The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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THE HUMANITARIANS AND ROBERT OWEN 751 of this trade or that, and had prophesied ultimate and serious A-D- 1776 loss’. It seems as if it would have been impossible for the humanitarians, even with the sympathy of some of the landed gentry and the approval of unrepresented artisans, to make any impression on the phalanx opposed to them, if it had not been for the results obtained by Robert Owen. In his mills Robert at New Lanark he realised the ideals of the humanitarians of on had the day. His system attracted very general attention, and A though it was not destined to last, it sufficed to demonstrate %ceess that extraordinary improvement, in conditions of work and habits of life, was not by any means necessarily incompatible with commercial success. From the first he made the condition of the living machinery the main object of his consideration; and what he accomplished was wonderful. In the sphere which came within his own control, he an- ticipated most of the reforms which were carried through subsequently by legislation. But the principles by which he accounted for his own success, and on which he based his advocacy, were not generally acceptable, so that compara- tively few of those who admired him were able and willing to work with him, His enthusiasm and personal character commended him to a wide and influential body of the public, but his economic principles? roused the scorn of the experts®, and his attitude towards Christianity alienated the sympathy of some of his supporters. Robert Owen had already acquired considerable experience 4 Netz in the cotton trade in Manchester before 1797, when an opportunity occurred for him to take over the management of mills at New Lanark, The situation was excellent, as there was abundance of water-power, and labour had been 1 It was in no small degree the work of John Stuart Mill that this opposition has 80 greatly ceased; and that economists have so largely devoted themselves to the conscious and reasoned pursuit of philanthropic objects. It was in connection with the abolition of slavery that the forebodings of the economists were most nearly fulfilled ; Cairnes, the most brilliant of the followers of Mill, in his Slave Power demonstrated the economic weakness of the system which the philan- thropists condemned on moral grounds. 2 He was opposed to the doctrines of Malthus, he advocated the limitation of machinery, and cherished some curious notions about the currency. Life of BR. Owen, written by himself. Supplementary Appendix, 266. 8 Compare the criticism in the Edinburgh Review (Oct. 1819), xxx1x, 467.

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