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The old faith in Political Democracy was dying out, and the first principles upon which the Paris working-men agreed with the British trade-unionists and Owenites, when they met in 1862 and 1864, at London, was that "the emancipation of the working-men must be accomplished by the working-men themselves." Upon another point they also were agreed.
Would the Rappites sell? Yes; they wanted to move back to Pennsylvania, where there were other groups of similar faith. Their place, they figured, was worth two hundred fifty thousand dollars. Owen made an offer of one hundred fifty thousand dollars, which to his surprise was quietly accepted. It was a quick deal. The Rappites moved out, and the Owenites moved in.
The attraction of perfectibility reached beyond the ranks of men of letters, and in Robert Owen, the benevolent millowner of Lanark, it had an apostle who based upon it a very different theory from that of Political Justice and became one of the founders of modern socialism. The word is used in the New Moral World, and from 1836 was applied to the Owenites.
There was for some time in existence a society of Owenites, called the Co-operative Society, which met for weekly public discussions in Chancery Lane. In the early part of 1825, accident brought Roebuck in contact with several of its members, and led to his attending one or two of the meetings and taking part in the debate in opposition to Owenism. Some one of us started the notion of going there in a body and having a general battle: and Charles Austin and some of his friends who did not usually take part in our joint exercises, entered into the project. It was carried out by concert with the principal members of the Society, themselves nothing loth, as they naturally preferred a controversy with opponents to a tame discussion among their own body. The question of population was proposed as the subject of debate: Charles Austin led the case on our side with a brilliant speech, and the fight was kept up by adjournment through five or six weekly meetings before crowded auditories, including along with the members of the Society and their friends, many hearers and some speakers from the Inns of Court. When this debate was ended, another was commenced on the general merits of Owen's system: and the contest altogether lasted about three months. It was a lutte corps
The Socialistic movement appeared for the present to be confined to a few dreamers and demagogues. The Utilitarians might approve the spirit of the Owenites, but held their schemes to be chimerical.
They, therefore, violently oppose all political action on the part of the working class; such action, according to them, can only result from blind unbelief in the new Gospel. The Owenites in England, and the Fourierists in France, respectively, oppose the Chartists and the Reformistes.
It is high time for true modesty to take the place of that false modesty which has driven virtue, like an exile, out of the land, and peopled it largely with Fourrierites, Owenites, and other socialists and free-lovers. Now, whatever success a "godless system of education" may have on boys, I think all must admit that it must prove not only a failure, but a positive injury, to girls.
Mill mentions William Thompson of Cork as a 'very estimable man, who was the 'principal champion' of the Owenites in their debates with the Benthamites. He published in 1824 a book upon the distribution of wealth. It is wordy, and is apt to remain in the region of 'vague generalities' just at the points where specific statements would be welcome.
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