eral points worthy of attention. In the
first place, the analysis of the crisis of 1815 is very like the later
analyses of commercial crises by the Marxists; secondly, the antagonism
of class interests is clearly developed, so far as the basic interests
of the employers and their employees are concerned. The former, in order
to conserve their interests, have to dismiss the workers, thus forcing
them into the direst poverty. Thirdly, the conflict between manual labor
and machine production is frankly stated. Owen's studies were leading
him from mere philanthropism to Socialism.

During the height of the distress of 1815, Owen called together a large
number of cotton manufacturers at a conference, held in Glasgow, to
consider the state of the cotton trade and the prevailing distress. He
proposed (1) that they should petition Parliament for the repeal of the
revenue tariff on raw cotton; (2) that they should call upon Parliament
to shorten the hours of labor in the cotton mills by legislative
enactment, and otherwise seek to improve the condition of the working
people. The first proposition was carried with unanimity, but the
second, and to Owen the more important, did not even secure a
seconder.[28] The conference plainly showed the power of class
interests. The spirit in which Owen faced his fellow-manufacturers is
best seen in the following extract from the address delivered by him,
with copies of which he afterward literally deluged the kingdom:--

"True, indeed, it is that the main pillar and prop of the political
greatness and prosperity of our country is a manufacture which, as now
carried on, is destructive of the health, morals, and social comfort of
the mass of people engaged in it. It is only since the introduction of
the cotton trade that children, at an age before they had acquired
strength or mental instruction, have been forced into cotton
mills,--those receptacles, in too many instances, for living human
skeletons, almost disrobed of intellect, where, as the business is often
now conducted, they linger out a few years of miserable existence,
acquiring every bad habit which they may disseminate throughout society.
It is only since the introduction of this trade that children and even
grown people were required to labor more than twelve hours in a day, not
including the time allotted for meals. It is only since the introduction
of this trade that the sole recreation of the laborer is to be found in
the pot-h