ies, where the poor might be
set to work, and be managed paternally on the principles of New Lanark.
So great was his repute, and so influential the royal and other
personages who gave him their support, that this appeal might probably
have been successful had not Owen, in reply to complaints as to his
religious views--which were deistic--and that his system was not founded
on religion, made a public attack upon all accepted religions.

Failing to get the required support from the Government and magistrates,
he still sought it from wealthy believers in his teaching, and a number
of "communities" (see COMMUNISM) were founded in England and Scotland,
and in the United States. These were intended to be self-supporting, the
land and other means of producing wealth being owned in common, and work
and education being regulated on Owen's principles. Owen well knew that
most of them lacked the large amount of capital necessary, but his hand
was forced by enthusiastic followers, and even the most hopeful of the
experiments, that of Queenwood in Hampshire (1839-1844), was made
prematurely and failed.

His connexion with New Lanark also came to an end, not from any want of
success, but through differences with some of his partners who objected
to such matters as dancing, military drill for the children, and the
wearing of kilts, but above all feared lest Owen's "infidelity" should
undermine the people's faith.

Thus it might have seemed that Owen's life and fortune had been spent in
vain, and resulted only in unsuccessful experiments; but this was far
from being so. His teaching, and in particular his doctrines of
circumstance, and of the conscious seeking after the social good, his
belief in self-supporting communities, and his vision of a new moral and
industrial world, had powerfully affected the working classes, indeed,
all classes. Workmen in many parts of the country had formed groups with
the ultimate object of founding self-supporting communities. If the
government and the rich would not provide capital enough to start
communities, the workers would start them themselves. Thus was the
democratic basis given to co-operation. As a means they had been
founding co-operative societies, which are sometimes called "union
shops" to distinguish them from the later growth of societies of the
Rochdale type. The members began by buying provisions wholesale and
retailing them to themselves at current prices; the difference became
ca