profession for mercenary idlers to profit by,"[1] a belief which led him into disputation with his wife who was a devout Churchwoman. Hetherington certainly and Watson probably shared these views too.
Lovett's radical views were quickly reinforced by the teachings of Hodgskin, Owen, and others. He became an enthusiastic believer in Owenism. He was storekeeper for the First London Co-operative Trading Association in 1829.
I was induced to believe that the gradual accumulation of capital by these means would enable the working classes to form themselves into joint stock associations of labour, by which (with industry, skill, and knowledge) they might ultimately have the trade, manufacture, and commerce of the country in their own hands.[2]
He continued to take an active part in the Owenite propaganda down to the failure of the famous Labour Exchange Bazaar which was founded in 1832, but with the militant Owenism of 1834 he had nothing to do, devoting himself to his own affairs and the Newspaper Tax campaign. He was also a prominent member of the National Union of the Working Classes, and took a great part in its activities.
Lovett's expressions of his political and social opinions are comparatively rare, but one or two may be cited. In 1836 we find him arguing in the columns of Hetherington's Twopenny Dispatch.[3] Individualism is the great cause of the evil lot of the working classes. The right of individual property in land, machinery, and productive power; the right of individual accumulation of wealth, "which enables one man to engross for luxury what would suffice to make thousands happy"; and the right to buy and sell human labour by which the multitude are made subservient to the few—these are fountains of social injustice. Through these rights guaranteed by existing laws, industry is improperly directed to enriching the few instead of benefiting the many. Individual property means individual interests and a tendency under any form of government to influence legislation in favour of individual interests. The Corn Laws are a case in point. Individual interest and not surplus population is the root of social evil. Lovett is thus a social revolutionary. Permanent social happiness is to be expected only from the substitution of some higher principle than self-
- ↑ Life and Struggles, p. 37.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 41.
- ↑ September 10, 1836.
