A study in democracy: being an account of the rise and progress of industrial co-operation in Bristol . 3 CHAPTER II. A Robert Owen^ the Prophet. MID the sickeniiii^ welter of unregulated competitionthrough which Industrialism floundered during thelast decade ofthe eighteenth,, andthe early part ofthe nineteenth cen-turies, a voice ringsout here and there,now demandingpolitical, then socialequity for the sonsof toil, but seldomindeed is there foundone wise enough orbold enough to chal-lenge the basis uponwhich the machineryof industrial affairsat that time ap-peared to one, all ac-
A study in democracy: being an account of the rise and progress of industrial co-operation in Bristol . 3 CHAPTER II. A Robert Owen^ the Prophet. MID the sickeniiii^ welter of unregulated competitionthrough which Industrialism floundered during thelast decade ofthe eighteenth,, andthe early part ofthe nineteenth cen-turies, a voice ringsout here and there,now demandingpolitical, then socialequity for the sonsof toil, but seldomindeed is there foundone wise enough orbold enough to chal-lenge the basis uponwhich the machineryof industrial affairsat that time ap-peared to one, all ac-cepted the basis offree (?) competitionas being necessaryto successful com-mercial one, Robert Owen, a large-hearted business man,a student and a philosopher, withal a ])ractical socialreformer, contended otherwise. Fifty years beforeJohn Ruskin wrote There is no wealth but life Owen was actually demonstrating at New Lanark thatthe acceptance of this principle by the commercialworld was good business. For twentv-eight years hemaintained a magnificent industrial enterprise, conducted. ROUKUT OWKN. 14 INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATION IN BRISTOL. witli special regard to ethical considerations, achievingnot onty commercial success, but an abundance of realwealth in happy life to the community. It is not the intention of the writer to deal with thosetwenty-eight years. But, with the subsequent life of thisman. Co-operators in general, and Bristol Co-operators inparticular, are specially interested, for his followers wereamongst those who inspired the Co-operative move-ment, and his visit to Bristol in the winter of 1840-41undoubtedly had something to do with the starting ofthe first Co-operative Society in Bristol. But, apart from these considerations, there is another,perhaps to the historian, more potent reason why somerecognition should be made in these pages of this manswork. He was a link between the old and the new; hesought to retain that which was good in the old fami
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