers, not knowing 
 how to subordinate without discouraging the just efforts 
 of others, became the Nursing Mother of all the " Crazes" 
 of the day, as all new things are deemed until they are 
 generally adopted. 
 
 There was a Dr. Mc.Cormac, of Dublin, who, being, 
 like Bentham, a philosopher above vulgar prejudice, pro- 
 minently advocated that all co-operators should leave 
 their bodies for anatomical purposes. He was called 
 the "Skeleton-Man" of the movement; and some 
 Christian partisans did not hesitate to sajr that Mr. 
 Owen wanted to get men into communities in order to 
 sell their bodies for dissection. Every friend of the 
 new system was supposed already to have sold his soul 
 to a certain eminent and enterprising contractor for that 
 article. As to Mr. Owen, it must be owned charity was 
 his sole religion, and this was a religion which God may 
 recognise but has not found favour in the world yet; and. 
 one which had no followers in Mr. Owen's days except a 
 few perilous persons, of whom the Eev. Eobert Hall, 
 
EAELY ADVOCATES. 849 
 
 Perplexing Adherents. 
 
 with his fine talent for contemptuousness, said, " lived 
 in the frigid zone of Christianity." Mr. Owen himself 
 was called the " Circumstantial Philosopher " — a name 
 not without honour, for circumstances were in very had 
 want of a philosopher. 
 
 One of the strange and inexplicable figures that flitted 
 about the early co-operative movement was a gentleman 
 who usually signed himself as P. Baume, "reforming 
 optimist."* In after years two or three other initials 
 would appear between the P. and the B. Who, indeed, 
 he was, or whence he came, nobody ever knew. Common 
 repute said he acquired a fortune as a foreign spy. If 
 so, it was doubtless in the interest of freedom, for he 
 always appeared to care for it. He had spent the 
 greater part of a long and wondrously active life in 
 bequeathing property which nobody ever came to pos- 
 sess. For thirty years there was hardly any meeting held 
 anywhere in reference to social reform at which he was 
 not present in some part. He was ubiquitous. In 
 distant towns, in Manchester or Liverpool, the eye of a 
 lecturer, skilled in discerning mysterious faces, would 
 be sure to light, in some quarter of the room, upon a 
 disguised figure, whose brilliant, penetrating eye alone 
 revealed his identity. 
 
 Mr. Baume had what he called Experimental Gardens, 
 in the New North Eoad, leading from Battle Bridge to 
 HoUoway, where he invited all practical men and women 
 to meet him, with a view to agree upon something which 
 would settle everything. The presumption is that they 
 never did agree upon anything, since everything has not 
 been settled yet. His proposal at that time was to 
 establish a Co-operative College, for which purpose he 
 said he would unhesitatingly and most cheerfully give 
 
 * The profession of principles of the Eeforming Optimist was that 
 though everything is for the best at this instant, everythmg will be better 
 upon the whole surface of our planet at every one of its diurnal revolu- 
 tions— nay, at every pulsation of the human heart. 
 
350 HISTOBY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 AUming Fioposals. 
 
 up to them his most valuable leases and ground rents — 
 several extensive plots for building and gardening 
 ground, fourteen acres altogether, his funded property, 
 his ready money, in a word, everything he possessed; 
 "including his most unrelenting exertions through life." 
 Mr. Baume had made a proposition to advance money 
 to any amount, and on the most liberal terms, to any 
 carpenter or bricklayer willing to build cottages on his 
 premises, on speculation, or for the location of their 
 families. He stated then that all his property was 
 vested in the hands of trustworthy characters. His un- 
 remitting exertions being devoted to the estabhshment 
 of a Co-operative College and Community. 
 
 At one of Mr. Owen's Sunday lectures he sent a 
 little boy with a note, saying the lad had been born 
 three years before, and had been entrusted to his 
 care, but he had never allowed him to be christened 
 because he had never found any character in history 
 sufficiently perfect to warrant him in adopting his 
 name; but now Julian Hibbert was dead, he requested 
 Mr. Owen to christen him by that name. Mr. Owen, 
 and many of his disciples after him, were accustomed 
 to christen children who were brought to them, and 
 they commonly made little speeches to the parents, 
 counselling them to remember how much sensible treat- 
 ment and pure material conditions might influence the 
 child for good. 
 
 This gentleman continued to give this property away. 
 He gave it to neaily every community that was formed. 
 He gave it to the United Kingdom Alliance. He has given 
 it to the co-operators, and to other persons and parties, 
 certainly too numerous to mention. A considerable 
 portion of his property at last lay in the neighbourhood 
 of Colney Hatch. He always professed to be afraid that 
 some one would confine him in a lunatic asylum, and 
 yet he establish 3d himself in the neighbourhood of one. 
 There was not the slightest fear for him. There was 
 
EABLY ADVOCATES. 851 
 
 Original Precautions Against Pickpockets. 
 
 no asylum which would have undertaken to manage 
 him. He would have driven the governors and directors 
 all mad in a month, by the inexhaustible fertility of his 
 projects. He was quite sincere in saying he would give 
 the whole of his possessions away, as well as his "un- 
 relenting life exertions," for he appeared never to require 
 anything whatever to live upon. A few peas, which he 
 commonly carried in his pocket, seemed to be his chief 
 source of subsistence. With ample means he would 
 live in one obscure room, or rent a railway arch, and 
 deposit himself there, and he did not, Hke the parties ia 
 Mr. Pickwick, select the dry ones, but took a damp one 
 as being the cheapest. He would carry about with him 
 bundles of bank notes in a dress coat pocket, and keep 
 a small hve monkey there; so that if any adventurous 
 hand found its way there, it would meet with a very im- 
 expected remonstrance. His property, at the site of the 
 Experimental Gardens, lay over what is bow known as 
 the Caledonian Eoad, opposite the PentonvUle Prison, 
 and had he retained it a few years longer than he did, 
 he might have derived an immense income from it. 
 At that time his land was covered with furze and 
 mysterious looking cottages, in one of which he lived. 
 It was known as the "Frenchman's Island," where 
 very unpleasant visitors were frequently attracted ; but 
 as he was known to go about at night with a pistol in 
 his pocket, and as he was very likely to fire it, and knew 
 perfectly weU how to. do it, a good deal of curiosity was 
 repressed by that peculiar reputation. He had all sorts 
 of projects for a cominunity experiment there, and he 
 brought more scandal upon the cause by his wild and 
 eccentric proposals than any other man ever connected 
 with the movement. He had a scheme of lactation for 
 mothers in community, whereby the children should 
 not see to whom they owed their tender nourishment, 
 lest the little ones of the community should acquire 
 local instead of universal affections. 
 
852 HISTORY OP 00-OPEEATION. 
 
 Dr. King. 
 
 One of the curious enthusiasts of that time, 1837, was 
 Samuel Bower, of Bradford. He was one of the ab- 
 stemious co-operators who lived, like the Eeforming 
 Optimist, chiefly upon grey peas, of which he carried a 
 considerable supply in his pocket. That would have 
 been of small consequence, but he strenuously insisted 
 that that peculiar diet should be universally adopted. 
 Nevertheless, he was a strong-thinking man, and had 
 many useful and self-denying views, which he illustrated 
 in many curious and impracticable papers. 
 
 Of course there were many among the advocates 
 whose position, judgment, and attainments commanded 
 respect, else the movement could never have attained 
 the ascendancy it did. One who remained longest 
 known was " Dr. King, of Brighton." This gentleman 
 was educated for the Church, at Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge. He married a daughter of Dr. Hooker, Vicar 
 of Eottingdean. He subsequently adopted the medical 
 profession, from intellectual preference, and settled in 
 Brighton, where he originated and edited the first pub- 
 lication, called the " Co-operator." He was a man of 
 notable friendships, and promoted many liberal move- 
 ments in conjunction with Dr. Birkbeck, Lady Byron 
 (whose trusted friend he was), Eicardo, Owen, and Lord 
 .Brougham. His daughter married Mr. John Eobertson, 
 well known as one of the early editors of the "West- 
 miuBter Eeview," during Mr. Mill's connection with 
 it. Dr. King Was justly considered one of the founders 
 of Co-operation. 
 
 Dr. King continued his interest in Co-operation until 
 the end of his life. On entering his eightieth year he 
 wrote to the " Co-operator " a letter as enthusiastic as 
 those he wrote half a century earlier, and which might 
 have been sent by a young convert. " When England 
 was discovered by the Eomans," he said, " she was pro- 
 nounced the largest among the islands, and the richest 
 in corn and pasture. Only lately, one of the greatest 
 
EARLY ADVOCATES. 353 
 
 The Brotbers Skene. 
 
 of modern historians, Sismondi, pronounced her the 
 happiest in her climate, soil, government, institutions — 
 among which we may now reckon Co-operation." He 
 had the honour of being consulted by Lady Byron, who 
 had contributed £300 towards the success of a productive 
 association established among those Brighton societies. 
 
 Dr. King's " Co-operator" was a source of inspiration 
 in many parts of the country, mere fragments of 
 numbers being, as we have related, treasured up by the 
 recipients. Stores have been founded in consequence 
 of their perusal. The fairness, temper, and the certain 
 moderation of tone rendered Dr. King's little paper, all 
 the articles being written by himself, one of the most 
 wisely-influential precursors of Co-operation which ap- 
 peared in the press. 
 
 P. 0. Skene, Esq., who is always mentioned as an 
 Esq., appears frequently in early co-operative reports 
 as a promoter, contributor, and medium by whom ladies 
 and others made contributions. There was also a Mr. 
 G. E. Skene, his brother; but being less personally 
 distinguished he is described as Mr. .G. E. Skene. 
 Being very watchful and workful as a secretary, he 
 deserves equal mention in these pages. In those days, 
 when Co-operation was struggling, it was no doubt 
 necessary to mark when one of its adherents held a posi- 
 tion of more conventional respectability than others. 
 "Philip 0. Skene, Esq.," was really a very accomplished 
 gentleman, an eminent teacher of languages in his day. 
 He held a German class in the upper room of the first- 
 named London co-operative store, 19, Greville-street, 
 Hatton Garden. Mr. J. S. Mill and Mr. J. A. Eoebuck, 
 51 hen young men, were among the remarkable pupils 
 who attended. 
 
 The Times of 1837, gave a very honourable notice of 
 Philip Orkney Skene. " His father. Major Skene, and 
 grandfather. Governor Skene, were both attainted of 
 high treason against the United States, as British 
 
 X 
 
354 HISTORY OP CO-OtEBATIOK. 
 
 Letter from Leigh Hunt. 
 
 Loyalists; and his great-grandfather was attainted of 
 high treason in the rebellion of 1715. The Times stated 
 that the Earl of Fife, who is a branch of the Skene family, 
 had taken the estate which had previously descended 
 from father to son for eight hundred years in the Skene 
 family. Before Philip 0. Skene was twenty years of age, 
 he was sent to superintend the erection of the military 
 fortification at Hoy Island, in the Orkneys. He joined 
 the English army, entering Paris, in 1815, and from his 
 great knowledge of the French and German languages, 
 was appointed to attend the Crown Prince of Prussia, 
 whose sovereign, in distinction of his services, presented 
 Mr. Skene with a valuable ring, set with numerous 
 brilliants. After attaining much scientific distinction 
 abroad, he returned to England, entered the Middle 
 Temple, and ate several terms; when Mr. Owen's 
 efforts at New Lanark, in its best days, so impressed his 
 mind, that he devoted afterwards much of his time and 
 means to promoting similar objects. Mr. Skene died at 
 the age of fourty-four, at Lewes, from exhaustion, after 
 a protracted state of debility, brought on by over-exer- 
 tion in his duties, as surveyor of roads, a post which he 
 had held for several years." The Times added, that 
 "he left elementary works in German, Italian, French, 
 Spanish, Latin, and Greek, besides works which bear 
 other names than his." 
 
 At the early (Third) Co-operative Congress, of 1832, 
 elsewhere mentioned, a very remarkable letter was 
 received from a distinguished man, Leigh Hunt, who 
 dated from 5, York Buildings, New Eoad, London. He 
 alleged that "increasing avocations and ill health alone 
 prevented his attendance." Happily neither kUled him 
 until nearly thirty years later. He stated he believed 
 he was the first journalist who endeavoured to impress 
 upon the public the propriety of considering Mr. Owen's 
 views. Touching the supposed contradiction between 
 the claims of this life a^iJ a future one, he cited what 
 
EAEIiV ADVOCATES. 355 
 
 Mr. TbomaB Allsop. 
 
 was said by a wise man, "that it would be a very 
 strange and ungrateful thing if we behaved ourselves 
 gloomily or indifferently in a beautiful garden which 
 some friend gave us, because by and by he had promised 
 us a better." 
 
 Another name, always one of interest and respect, 
 was that of Mr. Thomas- Allsop, who, to the manners 
 and cultivation of a gentleman, united an originality of 
 sentiment and generous enthusiasm for political as well 
 as social change, displayed with the same force and 
 boldness by no other adherent of social views. A mem- 
 ber of the stock exchange, he understood the conditions of 
 business as well as those of the s6cial state contemplated. 
 He was the adviser of Feargus O'Connor in his best days, 
 and conferred upon him the necessary property qualifi- 
 cation which Mr. O'Connor did not possess when he was 
 first elected a member of Parliament. On one occasion 
 Mr. Allsop, who was also connected with a large 
 and fashionable business in Eegent-street, alarmed the 
 law courts and the press by refusing to be sworn upon 
 a grand jury, on which he had often served, on the 
 ground that he objected to find a prisoner guilty, even 
 upon the clearest evidence, alleging as a reason that in 
 every part of London the criminal class was recruited 
 by flagrant, social neglect. Of course this was done for 
 the express purpose of forcing public attention to the 
 subject.. Such an act by one in Mr. AUsop's position 
 produced a great impression.* Being known as a 
 friend of European freedom, he was subsequently 
 charged with complicity in the affair of Orsini; a reward 
 of £500 was offered for his apprehension. He directed 
 the present writer and Dr. Langley to inform the 
 Government, on their undertaking to hand over to us 
 the aESOO with which to defray the cost of his defence, 
 he would appear in court at the proper time. Objecting 
 
 • He is the Author of " EecoUeotions of Samuel Taylor Coleridge," 
 who waa his periodic Sunday guest for a long period of years. 
 
856 HISTORY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Higher-class Co-operative Worts. 
 
 to be put to expense to disprove a groundless charge, 
 and being accustomed to open air life, he disliked im- 
 prisonment in the meantime. After this, the prosecu- 
 tion was abandoned by the Government; Mr. AUsop 
 was then in America. In the late Mr. Justice Talfourd's 
 memorial of Charles Lamb, the reader will find graceful 
 acknowledgments of Mr. AUsop's long and helpful 
 friendship to the great Essayist. Mr. Allsop happily 
 still survives; most eminent and intrepid of the early 
 school of the influential societarian innovators. Another 
 writer, who impressed society with the opinion that 
 persons of taste and means were favourable to social 
 views, was Mr. John Minter Morgan, author of 
 "Hampden in the Nineteenth Century." This work 
 appeared in two handsome volumes, and was printed 
 in the costliest manner of books of that period, and 
 with original copperplate illustrations of great skill of 
 design and finished execution, in mezzotint. There 
 were some rather bewildering diagrams, but some of the 
 scenes, dramatic and communistic, surpass in beauty 
 of conception anything produced either before or since. 
 The events of the story carry the reader into the 
 highest society, and the dialogues conducted with the 
 most eminent men of the day are not only gracefully 
 rendered, but also probable — their known and published 
 sentiments being skilfully interwoven in the speeches 
 made. If co-operative views had always been presented 
 with as much judgment, even though they might not 
 have appeared under such elegant conditions, they would 
 have made rapider and wider way in the world. Mr. 
 Morgan's "Hampden" is one of the books which curious 
 publishers of another century will no doubt reproduce. 
 He wrote other works, as the "Eeproof of Brutus," and 
 the "Eevolt of the Bees," which attracted considerable 
 attention in their day, but none were so popular as 
 "Hampden in the Nineteenth Century." The "Eeproof 
 of Brutus" was wiitten in verse, but though cleverer in 
 
EARLY ADVOCATES. 857 
 
 Sanday Lecture Controversy. 
 
 the use of that instrument than Mr. Abram Combe, Mr. 
 Morgan's performances in that way excited no jealousy 
 among the poets of his time. 
 
 When a young man, Mr. Morgan displayed more 
 courage than was to be expected from his gentle 
 character. He appeared as a lecturer in the theatre at 
 the Mechanics' Institution in defence of Mr. Owen's 
 Sunday lectures. Mr. Morgan's lecture, however, was 
 delivered on Thursday, May 6, 1830. Mr. Owen had 
 been permitted to deliver Sunday morning lectures in 
 that theatre morning, afternoon, and evening, on the 
 "Moral and Social Duties of Man." The clergy, how- 
 ever, had interfered. Bishop Blomfield had spoken at 
 King's College, and said that "all other sciences and 
 acquirements than those of the Church of England and 
 Ireland ought to be held subservient to those principles 
 of action furnished by the doctrines of the Gospel." The 
 members of the Mechanics' Institution were compelled, 
 in deference to public opinion, to recommend a discon- 
 tinuance of the Sunday morning lectures, as they were 
 delivered during the hour of divine service. Mr. Tooke, • 
 the eminent solicitor of the institution, gave it as his 
 opinion that the lectures were illegal, besides being cal- 
 culated to compromise the usefulness of the institution. 
 Mr. Tooke is mentioned by Mr. Morgan, who said that 
 he" had consulted with Mr.' Brougham on the subject, 
 who entirely concurred in that view. Mr. Morgan said 
 that if Mr. Brougham was right in his opinion as to the 
 lectures being illegal, it was incumbent on him, who 
 stood so committed to the cause of mental liberty, to 
 move the repeal of the act. The act is still unrepealed. 
 Lord Amberley boldly endeavoured in vain to procure 
 its repeal. By retaliative proceedings and ignominious 
 evasions, lectures have continued to be delivered since; 
 but as often as bigotry opens its disagreeable eyes, 
 and chooses to make itself offensive, it sends the 
 philosophers home mute and discredited, with their 
 
358 HISTOBY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Social Reform Proposed to the Clergy. 
 
 lectures in their pockets. Those who thiak that social 
 reformers have at times troubled themselves need- 
 lessly with theology should take into account that their 
 way has been blocked up by it all their days. Mr. 
 Morgan, later in life, took fruitless trouble to induce the 
 clergy to interest themselves in social reform. Gentle- 
 men who were his guests at Sackville-street still teU 
 how they were always escorted after dinner to see his 
 model of a community, in which a church formed one 
 of the pleasant ornaments. Mr. Morgan made his 
 fortune as a paper maker, which is proba.bly one reason 
 why he excelled other social writers in producing 
 elegantly printed books, whose clear and thick leaves 
 and broad margins felt in the hand like a liicid and 
 substantial argument. 
 
 Mr. William Pare was the first recognised co-operative 
 lecturer, and the most persuasive and persistently 
 practical of them all. The Editor of " The Co-operative 
 Miscellany," of 1830, introduced him for the first time 
 to its readers in curious deferential terms as being their 
 " very respectable and indefatigable friend." His first 
 lecture was delivered where he spoke three times, in the 
 Music Hall, Bold-street, Liverpool. There were four 
 co-operative societies established in Liverpool at that 
 time. 
 
 Mr. Thompson, of Cork, had the merit of satisfying 
 Mr. William Pare of the utility and practicability of the 
 co-operative system. His conviction was converted into 
 ardour by Mr. Thompson's "Enquiry into the Distribution 
 of Wealth." Mr. Pare first appears in co-operative 
 literature at the anniversary of the first Birmingham 
 Co-operative Society, at which he presided, on the 28th 
 of December, 1829, at the Vauxhall Tavern, Ashted. 
 Nearly a hundred persons were present, including some 
 thirty of the members' wives, for co-operative tea parties 
 were from the first sociable, and included wives and 
 children as well as husbands. Mr. Pare began by 
 
EAELY ADVOCATES. 859 
 
 Distinctive Cliaraoter of English Co-operation. 
 
 proposing the health of " the king in his social capacity 
 of father of his people," which denoted the benevolence 
 rather than the accuracy of the social imagination of the 
 period. Mr. Pare quite understood then, and expressed 
 at that early date the policy of Co-operation as being "a 
 scheme of voluntary equality;" and contended that the 
 English were not to be confounded with French agitators. 
 " The French," he said, " worked by force, the English 
 by persuasion. The French cried 'Down with the 
 aristocrats;' the co-operators said ' Let them alone.'" 
 Mr. James Guest, the well-known bookseller, of Bir- 
 mingham, was vice-president on the occasion, and gave 
 " Success to the numerous co-operative societies then 
 established in England, Scotland, and America." One 
 of the toasts was " The immortal memory of John 
 Bellers, the first known projector of a co-operative 
 community in England." 
 
 The sixth number of the "United Trades' Co-opera- 
 tive Journal" records that on Tuesday evening, March 
 30, 1830, Mr. Pare, the corresponding secretary to the 
 First Birmingham Co-operative Society, delivered his 
 first public lecture at the Mechanics' Institution, Man- 
 chester, remarking — " Mr. Pare is a young man of very 
 extensive practical information, deeply impressed with 
 the evils which afflicts the working classes of this 
 country, and most zealous in his endeavours to dissemi- 
 nate that information which he thinks must ultimately 
 produce a very beneficial effect." 
 
 At Manchester, which he subsequently visited in 1830, 
 he held a meeting at the house of one of the members of 
 the first society, which was well attended. Several 
 persons were present belonging to the Stockport society. 
 On three successive evenings he spoke in the theatre of 
 the Mechanics' Institution. At his first lecture there 
 were not less than one thousand persons present. Mr. 
 Owen seldom distinguished any of his adherents by 
 notice, but in Mr. Fare's case he did. He said, describing 
 
860 HISTOEY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Mr. Owen's Skill in Testimony. 
 
 a visit he, Mr. Owen, made to Birmingliam some years 
 earlier — " I found him engaged in the business of rail- 
 ways, which he appears to understand in his department 
 of it, if we are to judge from the approbation he has 
 received from the committees of both Houses of Par- 
 liament."* This instance shows with what judgment 
 Mr. Owen could praise when he chose. Nothing could 
 be more delicate, indirect, and uncompromising. Had 
 he said more, or said it differently, it might have been 
 disastrous to Mr. Pare. For more than forty years, Mr. 
 Pare was the tireless expositor of social principles. He 
 learned early from Eobert Owen the golden priuciple 
 which Leigh Hunt so finely expressed — namely, that 
 "the errors of mankind proceed more from defect of 
 knowledge than from defect of goodness." All the 
 acerbities which ever arise in any of our societies, arise 
 from members who do not know this, or who forget it if 
 they do. Mr. Pare seldom forgot it. His angerless 
 voice and his pleasant patience were an endowment as 
 strong as his general zeal, which never hasted and never 
 rested until envious death took him from us. 
 
 Besides Mr. Pare, Mr. Hawkes Smith, and Mr. Mur- 
 phy, there was Mr. John Eabone, before mentioned, also 
 of Birmingham, whose pen was often to be met with in 
 early co-operative literature. His letters in the volumes 
 of the " Crisis " were always earnestly and pleasantly 
 written, mainly appealing to Christians to recognise the 
 spirit of Christianity in co-operative effort. It was 
 his writings which first caused the name " Christian 
 Socialist " to be used. In 1837 persons began to sign 
 themselves by that name. 
 
 Another man of mark and promise in the early social 
 movement was Eowland Detrosier, who died prematurely, 
 very much regretted by all pohticians of the people, ia 
 every part of Great Britain. Though well cared for at 
 
 * " Moral World," October 1, 1836. 
 
EAELY ADVOCATES. 861 
 
 Career of Detrosier. 
 
 times by opulent friends, he had no sustained support, 
 and exposure upon a coach, after a night lecture, when 
 he was in a weakly state, brought on inflammation of 
 the lungs, which killed him.* He was a man of the 
 greatest promise of any who arose among the political 
 and co-operative classes, and had he lived he would 
 have been a leader. He had all the qualities of know- 
 ledge, enthusiasm, geniality, respect for the convictions 
 of others, and powers of commanding address. Detro- 
 sier was the natural son of Mr. Eobert Norris, of 
 Manchester, and was abandoned, when a boy, by his 
 French mother, whose name he afterwards bore. He 
 was put to the trade of a fustian cutter. At nineteen 
 he unfortunately married. By self study, continued 
 when he and his family were nearly famishing, he taught 
 himself French and Latin, and acquired a knowledge of 
 the sciences, which enabled him to lecture upon them 
 in a manner which few professional lecturers of the day 
 could imitate in communicating animated knowledge. 
 He obtained admission to the pulpit of a Swedenborgian 
 chapel, in Hulme, where he used to astonish the congre- 
 gation by filling his pulpit with geological specimens, 
 and placing electric and galvanic machines on the desk, 
 where his Bible and hymn-book should lie. He had 
 the distinction of founding the first two Mechanics' 
 Institutions ever established in England. As he had no 
 support but that which his daily labour brought him, he 
 often suffered extreme distress. His reputation, how- 
 ever, reached London, where he was welcomed when he 
 arrived. Jeremy Bentham had been so struck by some 
 of his discourses that he sent him a present of his books, 
 and showed him marks of flattering regard until his 
 death. Lady Noel Byron sent him ^20, and often 
 invited him to her house in London. Mr. Mordan is 
 said to have bestowed some of the earlier proceeds of his 
 
 * He had been delivering the opening lecture at the Mechanics' Insti- 
 tution, at Stratford, near London. 
 
86^ HISTORY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Mr. James Watson. 
 
 gold pens upon him, and Mr. John Stuart Mill not only 
 befriended him while he lived, but befriended his family 
 for many years after his death. It was, however, to 
 Leigh Hunt to whom he was indebted for his introduction 
 to London : his name being first mentioned in a generous 
 and discerning article in the Examiner, Leigh Hunt 
 being greatly struck, as everybody was at that time, by 
 his lecture on the necessity of the extension of moral and 
 political instruction among the working class. Detrosier 
 had a voice and eloquence resembling Lord Brougham's, 
 and his mind was distinguished by rapidity and power. 
 
 In these times nobody need suffer much in the way of 
 patriotism, or public service in England, except in the 
 way of being starved, and not then unless he is a very 
 great enthusiast ; but at that time propagandism was a 
 very different thing. Mr. James Watson, one of those 
 few publishers of forbidden literature, forbidden on the 
 ground of political or religious liberalism, who gave some 
 consideration how far the reputation of his party might 
 be promoted by his judgment in the books he sold, and 
 by his personal probity — came up from Leeds, when a 
 young man, to take the place of one of Carlile's shopmen, 
 500 of whom were imprisoned, who had been imprisoned 
 for selling unstamped publications, a fate which very 
 soon befel Mr. Watson. He is recorded as acting as a 
 co-operative missionary in Leeds, Halifax, Barnsley, 
 Todmorden, and other places in connection with the 
 British Association for Promoting Co-operative Know- 
 ledge. He is spoken of as "the first missionary to the 
 country, and as having done great and permanent good." 
 In one of his speeches Mr. Watson put the case of the 
 working class co-operators in a suggestive form, thus : — 
 " The co-operators would have those who had hitherto 
 lived upon the labour of others henceforth live upon their 
 own capital. They would then discover how long it would 
 last" — that is unless recruited by the exertions of the 
 industrious. 
 
BAMiT ADVOCATES. 363 
 
 Mr. Henry Hetherington. 
 
 The name of Mr. Henry Hetherington appears as far 
 back as the report of the fourth quarterly meeting of 
 British Association for the Promotion of Co-operative 
 Knowledge, 1830, when he was elected one of the com- 
 mittee of the first Soho society. His name afterwards 
 occurs frequently among the speakers. He was another 
 publisher distinguished by a long career of perU. His 
 straightforward and intelligent heartiness made his 
 thoroughgoing views genial, and redeemed his socialism 
 from sentimentality. He was best known by the "Poor 
 Man's Guardian," which he edited, printed, and pub- 
 lished, when no one else out of prison could be found 
 to undertake the peril of it. He sustained a series of 
 150 indictments, when at last, on the trial of an 
 ex-officio information filed against him by his Majesty's 
 attorney-general, in the Court of Exchequer, before 
 Lord Lyndhurst and a special jury, the "Poor Man's 
 Guardian" was declared to be "a strictly legal pub- 
 lication." 
 
 Another man of subsequent note, who took part in the 
 early congresses, was Mr, James Bronterre O'Brien, 
 then the editor of the "Midland Eepresentative." He 
 subsequently suffered imprisonment in the cause of 
 Chartism. He was an animated and able speaker, of 
 very varied information, and possessed a considerable 
 knowledge both of French and English literature. He 
 was regarded as the political schoolmaster of the 
 Chartists, but, like most Irishmen, his genius lay chiefly 
 in suspicion, in which he excelled; and he undid, by the 
 distrust which he diffused, the good he was capable of 
 accomplishing by his generous fervour. He it was who 
 translated Buonarroti's "History of Babeuf," as we 
 have seen elsewhere. 
 
 Bronterre, as he delighted to call himself, helped to 
 make the co-operators silly on the subject of usury. 
 " Usury," he said, " is in civilised countries what priest- 
 craft is in comparatively barbarous ones." Because the 
 
864 HISTORY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Original Figures ol Speech. 
 
 capital employed in paying poor women two pence half- 
 penny per pair for making soldiers' trowsers yielded a 
 large interest to the contractor, this writer concluded 
 that usury was infamous. 
 
 Among other qualifications for the millennium dis- 
 played by energetic socialists, was that of originality in 
 figures of speech. One of the greatest masters in the 
 rhetoric of the " New Moral World" was a certain Mr. 
 Joseph Smith, of Salford. When the Queenwood Com- 
 munity was in force he went about the country collecting 
 sheep with which to stock the farm. His plan was to rise 
 at the end of a public meeting, and propose that aU 
 who had enthusiastically passed communist resolutions 
 should prove their sincerity by joining there and then 
 in subscribing a sum sufficient to buy a sheep. The 
 most ardent who had held up their hands in favour of 
 the motion of the evening were not always prepared to 
 put them in their pockets. To incline the surprised 
 enthusiasts to that operation, Mr. Smith would apprise 
 them that he had ordered the doors to be locked, so that 
 no one could leave until the price of the sheep arrived on 
 the platform. Then he would say they had bought a 
 community, they must pay for the community, and they 
 must stock the community, " else they would all fall 
 into the abyss which was hanging over their heads." In 
 view of this unforseen calamity, reluctant shillings were 
 produced until the market-price of the coveted sheep was 
 made up. When this was done, they were rewarded by 
 being assured by Mr. Smith that " now they would all 
 sail into port oij the top of their watch towers," a kind 
 of vessel quite unknown to Her Majesty's constructor of 
 the navy — and an opportunity was aiforded to the 
 astonished subscribers of going home. This inventive 
 rhetorician was described in the organ of the society as 
 " the high priest of the ' New Moral World.' " 
 
 On other occasions he proved himself not deficient in 
 old world illustrations. He had been descanting with 
 
EAELY ADVOCATES. 365 
 
 Compromising Eccentricity. 
 
 his accustomed fervour upon the deceptions of com- 
 petitive commerce, when a curious and astute auditor 
 put the question — what did he mean by deception? The 
 ardent and good-natured orator, who was commonly 
 right when he felt, and wrong when he thought, had 
 probably never given a public definition in his life, and 
 was without any idea how to define deception. The 
 meeting was large, hostile, and impatient, and the 
 hesitation of the lecturer was loudly resented, when it 
 suddenly occurred to Mr. Smith that his head was quite 
 bald, and his black, curly, and unsuspected locks were 
 not his own, so he boldly snatched off his wig and 
 exclaimed: "That is deception." His raven hair, 
 hanging in his hand like a scalp, and the sudden sight 
 of his unimagined and naked pate was so ludicrous, that 
 his adversaries were confounded and convinced, and 
 with the generosity of an English audience, the enemy 
 applauded him as heartily as his friends. 
 
 At a fancy dress ball, got up in. Salford, Mr. Smith 
 appeared in the character of the high priest of the "New 
 Moral World," in beard, satin shoes, and surplice, 
 sacerdotal head dress, and staff bearing, with standard 
 inscribed with letters of gold, calling upon the frivolous 
 crowd to remember Three Great Truths about con- 
 victions and feelings being instincts, and not acts of the 
 will. The misfortune was that there was no central 
 committee with courage, and authority, and disposition 
 to repudiate this compromising eccentricity, and dis- 
 associate socialism from it. 
 
 In those exalted days, editorial art went for nothing. 
 No one troubled himself as to how the world would 
 regard his language. Just as the early apostles never 
 reflected how distracted fathers of the future church 
 would labour to reconcile their sayings (believing, as 
 they did, that the end of aU things was at hand, and 
 there never would be any fathers to be perplexed), so 
 these social seers expected that the "old immoral world" 
 
366 HISTOBY OF CO-OPEKATION. 
 
 Mr. Finch on the laxnpage. 
 
 was played out, and that nobody in the new substitute 
 they had in hand could ever heed anything said or done 
 in it. Their least impulsive writer called the attention 
 of two counties "to the active, the energetic, the devoted 
 Fleming,"* and the editor asked "Where did Joseph 
 Smith get his superior spirit of prophecy, and give us 
 tablets of remembrance chiselled as it were in alabaster 
 for purity and gold for splendour and endurance."!- 
 
 Mr. Finch was the earliest and greatest pamphleteer 
 of the party, and, as has been said, not a wise one. 
 Mr. Owen first introduced Mr. Finch to the co-operative 
 public at his institution, in Charlotte-street, in 1834, as 
 " a new labourer in the field." The " new labourer " 
 actually got inserted in the Liverpool Albion a series of 
 letters on the "Fooleries of Sectarianism." These 
 "fooleries" were sincerities to those who entertained 
 them, and they naturally resented this mode of describ- 
 ing them. But it is always your religious man who is 
 most offensive to pious people. A man who dissents 
 from the newspaper religions is respectful to them ; and 
 if he cares to oppose them, reasons against them without 
 offensive imputation : but your religious man, who has 
 a little infallibility of his own, can venture to commit out- 
 rages on others, knowing that his rudeness will pass for 
 holy wrath. Mr. Finch took great liberties in this way, 
 and his offensive " Fooleries " letters were reproduced 
 in the " Moral World." In the midst of an argument 
 which had no relevance to socialism as an economical 
 system, Mr. Finch would break out, " Burst your chains. 
 Throw your creeds and dogmas to the moles and to the 
 bats. No confession of faith is necessary to secure our 
 acceptance at the great day, when the Son of Man shall 
 come in his glory, and before him shall be gathered all 
 nations, all religions, and no religions at all." The 
 test, in Mr. Finch's mind, being whether Christ was 
 
 • " New Moral World," December 31, 1836, p. 75. 
 t " New Moral World," Febrnary 4, 1837. 
 
Eaely advocates. 367 
 
 Perplexity of Society. 
 
 honoured by those who ministered to such as were 
 hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger. This might be a • 
 pardonable reading of that Scripture, but it was very 
 offensive in those days ; but, generally, Mr. Finch was 
 far more irritating and irrelevant than this. 
 
 Society would have been saved before it was lost had 
 it listened to its remedy-makers. In 1842 Mr. John 
 Gray, of Faldonside, Galashiels, published "An Efficient 
 Eemedy for the Distress of Nations." Systemisers impart 
 to improvement the gloss of foolishness. Mr. Owen 
 having set a fashion of devising " an entirely new system 
 of society," Mr. Gray put forth one. But society is deaf, 
 obdurate, and wilful, and regards none of these new 
 constructors. It takes its own time and its own way to 
 change. It profits, in a silent, sulky way, by sugges- 
 tions made to it : yet it cannot help disliking anyone 
 who proposes to overhaul it. It has no time to begin 
 again ; and if it made the attempt it would be distracted : 
 for no sooner should it adopt the new scheme of one 
 than twenty other projectors would make contrary pro- 
 posals. Mr. Gray had a great plan of a Standard Bank 
 and Mint. The Duke of Wellington made known this 
 year, in one of his wonderful notes, that "he declined 
 to receive the visits of deputations from associations, or 
 of individual gentlemen, in order to confer with them on 
 pubUc affairs : but if any gentleman thinks proper to give 
 him, in writing, information or instruction, on any sub- 
 ject, he will peruse the same with attention." The 
 modest painstaking duke had not Mr. Gray before his 
 eyes when he said this. That gentleman would have 
 taken the duke at his word, and soon have brought him 
 to a standstill. The pleasantest part of Mr. Gray's 
 " Efficient Eemedy " is where he tells the reader that 
 he had published a previous work which had not sold, 
 so that in issuing another he could only be actuated by 
 a desire to advance the interests of mankind. And this 
 was true. He was a well-meaning, disinterested writer, 
 
368 HISTOEY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Character of Social Adherents. 
 
 and he had the ability of mastering his own system, 
 which is more than can be said of most world-makers. 
 His books never sold, nor could they be given away; 
 and there is still a stock at two pl.aces in London where 
 they can be had now for asking, and those who apply 
 are looked upon with favour. He wrote an earlier work, 
 known to the curious as " The Social System," in which 
 he propounded a " Principle of Exchange," on which he 
 contended " it would be as easy to sell goods for money, 
 without any limit or restriction as respects quantity or 
 value, but not without regulation as to their kind, as it 
 is to buy them with money." 
 
 The reader will misunderstand the moral of this 
 narrative if he supposes that the remarks made on the 
 eccentricity of advocacy, by which the social movement 
 has been characterised, is intended to beget indifference 
 to it, or disrepect or disregard of individuals promoting 
 it. Those who have read much of the rise and career of 
 new opinions will be aware that religious and pohtical 
 history, if written with frankness and explicitness, would 
 present also a plentiful series of ridiculous situations 
 and deplorable absurdities. And one reason why similar 
 eccentricities are continually being reproduced in new 
 movements is because party historians do not think it a 
 duty to relate them. If they did, they would be warniags 
 to ardent adherents to consider how they may best 
 guard the truth which they represent from misappre- 
 hension, contempt, or dislike. It is true that many of 
 the disciples of social science were flaccid, dreaming 
 people, possessed of a feeble goodness; but there were, 
 also a larger number of strong, wise, cultivated, and 
 determined adherents who sustained the movement, 
 when only men of sound judgment could discern the 
 value of it, and only men of courage would espouse it. 
 
 The same extravagances and eccentricities, feeble- 
 ness of sentiment which excited the common derision, 
 absurdities of speech or song, which set the world 
 
EARLY ADVOCATES. 869 
 
 Valuable Services of Mr. Fleming, 
 
 laughing, are not confined to any party; but when a 
 party becomes established, these vagaries are set down to 
 the conduct of irresponsible individuals, whom nobody 
 can restrain, and by whom nobody is bound ; but in the 
 case of an imrecognised and unpopular association, 
 every act of folly is considered a necessary inspiration 
 of its principles, or as the natural and practical outcome 
 of them. 
 
 Of the accredited representatives of socialism who 
 put S.M. after their names, signifying social missionary, 
 the first in order of rank and service should stand Mr. 
 George Alexander Fleming, who was the chief editor of 
 the official journal of the party. Mr. Fleming was a 
 native of Scotland, a man of considerable energy and 
 maturity of self-acquired talent. He wrote as well as he 
 spoke, and did both well. He was the first in office, and 
 he kept there. He was under no delusions of fervour, as 
 others were liable to be. His talent lay in making the 
 movement safe rather than great, and certainly there 
 was room for his order of skill. Mr. Fleming has now 
 been for many years connected with one of the chief 
 daily papers of the metropolis, besides being connected 
 with journals immediately under his own management, 
 always consistently giving effect to the principles he 
 early entertained. 
 
 Mr. Lloyd Jones, who ought to be named next in order 
 of service, had the repute of having the best voice of any 
 . of the social lecturers, and that readiness of speech 
 which seems the common endowment of Irishmen. He 
 was always regarded as the best debater who appeared 
 on the platform ; and if it was possible to perfect that 
 talent by practice, he certainly had the opportunity, for 
 more discussion fell to his lot than to any other of his 
 compeers. 
 
 To Mr. Jones belongs the distinction of being the 
 most active to defend social views when its adherents 
 were weakest, and to meet more of the enemy when the 
 
 Y 
 
370 HISTOBY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Distinction of Mr. Lloyd Jones as a Debater and Mr. Bigby as a Disciple. 
 
 enemy was strongest, than any other missionary. WhUe 
 he was a Manchester district missionary, he had con- 
 tinually to be despatched to meet furious adversaries, 
 or furious audiences. After a venomous tirade was 
 delivered, he would present himself to, answer it, when 
 it was matter of common experience that the confident 
 adversary, who had gone up like a rocket in his lecture, 
 came down like the stick in the discussion. Mr. Jones 
 joined the Salford Co-operative Society as early as 1829, 
 and fortunately still lives the most influential of the old 
 leaders of the movement. 
 
 Mr. James Eigby was one of the earliest, merriest, 
 and pleasantest speakers among the missionaries. His 
 vivacity of illustration was very remarkable. He had 
 genuine imagination; not, perhaps, always well in hand. 
 If he did not obscure the facts by the fecundity of his 
 fancy, he cast such a glamour over them that the 
 hearer forgot to look for them. As an expositor of 
 socialism, he was the most fascinatiag of all his com- 
 peers. His vivacity, his graphic language, his brightness 
 of imagination, his agreeable garrulity, always made 
 him a popular speaker, notwithstanding that he was 
 prone to repetitions of ideas. He was long remembered 
 for his happiness of expressing the immense hopes and 
 prospects of the party without any sense whatever of 
 the hmited means which alone were at the command of 
 social reformers to realise them. He first came into 
 notice from the active part he took in the laborious 
 agitation for the Ten Hours Bill. After the fall of 
 Queenwood, he was associated with Mr. Owen as a 
 personal attendant, having charge of his manuscripts. 
 He was entirely a communist, echoiug literally Mr. 
 Owen's material views on that subject; but when a semi- 
 spirituaHsm came in after days to be engrafted upon 
 them by the master, Mr. Eigby proved that though he 
 was a disciple, he was not a follower in the sense of 
 departing from the ancient way. He was with us when 
 
KAELY ADVOCATES. 371 
 
 Mr. Southwell's brilliant Tivacity and death. 
 
 we buried Mr. Owen at Newtown. Among all who stood 
 at that grave, none were so assiduous, so faithful, so 
 wary, as he. When I went down to relieve him late at 
 night, as he kept watch over his master's tomb, it was 
 with difficulty that he could be induced to go home, until 
 I satisfied him that certain fears which he entertained 
 were aU anticipated, and that no unauthorised hands 
 could disturb those honoured remains — faithful fears 
 dated as far back as the days of Julian Hibbert, at whose 
 death Mr. Baume interfered by virtue of some personal 
 warrant which he was understood to hold. AU his life 
 Mr. Eigby remained constant to the abstemious habits of 
 his youth, and died at fifty-six years of age, without 
 having tasted animal food. Up to the day of his burial 
 no change from life was observable in his pleasant and 
 placid countenance. 
 
 The missionary who excelled all in vigour of speech, 
 in wit, boldness, and dramatic tal^it, was Charles 
 Southwell, of London, the youngest of thirty-six children, 
 with activity enough on the platform for them all. 
 
 The Bishop of Norwich, Dr. Bathurst, was the youngest 
 of thirty-six brothers and sisters.* So there was nothing 
 heretical on Mr. Southwell's part in this peculiarity, for 
 which, otherwise, he might have been held accountable. 
 It must be owned he was more brilliant than relevant. 
 On one occasion, when the public were excited concerning 
 some new aggression of free thought, he announced a 
 special lecture, from which his immediate colleagues 
 there, myself, Maltus QuesteU EyaU, and William 
 Chilton, expected that some effect would arise. A_ good 
 audience was assembled at the City Eoad Hall of Science, 
 the same that Mr. Mordan provided for Detrosier. After 
 Southwell had spoken three-quarters of an hour it was 
 remarked by us that he had not arrived at his subject. 
 Half-an-hour later he concluded amid a storm of 
 
 * Norwich Mercury, 1837. 
 
372 HISTORY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Dr. HolUck's lucidity of statement, 
 
 applause, when we said to him, "Why, Southwell, you 
 never mentioned your subject." "No," he added, "it did 
 not occur to me." And, to do him justice, neither did 
 it occur to his audience tUl next day so much had he 
 diverted and entertained them. 
 
 Ultimately Mr. Southwell left England, and settled iu 
 New Zealand, a singularly unsuitable retreat for one so 
 fiery and fearless of spirit, imless he intended to set up 
 as a chieftain. On the stage, on the platform, or in the 
 secular press, he might have found a congenial sphere ; 
 but nothing fell to him available except the editorship 
 of a Wesleyan newspaper. It must have been a livelier 
 publication in his hands than its readers had known it 
 before. Its orthodox articles must have been written by 
 proxy. When death befeU him, as it did after a very 
 few years sojourn there, he was waited on by members 
 of the proprietary whom he served, to offer him the 
 religious consolations avgiilable to that body, and were 
 surprised to be told by their patient that he had edited 
 their paper because no other employment was open to 
 him, but he never undertook to edit their principles. 
 He could not deny that Wesleyanism was a form of 
 opinion he could live by, for he had Uved by it, and he 
 was much obliged to them for the opportunity of doing 
 that. He, however, preferred to die in the principles in 
 which he had lived. He was an Atheist. 
 
 Frederick Hollick was a young Birmingham man, who 
 cast his lot with the social movement in 1837-8. He 
 and the present writer were townsmen, each engaged in 
 mechanical industry, were fellow students in the same 
 mechanics' institution, both became speakers in the 
 same movement, and were nearly of the same name. 
 But to Mr. Hollick belonged the palm of seeing more 
 things at once, seeing them soon, seeing them clearly, 
 and stating them with unrivalled lucidity ; certainly 
 with a lucidity beyond anything to be observed in any 
 compeer of the social platform. When the missionaries 
 
EAELY ADVOCATES. 873 
 
 Mackintosh's Electrical tlieory of tlie UuiTerae. 
 
 were dispersed he went to America, where he studied 
 dentistry and medicine, and published many works 
 on physiology, were he acquired both fortune and repu- 
 tation ; and there is hope that he will shortly return to 
 live in the old country, where thirty years of absence 
 have in no way diminished the regard in which he was 
 held. 
 
 Thomas Simmons Mackintosh was a socialist lecturer 
 of note and popularity. He was a man of considerable 
 scientific reading, and published a book entitled the 
 "Electrical Theory of the Universe," which attracted 
 considerable attention. The simplicity and boldness of 
 his theory, seemed true to those who did not understand 
 it, or who did not possess that reach of knowledge 
 necessary to verify so vast a theory. It certainly 
 showed originality and great capacity in combining the 
 limited electrical knowledge which was then existing, 
 and his book had the merit of inspiring many persons 
 to think and enquire upon such subjects. His son has 
 been for many years honourably connected with the 
 newspaper press of Birmingham. Mr. Mackintosh was 
 a ready and animated speaker, with a faculty for vivid 
 and humorous scientific illustration. He ultimately 
 perished in Ottawa, being drowned, bathing in the river 
 in the cold season. 
 
 Mr. Alexander Campbell was an earnest, angerless 
 advocate of Co-operation. He was, as most of the 
 co-operative missionaries were, early connected with 
 trade unions, and in Scotland he was a trusted leader 
 among the men all his earlier years of active life. _ He 
 shared at one time the mystic doctrines of "Being," 
 advocated by Mr. Greaves. He was one of the vege- 
 tarians of the Concordium at Ham Common. He trusted 
 himself among the White Quakers. Mr. Campbell is 
 remembered with distinction as one of the managers of 
 the Orbiston Community, under Mr. Abram Combe; one 
 of his daughters married Mr. William Love, known 
 
874 HISTOEY OP 00-OPEEATION. 
 
 Alexander Campbell's Discovery— Distinction of Dr. Watts. 
 
 during his lifetime as the chief Liberal bookseller of 
 Glasgow. He had the further co-operative distinction of 
 having discovered the principle of distributing profits in 
 stores in proportion to purchasers as early as 1829 ; and 
 the principle was no doubt acted upon in some stores in 
 Glasgow, to which he had imparted it. We shall see 
 in the next volume that this principle was re-discovered 
 fifteen years later in Eochdale by James Howarth. 
 Some time before Mr. Campbell's death, which occurred 
 recently, a presentation was made to him by his feUow- 
 citizens in Glasgow, in acknowledgment of his long 
 social services. He was many years connected with 
 the Glasgow Sentinel, a paper established by Eobert 
 Buchanan, the social missionary. An excellent three- 
 quarter portrait, in oil, hangs in the hall of the Secular 
 Institute, Glasgow, of _which he was a valued member 
 and speaker. 
 
 Coventry furnished two missionaries, Dr. John Watts 
 and Mr. John Colier Farn. Dr. Watts became distin- 
 guished for high character and remarkable practicable 
 ability. In the days when the Central Board displayed 
 a reaction of timidity, after the Bishop of Exeter had 
 assailed them, he was foremost in vindicating those who 
 came to peril through maiutaining the action "of free 
 thought. When two of the editors of the "Oracle of 
 Eeason " were in prison, he volunteered to conduct, and 
 did conduct, a defiant publication of an alarming name 
 in order to continue public resistance to the legal sup- 
 pression of speculative opinion. The repeal of the taxes 
 upon knowledge was greatly accelerated by the lucid and 
 powerful speeches he made in London and elsewhere 
 upon the economical folly of those imposts. In Man- 
 chester he received a very valuable testimonial in 
 acknowledgment of political and municipal services 
 rendered during a long residence in that city. Among 
 other works he has published have been several on th^ 
 Economy of Co-operation, of Which he has become ati 
 
EARLY ADVOCATES. 875 
 
 John Colier Farn — Henry Jacques Jeff^ry. 
 
 original and very suggestive expositor. Mr. Pam was 
 known as an animated lecturer, familiar alike with 
 co-operative, trades union, and political questions. He 
 was subsequently connected with newspaper journalism, 
 and latterly held the position of editor of the Co-operative 
 News, and still continues the same ardent and zealous 
 worker on behalf of the principles which first brought 
 him into distinction. 
 
 One of the pleasantest advocates of early Co-operation 
 was Mr.. Henry Jacques Jeffery, a bright, quick-speak- 
 ing, energetic lecturer, distinguished for ardour and 
 variety of exposition. Mr. Jeffery was one of those who 
 made generous exertions for the support of his colleagues 
 who incurred imprisonment when bigotry behaved un- 
 pleasantly to them. Mr. Jeffery was equally known in 
 Edinburgh and London for the fervour with which he 
 espoused social principles. He has long held a place 
 of considerable trust in one of the greatest and most 
 popular publishing houses in London. 
 
 Mr. John Green was one of the early lecturers, some- 
 times stationed at Liverpool. He was a useful rather 
 than a distinguished advocate, and appeared to take an 
 honest interest in the movement. My recollection of 
 him is very distinct. Then a very young man, I had 
 been wandering on foot for purposes of health for some 
 three weeks, when, embarking at Liverpool for a short 
 voyage, which, as I had never seen the sea, seemed an im- 
 mense adventure, a pleasant, homely voice called out to 
 me from the Quay, "Mr. Holyoake, Mr. Holyoake." As 
 I had not heard my name for three weeks, I felt like 
 Eobinson Crusoe, when he was first addressed by his 
 parrot, and thought so at the time. I was grateful to 
 Mr. Green for that greeting, He afterwards went to 
 America, where, before he had acqiiired the faculty of 
 seeing two ways at onoe> necessary in that land, he wfts 
 cut into two iiaives by a railway train- He held some 
 official positioh upon the lifae, 
 
376 HISTOEY OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Bolert Buchanan, Poet and Advocate — ^Eobert Spiers. 
 
 Eobert Buchanan was another Scotch advocate who 
 joined the missionary propaganda of 1837. An ardent 
 and ready speaker, he was also addicted to poetry, in 
 which he succeeded better than any of the competitors in 
 verse by whom he was surrounded. After the social 
 movement subsided, Mr. Buchanan became connected 
 with journalism, both in Glasgow and London, until his 
 death a few years ago. His son, the Eobert Buchanan 
 of to-day, has far more than his father's genius, and is 
 a poet of accredited reputation. 
 
 Another poet who made some noise, and obtained con- 
 siderable notice among those for whom he sang, was Mr. 
 John Garwood, whose protracted performance, "The 
 . Force of Circumstances," appeared in many numbers of 
 the weekly publications of the party. 
 
 Mr. Eben Jones was a young poet, who made several 
 contributions to the "New Moral World." He reaUy 
 could write readable verses. His poems being, like 
 SheUey's, heretical, contributed strongly to impart that 
 character to the party pubUshing them, without dis- 
 tinguishing them as un-ofScial contributions. 
 
 One speaker, who was really a man of capacity, was 
 a tailor named Eobert Spiers. In social condition he, 
 too, was a person to whom any form of the millennium 
 would have been welcome. I first met him at the 
 opening of a social institution at Huddersfield, at which 
 I was to speak morning and evening; but when I saw my 
 name in large letters, rainbow coloured, on the walls of 
 the town, I was dazed and abashed, and did not make 
 much of the speaking, except for one ten minutes in the 
 evening, when I forgot the placard. I had walked from 
 Sheffield, twenty-six miles, the preceding day, which did 
 not conduce to energy of speech or imagination. But I 
 well remember that Mr. Spiers, who spoke in the 
 afternoon, he being regarded as a secondary person to 
 the luminary who was imported to speak in the morning 
 and evening, amazed me by the mastery of statement 
 
EAELY ADVOCATES. 877 
 
 James Napier Bailey's capacity of Confutation. 
 
 which he displayed. In capacity of logical statement, 
 not mere subtlety of sequence, but a broad obvious 
 dependence of one part on the other, and all the parts 
 leaving one whole impression upon the mind, I still 
 think him the ablest lecturer we had. 
 
 Mr. Napier Bailey was a strange figure, who flitted 
 across the social platform. He had been a Lancashire 
 schoolmaster, and he always remained a schoolmaster. 
 He had not a particle of imagination, but possessed 
 more literary information than any other of his platform 
 colleagues. He was the first and only contributor to 
 the " Moral "World" who quoted Greek. It would be a 
 fortunate thing if everybody who knew Greek and Latin 
 could be allowed to wear some intimation of the fact 
 upon them, that the general public might honour them 
 accordingly without being obliged to recognise the 
 acquirement by quotations which, being assumed to 
 be highly rare and interesting, are therefore presented 
 to ordinary readers in a language they cannot under- 
 stand. Mr. Bailey's article must have been delayed a 
 fortnight while the printer in a midland town, where 
 Greek is not the language of the inhabitants, sent to 
 London for the necessary type. Mr. Bailey was, however, 
 an active writer, and really communicated a great deal 
 of interesting information to all who read or heard him. 
 As he had far more literary knowledge than the majority 
 of opponents in his time, he sUenced more adversaries 
 than any other lecturer by overwhelming them with 
 quotations which they could not answer, because they 
 could not understand them, Mr. Bailey was the writer 
 of the " Social Eeformers' Cabinet Library." He passed 
 away suddenly from the view of men, and has never 
 since been heard of. 
 
 Mr. G. Simkins, whose name frequently occurs in 
 early reports of the Charlotte-street Institution, was a 
 shoemaker by trade ; a tall, pale, spare-looking man, 
 who looked as if the old world had not done much for 
 
378 HISTOEY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Mr. Heniy Knight's perspicacity of view. 
 
 him. Mr. Simkins, like most of the lecturers of that 
 -time, took the principles pretty much as he found them; 
 but if he did not make them plainer he did not obscure 
 them, nor compromise them by extravagance of state- 
 ment. 
 
 Mr. Henry Knight was another young speaker, who 
 after a few years of activity went to America. He wrote 
 a series of short letters in explanation of the priuciples 
 he represented as a missionary, which were by far the 
 freshest and most interesting statement of them pro- 
 . duced by any advocate of the time. His papers appeared 
 under the title of " Short Essays on Socialism." Though 
 a very yoiing man, he had the merit of being the first 
 lecturer who attempted to select from the collection of 
 principles set forth by Ttir. Owen those which were 
 essential to the community scheme, that aU others 
 might be understood as private opinions merely. 
 
 Mr. J. E. Cooper, an active news agent and book- 
 seller, of Manchester, was favourably known as a 
 lecturer on social questions. His younger brother, 
 Eobert Cooper, became a Social Missionary. He (Kobert 
 Cooper) wrote several pamphlets chiefly on theological 
 subjects, which had considerable sale. In later years 
 he came into possession of a fortune which was intended 
 for Mr. Southwell, to whom it was first bequeathed. 
 But on his leaving for New Zealand, Mr. Fletcher, in 
 his disappointment, bequeathed it to Mr. Southwell's 
 chief friend and coadjutor of the " Oracle of Eeason," 
 who held Mr. Fletcher's will two years. Acting on 
 treacherous information, which Mr. Fletcher did not 
 know to be untrue, he altered the will in favour of Mr. 
 Cooper, and, dying suddenly, Mr. Cooper inherited it. 
 The giver honourably remembered Mrs. Emma Martin's 
 children by a small legacy to each. 
 
 Oiie of the writers who cdntrifeiited most to .the 
 pleasant inforihatioh and poetid amusement of the 
 "Moral World," was a gentleman who signed himself 
 
EABLT ADVOCATES. 879 
 
 Lady Advocates. 
 
 "Pencil'em," with a knowledge of and a taste for art, 
 extended to literature. His verses had a pleasant 
 sparkle of wit and humour, which often relieved the 
 perennial disquisitions upon the Five Fundamental 
 Facts, and Twenty Laws of Human Nature ; some who 
 have acquired distinction have owed the inspiration and 
 practice of art to him, and he holds an official situation 
 in which his attainments are beneficial to the nation. 
 
 Mrs. "^^eeler attracted considerable attention by well- 
 reasoned lectures, delivered in 1829, in a chapel near 
 Finsbury Square. 
 
 Miss Eeynolds was another lady lecturer who excited 
 great admiration for her effective speaking. She after- 
 wards became Mrs. Chapel Smith, went to America, and 
 is understood to be the same lady who frequently writes 
 to the Boston' Investigator, and whose letters are dated 
 from New Harmony, Indiana. 
 
 Among the new writers of 1835, appears one under 
 the signature of "Kate," afterwards the wife of Mr. 
 Goodwyn Barmby. " Kate's " papers were always fresh, 
 pleasant, and sensible. 
 
 In 1841, Mary HenneU wrote an interesting "Outline 
 of the various Social Systems and Communities which 
 have been founded on the principle of Co-operation." 
 It appeared as an appendix to Charles Bray's " Philo- 
 sophy of Necessity." It has the merit of being the 
 first, and still the only, book of its kind. _ Incomplete, 
 unclassified, at once redundant and deficient, it is yet 
 interesting. Sara HenneU, her sister, has written 
 many works of considerable origiaality, of literary com- 
 pleteness, arrangement, and style. ,. i. ji 
 
 Madame D'Arusmont was the most accomphshed and 
 distinguished woman, who personally identified herself 
 with the propagation of social views. As Frances Wright, 
 her lectiites were popular both in England and America. 
 to the United States het reputation naturally belongs. 
 She was knOwfl as the friend and associate of General 
 
880 " HISTOBY OP CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Madame D'Arusmont, Mrs. Emma Martin, their intrepidity, 
 
 Lafayette, and in the years when the emancipation of 
 slaves was almost unknown, she bought lands and en- 
 endeavoured to establish a free negro community. She 
 was a lady of commanding presence, and a cultivated 
 and eloquent lecturess in days when only women of great 
 courage ventured to lecture at all. Madame D'Arusmont 
 is reported as declaring, in 1836, in favour of the imme- 
 diate abolition of Southern slavery. This occurred at 
 Tammany HaU. Mr. J. S. Mill held her in regard as 
 one of the most important women of her day, and 
 pointed this out to the present writer on her last visit 
 to England. 
 
 The most notable of all the ladies who have been 
 lecturers among this party was Mrs. Emma Martin, 
 who had the wit and courage of several men, and 
 delivered lectures in the stormiest times and to the 
 most dangerously disposed audiences. She was a 
 small lady, of attractive expression, with dark luminous 
 eyes, a pleasant far-reaching voice, and the most 
 womanly woman of all the lecturesses of those times. 
 The vivacious and mischievous "Vivian," of the Leader, 
 whom the public now know, with various admiration 
 under his own name, used to say that he disliked 
 bony priestesses, learned in all the ologies and destitute 
 of hips. Co-operators have not been wanting in beau- 
 tiful advocates; but they remembered that wise men 
 were not always beautiful, and they esteemed greatly 
 a pleasant mind. Mrs. Martin studied medicine and 
 practised with success, and during the cholera of 1849 
 displayed great courage, as she did in everything. 
 
 Among the well-known pioneers of the earlier period 
 was Mr. E. T. Craig, mentioned in the stbry of the 
 "Lost Communities," for the intrepidity shown by him 
 at Ealahine. The following letter from Lady Byron to 
 him serves to explain the diversified nature of the social 
 work done in those days, and the respect in which Mr. 
 Craig was held by eminent persons. The honourable 
 
EAELY ADVOCATES. 381 
 
 Letter from Lady Byron. 
 
 and the practical welfare Lady Byron took in promoting 
 the interests of the humbler classes led her to give him 
 the direction of an industrial agricultural school, which 
 she founded at Ealing Grove, on land formerly belonging 
 to the Duke of Newcastle. Her ladyship's letter was as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Sir, — I had the satisfaction of receiving your letter 
 yesterday. After Mr. Pinch had informed me of the 
 possibility of obtaining your valuable assistance I 
 addressed you on the subject, directing my letter to Mr. 
 Barry's residence (Glandore, Ireland), where you were 
 supposed to be. I am, however, glad to find that you 
 are not so far distant, and if you feel disposed to enter 
 into the scheme, of which I send you the prospectus, I 
 shall be happy to defray the expenses of your journey 
 from Manchester, in order that you may communicate 
 with the gentlemen who are engaged in the undertaking. 
 I do not consider myself as having a right to settle 
 anything individually as I am only one of the parties 
 concerned, and have not the knowledge requisite to 
 direct the arrangements of such an institution. It has, 
 however, been my advice that the master should be 
 found hefore the land was bought or rented (for that 
 point is not decided), and before any of the economical 
 details were finally determined upon ; because I thought 
 that the person chosen to conduct the establishment 
 would be the best adviser on such questions. The 
 locality wUl be within eight mUes of London. The 
 amount of funds not yet ascertained. You will there- 
 fore perceive that there is not at present an absolute 
 certainty of the whole of the above plan being carried 
 into effect ; but there can scarcely be a doubt that the 
 day-school, with land attached to it, might be speedily 
 established if a competent director were found. 
 
 "I am strongly impressed with the belief of your 
 possessing the energy, experience, and benevolence 
 necessary to execute our design. The remuneration to 
 
882 HISTOEY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Familial Names. 
 
 be afforded you must depend in part on the success and 
 extension of the school. You will be enabled to form 
 your own judgment if you take the trouble to come to 
 London. I could see you either there or here, and wiU 
 refer you iu the first place to a friend of mine, who feels 
 great interest in the agricultural school plan," 
 
 Mr. Craig accepted the appoiutment from Lady Byron, 
 and while the buUdiugs were being prepared he went on 
 a commission to the continent to examine the iadustrial 
 schools of Eotterdam, Switzerland, including the famous 
 one of E. de FeUenburg, at Hofwyl, near Berne. Lady 
 Byron's school, which he organised at Ealing Grove, on 
 the plan pursued at Ealahine, obtained considerable 
 distiaction, and was much visited. The Duchess of 
 Eoxburgh, the Lady Lytton Bulwer, Ada Byron, Lord 
 King, Sir WiMiam Molesworth, and Mrs. Somervill« 
 were among those who came. 
 
 Li the course of this narrative it will necessarily 
 happen that many persons will be omitted who really 
 are entitled to a place in it. It is impossible to mention 
 everyone, to do it would require a work so large that 
 many persons would not buy it, or, what is worse, if they 
 did, would never read it. There is also the difficulty 
 which besets every writer, that whatever trouble he takes 
 to be weU informed, he wiU not escape giving evidence 
 that he does not know everything. My care is to 
 include all those whose services were most obvious and 
 influential in the movement. 
 
 Many will remember the frequent names of Mr. Vines, 
 and Mr. Atkinson, who is still promoting associated 
 homes, as he did in earlier years. Mr. Alger and Mr. 
 Braby, long actively connected with the movment ; Mr. 
 Walter NewaU, long held in regard as one of the general 
 secretaries of the central board ; Mr. Nash, a familiar name 
 to the friends of labour exchanges; Mr. Ardell, one time 
 treasurer in community days; Lawrence Pitkeithly, of 
 Huddersfiel4, alike regarded by Chartists and Socialists; 
 
EAELY ADVOCATES. 883 
 
 Varieties of Missionaries. 
 
 Mr. H. Constable, and earlier and later friend of the old 
 cause ; Mr. J. Cross, of Shoreditch, who lost two fortunes 
 La his later years, and gallantly earned a third, and 
 eq[uaUy, rich or poor, worked for the promotion of social 
 ideas; Mri Austin, who, like Philip 0' Skene, wore himself 
 out with his enthusiasm; Eobert Adair, to whom the poet 
 Wordsworth selected to give the first appointment he 
 bestowed when he became Her Majesty's Distributor of 
 Stamps; and many others in the chief towns in England 
 and Scotland might, if space permitted, be named for 
 services by which this generation is benefited, and for 
 which they obtain no requital. 
 
 Several of the missionaries were remarkable instances 
 of monotony of power. As young men, they manifested 
 sudden and unusual ability. They "struck twelve all 
 at once," and never struck anything after. They were 
 a sort of petrified publicists. Some of these social 
 apostles were pleasant persons to know, but a few of the 
 most endurable were the least worthy, iuasmuch as they 
 gave thought and talent to their cause, but did not con- 
 sider how far they could advance it by giving it also the 
 tribute of their conduct. They did not consider that 
 their credit and connections belonged to it. 
 
 Others adorned their principles by their career; but 
 they took, as it were, the weight of the disordered 
 world upon their shoulders, and their earnestness always 
 wore an air of depression. I remember only one, and 
 he was an outlymg propagandist, who had the martyr- 
 spirit without the martyr-manner. Like Talleyrand, he 
 waited for the hour of action, and never acted before it 
 came. He knew that things were going round, and he 
 watched until the turn came for him to do his part, and 
 he did it with the full force those only can exert who 
 have reserved their strength for the blow. He was thm, 
 poor, and seedy; but even his seedmess had a certain 
 charm of taste, cleanness, and care. There was no 
 seediness in his soul. His spirits were always bright. 
 
384 HISTOEY OF CO-OPBEATION. 
 
 Extent of Co-operative Fropagandism. 
 
 Of the majority of these social advocates it may be 
 said that nothing was more striking in them than the 
 clear, strong worldly sense which they possessed. In- 
 deed their principles and conduct refuted everything 
 which the world commonly alleges against communists. 
 They were innovators without hatred, advocating change 
 without bitterness or selfishness. They were com- 
 munists only that others might enjoy the fruits of 
 their own labour, thinking little of theirs. They were 
 materialists utterly without sensualism ; dreamers clearly 
 awake, and their vivid faith in the golden age to come 
 was no phantasy of a morbid mind, and with the impor- 
 tation of a severe experience, manly courage, energy and 
 industry, which never forgot that the brighter future 
 of a new social world had to be won by prudence, by 
 patience, by self-denial, and by toil. 
 
 Mr. Fleming challenged Mr. Eichard CarlUe to dis- 
 cussion; Mr. Lloyd Jones also met him. Mr. Green 
 challenged a Mr. HaUiwell, of Oldham. Mr. Haslam 
 " challenged all the ministers of the Gospel in the 
 country," and other missionaries challenged everybody 
 else who had been omitted. Mr. Booth has collected 
 statistics of the propagandist activity of this party from 
 1839 to 1841. In two years and a half two millions of 
 tracts were circulated. At Manchester one thousand 
 were distributed at public meetings every Sunday. In 
 London forty thousand were given away in one year. 
 During the Birmingham Congress half a million were 
 dispersed. Fifty thousand copies of Mr. Owen's mani- 
 festo in reply to the Bishop of Exeter were sold. The 
 outline of the rational system was translated into 
 German, Polish, and Welsh. At one meeting £50 was 
 received for the sale of pamphlets. During one year fifty 
 formal discussions were held with the clergy. During 
 another 1,450 lectures were delivered, of which 604 were 
 upon theology and ethics. Three hundred and fifty 
 towns were regularly visited by missionaries, and the 
 
EAELY ADVOCATES. 385 
 
 Vicissitudes of the platform. 
 
 country was divided into fourteen missionary districts. 
 This was genuiae propagandist activity and intrepidity 
 displayed. If collision of thought leads to enlightenment 
 the co-operators certainly promoted it. Every hall in the 
 kingdom that could be hired resounded with debate ; 
 the corner of every street had its group of disputants ; 
 every green and open place where speakers could 
 hold forth was noisy with controversy ; no fireside was 
 silent ; pulpits were animated ; the press abounded with 
 articles. Unitarians, who in those days were less 
 Evangelical than now and mercifully helpful of secular 
 improvement, and at all times more liberal than any other 
 English sect, often opening their chapels and schoolrooms 
 to lectures, and even discussions. Often social lectures 
 had to be delivered in the streets, in the market place, 
 and often in some field belonging to some fearless 
 friend of free opinion in the town. Though most of the 
 social reformers were total abstainers they were glad to 
 occupy rooms in the most disreputable public-houses. 
 Eespectable innkeepers were afraid of their customers, 
 or afraid of the licensiug magistrates, who commonly 
 threatened them with the loss of their license. The 
 leading advocates of temperance had, therefore, often to 
 go down obscure, filthy, miserable passages, jostling 
 against beery people frequenting the house. 
 
 Theologians would accept an act of liberality from 
 others, but would not show it in return. When the Eev. 
 Edward Irving and his followers were deprived of their 
 own church, they were admitted into the Gray's Inn 
 Institution; but when the co-operators wanted to hold a 
 meeting only in the schookoom of the Eev. J. Innes, of 
 Camberwell, a minister of the same church, they were 
 refused it. It was frequently the lot of the social 
 advocates to find themselves in the streets ; sometimes 
 they met in an old barn, or a back room, lymg far- 
 down a mysterious court, where the audience could lU 
 find their way, and had often more trouble to get out 
 
 z 
 
386 HISTORY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Lecturing Adventures. 
 
 than get in. Persons were often sent to break up the 
 meeting by violence, when it ended with a free fight 
 within, and a general attack outside on leaving the 
 place. The ascent to the lecture room was often up 
 a ricketty ladder, with a penny candle outside, which 
 was always blowing out, to indicate to the pubHe the 
 Hole in the Wall, through which they were to enter. 
 Inside, two or three miserable candles, stuck up among 
 the rafters with soft clay, shed flickering and precarious 
 light over the wretched interior. The lecturer (on the 
 subject of the New World) had to stand upon an old 
 table, which, when he mounted it, was discovered to 
 have but three legs, which was generally propped up by 
 some enthusiastic disciple, who put his knee under it; 
 but when he was- carried away by some point which his 
 friend on the table made successfully, he joined in the 
 applause, which often needed assistance, altered his 
 position, and let the orator down. These were the cir- 
 cumstances under which the speedy coming of the 
 millennium was often announced. In one respect, the 
 circumstances were not unfavourable, as most persons 
 present were convinced that something of the kmd was 
 wanted. In some towns a desolate theatre was the only 
 place that could be obtained, and it was sometimes 
 necessary, as in Whitehaven, when the present writer 
 lectured there, to fortify it the day before the lecture, 
 and to select, as a sort of body guard to the lecturer, 
 those converts to the new views who had the thickest 
 heads, in the event of bludgeons being employed; and 
 as an audience would threaten to assemble with stones 
 in their pockets, I left my friends in the wings, and 
 presented myself on the platform alone, judging that 
 only good marksmen would be able to hit a single 
 target. Mr. Owen, Mr. Alexander Campbell, and other 
 lecturers incurred far more serious danger. The pulpit 
 public either did not believe in, or did not care for 
 the improvements offered to them, and often made 
 
EABLY ADVOCATES. 887 
 
 Influence of largeness on logic. 
 
 things unpleasant to the proposers. Sometimes the 
 lecture room was situated, as in Leeds, over a series of 
 butchers' shops, which in summer time gave a carni- 
 vorous odour to the principles promulgated above. It 
 was a common thing to find the place of meeting over a 
 stable, when a stranger entering would be struck by the 
 flavour of the principles before hearing them explaiaed. 
 Two movements of great hope failed through very 
 opposite conduct, the associative colonies and the 
 mechanics' institutions. The co-operators opened their 
 doors to all sorts of discussion, and the mechanics' insti- 
 tutions closed theirs against all. As social speakers 
 welcomed aU comers, they had to encounter a strange 
 assortment of adversaries. Now and then a fat disputant 
 appeared, and very welcome his presence was. We never 
 had a large speaker among our advocates, which was a 
 great disadvantage. It would have suggested a well-fed 
 system. Obesity has weight in more senses than one. 
 A fat look is imposing. A mere self-confident turn of a 
 rotund head has the effect of an argument. An atten- 
 uated visage always seems illogical to the_ multitude, 
 while a mellow voice rolls over an audience like a drum. 
 True, it was mere sound and not sense, but it drowned 
 all that had been said by the squeaking logician in the 
 corner. A pallid face is fatal to an unpopular cause ; 
 as a green veil is to a white-faced woman— causing the 
 bevelled nose to appear like the receding extremity of a 
 spermaceti candle— so a lean-visaged orator bespeaks a 
 hungry cause. The thinking socialists were of the 
 
 The faithfuUest foUowers of a prophet are commonly 
 the foggiest, and Mr. Owen was not destined to escape 
 the common lot. Certainly his mantle, which tell on 
 some of his disciples, proved to be of a very hazy 
 texture. They had geniality, but not perspicacity. 
 They were not the piUar of fire which guided by night 
 but the pillar of cloud seen by day, encouraging but not 
 instructive. 
 
388 HISTOKY OF CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 Mr. Owen in Debate. 
 
 The early advocates, like many others, who have done 
 the world some service, and made a lasting name in it, 
 were better inspired than informed. Many of them had 
 no more notion than Jesus had of political economy, or the 
 Apostles of the manufacturing system, and often talked 
 beside the time and needs of the day. It was, never- 
 theless, freely owned that the missionary representatives 
 of Mr. Owen's views not only held their own but made 
 important captures from the enemy. Mr. Owen himself, 
 who, although he had reliaquished public life, continued 
 a most imtiring travelling advocate of the time; and his 
 addresses were undoubtedly successful, and excited both 
 interest and enthusiasm wherever he appeared, though 
 in the public discussions in which he engaged, if he 
 disregarded the arguments of his adversary, it was not 
 because he was unable to meet them, but because he 
 thought the exposition of his own views more important 
 to mankind. When adversaries appeared after his 
 lectures, he always proved equal to returning a prompt 
 and effective reply. For instance, when lecturing at 
 Ediaburgh in 1838, one of the acute opponents, always 
 to be met with in that city, derided Mr. Owen's statement, 
 that human beings could be trained to believe anything, 
 ever so absurd and contradictory. "Is it possible," 
 demanded the sharp-tongued querist, "to train an 
 individual to believe that two and two make five ?" "We 
 need not, I think," said Mr. Owen, "go far for an 
 answer. I think all of us know many persons who are 
 trained to believe that three make one, and think very 
 HI of you if you differ from them." This was a good 
 instance of his repartee, for the answer seemed most 
 obvious when it was made, but it occurred to nobody tiU 
 it was given. 
 
 The missionaries who had no prestige as philanthro- 
 pists had to bear the unpleasant construction put by 
 vicious adversaries upon. their iU-contrived statements. 
 For them what could be worse than to sail out before the 
 
EAELY ADVOCATES. 389 
 
 Picturesque Detatea. 
 
 world with the burden of a doctrine which neither blamed 
 nor blessed. To the good it gave no encouragement; 
 while the knave would, until he was undeceived, take 
 advantage of it. It was no uncommon thing for an ad- 
 verse hearer to be very offensive, and plead that "he 
 was the creature of circumstances, over which he had no 
 control," when a vigorous adherent of ready wit would 
 reply — "that's very true, we are all in the same case, 
 and your behaviour is a circumstance which compels 
 me to knock you down," — and in a moment the adver- 
 sary would be reflecting on the floor that, while social 
 doctrine devised and tried the best conditions it could to 
 induce a man to be agreeable it did not hesitate to 
 divert or arrest him when he was offensive. The 
 audiences encountered were often curiously composed. 
 Anon a disputant shot like a meteor over the darkness 
 of debate. Some men's thoughts are like matches, they 
 ignite by the mere attrition of sentences, and throw 
 light on the dim places of an argument. Other men's 
 never ignite at all. Some have fusee ideas, and 
 smoulder merely. Others have tar minds, and give 
 out more odour and smoke than flame. Now and 
 then a man would get up and strike his argu- 
 ments together like the old flint and tinder box, pro- 
 ducing more noise than sparks. Occasionally a speaker 
 burnt with a strong, steady, flame of speech, which both 
 lighted and warmed everyone, and the hearer was 
 inspired, and saw clearer ever after. There are hearers 
 with India rubber minds, which stretch with a discourse. 
 Some understandings are like porcelain, and crack if 
 you hit them with a strong syllogism— and the parts 
 never unite any more. There are speakers whose 
 influence, if not their intellect, is in their throats, and 
 their wild, strong, musical cadences charm the ear. 
 They who Usten do not well know what they have said, 
 and they do not know themselves, and do not need to 
 know Their speech is applauded like a song, of which 
 
390 HISTORY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Mal-treatment of Truth. 
 
 no one knows the words. Others speak like a railway 
 whistle, and impart knowledge and the headache 
 together. The scatter-brained men would come forward 
 in force, and some with no brains at all. Not unfre- 
 quently a disputant did not know what the point was he 
 was replying to; or if he did, his speech, like Mrs. 
 Gamp's, went elsewhere, and not there. We had all 
 sorts of opponents, lay and clerical. Some would swell 
 the truth until the audience thought there was some- 
 thing the matter with it; others thinned it until it 
 seemed in a decline, or dislocated it ; while the rough- 
 handed made it appear out of joint. Violent hands were 
 laid upon it, and unskilful or knavish manipulators so 
 used it that its statement no longer answered the 
 purposes of veracity. 
 
 Most people are a little mad, and are inclined to take 
 a poetic view of life : and so long as they keep their feet 
 upon the earth they are the most agreeable persons io 
 know. There is infinite amusement in them. Their 
 innovatory vivacity renders progress brilliant — when 
 they leave the earth it is not worth while looking up in 
 the air after them. There was nothing lost when they 
 left us below, and there is nothing to gain until they 
 alight; There used to be whole meetings in which there 
 were no persons on the ground, they were all up above. 
 A man thoroughly sane is a very interesting person. 
 He stands firm upon the earth, and you know where 
 to find him. He sees things exactly as they are, and 
 the people who do that are very rare. They are the 
 spectacles of their friends, enabling the dim or dazed to 
 look discerningly and steadily at what is before them. 
 A wise man consults the same seeing man as he would 
 a telescope when he wishes to make out the danger 
 appearing in the uncertain distance. 
 
 It is one of the lessons of party experience to perceive 
 that the loftiest precepts have but small force, except 
 they are addressed to minds with a basis of kindred 
 
EAELY ADVOCATES. 391 
 
 Premature expectations. 
 
 con-viction in them. As a rule hearers need to be edu- 
 cated to receive them. Only partial results ought to 
 have heen expected until this vras done, whereas no 
 doubt was entertained of the immediate and permanent 
 effect of right principles. It was thought that reason 
 would operate at once, and for ever influence the mind 
 which apprehended it. It was not foreseen that only- 
 very powerful minds act on priaciples from energy of 
 personal insight. New opinion is a burden which few 
 men continue to bear unless they are instructed in all 
 its disadvantages, and enter upon the duty with their 
 eyes fully open to what will follow. Then hostility gives 
 them no surprise, and contempt no pain. In the enthu- 
 siastic period of a movement principles are masters of 
 the advocates, instead of the advocates being masters 
 of the principles. Enthusiasts push their principles 
 against circumstances, instead of using circumstances 
 to advance their principles. It was debate, and debate 
 alone, that taught co-operators this lesson ; and where 
 they have learned it Co-operation advances and never 
 goes back. 
 
 Those who peruse history for themselves wiU not find 
 it difficult to discover that ignorance has at all times 
 been the bane of national prosperity; and he who em- 
 ploys his understanding aright, will soon discover that 
 even reforms may come too soon to be permanent. If 
 proof be wanted, the history of Europe for the last forty 
 years will supply it. A people must understand the 
 sources of their prosperity before they can take those 
 measures which are necessary to secure its perpetuity. 
 Without that knowledge, though they were prosperous 
 and happy to-day, they would be in danger to-morrow 
 of giving their sanction to something which might 
 speedily become the cause of their poverty and wretched- 
 ness. It does not appear that any social advocate ever 
 produced or attempted a description of the state of 
 society for which he pleaded, which had the merit of 
 
392 HISTOKY OF CO-OPEBATION. 
 
 Scarcity of Commanding Teachers. 
 
 arresting public attention, or lingering in the public 
 memory." 
 
 Uncultivated off-hand advocates trusted more to a 
 sort of Wesleyan readiness and impulse, and accom- 
 plished what they did more by fervour than by art. On 
 the canvas on which they worked they put in some 
 figures of great force, but they executed no finished 
 picture of power. Cabet, who succeeded Mr. Owen in 
 order of time, was an equable, but mild, delineator of 
 social life; he was the most practical and coherent of 
 French world-makers. Nothing was produced in the 
 literature of English socialism comparable to the writ- 
 ings of Louis Blanc. 
 
 At times, we had learned lecturers appear among 
 us. Some of a legal turn of mind, and some who were 
 lawyers, who endowed the new system with attributes of 
 categorical profundity, which held us all in amazement. 
 There was, in what they said, a protracted coherence, 
 an illimitable lucidity, which compelled ordinary hearers 
 to fall from the line of proof on the way, exhausted, 
 despairing, and enthusiastic. 
 
 More or less these advocates were propagandists. 
 Some clearly understood what that meant, and endea- 
 voured to fulfil that duty. Very few people understand 
 what it implies. None ever choose to be propagandists 
 of new and unfriended opinion — ^to which powerful 
 interests, and no less powerful social habits, and even 
 existing social necessities are opposed; — unless he be a 
 person of courage, industry, and self-denial. It is the 
 most unprofitable business that any one can follow. In 
 the case of new thought as to life, duty and the 
 expectation of the future, two immense obstacles stare 
 the propagandist in the face, namely : 1. Most people 
 do not like to think at all. 2. They do not like the new 
 thinking when they do think. People who have minds 
 mostly have their minds made up already, and those 
 who have no minds to make up are still more dif&cult to 
 
EABLY ADVOCATES. 393 
 
 Outline of the Propagandist Art. 
 
 deal with. You cannot convert vacuity ; and you have 
 to create mind by teaching the very elementary principles 
 of thinking. 
 
 If a man's mind moves on some hinge of prejudice 
 you have not only to provide that it turn on some pivot 
 of principle, but to show that higher confidence and 
 satisfaction will follow from that action than the pre- 
 judice gave him. In Co-operation new objects, new 
 feelings, new habits had to be proposed. Men had to 
 be shown that their welfare and security were best 
 attained by an arrangement of business which gave 
 equal advantages to others. This was the new object 
 which none would entertain who had not good feeling 
 towards others ; and good feeling of this working kind 
 does not come by impulse but by reflection, and requires 
 a good deal of cultivation then to- make it permanent. 
 Then alone it becomes a habit of action, and a habit of 
 action no one need be told never exists in civilisation, 
 on any large scale, unless it pays. To make it pay is a 
 matter of business devices which have economy for 
 their means and gain for their end. As these devices 
 iu Co-operation are never to contradict good intent, 
 honesty and equity must be insisted upon; and to insist 
 on these with any success the propagandist must be 
 himself clean handed. 
 
 A propagandist is an agent of ideas, a cause of change, 
 a precursor of progress, possibly a ruler of the future. 
 To do his work well, he must have some mastery of his 
 own language, for grammar is merely the law and 
 policy of intelligibility in speech. He must know enough 
 of rhetoric to be able to set his facts in the order in 
 which they can be seen as he sees them ; and enough 
 of logic to enable him to reason upon his facts, when he 
 has set them forth, else their purport can never be 
 enforced. The practical effect of grammar is economy 
 in speech ; the practical effect of rhetoric is economy 
 in comprehension; the practical effect of logic is 
 
394 HISTORY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Otligations of Consistency. 
 
 economy in thinking ; and an advocate of Co-operation, 
 whose commercial merit is economy, should show 
 economy in his advocacy. He has to remember that 
 his life is an argument. A man may give good 
 advice who never intended to foUow it, or may be 
 incapable of following it, as a finger-post may point the 
 right way though it never moves in that direction. But 
 he who is seen to do himself what he counsels, will 
 always have more influence over men than those who 
 say one thing and do another. There is a sin of con- 
 sistency when a man professes opinions after he sees 
 their error, not liking to own his altered convictions. 
 But consistency between conviction and conduct is a 
 very different thing. It is ever a duty to others, who may 
 be misled by observing our conduct. Inconsistency be- 
 tween belief and practice is hypocrisy, whether before man 
 or God. Consistency is often inconvenient, but a propa- 
 gandist has no choice. He who urges others to be true, 
 must be true himself. H6 cannot advise zeal, and 
 spare himself. Hence he must be at the service of the 
 principles he proposes to advance to the extent of his 
 strength. He has to be frugal in all things as far as 
 his health permits, lest he gives adversaries impressions 
 of insincerity. The Itahan proverb says, thoughtfully, 
 " Beware of being too good." There seems that no harm 
 could come of that. But it may come. When a man 
 acts disinterestedly among others who do not they 
 -win disbelieve him, for none believe heartily in what 
 they do not feel capable of themselves ; and these persons, 
 finding the just conduct of others a reproach to them- 
 selves, decry it, and, being the majority, they get beheved 
 for a time. A propagandist must take this as he takes 
 other risks, and do the best he can. He will be beheved 
 in the end if he keeps doing the right thing to the 
 best of his power. He will have worse troubles than this 
 before him. Social annoyances, obloquy, and personal, 
 peril may overtake him ; for innovators are counted 
 
EARLY ADVOCATES. 395 
 
 EeBponsibilities of the Propagandists. 
 
 conceited, impertinent, and offensive ; and, when they 
 begin to succeed, dangerous. So that a propagandist 
 should either incur no family obligations or count upon 
 the pain of involving them in consequences of his own 
 convictions, which they may not share, and yet will have 
 to bear the penalty, and he be helpless to prevent it. 
 The wife and children may be nobly willing to share any 
 consequences which may result through the father 
 maiutaining his convictions, and count the bearing of 
 an honest name an honourable inheritance. But these 
 cases are not common. Privation, the consequence of 
 social exclusion, comes in so many ways that, however 
 bravely borne, it must be painful to the propagandist 
 to contemplate. Long after he is dead his opinions may 
 have to be borne like a brand by those less proud or less 
 strong than he to bear it. He who chooses to embark 
 his life in the service of mankind must make up his 
 mind to this ; and he had better know it from the 
 beginning. There is the high pride and satisfaction 
 which comes from discharging a self-chosen and difficult 
 duty. There, too, may come regard and honour, before 
 which all days of peril and labour pale in the memory; 
 but these are happy accidents on which no man may 
 count. 
 
 There will, therefore, be but one feeling of respect for 
 the forerunners of co-operative opinion, who, arising in 
 times of tumult and ignorance, mostly themselves self- 
 educated, explained with such generous industry and 
 vindicated with so much courage, those new principles 
 of industrial organisation which promise power without 
 displacement, and prosperity without revolution, to the 
 people of England. 
 
 The reader will find it difficult to recall to his recol- 
 lection any new school of thinkers in modern times, in 
 Europe or America, which has inspired so many men of 
 the working class, and so great a variety of the more 
 cultured class, as the school of Social Improvers, whose 
 
396 HISTOEY OF CO-OPBBATION. 
 
 The impassioned cry of Louis Blanc. 
 
 careers and fortunes we have now followed through the 
 Pioneer Period. The seed cast upon the waters by these 
 active advocates has brought forth wonderful fruit after 
 many days, as the reader wiU see in the next volume. 
 The school has grown, their ideas have extended, their 
 influence every year augments. They fought not for 
 their own hand, but for the hand of the people. They 
 taught the new doctrine of self help, and preached 
 industrial emancipation. Their object was to enable the 
 common people to obtain common competence, without 
 molesting the peaceful, or injuring the interest of any 
 other class; and in this they have greatly succeeded. 
 Milton, who had a mihtant spirit, who could not think 
 of heaven without thinking of the fighting there, whose 
 spirit strode the earth in stormy times, understood 
 better than most men, as he wrote — 
 
 Peace hath her -riotories, 
 
 Not less renowned than those of war. 
 
 And this is the victory the Social Pioneers won; Louis 
 Blanc, ki his- most striking work on the "Organisation 
 of Labour," began.with the impassioned cry, "Christ 
 has come; but when cometh salvation." It has been 
 this long-promised, much-needed, long-delayed, mate- 
 rial salvation, which these social propagandists have 
 brought. 
 
FORGOTTEN WORKERS. 397 
 
 Main Objects of this History. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FOEGOTTEN WORKEES. 
 
 By my hearth I keep a sacred nook 
 For gnomes and dwarfs, dnok-footed waddHrig elves 
 Who stitched and hammered for the weary man 
 In days of old. And in that piety 
 I clotiie nngainly forms inherited 
 From toiling generations, daily bent 
 At desk, or plough, or loom, or in the mine, 
 In pioneering labours for the world. ' 
 
 — George Eliot, " The Minor Prophet." 
 
 The reader who has followed this story thus far has 
 arrived at the close of the Pioneer Period of Co-operation. 
 If the character of my narrative is not wholly what 
 the reader expected, I can only hope that he wiU have 
 patience with my purpose, which has been to write for 
 the information of the public, and not less for the 
 instruction and advantage of co-operators, so far as the 
 moral of my story can serve them. There have been,- 1 
 trust, incidents enough related to show to the reader the 
 personal and economical character of this remarkable 
 industrial movement. More detail might weary him 
 without increasing the quality of the premises upon 
 which he must form his conclusions. My difficulty has 
 been what to select from the abounding materials which 
 so long a period of activity have naturally furnished. 
 In my narration I have thought it right to include 
 principles and conflicts, ideas and aims, as well as 
 struggles and incidents. I have concealed no subject, 
 no sentiment, which is a legitimate and relevant part of 
 the story. I have written no passage, I have stated no 
 
398 HISTOEY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Mastery in progress dependent on clearness in policy. 
 
 proposition, ■which has not agitated the co-operative 
 ranks a hundred or a thousand times within my own 
 experience. I have wished to interest the public, I have 
 desired yet more to interest co-operators. What the 
 public will think of them eventually wiU depend not so 
 much upon wliat are their aims as what they accomplish; 
 not so much upon what they profess as upon what they do. 
 And this will be apparent when I come to describe the 
 Constructive Period of Co-operation in the next volume. 
 The Pioneer Period is the period in every great move- 
 ment which best displays the aims and errors, the 
 generosity of service, the impulse of passion, the mistakes 
 of policy ,_ the quality and force of character, of leaders 
 and followers. In many movements in which I have 
 taken a personal part, and of which I have read in 
 history, nothing seems to me more palpable or mournful 
 than the way in which the same errors are repeated, the 
 same mistakes are made, the same passions rage, the 
 same digressive contests are engaged in, until, finally, 
 the same disasters close upon once hopeful and inspiring 
 enterprises. No man who has passed a long and busy 
 life among struggling movements, and counted the weary 
 years of labour spent in them, but must have one abid- 
 ing conviction — ^that nearly all the errors which were 
 fatal arose from the rank and file of persons engaged 
 in the work never having been clearly told of the nature 
 of what they were doing. Twenty naen err from pure 
 ignorance where one errs from wiKulness or incapacity. 
 How often I have heard others exclaim, how often have 
 I exclaimed myself, when a foolish thing had been said, 
 or a wrong thing had been done, why did not some one 
 who had had this experience before tell us of this. How 
 many books have I read, how many speeches have I 
 heard, in which neither writer nor speaker thought of 
 the men and women who hung upon their words for light 
 and guidance, whose lives were wasting, whose days 
 were shortening, whose exertions would bear no fruit, 
 
FORGOTTEN WORKEES. 399 
 
 Early difficulties of innovators. 
 
 whose hopes would never be realised, and who have at 
 last turned away with minds occupied but not inspired, 
 because in the mind of the writer or speaker thought 
 was divorced from action. My endeavour has been to 
 write what might personally influence co-operators and 
 convince them that they should master clearly, and 
 hold fast openly, and hold fast always, a policy of 
 truth, toleration, relevance, and equity, respecting others 
 and respecting themselves. 
 
 The unremembered workers, so nobly regarded in the 
 words of the poetess placed at the head of this chapter, 
 have abounded in the social movement. Less fortunate 
 than the religious devotee, who sails more or less with the 
 popular current which favours those who row ever so 
 eccentrically on the theological side, the social innovator 
 had no friends. The rulers distrusted him. His pursuit 
 of secular good caused him to be ill-spoken of by the 
 spiritual authorities, and he had, in all the earlier years 
 of his career, no motive to inspire him, save the desire 
 of doing good to others; since his own good would be 
 best answered by his attending to his own interests, as 
 his adversaries did to theirs. Therefore the services ren- 
 dered by this class of persons deserve acknowledgment. 
 Too much is not to be made of those who die in discharge 
 of weU understood duty. In daily hfe numerous persons 
 run risks of a like nature, and sometimes perish through 
 their protest against mischievous opinion, as well as by 
 their acts of personal help rendered to unfriended move- 
 ments. They have no reward, save that experienced in 
 the noble impulse which animates them. Yet such acts 
 may be distinguished, remembered, and honoured for 
 the encouragement of manful service of the truth. To 
 know how to estimate those who stand true, we must 
 take into sight those who never stand at all— who, the 
 moment loss or peril is foreseen, crawl away hke vermin 
 into holes of security. These are the rabbit-mmded 
 reformers who flee at the first sound of danger, who 
 
400 HISTORY OF CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Generous Sacrifices of the Blch. 
 
 wait to see a thing succeed before they join it. These 
 people amount to crowds. Those who flee a struggling 
 cause are a great army compared with those who fight. 
 
 To make up your mind to work ha^d, to owe nothing, 
 and expect nothing, save as the result of your own 
 endeavour, is the sign of honest, courageous, self-trust. 
 The world of men as a whole is not hrutal nor cold. It 
 ' is like the aspects of nature : parts, large parts, are 
 sterile, bleak, inhospitable; yet, even there, the gran- 
 deur of view and majestic grimness delight the strong 
 soul that takes time to look at them. In other parts of 
 physical nature — warmth, light, foliage, flowers, make 
 glad and gay the imagination. So in society — strong, 
 tender, wise men wHl give discriminating aid to strug- 
 glers below them; stragglers, indeed, perish unhelped, 
 ofttimes because they are unnoticed rather than because 
 of the inhumanity of the prosperous. There are, of 
 course, as experience too well tells, men who do not want 
 to help others ; while there are more who do not help, 
 simply not knowing how. But there are others, and it 
 is honest to count them, whom affluence does not make 
 insensible, and who feel as the poor for the poor. 
 
 The agitation for giving to working-men competence 
 and rational character had for leaders many disinterested 
 gentlemen who not only meant what they said on behalf 
 of this movement, but were prepared to give, and did 
 give, their fortunes to promote it. There was not a man 
 of mark among them who expected to, or tried to, make 
 money for himself by these projects of social improve- 
 ment. Some, as Abram Combe and William Thompson, 
 gave not only money but life. Others absolutely divested 
 themselves of their fortunes in the cause. They indeed 
 believed that they were founding a system of general 
 competence, and that such share as was secured to 
 others would accrue to them ; and with this prospect 
 they were content. Some of them might have possessed 
 stately homes and have commanded deference by the 
 
FORGOTTEN WOEKEES. 401 
 
 Neither forgotten nor unregarded. 
 
 splendour of their lives, but they generously preferred 
 common happiness with the many to splendour with the 
 few. And when their disinterested dream was not 
 realised, their fortune squandered, and disappointment, 
 derision, and penury overtook them, as happened to 
 some of them, they never regretted the part they had 
 taken, and died predicting that others would come after 
 them, who, wiser and more fortunate than they, would 
 attain to the success denied to them. Thus there have 
 been gentlemen connected with co-operation who were 
 not wanting in the spirit of self-sacrifice, and who died, 
 like Mr. CoweU Stepney, of caring for everybody's 
 interest but their own.* This is not at all a common 
 disease in any class, and takes very few people off. Yet 
 none are remembered with the reverence accorded to 
 those who die these disinterested deaths. Were their 
 services understood in their time they would receive 
 honour exceeding that which the successful win who are 
 greeted by— 
 
 The patched and plodding citizen, 
 Waiting upon the pavement with the throng, 
 AVhile some victorious world-hero makes 
 Triumphal entry ; and the peal of shouts 
 And flash of faces, 'neath uplifted hats, 
 Eun like a storm of joy along the streets ! 
 He says, " God hless liim !" almost with a sob. 
 As the great hero passes : He is glad. . . . 
 'Tis glory shed around the common weal. 
 And he wUl pay his tribute willingly. 
 Though with the pennies earned by sordid toil. 
 Perhaps the hero's deeds have helped to briug 
 A time when every honest citizen 
 Shall wear a coat unpatched.f 
 
 Throughout this history, therefore, I strive to write 
 words of honour of those who, able to help forward this 
 
 * Eldest son of Sir Cowell Stepney, who, untU hia death, attended all 
 the co-operative and international congresses of wortiug-men wherever 
 held, and who corresponded with all the social reformers of the world, 
 and sent them every publication bearing upon the movement. 
 
 t " A Minor Prophet," by Geo. Eliot. 
 
 A A 
 
402 HISTORY OP CO-OPEEATION. 
 
 Distinction between the ostentatious and the obscure Worker. 
 
 movement of the people, accorded to it no barren wishes 
 of success, hut gave their fortunes to strengthen it. But 
 before I close the final chapter of this volume other 
 words are due to the memory of humbler and yet more 
 unnoted promoters of Co-operation. Ignoring certain 
 noisy adherents, who infest every movement, whose 
 policy is conspicuousness, and whose principle is "What 
 they can get; " who seek only to serve themselves, and 
 never, except by accident, serving anybody else ; who 
 clutch at every advantage, without giving one grateful 
 thought, or even respectful word, to those whose 
 persistency and labour have created the advantage they 
 enjoy — my concern is not for this order of adherents, 
 whose very souls are shabby, and who would bring sal- 
 vation itself into discredit were it extended to them. 
 My last care is for the honest, unobtrusive workers. 
 These are they who drudged, without ceasing, in the 
 "cause" — who devoted the day of rest to correspondence 
 with unknown enquirers — who spent their strength, and 
 as far as it would go, their means, in journeying to 
 distant villages and towns, lecturing or explaning co- 
 operative views, so that they might stir up the helpless 
 to act upon them. They poured out their time, and 
 health, and thought — ^which made up their wealth — 
 without stint and without conditions to all who sought 
 it, or might profit by it. The just-minded took it with 
 gratitude, knowing at what peril it was given; the sel- 
 fish took if as their right, never asking at what cost it 
 was accorded, nor seeking in any way to requite it. 
 Knowing that self-help meant self-thinkmg, and that no 
 ■deliverance would come if the people left it to others to 
 think for them by proxy — these advocates counted it a 
 first duty to awaken in their fellows the inspiration of 
 self action. But in thus making themselves so far 
 the Providence of others, the most generous of them 
 had no time left to be a Providence to themselves, 
 and not a few of them perished, as those mostly 
 
FOBGOTTEN WORKERS. 403 
 
 The Brave Drudges. 
 
 do who fail herein. But it is not for us to forget the 
 self-forgetting, whose convictions were obligations, 
 and whose duty was determined by the needs of others. 
 During the sixty years over which this history travels 
 there have been compeers of the pioneers here described 
 who, less able to advise and to guide, drudged also during 
 what hours fell to them after their days' work was done 
 in stores, hours which should have been given to rest 
 and to their families. They travelled from street to 
 street, or from village to village, on Simdays, to collect 
 the pence which started the stores. They gave more 
 than they could afford to support periodicals, which 
 never paid their conductors, for the chance of useful 
 information thus reaching others. They sacrificed the 
 subordination and influence of home in the service of an 
 unregarding public, in the generous hope that other 
 homes, less fortunate than* their own, might come one 
 day to know the consolations of competence. For them- 
 selves, they reaped in after days dismay and disregard at 
 their own fireside, for their disinterested and too ardent 
 preference of other interests than their own. There 
 were others who gave their nights to the needful but 
 monotonous duties of committees, and to speaking at 
 meetings at which few attended, returning late and 
 weary to cheerless rooms — who lost their situations in 
 consequence of their principles— who, while teaching 
 others to save, sacrificed themselves all prospects of 
 saving a little money for their old age ; who wore them- 
 selves out prematurely, and died at last unattended in 
 obscure lodgings, lingering out their uncheered days, on 
 the precarious bread occasionally sent them by some one 
 who happened to remember that they were benefitmg 
 bv the forlorn perH which had brought the old propagan- 
 dists low. Not a few of them, after speeches of fiery protest 
 on behalf of independence, and noble pride m councils 
 of self-help, in political movements to which they were 
 also attracted, spent months and years m the indignity 
 
404 HISTORY OF CO-OPERATION. 
 
 Generous Old Guards. 
 
 of prison, and at last died on a poor-house bed, and were 
 laid in a pauper's grave.* I have met their names in 
 every struggling periodical advocating social and political 
 progress, and at the chief meetings reported of this 
 nature. They took the peril, they bore the scorn, they 
 made no terms for themselves, and no one thought of 
 making any terms for them. Many of them were my 
 _ comrades in this work. Foreseeing their fate, I often 
 tried to mitigate their devotion. I stood later by the 
 dying bed of some of them, and spoke at the burial of 
 many. They lie in unremembered graves. They never 
 heard the first cry of confidence at assured victory raised 
 by their successors. It was denied to them to see the 
 signs of its approach. Their fate, however, is not to be 
 mourned over; it is, when necessary, to be imitated. 
 ^0 tongue has spoken their ^praise, no pen has cleared 
 
 * One might give many instances. One is that of George White, of 
 Bradford, who died in the poorhouse, in Sheffield. Had I knoTra of his 
 death at the time I would have asked Mr. Hardy, who was then Home 
 Secretary, for leave to remove his body and lay it hy the side of Holbeny, 
 the Chartist, who died in prison and was hurried with public honour in 
 Sheffield. Tory though Mr. Hardy is, I think he would have given the 
 order. White was well known to his father, who had some respect for the 
 vigorous and turbulent Irish Chartist. We were both in prison at the 
 same time, and it was arranged that he who was out first, his wife should 
 make pies and take to the other. As I was at liberty first, many savoury 
 pies found their way to White's prison. I have no doubt he died dream- 
 ing that more pies were coming to him, for he died very desolate. For 
 years, if danger threatened us in public n^eeting, George White brought 
 up his Old Guards. On one occasion, when the great discussion in which 
 the Birmingham Socialists were concerned, White's detachment of the 
 Old Guards attended five nights, and, although poor men, paid for admis- 
 sion to the best places ; and when the final fray came the respectable 
 belligerents in every part of Beardsworth's Repository found a strong- 
 handed Chartist behind him, and the enemy found themselves outside the 
 hall on their way home before they knew where they were. George 
 White gave the signal to the Old Guards from the platform, where he and 
 his trusty colleagues did execution among the clerical rioters there, who, 
 when the poUoe were introduced, had all disappeared. Honour to the 
 generous Old Guards, who stood up for fair play although they were not 
 partisans of the doctrines in dispute. Sometimes the co-operative seed 
 had to be sown on turbulent ground. 
 
FORGOTTEN WOEKEUS. 405 
 
 Men ia the ranks who won the day. 
 
 their lives of the contempt which an undiscerning and 
 brutal respectability cast over them. But there was an 
 Inspiration in their career which has quickened the 
 pulses of industry. Though the distant footfall of the 
 coming triumph of their order never reached their ear, 
 they believed not less in its march. They knew know- 
 ledge, and patience, and purpose would bring conviction 
 and success, and they sowed seed with earnest voice 
 and untiring hand, and were not dismayed when it was 
 trodden over before their eyes. They never lost their 
 trust in the vitality of truth. Far more than they who 
 gave of their abundance, which brought them applause; 
 far more than they who gave of their wisdom, which won 
 them fame, do I honour those who worked, though they 
 obtained neither plaudit nor repute, who -listened and 
 laboured unrequited ; who by their vigorous and unselfish 
 zeal taught their order by their example the possibiUty 
 of self-help, and made the movement — of which I venture 
 to write the history — what it is. 
 
INDEX OP HEAD-LINES. 
 
 FOB ADDITIONAL TOPICS SEE OENEEAL INDEX. 
 
 [The reader will find a Head-Line Index and a General Index. The 
 object of both is, not merely to indicate subjects for the purpose of 
 reference, but in most cases to summarise the principles illustrated of 
 the History — serring the purpose of Exposition as well as Beference.] 
 
 Early Co-operative Terms, 1 
 Common Ideas of Co-operation, 2 
 Co-operation Defined — ^its Animating 
 
 Principle, 3 
 Ancient and various forms of Co-operative 
 
 Industiy, 4 
 Co-operation Self-aiding and Indepen- 
 dent, 5 
 Its Characteristics — Industry and Parti- 
 cipation, 6 
 Spirited Treatment of the Poor in Former 
 
 Times, 7 
 Governing Classes -who imew their 
 
 Minds, 8 
 Whig Services to Working People, 9 
 Working People before they became a 
 
 Class, 10 
 The Unwelcome Appearance of Mr. Mal- 
 
 thns, 11 
 The Dreary Days of Indigence, 12 
 Bradford breaks out into Verse, IS 
 A Trades Union proposed by the Poet in 
 
 1825, 14 
 A great Poet deems the Condition of the 
 
 People a subject for his Muse, 15 
 The Despairing Outlook of Workmen, 16 
 Obligations of Craftsmen to Carlyle, 17 
 Advantages of Civilised Poor over Savage 
 
 Poor, 18 
 Are the Poor Poorer because the Eioh 
 
 are Bioher? 19 
 Evil of Military Inspiration in Civil 
 
 Progress, 20 
 Equitable Distribution of New Wealth 
 
 the Aim of Co-operators, 21 
 Characteristics of the Utopian, 22 
 Misgivings on the Threshold of Untried 
 
 Existence, 23 
 Obligations of Society to World-makers, 
 
 24 
 No Comprehensive History of Schemes 
 
 of Social Life, 25 
 
 The Noble "Dread" of Ancient Times 
 
 Extinct, 26 
 Jesus Ignored by Political Economists, 
 
 27 
 The " Utopia" of More based on Historic 
 
 Facts, 28 
 More's remarkable Picture of Society, 29 
 Pedigree and Character of Harrington, 30 
 Harrington's Candour to Charles I., 31 
 His Vindication by Disraeli the Elder, 32 
 Appearance of Boilers, 33 
 The First Proposal to Supersede Shop- 
 keepers, Zi 
 The excellent Originality of BeUers, 35 
 His Character and Death, 36 
 The Masterly Problem ol Morelly, 37 
 Theological Communism Ungulding and 
 
 Unprogressive, 38 
 The Bise of Babent, 39 
 Bemarkable Sentiments of the Babeuf 
 
 Conspirators, 40 
 The Petrolense Idea not a Parisian 
 
 Monopoly, 41 
 Wonderful Organisation of the Conspira- 
 tors for Equality, 42 
 Their Famous Battle Song, 43 
 Political Services ol BronteiTe O'Brien, 
 
 44 
 Logic of the Political Musketeers, 45 
 English Foresight of Godwin, 46 
 Political Pohcy of Communists, 47 
 St. Simon's Apostleship o^ Industry, 48 
 Dying Words of Sl. Simon, 49 
 Amazing Pretensions of the Fourierists, 
 
 60 
 Map of the Unknown Land, 51 
 Appearance of Eobert Owen, 52 
 Co-operation of Welsh Origin, 53 
 Owen's Magnificent Scheme for the 
 
 Working People, 54 
 Early Conception of Co-operation, 5B 
 Co-operation Gains by Giving, 66 
 
HEAD-LINE INDEX. 
 
 407 
 
 Recital of the Successes at New Lanark. 
 57 
 
 Aotivlties and Kelationships of the 
 Founder of Co-operation, 58 
 
 Household Economies of Co-operation, 59 
 
 Splendid Expectations at a New Era 
 Time, 60 
 
 The First Co-operative Periodical, 61 
 
 Example of Mr. Owen's Early Eloquence, 
 62 
 
 His Conception of the Laborious Bealities 
 of Progress, 63 
 
 World-sick Agitators, 64 
 
 The Appearance of the Economist, 65 
 
 First- Announcement of Co-operation, 66 
 
 Motto of the First Co-operative Society, 67 
 
 The Insignificant Origin of Progress, 68 
 
 The Social Maxim of Dempsthenes, 69 
 
 Unforeseen Ascendancy of Co-operation, 
 70 
 
 Mr. Owen's Place in Co-operative History, 
 71 
 
 Biographical Pacts, 72 
 
 Principles Taught to the People, 73 
 
 Mr. Owen as a Puplic Speaker, 74 
 
 Mr. Owen before a Parliamentary Com- 
 mittee, 75 
 
 His Memorable Speech of 1817, 76 
 
 His irrelevant Views of Policy, 77 
 
 His Singular Fearlessness, 78 
 
 Lives of Robert Owen, 79 
 
 The FooUshness of Indiscriminate 
 Praise, 80 
 
 The Speech at South Place Chapel, 81 
 
 Equality a Result not an An-angement, 
 82 
 
 The Moral Impulse of Southey's Day 
 Given by Three Men, 83 
 
 A Notable Maxim, 84 
 
 The Silly Partners of Lanai'k, 85 
 
 Early Teaching of Co-operation, 86 
 
 Its Great Objects, 87 
 
 Popularity of Co-operative Advocacy, 88 
 
 One of Pope's Falacies, 89 
 
 The Unconscious Insolence of Philo- 
 sophers, 90 
 
 The Creed of Co-operation, 91 
 
 Universal Industry an Uncomfortable 
 Proposal, 92 
 
 Political Indifferentism, 93 
 
 Suspicious Sympathy of Despotism, 94 
 
 Overture to Conservatives, 95 
 
 Co-operation Accepted by Lord Sid- 
 mouth's Government, 96 
 
 Difficulties of PoHtical Alliance with 
 Adversaries, 97 
 
 A Remarkable Visit to Newgate, 98 
 
 PoKtical Opposition to Co-operation at 
 the London Tavern, 99 
 
 The Wonderful Committee of 1817, 100 
 
 The Needlessness of Opposition to it, 101 
 
 Propagandist Activity, 102 
 
 The Dutch Co-operators, 103 
 
 The Project of the Exeter Commumty,lU4 
 
 Lord Cloncurry's Testimony, 105 
 
 Social Pamphleteers m 1819, lOfa 
 
 The Printers of the Economist, 107 
 Its Editorship, 108 
 
 Writings of Mr. WilHam Thompson, 109 
 His " Distribution of Wealth," 110 
 The Three Combes, 111 
 Robert Dale Owen's First Work, 112 
 The London Co-operative Society, 113 
 The American New Harmony Qazette, 114 
 Recommencement of Co-operative Peri- 
 odicals in England, 115 
 Extraordinary Plan of Marriage by Lot- 
 tery, 116 
 Munificence of Mr. Hamilton, of Dalzell, 
 
 117 
 The Community at Motherwell, 118 
 Curiosities of Early Co-operative Poetry, 
 
 119 
 Wild Sympathy, 120 
 Somatopsychonoologia, 121 
 Julian Hibbert's Generosity, 122 
 Issue of Dr. King's " Co-operator," 123 
 Influence of the Brighton •' Co-operator," 
 
 124 
 The First Bu-mingham Society, 125 
 The British Association for Promoting 
 
 Co-operative Knowledge, 126 
 Early Co-operators of Historic Mark, 127 
 Clerical Objection to Co-operative Hap- 
 piness, 128 
 The Co-operative Journals of 1830, 129 
 A Belligerent Editor, 130 
 Public Agitators in 1830. 131 
 Character of the " British Co-operator," 
 
 132 
 Curious Scheme of Village Co-operation, 
 
 133 
 Legal Difficulties of Early Societies, 134 
 State of the Law in those days, 135 
 Discussion on "Educated Shopmen," 136 
 TellaU's Definition of Co-operation, 137 
 Famous Dialogue of Tom Seekout and 
 
 Jack TeUall, 138 
 Debatable Doctrine of Josiah Wan-en, 
 
 139 
 An "Anti-man Society," 140 
 A Day at the London Tavern with Mr. 
 
 Owen, 141 
 Speech and Conduct of the Rev. Robert 
 
 Taylor, 142 
 Mr. Henry Himt in his War Paint, 143 
 Early Discussion on Share Capital, 144 
 The Fii'st Co-operative Missionary, 145 
 Early Career of James Watson, 146 
 Co-operation appears in Marseilles, 147 
 Walks to Harborne with John Collins, 148 
 "Blackwood" on the Co-operative Move- 
 ment, 149 
 Introduction of the term Congress, 150 
 The "United Trades' Co-operative Jour- 
 nal," 151 
 Early Rules of Co-operafive Society, 152 
 Rapid Extension of Societies and Com- 
 munities, 153 
 The first London Manufacturing Socie- 
 ties, 154 
 The Ghat Moss Millennium, 155 
 
408 
 
 HEAD-LINE INDEX. 
 
 Labour Markets Invented, 156 
 
 Labour Notea Issued, 157 
 
 American Origin of Labour Exchanges, 
 
 168 
 Great Meetings at Charlotte-street, Lon- 
 don, 159 
 The Great Philanthropist becomes a 
 
 Potato Dealer, 160 
 LiabUitiea of Universal Philanthropists, 
 
 161 
 Mr. Thomas Attwood Receives a Famous 
 
 Visitor, 162 
 Quick Success of the Birmingham Labour 
 
 Exchange, 163 
 The Cardinal Point in Labour Exchange 
 
 Management, 164 
 How Labour Notes became Depreciated, 
 
 165 
 The Plots of Shopkeepers, 166 
 Advantages of Labour Exchanges over 
 
 Pawnbrokers' Shops, 167 
 Early Popularity of the Exchanges, 168 
 En'ors of Management, 169 
 The Gray's Inn Road Exchange Buined 
 
 by Success, 170 
 Broken up by Violence, 171 
 The Enemy Announces a New Exchange, 
 
 172 
 Death of the Labour Market Idea, 173 
 Danger of Exaggerating Advantages, 174 
 Rise of Socialism, 175 
 Character of its Writers, 176 
 Ant Writers, 177 
 
 Appearance of " The Crisis," 178 
 Legal Impediments to Penny Papers, 179 
 An Improved Motto, 180 
 Mischief of Satirical Titles, 181 
 The Second Birmingham Congress, 182 
 Protest of Mr. Hume, M.P., against 
 
 ' Political Indiflferentism, 183 
 Great Attendances at the London Gon- 
 
 gi-ess of 1832, 184 
 Members of Parliament at the Congress, 
 
 185 
 A wise Resolution of Congress, 186 
 Missionary Districts Named, 187 
 Decline of Co-operative Stores, 188 
 The Law Favourable to Co-operative 
 
 Thieves, 189 
 Thanks to the High Constable of Hudders- 
 
 fleld, 190 
 Commencement of Socialist Congresses, 
 
 191 
 Home and Foreign Departments created, 
 
 192 
 The Long Congress, 193 
 The First Queenwood Congress, 194 
 BesponsibUity of Reporting, 195 
 Mr. Hetherington's Stoutness of Convic- 
 tion, 196 
 Vigorous Careef of George Petrie, 197 
 The Co-operative Poets, 198 
 Honourable Propagandist Enthusiasm. 
 
 199 
 Advertising Outrage, 200 
 The Vignettes of the " Crisis," 201 
 
 The Inexhaustible Ingenuity of 
 
 " Shepherd Smi)*," 202 
 The Vicissitudes of Propagandist 
 
 Papers, 203 
 First Appearance of the "New Moral 
 
 World," 204 
 Co-operative Government of Coaguila and 
 
 Texas, 205 
 Social Character of Co-operative As- 
 semblies, 206 
 A Confident Co-operative Motto, 207 
 Communistic Calculations, 208 
 The Wonderful Pacificator, 209 
 A Propagandist's Precaution, 210 
 The " Pioneer" of Trade Unions, 211 
 The Irrelevant Lectures on Marriage, 212 
 The Amazing Etzler Paradise, 213 
 The Great Peripatetic Restaurant, 214 
 Discouragement and Decline of Co-opera- 
 tion, 215 
 Meritorious Disappearance of the Milen- 
 
 nium, 216 
 Honourable and Adventurous Concern 
 
 for Science, 217 
 The French Demand Practical Experi- 
 ments of the English, 218 
 Renewed Contempt of Political Rights^ 
 
 219 
 The Rising of the " Star in the East," 
 
 220 
 Coromunistic Writers, 221 
 The Birmingham Leaders of Co-opera- 
 tion, 222 
 Mr. Wiffiam Hawkes Smith, 223 
 Appearance of the " Working Bee," 224 
 The Communistic Year— 1840, 225 
 Last Days of the " New Moral World," 226 
 A Master of Disputation, 227 
 Writers of Mark, 228 
 James Pierrepont Greaves, 229 
 A Mystic's Eye, 230 
 The Ham Common Society, 231 
 Ukases of the Central Board, 232 
 Needless Fears of Disturbing Society, 233 
 Mischievous Self-defamation, 234 
 Character of Co-operative Joui-uallsm, 
 
 235 
 Editorial Laws of Imputation, 236 
 Disregarded Services of Co-operative 
 
 Journals, 237 
 The Duty of Defined Theological Neu- 
 trality, 238 
 The Responsibility of Candour, 239 
 The Fate of Sperry, 240 
 Alarmed Scrupulosity of the Central 
 
 Board, 241 
 The Kind of Oath Taken by Two Mis- 
 sionaries, 242 
 A "Performance" with the Oath, 243 
 Sincerity a Dignity Egual to that of Divi- 
 nity, 244 
 Errorlessness Unattainable, 245 
 Pagan Regard for Truth, 246 
 The Responsibility of Dissent, 247 
 The Clergy take their Revenge like Car- 
 nal People, 248 
 
HEAD-LINE INDEX. 
 
 409 
 
 The Clergy, like other Monopolists, ex- 
 clude their Blv^s from the Market, 
 249 
 
 Insolent Candour of De Maistre, 250 
 
 The Old English Gilds Co-operative, 251 
 "Women Formerly Concerned in Public 
 Affairs, 252 
 
 The Modem Problem of Co-operation, 253 
 
 Definition of a Pantisocracy, 254 
 
 Association the Sacrifice of what we can 
 spare for the gain of what we want, 
 255 
 
 Mrs. Martineau's Great Testimony, 266 
 The Two Sufficient Causes of Non-suc- 
 ■ cess, 257 
 
 BuonaiTOti's Comparison of Communi- 
 ties, 258 
 
 The Great Co-operative Society of Amhe- 
 lakia, 259 
 
 Its Remarkable Organisation, 260 
 
 Its Sagacious Commercial Policy, 261 
 
 Important Statement of Mr. Urquhart's, 
 262 
 
 The Wabash Community, 263 
 
 ■" Lord Brougham's Memorable Advice," 
 264 
 
 The First Resolution of the Co-operative 
 Republicans, 265 
 
 Temperance a Necessity in Communities, 
 266' 
 
 The Conditions under which Prohibition 
 is a Mercy, 267 
 
 How New Harmony First Became Inhar- 
 monious, 268 
 
 Toleration the Indispensable Condition 
 of Co-operative Life, 269 
 
 The Duty of Co-operators as respects 
 Clerical Objectors, 270 
 
 The Famous Orbiston Community, 271 
 
 Character of the Orbiston " Register," 272 
 . Utilitarianism Confounded with Dreari- 
 ness, 278 
 
 Personal Appearance of Abram Combe, 
 274 
 
 Statistics of Communities, 275 
 
 Orbiston Terminated by George Combe, 
 276 
 
 Death of Abram Combe, 277 
 
 Fate of Mr. Thompson's Generous Be- 
 quest, 278 
 
 Plan of the Cork Community, 279 
 
 Mr. Thompson Frustrated by Mr. Owen, 
 280 
 
 Elligibility of Women Admitted, 281 
 
 The Surprising Irish Community, 282 
 
 Brutal Treatment ot Ealahine Labourers, 
 
 The New Systemites, 284 
 Intrepidity of Mr. Craig, 285 
 Government ot the Clare Community, 28b 
 The Loss of the Merry Community, 287 
 The Wild Leader of the Fen Community, 
 
 Mr. Hodgson, of Brimstone Hin, 289 
 O'Connor Appears as a Social Eefoimei, 
 
 The Chartist Settlements, 291 
 The Newcastle Chronicle Report, 292 
 Wild Miscalculations, 298 
 The Great Queenwood Community, 294 
 Communism the Tendency of Civilisa- 
 tion, 295 
 Rise of Co-operative Halls, 296 
 Revival of the Old Co-operative Store, 297 
 Choice of the Queenwood Estates, 298 
 Diificulties of Selecting Community 
 
 Land, 299 
 Mr. William Galpin, 800 
 The Queenwood HaU, 801 
 Financial Enthusiasm, 802 
 Mr. W. H. Ashurst, 303 
 Neutrality of Policy Distinct from the 
 
 Neutrality of Conviction, 304 " 
 Signs of the End, 805 
 The Last Governor of Harmony, 306 
 Fall of Queenwood, 807 
 Queenwood College, 308 
 An Action in Chancery, 309 
 Lord RomUly's Judgment, 310 
 Co-operative Advocacy Continued in the 
 
 "Reasoner," 311 
 Remembrances of Queenwood, 312 
 Mistimed Criticism, 313 
 The Advancement of Truth an Art, 314 
 Varieties of Enthusiasts, 315 
 Speculators in Progress, 316 
 The Duty of Scrupulous Propagandism, 
 
 817 
 Lord Cloncuriy's Letter, 818 
 Danger of Permitting too much Zeal, 319 
 Community Projects very Dead, 320 
 The Last Day at Queenwood, 321 
 Debate Distrusted, 322 
 Quaker Ways, 323 
 Bishop Philpott's Speech, 324 
 A Prelate Held Accountable, 325 
 The Poet Laureate Assailed, 326 
 Joseph Barker's Capacity and Career, 827 
 Adventm'es of Dr. Brindley, 328 
 Death of Dr. Brindley, 329 
 Polemical Principals,380 
 Dr. Travis's Theory, 331 
 Creation of Polemical Facts, 332 
 Old Controversies, 333 
 The Leicester Principle of Advocacy, 834 
 PubUo Fear of Combinations, 835 
 Remarkable Ai-gument of Jeremy Taylor, 
 
 336 
 Truth Suppressible, 837 
 The Error of Too Much Confidence, 838 
 Medals Earned by Garblers, 389 
 Old Riots, 340 
 The Battered Pioneers, 341 
 Controversial Merriment, 842 
 Influence of a Dispassionate Adversary, 
 
 343 
 Toleration, Trust in the Truth, 344 
 Social Advocates not Demagogues, 345 
 The Duke of Wellington's Idea of them, 
 
 346 
 Ramshackle Stores, 347 
 Crowds of Crazes, 348 
 
410 
 
 HEAD-LINE INDEX. 
 
 Perplexing Adherents, 849 
 
 Alluring Proposals, 850 
 
 Original Precaution Against Pickpockets, 
 851 
 
 Dr. King, 852 
 
 The Brothers Skene, 858 
 
 Letter from Leigh Hunt, 354 
 
 Mr. Thomas Alleop, 855 
 
 Higher-class Co-operative Works, 856 
 
 Sunday Lecture Controversy, 357 
 
 Social Reform Proposed to the Clergy, 
 858 
 
 Distinctive Character of English Co- 
 operation, 359 
 
 Mr. Owen's Skill in Testimony, 360 
 
 Career of Detrosier, 861 
 
 Mr. James Watson, 362 
 
 Mr. Henry Hetherington, 363 
 
 Original Figures of Speech, 364 
 
 Compromising Eccentricity, 365 
 
 Mr. Finch on the rampage, 366 
 
 Perplexity of Society, 367 
 
 Character of Social Adherents, 368 
 
 Valuable Services of Mr. Fleming, 869 
 
 Distinction of Mr. Lloyd Jones as a 
 Debater and Mr. Rigby as a Disciple, 
 870 
 
 Mr, Southwell's Brilliant Vivacity and 
 Death, 371 
 
 Dr. Hollick's Lucidity of Statement, 872 
 
 Mackintosh's Electrical Theory of the 
 Universe, 373 
 
 Alexander Campbell's Discovery — Dis- 
 tinction of Dr. Watts, 874 
 
 John OoIierFarn—HenryJacques Jeffrey, 
 875 
 
 Robert Buchanan, Poet and Advocate — 
 
 Robert Spiers, 876 
 James Napier Bailey's Capacity of Con- 
 futation, 877 
 Mr, Henry Knight's Perspicacity of View, 
 
 378 
 Lady Advocates, 379 
 Madame D'Arusmont, Mrs.Emma Martin*. 
 
 their Intrepidity, 880 
 Letter from Lady Byron, 881 
 Familiar Names, 382 
 Varieties of Missionaries, 383 
 Extent of Co-operative Fropagandism, 884 
 Vicissitudes of the Platfoi-m, 385 
 Lecturing Adventures, 386 
 Influence of Largeness on Logic, 387 
 Mr. Owen in Debate, 388 
 Picturesque Debates, 389 
 Maltreatment of Truth, 390 
 Premature Expectations, 391 
 Scarcity of Commanding Teachers, 392 
 iOutline'of the Propagandist Art, 393 
 Obligations of Consistency, 894 
 Responsibilities of the Propagandists, 395 
 The Impassioned Cry of Louis Blanc, 396 
 Main Objects of this History, 397 
 Mastery in Progress Dependant on Clear- 
 ness in Policy, 398 
 Early Difficulties of Innovators, 399 
 Generous Sacrifices of the Rich, 400 
 Neither Forgotten nor Unregarded, 401 
 Distinction between the Ostentatious and 
 
 the Obscure Writer, 402 
 The Brave Drudges, 403 
 Generous Old Guards, 404 
 Men in the Ranks who Won the Day, 405 
 
GENEKAL INDEX 
 
 OF SUBJECTS ADDITIONAL TO THOSE IN THE HEAD-LINE INDEX. 
 
 Account Keeping, pitfall the, 124 
 
 Acquisition of MiBsionaries, 204 
 
 Action in Chancery, 310 
 
 Adams George, 248 
 
 Adams Mrs. Harriet, 248 
 
 Adversaries, En-ors in Treatment of 
 them, 90 
 
 Agricultural Economist, 129 
 
 Alarmed Shopkeepers, 69 
 
 Alcott House, Ham Common, 230 
 
 AUen Mr., his important admission, 
 82 
 
 Alliance of Co-operation with Tem- 
 perance, 265 
 
 Amberley Lord, 367 
 
 American Granges, 281 
 
 Anderson W., Dr., 338, 339 
 
 Aristotle, 26, 27 
 
 Arusmont Madame D', 379 
 
 Assington Co-operative Farms, 144 
 
 Associate, The, 125 
 
 Associated Tailors, 211 
 
 Association, when first taught as an 
 art, 83 
 
 Association of All Classes of All 
 Nations, 191 
 
 Atlantic Mojithly, 59 
 
 Atldnson Mr., 383 
 
 Axon W. E. A., 36 
 
 Bahenf a Non-interventionist, 39 
 Babeuf Conspirators Opposed to 
 
 Mendicity, 89 
 Babeuf's Farewell Words to His 
 
 Wife, 41 
 Babeuf, The Great Conspiracy of, 
 
 39 
 Babylon, The Orbiston, 276 
 Barbauld Mrs., on Uses of Depre- 
 dators, 16 
 
 Bard, A Co-operative, 119 
 
 Bain Alexander, Professor, 250 
 
 Baker Kev. P., an Early Advocate, 
 146, 147, 148 
 
 Barebones Community on the Cal- 
 der. The, 273 
 
 Barmby Goodwyn, 228, 230 
 
 Bate F., 228, 301 
 
 Banme P. H., the Reforming Opti- 
 mist, 220, 349 
 
 Bazaar of the British Association, 
 154 
 
 Beardsworth's Eepository, 162 
 
 BeUers John, his Great; Scheme of 
 Co-operation, 32 
 
 BeUers Fettiplace, 36 
 
 Bentham Jeremy, 361 
 
 Bentham Jeremy, his Successful 
 Investment, 82, 110 
 
 Bewley Mr., 233 
 
 Bird George Dr., 228 
 
 Birkbeck Institution, Speech at, 91 
 
 Birmingham Co-operative Herald, 
 144 
 
 Birmingham Politioal Union, 162 
 
 Birmingham, Great Meeting in, 162 
 
 Birmingham; its Co-operative Influ- 
 ence, 182 
 
 Birmingham an Official Centre, 193 
 
 Birmingham Goods, 114 
 
 Bishop of St. Asaph, 180 
 
 Bishop of London, Co-operative 
 Opinion of, 65 
 
 Bishop Randolph Stops The Way, 95 
 
 Bishop of Peterborough, 334, 
 
 Blanc Louis, 14, 392 
 
 Blanc Louis, his Character of a, 
 Jacobin, 845 
 
 Blomfield, Bishop, Explains Things, 
 357 
 
412 
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 Bolton, Early Lectures there, 147 
 Book of the New Moral World, 215 
 Booth Arthur John, 384 
 Bostock Lord, 185 
 BotheraU M. De, great Co-operative 
 
 Cook, 214 
 Bower Samuel, 352 
 Bowes John, 326 
 Bowring Sir John, his Testimony, 
 
 82 
 Brahazon Lord, Report, 19 
 Braby Mr., 209 
 
 Bradford Society, The First, 124 
 Bradford Wool-combers' Song, The, 
 
 14 
 Bradlaugh Charles, 329 
 Braxfield House, Guests at, 69 
 Bray Charles, 17, 224, 329 
 Brewer's Green School, 54 
 Brighton Productive Societies, 353 
 Bright Eight Hon. Mr., Speech of, 
 
 87 
 Bi-indley Dr., 332, 835 
 British Association for Advancing 
 
 Co-operative Knowledge, 127 
 British Co-operator, 132 
 Bromley Mr., his Outrage in Gray's 
 
 Inn Eoad, 170, 171 
 Brougham Lord, 54, 56, 75, 337, 
 
 357 
 Buooleugh, Duke of, 335 
 Buonarroti PhiHi'po, 42, 
 Burnet Bishop, 28 
 Burton Captain, 19 
 Burton Street, 113, 208 
 Butler's Hudibras, 24 
 Buxton John, 306, 307, 313, 314 
 Byron Lady Noel, 145, 353, 361 
 
 Cahet, 392 
 
 Cadbury J. has Scruples, 323 
 
 Cain, an Opponent of Co-operation, 
 
 33 
 Campbell Alexander, 192, 340 
 Cameron's Trumpet Calls, 213 
 Canning Mr. considers Co-operation, 
 
 95 
 Carlile Eichard, 121, 210 
 Carlyle Thomas, his Manly Inspira- 
 tion, 17, 40 
 Carpenter WiUiam, 185 
 
 Cartwright Major speaks against 
 time, 99 
 
 Causation of the Will, 333 
 
 Causes of Failure, 189 
 
 Central Board Charters, 231 
 
 Cessation of Store Congresses, 191 
 
 Chadwick E. B., 35 
 
 Chambers Brothers, The, 117 
 
 Chapel Smith Mrs., 379 
 
 Charlotte Street Exchange, Open- 
 ing of, 158 
 
 Chartists acquire Co-operative Ideas, 
 291 
 
 Chartist Land Cry, The, 293 , 
 
 Cheltenham Lecture, The, 239 
 
 Chilton William, 248 
 
 Christian Apostles, their honourable 
 fidelity, 244 
 
 Christian Communism, Crudeness 
 of, 28 
 
 Christian Impediments, 180 
 
 Church Dr., 168 
 
 Circumstantial Philosopher, 349 
 
 Cleave John, 127 
 
 Clegg William, 192 
 
 Clubs, Working Men's, 268 
 
 Cobbett WUliam, 73 
 
 Cobden Eiohard, his rhetorical skill, 
 81, 331 
 
 Coleridge S. T., his Warning, 15, 
 318 
 
 Collett C. D., 180 
 
 College of Industry, BeUers's con- 
 ception of it, 35 
 
 Collins John, 127 
 
 Combe Abram as a Writer, 238, 272 
 
 Combination Laws, 10 
 
 Commonwealth, The, 227 
 
 Communistic Scenery, 118, 138 
 
 Community Life, its popularity, 312 
 
 Comtean Motto, The, 220 
 
 Constable H,, 383 
 
 Co-operative Magazine, The, 115 
 
 Co-operation in Dublin, 105 
 
 Co-operative Stores at Ealahine, 287 
 
 Co-operation, when first stated, 53 
 
 Co-operative Stores first advised, 65 
 
 Co-operative Steward, A, sends 
 everybody to the devil, 285 
 
 Co-operators Abandoned, 219 
 
 Cooper J. E., 378 
 
GENEKAL INDEX. 
 
 413 
 
 Cooper Eobert, 378 
 
 Consid&ant, 48, 50 
 
 Connard Mr. Imprisoned, 341 
 
 Conversion of Abram Combe, 274 
 
 Cost of Social Halls, 296 
 
 Cousins B. D., 202 
 
 Colleeting Co-operative Sheep, 364 
 
 Cowper William, 7 
 
 Cramp John, 228, 311 
 
 Critical Booms Wanted, 270 
 
 Cromwell's, 0., Reply concerning 
 
 Harrington, 30, 31 
 CroBsley David, 124 
 
 Dale David, his discernment, 81 
 DaUing Lord, his broad Error as to 
 
 Paine, 46 
 Dangers of Credit, 306 
 Davenport AUen, 121 
 Day of Fruitless Service, 321 
 Death of Babeuf and Darthe, 41 
 Debates in Indiana, 114 
 Dedication of the Economist, 108 
 Definition of Co-operation, 2, 3, 4 
 Derivations of Co-operative Terms, 
 
 1,2 
 Detrosier Eowland, 182 
 Detrosier Eowland, bis Death, 360 
 Difficulties of dealing with Inebria- 
 tion, 266 
 Difficulties of Theological Neutrali 
 
 ty, 237 
 Dining-room, An Amazing, 207 
 Discussion with the Rev. J. H. 
 
 Roebuck, 91 
 Disraeli Mr., his Alliance, 315 
 Disraeli's, the elder. Rescue of Har- 
 rington, 32 
 Distinctive features of Co-operation, 
 
 5,6 
 Doherty Hugh Dr., 229 
 Drinkwater Mr., 81 
 Drummond Mr., 33 
 Dublin Rotunda Meeting, 1823, The, 
 
 77 
 Dunn Rev. C. B., 197 
 Duty of a Public Writer, 1 
 
 Early Advocates, Character of, 155 
 Early Congress Reports, 190 
 Economies of Co-operation, 34 
 
 Economist, The, 15 
 Economist, The, 61 
 Eatorial PoUoy, 235 
 Edmonson Mr., 308 
 Education always Part of Co-opera- 
 tion, 55 
 Eight-hour Movement, 84 
 Eliot George, 52, 321, 397, 401 
 Elliott's, Ebenezer, Deiinition of 
 
 Communism, 3 
 EUiott Ebenezer, his Estimate of 
 
 Paine, 73 
 EUiott Ebenezer, his Sheflaeld Ad- 
 dress, 83 
 Elhs William, 147 
 Emerson R. W., 347 
 Empson WiUiain, his Difficulties, 
 
 323 
 English Conception of Communism, 
 
 295 
 EngUsh Exchanges, Origin of, 156 
 Epitaph on Cobbett, 85 
 Epitaph on Mr. Owen, 85 
 Epps Dr., 137 
 Erskine's Defence of Harrington, 
 
 30 
 Essenes, The, 27 
 Etzler's Way-side Appeals, 213 
 European Co-operation, 103 
 Exchanges, how they might have 
 
 been permanent, 168 
 Exeter, Bishop of, 323 
 Eyre Governor, 40 
 
 Earn John Colier, 374 
 
 Farrar Squire, 13 
 
 FeUenberg School Plan, 58 
 
 FeUowes Robert, B.A., 177 
 
 Fighting Reformers Obsolete, 21 
 
 Finch John, 185, 802 
 
 Finch John, Prohibitionist Prohi- 
 bited, the, 322 
 
 Finlason Mr., his Land Scheme 
 Calculation, 293 
 
 Fleming Alexander Geo., 194, 216, 
 226, 231, 288, 289, 369 
 
 Fleming G. A., his Manly Candour, 
 234 
 
 Fletcher Mr., his Bequest, 378 
 
 Floating Community, 205 
 
 Fluctuations of Journals, 115 
 
414 
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 Flying Logicians, 390 
 
 Fools, their abiding influence, 173 
 
 Forces of Co-operation in 1830, 153 
 
 Fors ClaTigera, 29 
 
 Fourier, Death of, 50 
 
 Fourier commences with tarts, 49 
 
 Fourierists, their disregard of poli- 
 tical life, 93 
 
 Fox W. J., a, South Place Oration, 
 81, 325 
 
 French Missionaries of Communism 
 in London, 49 
 
 French Epv. Francis, 283 
 
 French Social Inspiration, its limits, 
 20 
 
 Frbebel, 35 
 
 Froebel Kiudergartens, 55 
 
 Fulton Robert, Short-time Move- 
 ment, Origin of, 58 
 
 FurnivaU J. J., 1 
 
 Galpin WOHam, 299, 301, 304 
 
 Gay J., 218 
 
 Georgian Acts, The Infamous, 249 
 
 Geutz Von and Mr. Owen, 254 
 
 Giles Rev. Mr., 341 
 
 Gimson, Josiah, 334, 335 
 
 Gladstone Mr., his Irish Land Laws, 
 
 283 
 Gloucester Gaol Iguored, 241 
 Godwin's Political Justice, 46 
 Goldsmith's Lucky Shoemaker, 16 
 Goldsmith's Wild Couplets, 94 
 Goodwyn Mr. Barmby, 879 
 Gothic Hall, 161 
 Grant Rev. Brewin, 341 
 Gratuitous Griefs, 120 
 Gray John, 169 
 
 Gray Mr. John, of Faldonside, 868 
 Gray's Inn Road Bazaar, 163 
 Gray's Inn Road Institution, 199 
 Great London Congress, The, 184 
 Greaves James Pierrepoint, 118 
 Greeley Horace, his Protectionist 
 
 Ideas, 15 
 Greeley Horace, 264 
 Green C. P., 309 
 Green John, 224 
 Green Join, his Death, in America, 
 
 S75 
 Grenfieia Mrs. Capt., 123 
 
 Greville Street, Hatton Garden, 127 
 
 Grey Sir C, 57 
 
 Grimstoue Mrs. Mary Leman, her 
 
 Acrostic, 198 
 Grisel, the Traitor, 41 
 Gruyere Co-operatiou, 48 
 Guest J., 221, 359 
 Gurdon Mr., 282 
 
 Hale, Chief Justice, 33 
 
 Hall Confounded with Harrington, 
 32 
 
 Halls of Science, 216 
 
 HaU Rev. Robert, 848 
 
 Halstead Rev. B., The, 270 
 
 Hampden in the Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury, 356 
 
 Hansom J., Architect of Queen- 
 wood, 800 
 
 Hardy Right Hon. Gathorne, 323 
 
 Harrington & Cromwell's Daughter, 
 31 
 
 Hawkes Smith, 222 
 
 Hawkes Smith, his Practical Dis- 
 cernment, 223 
 
 Helps Sir AJrthur on Improvers, 24 
 
 Hennell Mrs. Mary, 879 
 
 Herald of Community, 213 
 
 Herald of Progress, 228 
 
 Herder, 26 
 
 Her Majesty, Communications to, 
 196 
 
 Hetherington Henry, 148, 218 
 
 Heywood Abel, 218 
 
 Hibbert Julian, his Appeal, 121 
 
 Hibbert Julian, his Death, 122 
 
 Hibbert Julian, his Gift to Carlyle, 
 122 
 
 Hibbert Julian, 350 
 
 Hm Wiffiam, 220 
 
 Hm James, 220, 226, 298 
 
 Hindoo Feature of Communism, 47 
 
 Hobson Joshua, 225 
 
 Hodgson, misgivings -as to him, 288 
 
 Holland, Pauper Colonies of, 58 
 
 HoUick Dr. Frederick, 192, 222, 329 
 
 Home Colonisation Society, 303 
 
 Honourable Priests, 24 
 
 Howling House, 270 
 
 Hughes Mr. George, his Practical 
 Views, 45 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 415 
 
 Hughes Thomas, 189 
 Hume Joseph, M.P., 9, 183 
 Hunt Leigh, his Wise Maxim, 360 
 
 Illustrious Acquaintances of Mr. 
 
 Owen, 59 
 Improvement Once a Monopoly, 66 
 Infant Schools, their Origin, 57 
 Inspiration of Realism, 255 
 Intimidation of Social Improvers, 73 
 Irish Ascendancy in England, 290 
 Irish Community, the Cause of its 
 
 Success, 286 
 Ironside Isaac, 812 
 Irving Sev. Edward, 385 
 
 Jaooby, Deputy, 253 
 
 Jeffery Francis, Speech of, 9 
 
 Jeffery H., 248 
 
 Jesus, Political Economy Ignored 
 
 by Him, 27 
 Johnson Mrs., 342 
 Johnson Ben, 71 
 Jones Robert, 340 
 Jones Lloyd, 369 
 
 Jones Lloyd, his Misgivings, 195, 
 231 
 , Jones Ernest, 293 
 Jowett Professor, 27 
 
 Kate, 288 
 
 Keats, 103 
 
 Kent, Duke of, 58 
 
 Kent, Duke of, his Steadfast Friend- 
 ship, 76 
 
 Kent, Duke of, his Remarkable 
 Speech, 77 
 
 Kidd, Rev. W., the uncomfortable, 
 248 
 
 King Dr., 25 
 
 King Dr., his Papers, 123 
 
 Kiagsley Canon, 156 
 
 Knight Charles, 342 
 
 Laban an Early Co-operator, 4 
 Labour-notes Taken at Theatres, 
 
 166 
 Lady Byron, her Model Inns, 268 
 Lamb Charles, 266 
 Lanark Mills, Sale of, 85 
 Lanark, Illumination of, 85 
 
 Lanark Schools, The Opening of, 54 
 
 Lancashire and Yorkshire Co-opera- 
 tor, 181 
 
 Lancashire Co-operator, 180 
 
 Lane Charles, 229 
 
 Laws of Ti-uth, 315 
 
 Lectures on Marriage, 211 
 
 Lessons of the Great Co-operator, 
 86 
 
 Lewes G. H., 331 
 
 Lewis Sir George Comewall, 243 
 
 Limits of Propagandism, 316 
 
 Link-boy, The, his Reply to Pope, 
 61 
 
 Liverpool Lord, Listens to Co-opera- 
 tion, 95 
 
 Liverpool Lord, his Concession, 99 
 
 Lodges Devised, 212 
 
 iogan William, 339 
 
 London Tavern, Historic Meeting 
 in 1817, 75 
 
 London Petrolense, 41 
 
 Longstaff William, 292 
 
 Lovett WOUam, 127 
 
 Lowe Mr., of Salford, 194 
 
 Lowe, Right Hon. Robert, 174 
 
 Ludlow John Malcolm, 189 
 
 Lunatic Advertisement in the Times, 
 310 
 
 Lunatic Terrors of Co-operation, 
 
 145 
 Lycurgus, 26 
 LyeU Sir Charles, 64, 302 
 
 Macdonell John, 4 
 
 Mackintosh Thomas Simmons, his 
 Death, at Ottawa, 373 
 
 Malthus Rev. T. R., his Unwel- 
 come Appearance, 11 
 
 Malthus Rev. T. R., his Brutal 
 Proposals, 12 
 
 Manchester Guardian, 151 
 
 Marat, 39 
 
 Marriage by Ballot, 116 
 
 Marriott Rev. J., 221 
 
 Marseillaise of the -Communists, 
 The, 43 
 
 Martin Mrs. Emma, 248 
 
 Mason Sir Josiah, 317 
 
 Maso[uerier Lewis, 228 
 
 Maude Mr., the Magistrate, 242 
 
416 
 
 GENEKAL INDEX. 
 
 Mc.Cormac Dr., 137, 348 
 
 Metallic Cabinet, 67 
 
 MiU John Stuart, 141, 353, 361 
 
 Mill James, 26, 54, 57, 336 
 
 MUl James on Families of the Poor, 
 
 77 
 MiUennimn, Arrival of, 212 
 Milton John, 396 
 Minos, 26 
 
 Mirabean Marquis de, 37 
 Mirror, Co-operative, 137 
 Miscellany, The Co-operative, 129, 
 
 148- 
 Moderate Statement, The Rule of, 
 
 74 
 Modem MSS., 88 
 Modem Savages, 192 
 Mordan Mr., 361 
 Moore Sir Thomas, 1, 22 
 MoreUy, His Fine Problem, 37 
 Morgan Miuter, 176, 301, 358 
 Morrison's, Charles, Definition of 
 
 Co-operation, 5 
 Morrison Charles, his Definition 
 
 of Demagogue, 345 
 Morrison's, Walter,' Comparison of 
 
 Owen and Plato, 54 
 Morrison, Walter, Subscription of 
 
 His Father, 118 
 Morrison and Co., 162 
 Morrison James, Editor of the 
 
 Pioneer, 211 
 Motto, The Old Co-operative, 33 
 Mouse-trap Committee, 134 
 Muntz G. F., M.P., 162, 325 
 Murphy J. L., 222, 360 
 
 Napoleon III., 46 
 
 Nasse Mr. on Agiicultural Commu- 
 nities, 4 
 
 National Community Society, 191 
 
 National HaU, High Holborn, 127 
 
 Neale B. Vansittart, 189 
 
 New Age, 229 
 
 Newgate Magazine, The, 114 
 
 New Harmony, Indiana, Its Position 
 and Plan, 263 
 
 New Harmony Gazette, 114 
 
 Nicholson J., 124 
 
 Normanby Lord, 323 
 
 Number of SociaUsts, 297 
 
 Number of Co-operators, 1830, 152: 
 
 Obligations of Reformers, 196 
 O'Brien Bronterre, 44 
 O'Brien Bronterre, Character of,^ 
 366 
 
 Oceana, Harrington's, 30 
 
 O'Connor Feargus, M.P., Qualified 
 by Mr. AUsop, 355 
 
 Oracle of Reason, 243 
 
 Orbistou Register, The, 271 
 
 Owen Robert, His Speech at Hoik- 
 ham, 16 
 
 Owen R., the two marks of his 
 mind, 53 
 
 Owen R., his Great School Scheme, 
 53 
 
 Owen, Effects of his Oratory, 74 
 
 Owen, his Courage and Thorough- 
 ness, 78 
 
 Owen Memorial Committee, 86 
 
 Owen Mr. in the French Revolu- 
 tion, 178 
 
 Owen Mr., End of his Fortune, 201 
 
 Owen Mr. at Court, 324 
 
 Owen Mr., his Anecdote of Himself, 
 342 
 
 Owen R. Dale, his Autobiography, 
 76 
 
 Owen R. D., his Biographical Op- 
 portunities, 79 
 
 Owen R. D., " His Footfalls," 79 
 
 Owen R. D., 176, 269 
 
 Outline of the Rational System 
 Issued, 193 
 
 Pachydermatous Adversary, 326 
 Palmerston Lord, His Impartiality, 
 
 93 
 Paraguay Community, The Unin- 
 
 structive, 38 
 Pare W., His Life of Owen, 86 
 Pare W., Loss of His Registrarship, 
 
 89 
 Pare W., 144, 145, 150, 278 
 Pare W., His History of Ralahine, 
 
 282 
 Pare W., 296, 302 
 Pare W., Dinner to, 325 
 Pare W., His First Introduction," 
 
 358, 359 
 
GENEEAIi INDEX. 
 
 417 
 
 Pater Oldham, 231 
 
 Paterson Thomas, 248 
 
 Pemberton C. E., 325 
 
 Pencil'em, 379 
 
 Prendegast Mr., 35 
 
 Perilous Meddlings, 120 
 
 Persecution, A Force, 323 
 
 Festalozzi, 35 
 
 Petrie George, His Interview with 
 the Duke of Wellington, 197 
 
 Phillips Sir George, Discourtesy of, 
 75 
 
 Pinon Community, The, 37 
 
 Place Francis, 8, 67, 107 
 
 Plato's Republic, 27 
 
 Political Co-operators, 70,000, 293 
 
 Poor Man's Guardian, 206 
 
 Pope Eev. Mr., 128 
 
 Population a Question for the Work- 
 ing Class Alone, 12 
 
 Premature Resentment, 132 
 
 Prescott, Grote, and Co., Bankers 
 
 for the Co-operators, 280 
 Propagandist Handkerchief, A, 136 
 Propagandist, A Great, 88 
 
 Quakers Triumphant, 86 
 
 Eabone John, 360, 125 
 
 Radical, The, 216 
 
 Eadical Publishers, The, 146 
 
 Bansome J, 216 
 
 Eapp Mr., 263 
 
 Bational Religionists, 224 
 
 Recurring Ideas, when signiflcant, 
 
 23 
 Bedford, Eev. Dr., 339, 340 
 Bed Lion Square, 105 
 Bed Lion Square, No. 36, 146 
 Religion Disintegrating, 268 
 Religion of Humanity Unrecognised, 
 
 89 
 Eevision of Mr. Owen's MSS., 57 
 Beynolds Miss, 379 
 Reynolds, Commissioner, 341 
 Bigby James, 190 
 
 Rise of the Religion of Industry, 104 
 Robbery of Early Stores, 134 
 Robertson John, 352 
 Robespierre opposed to Foromg 
 
 Progress, 39 
 
 B 
 
 Eoebuck Eev. J. H., 343 
 Roebuck J. A., M.P., 159, 353 
 Eose Hill House, 305 
 Eowbotham S., 288 
 Eoyal Exchange, Prediction of its 
 
 Destination, 69 
 Rubicon, Passing of, 212 
 Euskin John on Sir Thomas Moore, 
 
 28,29 
 EyaU Maltus Qnestell, 248 
 
 St. Augustine, tone of the Churches, 
 
 12 
 Sale of The Crisis, 179 
 Sargant Mr. Lucas, his Life of Owen, 
 
 79 
 Saull W. D., 220, 301 
 Science the available Providence of 
 
 Man, 217 
 Scotch Deputations, Pertinacity of, 
 
 9 
 Scott EusseU, his futile scheme, 97 
 Scoundrel Evasionists, 182 
 Searle January, 229 
 Secular Bequests Fatal, 277 
 Seigwart's M., 257 
 Senior Mr., not concerned with 
 
 Happiness, 110 
 Services of Critics, The, 80 
 Seven Societies in Carlisle, 215 
 Seventeen Days' Congress, A., 193 
 Shakers, their PoUtioal Baseness, 93 
 Sheffield Eegeneration Society, The, 
 
 Shopkeepers, BeUers their Early 
 Enemy, 34 
 
 Sidmouth Lord Approves of Co- 
 operation, 96 
 
 Sidmouth Lord, Proposal to put him 
 in Irons, 99 
 
 SiUy Supper, The, 85 
 
 Simkins George, 377 
 
 Simon St., Formula, 49 
 
 Sinclair Sir John, 33 
 
 Singular Discovery by an Editor, 
 132 
 
 Skene Philip Orkney, 354 
 
 Smiles Dr., 231 
 
 Smith Hawkes, 176, 328 
 
 Smith Joseph, defines Deception, 
 365 
 
 B 
 
418 
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 Smith Joseph, of Salford, 185, 296 
 Smith Lucy Toulmiii, 251 
 Social Economist, 65, 129 
 Socialism, Commencement of, 187 
 Socialism, First Use of the Term, 
 
 210 
 Socialist, the Term Adopted, 219 
 Socialist Thoroughness and Taste, 
 
 301 
 Social Missionaries Appointed, 191 
 Social Missionaries, Commence- 
 ment of, 183 
 Social Pioneer, 224 
 Social Science, Its Origin, 64 
 Southey, his Important Testimony, 
 
 83 
 Sonthey Eobert, 326 
 Southey's, Kohert, Famous Invoca- 
 tion, 15 
 Southwell Charles, 239, 243 
 Splendid Propagandism, 60 
 Stephenson George, 69 
 Stepney Mr. CoweU, 253, 401 
 St. Just, 837 
 
 Sunday School Teaching, 149 
 Sussex, Duke of, 128 
 Swear at Last, Rev. Mr., 240 
 Swear at Once, Eev. Mr., 240 
 Sybel Von, his Discrimination, 45 
 
 TaUourd Justice, his Memorial of 
 
 Lamb, 356 
 Taxes on Knowledge, 215 
 Tennyson A., 175 
 
 The First Definitions of Co-opera- 
 tion, 68 
 The Great Secret Announced, 67 
 The Reasoner, 30th Volume, 311 
 The Splendid Co-operative School, 
 
 112 
 The Two Stars, 220 
 Thompson Mr., Editor of Working 
 
 Bee, 289 
 Thompson William, his Fears of 
 
 the Future, 16 
 Thompson W.,his Abstemiousness, 
 
 111 
 Thompson W., 278, 348 
 Thorn WiUiam, the Poet, Inverary, 
 
 330 
 Tinlay Thomas, 248 
 
 Toland's Opinion of Harrington, 31 
 
 Toleration the Truest Ti-ust, 343 
 
 Tom Seekont, 137 
 
 Took, Mr., his Legal Opinion, 357 
 
 Toulmin Smith, 223, 251 
 
 Tract Society, The, its Activity in 
 
 London, 199 
 Two New Moral Worlds, 203 
 Two Owens, The, 200 
 Tyndall Professor, his Saying, 335 
 Tytherly Affairs First Debated, 198 
 
 Union, The, 229 
 
 Unitarian Perplexity at Bury, 299 
 
 Unitarians, their Old Liberality, 
 385 
 
 Urquhart David, 247, 258 
 
 Uses of Periodicals, 178 
 
 Utilitarian Love, 115 
 
 Utopia, More's, 28 
 
 Utopianists, their Services to Man- 
 kind, 51 
 
 Vandeleur John Scott, 282 
 Vivian, 380 
 
 Wabash, The Thousand at, 264 
 Wade Dr., 185 
 Walbridge Arthur, 229 
 Wandering Workmen, Treatment 
 
 of, 8 
 Warburton's Warning, 83 
 Warren Josiah, 139, 158 
 Watts Dr. John, 248, 297 
 Watts Dr. John, His Originality as 
 
 a Co-operative Writer, 374 
 Weekly Free Press, 125 
 Weimar Duke of Saxe, His Fine 
 
 Summary, 72 
 WelliQgtou Duke of. His Civility to 
 
 Correspondents, 367 
 Welsh Reformer Appearance, 52 
 Wesleyan Journalism, An Unusual 
 
 Editor, 371 
 WetheraU Sir Charles, His Malicious 
 
 Readiness, 243 
 Wheeler Mrs., 140, 379 
 Whitbread Mr., his Opposition, 95 
 White George, 393 
 Whitehaven, Adventures There, 886 
 Wilberforce William, 106 
 
GENEEAL INDEX. 
 
 419 
 
 Wilson James, 65 
 'WoUstoneoroft Mrs., Character of 
 
 Batenf, 39 
 Women Becognised in Co-operation, 
 
 281 
 Wood W. R., 164, 204 
 Worldng Class Statute, Edward VI., 
 
 7 
 Working Class, The Term a Sign 
 
 of Progress, 10 
 
 Working People Afraid of Francis 
 
 Place, 66 
 Workmen, Importance of Sharing 
 
 Profits with Them, 262 
 Workmen, the Lowest Better off 
 
 than Savages, 19 
 World-sick Eeformers, 17 
 Wright Frances, 379 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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 (3--A.IS,3DEIT STUEET, jyCJ^ITCHESTES,. 
 
 BRANCHES: PUDDING CHARE, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE; 118, MIN0RIE8, LONDON. 
 
 Purchasing and Forwarding Depots : 
 
 LIVERPOOL ; LIMERICK, TIPPERARY, KILMALLOCK, WATERFORD, and 
 
 ARMAGH, IRELAND; and NORTHWICH, CHESHIRE. 
 
 Biscuit and Sweets Wocfts .-—CRUMPSALL, Near MANCHESTER. 
 
 Boot and Shoe Worlts .—WEST END SHOE WORKS, LEICESTER. 
 
 Soap Worfts:— DURHAM. 
 
 This Society is a federation of Co-operative Societies, and was established for the 
 purpose of uniting their purchases, in order to enable them to go direct to the pro- 
 ducer and manpfacturer for all their requirements, and thus secure to themselves the 
 profits of wholesale dealers. This object has been attained in many articles. Butter 
 is purchased from the producer in Ireland; and is also imported direct from France, 
 Holland, and Denmark. Cheshire and Derby Cheese are also purchased from the 
 farmers. American Cheese, Bacon, and Hams are purchased by our Agents there. 
 Sugar is, in all cases, obtained direct from the refiner ; Soap, Soda, &c., from the 
 manufacturer. 
 
 We are ourselves manufacturers of Biscuits and Sweets, Boots and Shoes, and also 
 of Soap. It will also be seen above that we are agents for many Co-operative Manu- 
 facturing Societies. 
 
 Share Capital receives 5 per cent per annum interest. The profits, which are divided 
 quarterly, after paying interest on capital and working expenses, are distributed among 
 Societies, according to their purchases — to Shareholders the full rate of dividend, to 
 non-members only half. It is thus to the interest of societies, and those that are 
 Shareholders especially, to support it all that they possibly can. 
 
 Price Lists are forwarded every Wednesday to all Societies trading with the Whole- 
 sale, and to any other Society on application. 
 
 All goods are charged at net prices, and are supplied to none but Registered Co-ope- 
 rative Societies or Companies. 
 
 With the first order a remittance must be enclosed sufficient to cover the value of the 
 goods. Future accounts must be paid on receipt of invoice, or within seven days from 
 the date ; but if not paid within fourteen days no more goods will be supplied until 
 such overdue accounts are paid. 
 
 The Shares, which are £5 each, are issued on condition that a Society takes out one 
 
 for each ten members belonging to it, increasing the number annually as its members 
 
 increase. One Shilling per Share must be paid on apphcation, on which interest at the 
 
 ' rate of £5 per cent per annum is allowed ; the remainder can be paid at once, or be paid 
 
 up by accumulations of dividend and interest. . , . - , 
 
 Application must be made by a resolution passed at a meeting ot members or ot the 
 Committee, according as the rules of each Society provide, attested by the signatures 
 of the Secretary and three members. .,. . r .- 
 
 Price Lists, Rules, Forms of Application for Shares, and any other intormation 
 furnished on application to the Central Office. j , ,u 
 
 Deposit and Loan Depaktment.— This department has been opened for the pur- 
 pose ot conducting the Current and Deposit Accounts of Societies and Companies 
 enrolled under any Act of Parliament ; and for transacting other business generally 
 carried on by bankers. The profits are divided distinct from trade, and in proportion 
 to commission and interest paid or to pay. 
 
THE ROCHD ALE EQUITABL E PIONEERS 
 
 The objects of the Society are the social and intellectual advancement of its Members. 
 
 THE CAPTIAL IS RAISED IN ONE POUND SHARES. 
 
 A person on becoming a Member must take out not less than Five, nor more than One 
 Hundred Shares. 
 
 SHARES PAYABLE AT ONCE, OR BY INSTALMENTS OF THREE & THREEPENCE PER QUARTER, 
 
 THE PROFITS ARE DIVIDED QUARTERLY, AS FOLLOW :— 
 ist.— Interest at Five per cent per annum on Paid-up Shares ; Interest to commence 
 
 on the gth of each month. 
 2nd.— Depreciation of Fixed Stock— Fixtures Ten per cent per annum ; Shops and 
 
 Workshops Two-and-a-half per cent ; Cottages, Two per cent. 
 3rd. — Two-and-a-half per cent (besides providing room, light, fuel) off Net Profits 
 
 for Educational Purposes, and the remainder amongst the Members in proportion to 
 
 their expenditure with the Society. The business is conducted at thefoUowing places :— 
 
 GENERAL GROCERIES, &c., 
 
 At the Central Store, Toad Lane j and at the Branch Stores, Oldham Road, Drake- 
 street, Whitworth Road, Pinfold, Spotland Bridge, Bamford, jWardleworth Brow, 
 Bluepits, Buersill, Shawclough, Sudden Brow, Newbold (Vavasour-street, near the 
 New Church), Milkstone Road, Slattocks, and Gravel Hole. 
 
 At No. 8, Toad Lane ; and at the Branch Stores, Oldham Road, Drake-street, Whit- 
 worth Road, Pinfold, Spotland Bridge, Bamford, Bluepits, Buersill, Wardleworth 
 Brow, Shawclough, and Milkstone Road. 
 
 At the ' Central Store, corner of Toad Lane and Saint Mary's Gate ; Drake-street, 
 Pinfold, Spotland Bridge, Bluepits, Buersill, Shawclough, and Milkstone. 
 TAILORING, at No. 31, Toad Lane. 
 
 BOOTS & SHOES, at the Central Store, Oldham Road, and Whitworth Road. 
 CLOGS, at the Central Store, Oldham Road, Whitworth Road,. Pinfold, & Bluepits. 
 COALS — Orders received at the Central Store, and at all the Branches. 
 
 EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT. 
 
 THE LIBRARY (of which Catalogues can be had from the Librarian) contains 
 upwords of 9,000 volumes of good and useful Books, adapted to all ages and classes of 
 readers. It is open, and the Librarian in attendance every week-day, from Nine a.m. 
 to half-past One p.m., and from Three to Eight, except on Tuesdays, when the Library 
 will be closed at One p.m. The Society has also THIRTEEN NEWSROOMS, 
 well supplied with Daily and Weekly Newspapers, Periodicals," Monthlies, and Quar- 
 terlies, of the best general literature of the time, representing all classes and shades of 
 Politics, Religion, Science, and Social Reform. REFERENCE LIBRARIES (of 
 above 200 volumes at the Central, and gradually increasing ones at each of the Branch 
 Newsrooms) are always open, and are well adapted for giving immediate information 
 on subjects concerning the interests of all classes of the community. A large pair of 
 Globes, Maps, Atlases, and Telescopes, are in the Central Newsrooms, for the 
 use and convenience of the readers. Scientific Instruments, Microscope, Teles- 
 cope, Zoetrope, Stereoscopes, &c., can be hired out at reasonable charges from the 
 Librarian. 
 
 QUARTERLY MEETINGS of the Newsrooms, at which Papers are chosen and 
 sold, are held:— Central, Toad Lane, Third Monday in January, April, July, and 
 October; and at all the Branches on the Tuesday following. 
 
 The Newsrooms (open daily) and Library are free to all Members. 
 
 SCIEiTOIE] -A_:N"ID .A-I2/T CXi-A-SSES. 
 
 French Class. — These Classes were inaugurated by the Educational Committee 
 in 1873, and have since continued to be carried on successfully. ThefoUowing subjects 
 are now taught by able teachers, viz. :— Geometrical and Mechanical Drawing; Theo- 
 retical Mechanics; Physiology, Botany, Magnetism, and Electricity; Inorganic 
 Chemistry; Physical Geography; Freehand and Model Drawing; Geometry and 
 Perspective. 
 
 A Night School for Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, is held every Saturday 
 during the session, at Six p.m. 
 
 All Members, Sons and Daughters of Members, who are wishful to improve their 
 intellectual faculties, should avail themselves of these classes. 
 
NORTH OF ENGLAND 
 
 CO-OPERATIYE FEINTING SOCIETY 
 
 LIMITED, 
 
 17, BALLOON STREET, CORPORATION STREET, MANCHESTER, 
 
 And 40, HIGHBRIDGE, NEWCASTLE, 
 
 MACHINE RULERS, ACCOUNT-BOOK MANUFACTURERS, 
 LITHOGRAPHERS, ENGRAVERS, &c. 
 
 The above Society has always on hand a large stock of goods, 
 specially adapted for the use of Co-operative Stores : — 
 
 Members' Ledgers, with Printed Headings gs. 6d., iis. 6d., 24s. 
 
 Contribution Books, ,, ,, gs. 6d., lis. 6d. 
 
 Withdrawal Books, ,, ,, gs. 6d., lis. 6d. 
 
 Share Registers, „ ,, 8s. 6d., iis. 6d. 
 
 Cash Books, ,, ,, gs. 6d., iis. 6d. 
 
 Ditto, Ruled double £ s. d. columns gs. 6d. 
 
 Minute Books 8s. 6d., los. 6d. 
 
 Declaration Books 7s. 6d. 
 
 Strongly Bound in Half Red Bazil. 
 Correspondence Books, 100 leaves, paged and perforated .... 2S. 6d. 
 
 Cash Advice Books, ,, ,, 2S. od. 
 
 Goods Order Books, „ „ •■•■ 2S. od. 
 
 The above are interleaved for the purpose of taking two copies at one 
 operation, thus enabling the writer to retain a facsimile of all communi- 
 cations. Special facilities are given for the 
 
 BINDING OF LIBRARY BOOKS, &c., &C. 
 
 Members' Pass Books, Nomination, Declaration, and Transfer Books; 
 Balance Sheets, Rules, Memorandum Forms, Bill Heads, Note Headings, 
 Advice Notes, Programmes, Circulars, Posters, &c., &c., of every descrip- 
 tion. Particular attention is called to the XL Cheque Books, each 
 containing 1,000 Checks and 1,000 Duplicates progressively numbered, 
 which, for cheapness combined with quality, cannot be equalled. 
 
 PRINTED TEA PAPERS, 
 
 With suitable Co-operative Matter, selected with a view to the spread of 
 
 the Co-operative Movement. 
 
 JOHN HARDMAN, Manager. 
 
C<t=^|jqitlfe4 !^W^«^ Ci^mpna 
 
 LIMITED. 
 
 Head Oftice : 
 
 1, BALLOON STREET, MANCHESTER. 
 
 A-genoies : 
 
 EACH BRANCH OF THE CO-OPERATIVE WHOLESALE SOCIETY 
 
 LIMITED, AND THE 
 
 SCOTTISH CO-OPERATIVE WHOLESALE SOCIETY LIMITED. 
 
 Commenced Business February, 1868. 
 
 Sixty per cent of the premiums received for Fire Insurance and 
 Fidelity Guarantee is carried to account of an Insurance Fund, 
 accumulated at interest for the security of policy holders. 
 
 APPROPRIATION OF PROFITS. 
 
 After providing for an Insurance Fund as aforesaid, the sur- 
 plus remaining, after payment of Working Expenses and Interest 
 on paid-up Capital at the rate of 5 per cent per annum, is 
 divided into three equal parts — 
 
 One-Third to a Reserve Fund. 
 
 One-Third to the Shareholders, in proportion to their liability. 
 
 One-Third to the Insurers, in proportion to the premiums paid. 
 
 FIRE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 All classes of Fire Insurance (and to any amount) transacted by, 
 or through the agency of, this Office at moderate rates of premium. 
 
 GUARANTEE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Ten per cent of the original premiums will be deducted annually 
 from the premiums on policies which have been in force two 
 years, until a minimum rate be reached. 
 
 A reduction made to employers when five or more persons 
 are guaranteed. 
 
 Proposal Forms and all information may be obtained from 
 the Secretary, at the Head Office, or at any of the Agencies. 
 
f atrs littmstnal €a-apxntxbt ^atut^ 
 
 IjIIvCITED. 
 
 CORN MILLERS, GROCERS AND PROVISION MERCHANTS, 
 
 BOOT AND SHOE MAKERS, 
 
 HOUSE FURNISHERS, DRAPERS, OUTFITTERS, TAILORS, 
 
 coj^iLi iy[:EE.os:.A.3srTS- 
 
 NUMBER OF MEMBERS, 15,009. CAPITAL, ^119,126. i6s. gd. 
 
 HE G-I S T E H, E 13 O B' E^ 1 C E : 
 
 MANOR ROAD, HOLBECK, LEEDS. 
 Branch Office: ALBION STREKT, LEEDS. 
 
 The attention of Co-operative Societies is called to the 
 Stock of Ready-Made Clothing, manufactured on our 
 own premises by our own workmen, which will bear com- 
 parison in quality and price with that of any private 
 dealer. 
 
 The Leeds Industrial Co-operative Society was origin^ 
 ally established to supply Pure Flour at a reasonable 
 price to its own members ; this it has successfully done 
 for many years. It is now making extensive additions to 
 its Mill Department, and is prepared to supply Co-opera- 
 tive Socieiies with good Flour at moderate cost. 
 
 Societies taking up shares will participate in profits, 
 which for some years have averaged over as. 6d. per bag. 
 
THE CO-OPERATIVE NEWS. 
 
 THE ONLY ORGAN OF CO-OPERATIVE INFORMATION IN THE 
 UNITED KINGDOM. 
 
 The " News " is the property of a Federation of Co-operative Societies 
 located in all parts of Great Britain. It is an exponent of opinion, 
 thoroughly impartial and comprehensive, upon all subjects connected 
 with Association, particularly in its application to the Distribution and 
 Production of Wealth. It is a free platform for the discussion of topics 
 bearing upon the social well-being of the people, and affords an oppor- 
 tunity for the expression of eveiy view of Co-operation, which recommends 
 itself as thoughtful and sincere. 
 
 It aims at becoming the paper for the working man, by embracing 
 every subject interesting to him in his daily life, and falls short of the 
 attainment by reason chiefly of the limitations of its space, which a more 
 extended circulation would enable the proprietors to enlarge. 
 
 The importance of maintaining a vehicle for the conveyance of co-ope- 
 rative intelligftice cannot be overrated. Each Society is invited to become 
 a shareholder, and every individual co-operator is solicited to subscribe. 
 
 The "News" maybe had by application to any bookseller, through 
 the Local Store, or from the Offices of the Society, g and lo. City Build- 
 ings, Corporation-street, Manchester. Price id. weekly. 
 
 HEBDEN BRIDGE 
 
 LIMITED. 
 
 Enrolled September ist, 1870. 
 
 Shares £1 each. Societies enrolled as Members. 
 
 Co-operative Societies may ensure the purchase of a sound article at 
 an ordinary price from the above Society. Seven-and-a-half per cent 
 per annum to share capital, and no second division ; the remainder of 
 the profits to labour and trade, at an equal rate per £. 
 
 CORDS, MOLESKINS, VELVETEENS, and TWILLS, in every 
 variety, promptly supplied. 
 
 READY-MADE CLOTHING neatly cut and finished. 
 
 Samples and prices on application. 
 
 All Goods quoted are subject to being sold out as to the rise or fall of 
 the market. Societies would oblige by sending small samples of what 
 they are accustomed to use. Terms, net cash. 
 
 N.B. — The Society has purchased an estate which is in every way cal- 
 culated for carrying out its business. We have already commenced 
 Dyeing, and are prepared to Cut, Dye, and Finish all kinds of Cords, 
 Moles, and Twills, at reasonable terms, which may be had on application. 
 
 Nut Clough, July, 1875. 
 
 Agents: North of England Co-operative Wholesale Society, i. Balloon- 
 street, Manchester, and Pudding Chare, Newcastle ; the Scottish Wholesale 
 Co-operative Society, Paisley Road, Glasgow; and the Central Co-operative 
 Agency, 28, Wardour-street, Oxford-street, W. 
 
THE ROCHDALE DISTRICT 
 
 CO-OPERATIVE CORN MILL SOCIETY 
 
 LIMITED. 
 
 MILLERS AND MALTSTERS. 
 
 This Society was established in 1850 to enable Co-oper- 
 ative Societies and co-operators generally to procure 
 genuine and wholesome Flour at a reasonable price. 
 
 Its trade has steadily increased, in spite of the prejudice 
 and difficulties it has had to contend with, and its present 
 turn-over is a quarter of a million sterling annually. 
 
 INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION. 
 
 THE 
 
 LIMITED. 
 Incorporated under the Companies Acts 1862-67. 
 
 SHARES £1 EACH. Payable on application, 2s. 6d. ; on allotment, 2s. 6d.; 
 remainder by instalments of 5s., at intervals of three months. 
 
 Original Capital £100,000, with power to increase to jf"2,5oo,ooo. 
 
 Profits, after paying Eight per cent dividend, to be shared ratably between Capita 
 and Trade. 
 
 N.B. — The business of the Company will not be commenced, except by a resolution 
 Gf a S;pecial Meeting of the English Shareholders, unless at least £25,000 of capital is 
 subscribed in England, and an equal sum in America. 
 
 Resolution of the Seventh Annual Co-operative Congress, held in London, March 
 29, 30, and 31, 1875, on the motion of Thomas Hughes, Esq., Q.C., seconded by Mr. J. 
 Crabtree, of Heckmondwike, and carried unanimously : — 
 
 " That this Congress is of opinion that the time has come for the inauguration of a 
 system of International Exchange between the Co-operators of England and the Missis- 
 sippi Valley ; and recommends the plan proposed to be carried out by the Mississippi 
 Valley Trading Company to the support of this Union. 
 
 Copies of the prospectus, forms of apfilication for shares, lists of the Local Agents of 
 the Company, and every other information may be obtained on application to 
 
 JOSEPH SMITH, Secretary ^ro few. 
 9 & 10, City Buildings, 
 
 Corporation Street, Manchester. 
 
 " There is much in the scheme which shows a nice discrimination of the laws that 
 regulate commerce, a just appreciation of the vast resources of the Valley of the 
 Mississippi, and a sound practical view of the value of close relations with this fertile 
 region. There is bold enterprise in it, and great wisdom shown in the choice of the 
 sphere for its operation. We shall watch with interest the progress of the Company."— 
 Monetary and Mining Gazette. 
 
47, MILLBANK ST REET, WESTMINST ER, LONDON, S.W. 
 
 GOVERNING COUNCIL FOR 1873-1874. 
 
 Walter Morrison, Esq. 
 Thomas Hughes, Esq., Q.C. 
 E. Vansittart Neale, Esq., M.A. 
 Captain "William Taylor. 
 Richard Hardacre, Esq. 
 Daniel Robert Scratton, Esq. 
 Captain Carleton Smith. 
 
 Charles Gay Roberts, Esq. 
 Alex. Rice Allerton, Esq. 
 Philip H. Holland, Esq. 
 William Marshall, Esq. 
 Vice-Admiral Hornby. 
 
 W.LiXTr.H,Esq.,jft"S:tf.l. 
 
 1 Lincolnshire Assoc. 
 Edward Owen Greening, Esq., Managing Director. 
 
 ADVANTAGES OF MEMBERSHIP. 
 1st. — Complete protection against adulterations, short weights, admixtures of qualities, 
 
 and other frauds on buyers. 
 2nd.— Supply of Manures, Seeds, Oil Cakes (and other feeding stuffs). Implements and 
 
 Machinery, Coals, Groceries, and other Farm, Garden, and Household requisites 
 
 at fair prices. 
 3rd. — Relief from vexatious overcharges for freights, cartages, warehouse rents, sack 
 
 hire, and railway carriages, the Association delivering free to rail or free to a 
 
 Member's station at fixed prices whenever desired. 
 4th. — Return, to the purchasing Members, of all the profits realised after payment of 
 
 current expenses, and five pe^r cent interest on capital. This return is now a clear 
 
 half of the gross profit on each purchase. 
 5th. — The right to purchase articles, not supplied by the Association itself, at whole- 
 sale prices from other Co-operative Societies in alliance with the Association, or 
 
 from respectable manufacturers and merchants with whom the Association has 
 
 negociated beneficial arrangements. 
 6th. — Five per cent per annum interest paid quarterly out of the reserved profits to 
 
 Members on their investments in the capital fund, however large or small. 
 7th. — No liability beyond the sum invested in the Association, whether 3^, ^fio, ;£'ioo, 
 
 or ^1,000. 
 8th. — Facilities for withdrawal of capital whenever necessary, subject to conditions as 
 
 to notice, &c., ensuring the safety, stability, and permanence of the Association, 
 gth. — A copy of the Agricultural Economist (organ of the AssociatiSn) sent post free, 
 
 monthly, advising Members of all variations in markets, and of current prices of 
 
 goods at London, Liverpool, Hull, and other ports and centres of supply, 
 loth. — Greatly reduced rates for analyses of their soil, or of Manures, Oilcakes, &c., 
 
 which may be offered to Members by outside traders, 
 nth. — Voting power and right to attend meetings /o?' every Member. 
 
 TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP, 
 ist. — Five shillings per annum for the Agricultural Economist. 
 2nd. — An investment of ^i or upwards in the Capital Fund (on interest). 
 3rd. — Cash payments for goods to accompany orders. 
 
 A MONTHLY ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE, 
 HORTICULTURE, AND FARMING GENERALLY. 
 
 CONTAINING :— 
 
 Original Articles on Farming Matters— Gardening — Inventions — Ana- 
 lyses of Manures and Feeding Stuffs — Reviews — Reports — and 
 Prices Current. 
 
 And devoted to the advocacy and encouragement of Co-operation in 
 Agriculture and in general Trading. 
 
 Published on the first day of each month, at 3, Church-street, Westminster, 
 
 London, S.W. 
 
 Price 6d., or 5s. per annum, post free. 
 
.* 
 
 (Enrolled 20th April, 1868. Business commenced Sth September, 1868.; 
 
 WHOLESALE GROCERS, PROVISION DEALERS, DRAPERS, 
 
 BEAIERS IN WOOLLEN CLOTH, MOLESKINS, EEADY-MADE CLOTHING, 
 
 BOOTS, SHOES, BRUSHES, &c. . 
 
 CENTRAL OFFICES, 101, PAISLEY ROAD, GLASGOW. 
 
 Agents for Dunfermline Manufacturing Society Limited ; Eccles Industrial 
 Manufacturing Society Limited; Hebden Bridge Fustian Manufacturing 
 Society Limited ; Leeds Woollen Cloth Company Limited; Lurgan Damask 
 and Linen Co-operative Manufacturing Society Limited ; and Paisley Manu- 
 facturing Society Limited. 
 
 This Society is a federation of Co-operative Societies, and was estab- 
 lished for the purpose of uniting their purchases, in order to enable them 
 to go direct to the producer and manufacturer for all their requirements, 
 and thus secure to themselves the profits of wholesale dealers. This 
 object has been attained in many articles. Butter and Cheese is 
 purchased from the producer in Ireland ; and is also imported direct 
 from France, Holland, and Denmark. 
 
 Share capital receives 5 per cent per annum interest. The Profits, 
 which are divided quarterly, after paying interest on capital and working 
 expenses, is distributed among Societies, according to their purchases — 
 to Shareholders the full rate of dividend, to non-members only half. 
 It is thus to the fnterest of Societies, and those that are Shareholders 
 especially, to support it all that they possibly can. 
 
 One price only is charged to all Societies, the smallest purchaser being 
 charged at the same rate as the largest. 
 
 All Goods are charged at net prices, and supplied to none but 
 registered Societies. 
 
 A Large Stock of First-Class Groceries and Provisions ' always on 
 hand. 
 Bakers' Grist Flour is also supplied on favourable terms. 
 We also supply Paton's Famed Alloa and Baldwin's Fingering Yarns 
 direct from the mill. Cottons and General Drapery Goods on the very 
 best terms. 
 
 Account Books specially prepared for Co-operative Societies always 
 on hand. 
 
 Specimen Pages of Books, Price-lists, and Samples of Goods forwarded 
 to any Society on application. 
 
 N.B.— Every information, by correspondence, will be communicated 
 to assist in the formation and for the successful conducting of Co-opera- 
 tive Societies. 
 
 JAMES MARSHALL, Manager. 
 
THE BLAYDON DISTRICT 
 
 LIMITED. 
 
 The Society siipplies its Members and the PuUic with Goods of 
 the best quality. 
 
 No. I Store. — All kinds of Groceries, Flour, Meal, &c., &c. 
 
 No. 2 Store. — Butchers' Meat of the best quality. 
 
 No. 3 Store. — Boots, Shoes, and Clogs, of superior material and 
 
 workmanship. 
 No. 4 Store. — General Drapery Goods, Beds, Feathers, Blankets, and 
 
 all sorts of Drapei"y Goods, Furnishing, Millinery, Tailoring, &c., 
 
 &c. Sewing Machines, " The Belgravia," " Howe," Hand 
 
 Machines, &c., &c. 
 No. 5 Store. — Earthenware, China Toys, Washing Machines, Oil, 
 
 Watches, Clocks, Gold and Silver Alberts, Chains, &c., &c., and 
 
 various other Sundries at the cheapest rates. 
 No. 6 Store. — Bacon, Butter, Cheese, and other Provisions of the 
 
 best quality. 
 No. 7 Store. — Branch Establishment at Burnopfield, where all kinds of 
 
 the above Goods are sold. 
 No. 8 Store. — Branch at Prudhoe-on-Tyne, where the Society sells the 
 
 samp class of Goods, equally cheap and of the best quality. 
 The Society is also member of several other Co-operative undertakings. 
 Any person can join the Society at any time by paying two shillings 
 and sixpence, and paying three shillings and threepence each quarter, 
 until they hold five shares of one pound each in the Society. 
 
 Reading Room and Library Free to Members. 
 
 The Office is open Daily for the Admission of Members, &•€. 
 
 PRESENT NUMBER OF MEMBERS ON THE BOOKS, 2,goo. 
 
€okI €a-a^txuixbt 3omt]a yhmt^tr. 
 
 THOMAS HUGHES, Q.C. 
 Chairman. 
 
 JULIUS FORSTER. 
 
 Capt. the Hon. W. R. GROS 
 
 VENOR. 
 THOMAS HOBBS. 
 
 COMMITTEE. 
 
 Col. ROBT. B. Mc.CREA. 
 J. H. MACE. 
 WALTER MORRISON. 
 E. VANSITTART NEALE. 
 HODGSON PRATT. 
 
 C. C. LEGO, Secretary pro tern. 
 
 REGISTERED OFFICE; 47, MILLBANK STREET, LONDON, 8.W. 
 
 Establised 1872. Capital in £1 Shares ; One Shilling per Share at least to 
 be paid on allotment. 
 
 The Coal Co-operative Society supplies country Co-operative Societies 
 by the truck-load, and London Societies by the truck-load and by retail ; 
 London and country Working Men's Clubs are also supplied wholesale 
 and retail in London and in the country. During the year 1874 about 100 
 Co-operative Societies were supplied. The trade increased from ;f 2,413 
 for the six months ended 30th June, 1873, to ;£'i6,g53 for the six months 
 ended 31st December, 1874. Arrangements are now being made for the 
 supply of members of the Coal Society through the Local Co-operative 
 Societies. After payment of a dividend not exceeding 5 per cent per 
 annum on capital, and setting aside 2j per cent out of surplus profits for 
 a Propaganda Fund, surplus profits are divisible amongst shareholders 
 according to the number of tons ordered during the year. 
 
 All classes of Coals are supplied by rail, canal, or sea. 
 
 Every information will be readily afforded on application to the 
 Secretary. See advertisement in Co-operative News (City Buildings, 
 Manchester), and Worhncn's Club jfournal (150, Strand, London). 
 
 THE OUSEBURN ENGINE WORKS CO. 
 
 LIMITED, 
 Late R. MORRISON & CO., 
 
 nsTE-wo j^sTLE-oisr-T-srisrE . 
 
 Works; OUSEBURN, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE. 
 London Office: 4, GRACECHURCH STREET, E.C. 
 
 MARINE ENGINEERS & BOILER MAKERS. 
 
 (See "ENGINEER," Sept. 25, Oct. 2 and 23 ; ■■ENGINEERING," Sept. 23, 1874; 
 anti "NAUTICAL MAGAZINE" for November, 1874. 
 
 FIXED AND PUMPING ENGINES. 
 
 Manufacturers of MORRISON'S PATENT STEAM HAMMERS, 
 from 2 to 1,000 cwt. Special facilities for LARGE FORGINGS by 
 their 20-ton Hammer. Donkey Pumps, Steam Cranes, Steam Winches, 
 Iron Bridge and Girder Makers, Ironfounders, Millwrights, and Pile 
 Driver Makers. 
 
THE ODDFELLOWS' CO-OPERATIVE 
 
 BUILDING AND INVESTMENT COMPANY LIMITED. 
 
 Ordinary Capital, ;f 20,000, in 20,000 Shares of £1 each, 
 
 WHICH IS TRANSFERABLE. 
 
 Building Shares distinct from Ordinary Shares, which can be withdrawn. 
 
 Five per cent Interest being guaranteed upon Building Shares. 
 
 Deposits at Call, or otherwise, also received at five per cent Interest. 
 
 OFFICE: MARKET PLACE, MANCHESTER. 
 
 OBJECTS:— 
 I. — To purchase land and to erect commodious and healthy houses, and also to buy 
 
 and improve existing houses. 
 2. — To purchase ground rents and to re-sell them to the occupants. 
 3. — To enable every occupier of the Company's property to become the absolute 
 owner of his dwelling; and, whenever practicable, of the ground upon which it 
 stands, by allowing the purchase money to be paid by weekly or monthly 
 payments not much exceeding ordinary rent in the longest periods. 
 4. — To provide, for a small additional payment, that in the event of the death of the 
 tenant purchaser before he has completed his payments, the property shall 
 pass free into the hands of his representatives. 
 5. — To provide a safe and profitable investment for money either in large or small 
 
 sums. 
 This Company commends itself to Co-operative Societies having capital — {see above), 
 and any information will be supplied on application- Orders to view the Company's 
 property may be had at the Office of the Company. Pamphlets of the Company may 
 shortly be had. 
 
 A CARD. 
 
 MR. ELI SOWERBUTTS, 
 
 MARKET PLACE, MANCHESTER. 
 
 CENTRAL STORES AND OFFICES, NORTHGATE. 
 
 The following businesses are carried on by the Society : — 
 
 GROCERY AND PROVISION. 
 
 FURNISHING. 
 
 JEWELLERY. 
 
 DRAPERY. 
 
 TAILORING. 
 
 BOOT AND SHOE. 
 
 CLOGGING. 
 
 BUTCHERING. 
 
 COAL. 
 
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