labour? (Loud cries of "yes, yes.") Well, then, the labour exchange system was introduced to place every man who was able and willing to work, in a condition to exchange the produce of his labour for the labour of others, without any limit. (Cheers.) It was objected that there would be a want of customers for the articles render eligible to accept the office. It has, therefore, been agreed by the shareholders at a general meeting, to request Mr. Owen to undertake the office, believing that no one could be more fit to perform its duties than the benevolent individual, the energies of whose life have been devoted to the amelioration of the condition of the industrious classes, and whose sagacious mind has dic-deposited. It was very evident however, that those who tated the precise mode of producing such amelioration Mr. Owen has acceded to the request of the shareholders, provided a sufficient capital be raised forthwith. He will not reside in Birmingham, but his visits here will be frequent, and the committee and officers of the institution will thus have the full benefit of his knowledge and experience. In accepting the office of governor, however, Mr. Owen wishes it to be distinctly understood that he will retain the situtation till such time only as a gentleman of our own town can be found who is fully able and willing to undertake the same. Of the ability of many of their townsmen for this purpose the committee have no doubt; and but very little that when active operations shall have commenced, many will be found willing to fill this important situation." 66 * The committee have examined several premises which have been offered to them as suitable for the purposes of Exchange; and think that, when the proper moment arrives it will not be difficult to select a situation fully available for the carrying forward their object; and they confidently anticipate that people of Birmingham will now, in a few weeks, place them in a condition to open the Exchange.' "This, then, appears to be eminently the time for a powerful effort. Much has been done by zealous individuals to enlighten the public mind on the important subject now under consideration. Considerable excite ment prevails. This, if kept alive, well directed, and widely diffused will, without difficulty, effect the great object Should it be suffered to become extinct-should doubts, fears, suspicious, and irresolution prevail, another opportunity may be vainly sought for. Every individual, working man as well as master is personally interested in the establishment of an Equitable Labour Exchange in this town. It is not sufficient that each one generally declares himself favourable to the system; he must not wait to see what is done by others; he must resolve himself to assist in the great simultaneous movement. Union is power!-power, directed by knowledge, is happiness. The working classes possess numbers sufficient to accomplish this great and good purpose. Let them, then, assume to themselves the power attainable by union. Let them seek, and they will assuredly find the happiness, that is conferred by true wisdom, directing the actions of power"-The reading of the report was followed by much cheering. Mr. CHARLES LLOYD moved that the report be received, He wished to incite them to fresh zeal in the great cause which they had undertaken. Many of them were suffering severely for the want of employment, and many an industrious and skilful artisan was dependant upon the scanty and precarious subsistence of the parish board. (Hear, Hear.) Why was this so? Were they willing to urged the objection understood very little of the system, for it would make a customer of every depositor. (Cheers.) But it was not intended to confine the operations of the exchange to this town alone. Other establishments would be opened as quickly as possible in every principal town in the kingdom; connections would also be opened with foreign merchants, for the purpose of exchanging manufactured goods for the productions of other countries. (Loud applause.) The dreadful competition now existing among the producers of wealth would be utterly destroyed and they would exchange the produce of each other's labour on principles of equity and justice. (Cheers, and cries of "No discount") There was also another very important considerationby this new system the manufacturers would be enabled to regain their character, which had been nearly lost by the excessive deterioration of goods (Hear, hear.) The Germans, Prussians, Americans, and others were now driving the British out of the markets by the superiority of many of their manufactures. He had no donbt, however, but the Labour Exchange would be the means of altering this whenever the manufac turers should be wise enough extensively to adopt its principles. (Loud cheers.) In the establishment of a scheme like this, there were necessarily many difficulties to overcome, one of the principal of which was the raising a sufficient capital. They might be assured, however, that the Exchange would be opened with as little capital as possible. The Trades' Unions might, and he hoped would do much, in addition to individual exertions. He trusted that the farmers and provision dealers would turn their attention to this subject, for he believed they would, in a very short time find the Labour Exchange to be the best market for their several commodities. (Hear, hear,) Mr. Lloyd then proceeded to reply to the objection that the system of Labour Exchange was only a return to barter, and concluded by saying, that he was anxious to see the labouring classes placed on a condition where they might have an opportunity of following the advice of the Useful Knowledge Society, namely-"to get capital," Mr. Lloyd retired amid much cheering. Continuation next week. From a Correspondent. ON ANTI RATIONAL FALLICES. When individuals are sensible that their favourite prejudices especially those upon the subject of religion, are not able to bear the scruting of common sense reasoning, there is no falliacy more frequently em ployed by them to guard these prejudices from such investigation, than that which is levelled against the reasoning faculty itself, no sooner do you attempt or bring plain matter of fact reasoning to bear upon their miscalled sacred mysteries, the supporters of those mysteries take immediate alarm, and are wont to defend them, not by rational argument, but by some contemptuous sarcasm at the question or observation, as if they would insinuate, that there must be something inconceivably absurd in the mind of an enquirer, who could venture to doubt the truth of such doctrines, or to make any remarks of a tendency to invalidate them. Bentham has aply distinguished this senseless, but too often successful fallacy, by the epithet "Anti-Rational," The annexed extract from Boswell's Life of Johnson gives us a trite illustration of this species of sophistry, It is not difficult to account for the motives which led the doctor in the following colloquy, to apply the AntiRational stopper to Boswill's mouth, The extract also shews the true spirit of the old system, in its method of spanking away heterodoxical propensities. OTHER FAMILY SCENES. It is not one evil passion only that is taught in the early domestic school. There is a legion of them. We have seen how fear, that forerunner of every thing mean and unworthy, is implanted in the young mind. It is not difficult to trace out the true origin of fifty other vices, which when full grown, are unceremoniously set down to the account of original sin. Romping Sally runs against the corner of the table, raises a bump on her head, and of course begins to cry lustily. The mother comes to her assistance. "Did it hurt its pretty head? What was it hurt my Sally ?" The sobbing child points to the table. "Was it the table? naughty table! Beat it well." Slap! slap on the offending table. "That will teach it to hurt my Sal another time. Beat the naughty table again. It shan't hurt my Sally." In the meantime Sally's contusion has become less painful, the red eyes are dried, and the child is pacified -at the expense of a practical lesson in revenge. When Miss Sally, fifteen years afterwards, throws the blame of every mischance or misfortune which her own clumsiness or folly has caused, upon her compa nions and dependants, simply because she must still have a table to beat, then her ill-humour is most logically attributed to the depravity and innate wickedness of the human heart. The mother's pet, Tommy, has been playing all the morning with his new toys: has broken up his drum to see what was inside of it, and tossed his penny trumpet and his windmill into a corner; and now he comes crying to his parent, tired of his play and his playthings, and expects her to spend her time in inventing new amusements for him. 'No, I'm busy. The clothes have just come in from the washing, and I must put them away. I can't play with you to-day, Tommy; indeed I can't." But Tommy knows better. He has been told fifty times before, that his mother was busy and could not attend to him, and he remembers well, that a little teasing gained him the victory. Like a good general, he tries the same manœuvre again. "Come and play with me, Ma! I don't know what to do. I can't play alone, and Dick won't be home from school till two o'clock." A fresh denial provokes a second fit of erying, and Tommy's perseverance triumphs. His mother plays at hare and hound with him, makes a cat's cradle for him, tells him ghost stories, and mends his drum, till the clock strikes two. The father comes home, sees no dinner ready, looks for his wife, and finds her at the napery press. "My dear, how is every thing so late to-day?" "Oh that teasing Tommy would have me play with him this whole live-long morning; and I have not been able to do a thing since breakfast." Thus a petted child's whims are allowed to derange the economy of a whole family; and the good mother never dreams that she is bringing up her favorite to be a selfish, self-important being; a burden to himself, and a plague to society. Even the odious vice of lying is most unconsciously but most effectually inculcated by the weakness and inconsistency of parents. "Frank, you shall not go outside the garden wall again, to play with these dirty boys in the street. I have told you fifty times I would not have it; and I won't. If you ever go again without my leave, I'll never speak to you afterwards. I'll sell you to the gypsies, and they may do what they like with you." They say man would leap over the wall of a paradise even though it were surrounded by a desert, At any rate, Frank does not choose to be cooped up; so he leaps the garden wall next day, and is the merriest and the noisiest amongst his rough companions. Does His mother finds him. Does she cease all intercourse with her own child as she promised? she sell him to the gypsies as she said she would? Yet she expects him, when he grows up, to consider his word, once given, sacred and inviolable. If she detects him in a lie, she wonders how on earth he learnt such wickedness; and were you to suggest that her own example, (at all times more powerful with chil dren than precept) was the cause 't would be considered an insult never to be forgiven. No wonder that a man's word goes for so little in this world, and that we must have oaths and pledges upon all occasions. The best friends the lawyers have are ignorant mothers. They bring them more business than all other causes put together. R. D. O, THE TAXES OF THE POOR & THE RICH. We promised, last week, to furnish the items of the calculation, which substantiates the fact that less than a tenth of the taxes bear on luxuries of life. They are given below in round numbers: The Duties on 12 Articles of common consumption, viz. Sugar, Malt, Tea, Timber, Soap, Paper, Candles, Coffee, Glass, Corn, Raisins, and Wool; allmost all first necessaries of life, amount to nearly The duties on spirits and tobacco, con- Duties to a small amount, chiefly on bricks Together 19 millions. EQUITABLE LABOUR EXCHANGE. use of the Exchange, in Charlotte St., Fitzroy Square, The premises which Mr. Owen has taken for the will be ready to receive deposits in a fortnight, [the deposit office will be in John street] during which interval the managers are desirous to adopt such preliminary measures as are best calculated to secure to the depositors, all the advantages which the experience of the last six months points out, and to establish, as far as is possible, a system of confidence, to effect which they have determined to form an Association of Depositors" on the following plan: All persons wishing to obtain the advantages of the Equitable Labour Exchange may become members of an Association of Depositors, by conforming with the 11 millions. following regulations: 3 1st. Any person wishing to join this Association must give his or her name to the Secretary, who.will lay the same before the Governor or Committee assomillions. ciated for that purpose, who will make enquiries as to the conduct and character of the individual, and if the investigation proves satisfactory, the person shall receive a Depositor's Ticket for which one shilling per quarter must be paid in advance, the first payment being made at the time of giving the name to the Secretary. 7 millions. 2 millions. 1 million. 24 millions. 46 Millions 2nd. No person except Members of the Association shall be allowed to take provisions out of the Stores of the Exchange, until all the members of the Association are supplied. 3rd. That every Depositor who requires it, shail have And how much remains, bearing chiefly on those who his or her name and address put up in the Exchange can best afford to pay? Say five millions. And it will still appear, even after putting down to the capitulist the whole of these taxes, (a considerable portion of which are borne, equally with him, by the middle classes) that the amount is less than a tenth of the amount yearly levied by government. and published in the Crisis, as willing to work for or to take the Notes of the Exchange in his or her business. 4th. Any Members of the Association of Depositors who may at any time be unemployed, may have his name put up in the Exchange, that Masters who are in want of workmen, may know where to apply for them, 5th. Every Depositor must produce his or her ticket at the time of depósiting goods, if required by the Receiver to do so. 6th. No Depositor shall be allowed to lend a ticket, and any attempt at fraud shall deprive the Depositor making it, from all farther benefit and advantage in the Exchange. 7th. Every Depositor must, at the time he deposits his goods, deliver with them an invoice made on a form to be supplied by the Directors of the Exchange. 8th. A meeting of the Depositors shall be held every month, when a general statement of the business of the Exchange shall be laid before the meeting, and a ComIt would be difficult, by the most elaborate argu-mittee of twelve Depositors shall be appointed, five to ment to add to the convincing proof furnished by this form a quorum, to whom all complaints for the ensuing From the Quarterly Magazine and Review. (Continued from our last.) But how have these powers been app ied, under the direction of the individual will, for individual gain? Have they been direeted to diminish human labour? Have they made human labour less laborious and less unhealthy? Have they not rendered it necessary, that greater numbers of men, women, and young children, should be now employed for a greater number of hours daily, to obtain the privilege of lingering out a miserable existence, than were requisite before these extraordinary new powers were invented and introduced into practice? Is it not the boast of a certain class of persons calling themselves political economists, that in every department of life in which new chemical discoveries or mechanical inventions have been admitted, that more manual labour has been required than before these improvements were thought of and adopted; while most of the miseries of human life, among the industrious classes, arise from the great degree of labour which they are compelled to exert and apply to ensure the continuance of a wretched existence ? Robert Owen on the best mode of arrangement, of which conference we shall report the result. The meeting displayed the best feeling and most encouraging spirit throughout. They meet again next Thursday at the Surrey Institution, and we recommend to all our friends to attend. Admittance free. WEEKLY DISCUSSION.-A regular weekly discussion is held at the Serrey Institution every Tuesday at 8 o'clock. Admittance one penny. It is now very well attended, and may lead, we think, to important results. We invite our friends' attention to it. FESTIVAL IN THE GREAT THEATRE JUST FITTED UP, AT THE SURREY INSTITUTION. LECTURES NEXT WEEK. Wednesday evening, at 8, Robert Owen, on a change of Society. FOURTEENTH FESTIVAL of the THE ASSOCIATION of the INDUSTRIOUS CLASSES, established for diffusing the most useful knowledge and creating general good feeling amongst all parties. will be held in the LARGE THEATRE of the SURKEY INSTITUTION, on Monday, April 1, 1833.-Visiters tickets 2s. 6d., Members 1s. 6d may be had at the Surrey Institution Blackfriars Road, Eamonson, Publisher of the Crisis, 15, Chichester place, Gray's Inn Road, at 280 Regent street, 421 Oxford street, 49 Shoreditch, 10 Bouverie-street Fleet street, 62 Barbican corner of Red Cross street, 79 Regent street, 57 do., 37 Marsham street Westminster, 30 Great Ormond street, 95 Newgate street, Mr. Hopkins opposite Gower street Tottenham Court Road, Symonds Seymour street Euston square, Wilmer's Library do. 84 Bermondsey st. Norfolk Coffee House Marelebone lane, 213 Tottenham-courtroad, 19 Greville street Hatton Garden, 59 Poland street Oxford street, and 23 Duke street Liucoln-Inn-Fields. Robert Owen on the working of competitive system: "These valuable powers, which under the direction of knowledge, derived from the Science of Society, would saturate the world with every kind of wealth until it should cease to be an object at all desirable for individual accumulation, are now, for want of that knowledge, made to oppress the most useful and valuable portion of the humanrace, without producing any real benefit to any other portion of it. They are so applied as to keep all parties in a state of hosiility, confusion, and chaos; which evils are hourly increasing, and will continually augment, until it shall be discovered to be impracticable longer to compel the working classes to proceed under an oppression to which, with the know-informed of every particular connected with the Society, by a ledge they are acquiring they will not submit. UNITED TRADES UNION.-A meeting of the delegates from the various trades who have associated to carry out the principles of Labour Exchange, was held, and most numerously attended, on Thursday week, at the Surrey Institution. Reports of a nature the most satisfactory, were received from the various delegates, and a subcommittee was appointed to confer with N Amateur, Vocal, and Instrumental SOCIAL HARMO A NIC SOCIETY, is now establishing under the direction of Mr. Stevens, Organist, the object of which is to render the musical department in Mr. Owen's Institutions, as attractive and effective as possible. Any one wishing to join the same, may be personal application (or letter post paid) to Mr. Stevens, at the Surrey Institution, Blackfriars Road, or to Mr. Goulding, Secretary to the Society, No. 6, Thorney-street, Bloomsbury. Arrangements are made for the Instruction of juvenile pupils, in a Musical Academy, at Mr. Steven's own residence. The Rules and Regulations of the Society. will shortly be printed, and may be had as above, and of Mr. Eamonson, at the Crisis office, Gray's Inn Road. Printed and published by J. Eamonson, No. 15, Chichester Place, Gray's Inn Road. Strange, Purkess, and Watson, Windmill-street, Finsbury-square. OR THE CHANGE FROM ERROR & MISERY, TO TRUTH & HAPPINESS. Design of a Community of 2,000 Persons, founded upon a principle, commended by Plato, Lord Bacon, Sir T. More, & R. Owen IT IS OF ALL TRUTHS THE MOST IMPORTANT, THAT THE CHARacter of man IS FORMED FOR-NOT BY HIMSELF. VOL. 11. No. 13.] SATURDAY APRIL 6, 1833.-EDITED BY ROBERT OWEN AND ROBERT DALE OWEN. WEEKLY PROCEEDINGS. SUNDAY EVENING, March, 31, 1833. Mr. OWEN lectured. He read extracts from a pamphlet entitled "Responsibility inevitable, immediate, and necossary," which had been, the day previously, placed in his hands. He (Mr. O.) knew not who the author was, but he was convinced, from glancing over a few pages, that he was a man possessed both of talent and of enlightened views. [Our limits, this week, prevent the insertion of these extracts. They shall appear in our next.] Mr. O. remarked, that the natural responsibility of which the writer spoke could not be said to be always immediate. The consequences of actions sometimes follow them at an interval of days, weeks, months, nay years. Hence the importance of that knowledge of human nature which teaches the natural consequences, immediate and remote, of all actions. Mr. O. spoke in the highest terms of the pamphlet, and said he considered it calculated essentially to aid the progress of the good cause. In commenting on the sentiments which he read, Mr. Owen remarked, that scarcely any one attributed their real power to those great general circumstances that pervade society. A striking instance of their power was exhibited in the fact, that not one violent temper is to be found among quakers for ten that are found in the members of other sects. Yet the quaker circumstances are far, very far from being as good as It is published by Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange. [Price 1d. those that ought to exist-that easily might existaround every human being. Much had lately been said of a system of National Education. But we ought to bear in mind what the conditions were, under which alone a Rational System is possible. Children cannot become rational until they are secluded from the vicious influences of an ignorant priesthood, a vitiating system of trading, and an irrational and demoralizing code of laws. The change in the world must be total before the education in the school, can be truly rational. Mr. O. after the lecture, stated that he had had a most satisfactory conference with the delegates of the Trade Unions. They were proceeding in the most business-like and encouraging manner. These were the classes who had the power in their own hands. They had just discovered-they were just beginning to employ them. He also stated that next Monday there would be held at Huddersfield, the Annual Congress of the various Co-operative Societies over the kingdom. And that, on the Monday following, a Festival would be held for the purpose of opening the new establishment in Charlotte Street. (Great applause.) The day after, deposits would be received; and on the Monday of the week after, the full business would commence. Mr. O. stated, that he had just received from Ame rica, a file of a newspaper entitled "The Peaceful Revolutionist." It seemed ably and liberally edited. Mr. O. concluded by stating that he should proceed next Friday, to Birmingham, &c., and he hoped, on his return on Saturday week, to be able to report to them great and most important pregress. |