ADVENTURES IN SOCIALISM* Tim story of Robert Owen and New
Lanark has been made familiar to us by his own autobiography and by a consider- able amount of expository and critical dissertation. There was, however, until supplied by this volume, no authentic account of the Orbiston Community. The founders of this were Archibald James Hamilton and Abram Combe. The first-named was the grandfather of the present Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, to whom the author is indebted for access to private journals and other documents. The records of these two communities, like those of all other adventures in Socialism, are records of failure, and they are chiefly interest- ing for showing how the atmosphere of Socialist speculation in the first quarter of last century differed from that which now prevails. There was then an absence of the bitter class feeling which has been deliberately imported into the contro- versy by the teaching of Marx and his followers. At the earlier date the promoters of Socialism were members of the middle and upper classes. Their creed was based on certain • chimerical hopes of the perfectibility of human nature under proper educational conditions. They were not wreckers of society as at present constituted.
A curious account is given of the reception of Owen's Beport to the County of Lanark at a meeting largely com- posed of the country gentlemen of that district. Owen intro- duced his Report in a long oration. Sir Henry Steuart • moved, and Mr. Maxwell, M.P. for the neighbouring county of Renfrew, supported, a series of resolutions in favour of Owen's views. Lord Belhaven was sorry to interrupt the harmony of the meeting, but he had only had the opportunity of seeing the Report that morning ; he asked for time to consider, for, though in favour of "reform," some of the proposals seemed to him to be very far-reaching. "Robert Brown, Esqre." (not otherwise described, but at a, venture we suggest perhaps the agent of the British Linen Bank in Lanark) argued that the Report involved extensive changes, among others a change in the existing system of currency! "Labour was proposed as the new standard of value; in short, it went to establish quite a new order of things." Notwith- standing this very moderate plea for longer consideration, the favourable resolutions were carried by 27 votes to 7. Delay and fuller consideration elsewhere have induced most men to dismiss as impracticable Owen's fanciful rearrangements of the inevitable bases of human society. One solid gain remained from the labours of this high-minded and dis- interested visionary. A great impulse was given to the Co-operative movement. By a strange fatuity, an attempt has been made to represent the Co-operative movement as an
• Adrentures in Sociatires: New Lanark Establishment and °Alston Community.
By Alex. Cullen. London; A. and C. Black. [78. 6(1. net.] •
outcome of Socialism. In essence it is, of course, exactly the opposite. It is a device to benefit mankind, not by a spread of collective ownership and collective reosponaibility, but by facilitating the acceptance and discharge of personal responsibility through an increase of individual ownership. In these speculations of Owen, Mr. A. J. Hamilton, son and heir to General Hamilton of Dalzell, was deeply interested. He had served in the 4th Dragoons in the Peninsular War, and joined the Scots Greys in 1815. He took part in the celebrated charge of that regiment at Waterloo, and was generally a person who, from his interests and antecedents, would hardly have been thought likely to come forward as a founder of a Socialist Utopia. A very interesting account is given of this ardent young soldier. He allied himself with Abram Combe, a brother of the better-known George Combe, the phrenologist.
There is in both these narratives of New Lanark and Orbiston a personal touch which is very pleasant. It is impossible not to conceive a great regard for the various personages introduced to us. The gallant young soldier with his head full of cranks ; Abram Combe, a devoted and most unselfish enthusiast; and Miss Whitwell, a lady who, "attracted to New Lanark, by the growing fame of the establishment, painted a series of large canvases illustrative of the streams of time," are all personalities of whom we should like to know more. Miss Whitwell, a later page hints to us, fell a victim to the Sabbataria.n fanaticism of the Scots. On a reconstruction of the community, "no dancing master," "no music and singing except instruction in psalmody," were to be permitted, and "Miss Whitwell to cease to be a servant of the company." Her services were later transferred to Orbiston, where she "consented to take charge of the education of the children under twelve." A reporter of the Glasgow _Free Press gives a most intereating account of a Sunday visit to Orbiston, or "Babylon," as it was called by the unconverted. There was much uproar, which he con- trasts unfavourably with the "Sabbath night" of the Scottish peasant's fireside ; but "Miss Whitwell entered and the scene instantly changed—order arose out of confusion. This lady has very fine large dark eyes, luxuriant tresses, and. upon the whole, a most queen-like dignity of demeanour." The entertainment seems to have consisted of singing of hymns "breathing very noble and liberal sentiments," but not devotional, and, if not on this, certainly on other occasions, a lecture on a theological subject by Miss Whitwell. Plays were also produced, with scenery and drop scene painted by this accomplished lady. Notwithstanding the drama, the library, and the noble and liberal sentiments, some of the inhabitants went off with their terriers to join in the time-honoured local pastime of badger-drawing. It is an interesting and quite human picture, the sour Sabbatarian critic, the queenly lady, and the unregenerate natural man with his terrier dog. Mr. Cullen is to be congratulated on having written a very pleasing narrative. He tells his story gravely, sympathetically, but without illusions, as indeed befits the perfervid genius of the Scots, and the book is biographical rather than economic in its purpose.
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