central organisation, and exchange would be carried out on the basis, presumably, of labour value, or perhaps exchange would be dispensed with and the distribution of goods be performed by the central body on some equitable plan. To organise such a scheme would have taxed the resources of a modern state to the uttermost, and to control hundreds of thousands of harassed and oppressed workers, brimming with renewed hopes, burning with zeal and fired with indignation against their old enemy, Capital, was a task from which the boldest modern Labour leader would shrink. But the serene optimism of Owen saw only the promised land, the perils of the way being ignored. The members of the Union pressed recklessly on. The first step was to acquire the means of production, and to achieve this a series of strikes on a hitherto unheard-of scale was instituted. Weapons of terrorism were not eschewed. But the assault failed: the organisation was too weak, Government came to the aid of capital, the law was invoked, and the movement smashed.
There were clearly many aspects of the activity of Owen, and each was represented by a different group of disciples. There was first the little group which drank the pure water of Communism—Gray, Thompson, Bray, Pare, Lloyd Jones, and their followers, who took the name of Socialists. This was a select body and came comparatively little into the light of publicity. There were also groups of factory reformers, such as those who formed the Society for Social Regeneration—a typically Owenite designation. This was led by Fielden of Todmorden, and was connected with local societies throughout the North of England. Educationalists in plenty derived inspiration from Owen. They, however, concern us little. There were also the half-converted Trade Unionists whose movement collapsed in 1834. Not the least important of the Owenite converts, however, was the little group of London artisans whose story is related by William Lovett the Chartist, and to whose activities the Chartist Movement owes its origin.
Socially and politically London differed considerably from the manufacturing towns of the North and Midlands in 1830, and this difference was then greater than it is now, when the more general diffusion of wealth and learning has considerably lessened the supremacy of London in these respects. London was then probably the only English city in which there was a considerable body of highly skilled artisans, for there alone was there a large wealthy and leisured class
