Welsh Journals

when he received a visit from Robert Owen in 1816. Southey was accustomed to the calls of all kinds of summer tourists and at first he was disposed to reckon Owen among the oddest of them. He had no previous knowledge of his ideas nor of his social experiments at Lanark and so when he heard Owen's exposition of his "levelling system of society" and his statement that he had been to the Archbishop of Canter- bury and the Cabinet ministers, he could hardly comprehend it. However, an hour's conver- sation and the subsequent reading of a pamphlet made everything clear. Southey perceived that Owen was "neither more or less than such a Pantisocrat as I was in the days of my youth. He is as ardent now as I was then, and will soon be cried down as a visionary." Southey con- fessed to a belief that Owen was right in thinking that at last we must come to a community of land. But whereas Owen anticipated a speedy change, Southey was all for gradual evolution as the result of great improvements in society. He was afraid therefore that by his imprudence in blurting out his views at so critical a moment, Owen would raise an outcry and thwart his de- signs. Yet he felt a strange sympathy for these communistic notions and remarked not only that most Utopia-framers have agreed in accepting them but also that the example of the manly Spartans proved the possibility of such a system without a weakening of the character. Neverthe- less, though he sided with Owen in principle, he held that his own mind was more mature and so he was inclined to dismiss Owen's schemes to where they "ought to be left,-among good hopes and harmless speculations." However, in spite of everything, Southey be- gan to wonder if it might not be useful to try some of Owen's proposals. The economic situ- ation was grave and the picture drawn by Southey has a melancholy interest for the present day. "The machinery which enables us to manufacture for half the world has found its way into other countries every market is glutted more goods are produced than can be consumed and every improvement in mechanism that performs the work of hands, throws so many mouths upon the public,-a growing evil which has been increasing by the premature employment of children, bring- ing them into competition with grown workmen when they should have been at school or at play." As a remedy, Owen suggested that the Govern- ment should settle paupers on waste lands and Southey considered this one of the most plausible schemes for abolishing the poor-rates which had been, or in his judgment, could be brought for- ward. His imagination was stirred by these new ideas and when his friend Rickman was going to Scotland he pressed him to look into Owen's experiments, which he himself was anxious to see in operation. Rickman's accounts redoubled his eagerness and he wrote to Henry Taylor: "Here I think we have something like a founda- tion for political economy to rest upon, your existing systems being built either upon sand or bottomless mud." It might have been expected that such enthusi- asm would quickly wane and that as Southey withdrew more and more into his Tory shell, he would be increasingly unwilling to contemplate Owen's opinions. However, this was not the case. As the days of the Reform Bill drew near and the omens seemed unfavourable to Southey's party, he was filled with gloomy forebodings. He felt that the ship was driving fast towards the breakers but all the more did he conceive it his duty to look for means of building rafts for those who should survive the wreck. Fully aware of the necessities and the sufferings of the industrial population, he was conscious that constructive action was urgently required. It was here that Owen's ideas seemed to offer new hope. In particular Southey was impressed by the possibili- ties of his co-operative societies. They tended to secure the well-being of working men; they en- couraged thrift and provision for old age. Of this Southey strongly approved, as also of "en- suring to patient industry its due remuneration." But he was alarmed at the claims of some of the more extreme men at Birmingham, who declared that they were aiming at community in land and goods. He distrusted any attempt to improve the lot of one class by hurling down another, and he was averse from a dead level of equality, since "ingenuity can neither be called forth not assidu- ously rewarded without a liberal expenditure be- stowed upon something more than the mere necessaries of life." The care for individualism here displayed is revealed likewise in his shrink- ing from "a despotism of laws, as strict as any military organisation," which he saw to be in- separable from a communistic state. Yet how- ever much he might dislike some of these develop- ments, the ideas of the Welshman, Samuel Owen, were a powerful ferment which prevented his mind from settling into mere stagnation. Secretaries of dramatic societies throughout the Principality are recommended to write to the Manager, "Welsh Outlook" Press, Newtown, for list of plays suitable for performance. Plays are published by the "Welsh Outlook" in Welsh and English, and deal entirely with Welsh life, manners, and customs. A selection of plays can be sent on approval, if desired. Fees for per- formance are moderate throughout.