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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
' over-population / The value of labour will fall , because the supply will be greater than the demand , and the hapless and asto ~ nished im-migrants will be half supported by parish pay , according to the established usage of agricultural districts . The times are altered ; we have machinery . We have the steam-engine ; and this last alone is sufficient to account for the
gradual revolution of the last fifty years ; which calls so loudly for change . Large capitals , and large farms , however , are good things for the work-people as well as for the masters . Let then the proprietors , the workers of such capitals , instead of two or three , be two or three hundreds , labouring each for all , himself included ; and then their profits will obviously produce and diffuse a greater sum of happiness than if they were accumulated by the two or three—And this is Co-operation .
What , then , are your objections against this proposed system , good Sir , —or yours—or yours ? Our lives on it , they are reducible , in someway , to the selfish principle . You are masters , and you like not to think of the possibility of your workmen being their own masters * . You have a lurking pleasure in talking of the * lower classes , ' and of their dependence on , and gratitude to the ' upper , ' yourself being always one of the upper
classes , But tell us ,, good objector , did your grandfather , whom some of the seniors about you may recollect , fifty years ago , eqcircled by his leathern apron , and singing to the buzz of his lathe ;—did your grandfather , we say , as one of the lower classes , so recognise and delight in his dependence on , and connexion with his master , of the upper , as to induce him one moment to hesitate as to the course he should pursue , when he felt himself able
to better his condition , to kick off his leathern apron , roll down his soiled shirt sleeves , and attach to them ruffles of costly cambric ? Nowt the most handy and careful do not , cannot save ; and larger capitals are required to meet the charges of elaborate machinery , of scientific husbandry . What then ? The working-classes have a right to accumulate large capitals , and to form large partnerships , if they can ; and it is unhandsome in you to laugh at
their efforts ;— -it is unjust to thwart or scandalize them . Besides , depend on this , whatever the working-classes , as a body , effect , towards improving their own condition , will be , in fact , so much done towards the general improvement of all . Doubt not , fear not—Co-operators , some have said , are levellers . It is true : but then , they level by raising themselves , not by sinking others * We conclude with two queries .
Is it lawful and honourable for a man , master or labourer , to endeavour , by honest means , to better his condition ? * I began with forming co-operative societies in Utica , and the views took with the Yankees j but many started up and cried out infidelity and agrarianism . The vengeance of the capitalists was wreaked on all over whom they Katl the least influence . Myself and two others were thrown out of employ in consequence of out being " ringleaders . "' —Thus writes un emigrant workinpfmau in April of the present year .
Untitled Article
Co-operation . %% f
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1832, page 527, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1818/page/23/
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