1 awakened England to the importance of the
labor question, and Owen, who since 1805 had been devoting much time to
its study, secured a wider audience and a much more serious hearing than
ever before. Then came the frightful misery of 1815, due to the crisis
which the end of the great war produced. Every one seemed to think that
when the war was over and peace restored, there would be a tremendous
increase in prosperity. What happened was precisely the opposite; for a
time at least things were immeasurably worse than before. Peace did not
bring with it plenty, but penury.

Owen, more clearly than any other man of the time, explained the real
nature of the crisis. The war had given an important spur to industry
and encouraged many new inventions and chemical discoveries. "The war
was the great and most extravagant customer of farmers, manufacturers,
and other producers of wealth, and many during this period became very
wealthy.... And on the day on which peace was signed, the great customer
of the producers died, and prices fell as the demand diminished, until
the prime cost of the articles required for war could not be
obtained.... Barns and farmyards were full, warehouses loaded, and such
was our artificial state of society that this very superabundance of
wealth was the sole cause of the existing distress. _Burn the stock in
the farmyards and warehouses, and prosperity would immediately
recommence, in the same manner as if the war had continued._ This want
of demand at remunerating prices compelled the master producers to
consider what they could do to diminish the amount of their productions
and the cost of producing until these surplus stocks could be taken out
of the market. To effect these results, every economy in producing was
resorted to, and men being more expensive machines for producing than
mechanical and chemical inventions and discoveries so extensively
brought into action during the war, the men were discharged and the
machines were made to supersede them--while the numbers of the
unemployed were increased by the discharge of men from the army and
navy. Hence the great distress for want of work among all classes whose
labor was so much in demand while the war continued. This increase of
mechanical and chemical power was continually diminishing the demand
for, and value of, manual labor, and would continue to do so, and would
effect great changes throughout society."[27]

In this statement there are sev