Ch. xii. Coiitinuatmi of the same Subject . 399 



say what could be done towards the improvement 

 of society in an establishment where the produce 

 of all the labour employed would go to a common 

 stock, and dismissal, from the very nature and 

 object of the institution, would be impossible. If 

 under such disadvantages the proper management 

 of these establishments were within the limits of 

 possibility, what judgment, what firmness, what 

 patience, would be required for the purpose ! 

 But where are such qualities to be found in suffi- 

 cient abundance to manage one or two millions of 

 people ? 



On the whole, then, it may be concluded, that 

 Mr. Owen's plan would have to encounter ob- 

 stacles that really appear to be insuperable, even 

 at its first outset; and that if these could by any 

 possible means be overcome, and the most com- 

 plete success attained, the system would, without 

 some most unnatural and unjust laws to prevent 

 the progress of population, lead to a state of 

 universal poverty and distress, in which, though 

 all the rich might be made poor, none of the poor 

 could be made rich, — not even so rich as a com- 

 mon labourer at present. 



The plan for bettering the condition of the 

 labouring classes of the community, pubHshed 

 by Mr. Curwen, is professedly a slight sketch : 

 but principles, not details, are what it is our present 

 object to consider; and the principles on which 

 he would proceed are declared with sufficient 

 distinctness, when he states the great objects of 

 his design to be. 



