Page 16 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

—
The Story of the C.W.S.

having free traditions could not endure. The poets akeady had
prophesied against it—Blake with his vision of a new Jerusalem in
England's green and happy land; Bums, with his passionate defence
of the human worth of the poor; Southe3^ looking back to Wat
Tyler; Byron, fiercely scornful of the rich; even Keats, Coleridge,
and Wordsworth striking in individual fashion upon notes heard in
Goldsmith, Gray, and Crabbe. Peterloo had evoked the quick
response of Shelley, who, an exile in Italy, offered himself for the
moment as the poet of Lancashire in his interpretation of the value
of the freedom:
For the labourer thou art bread,
And a comely table spread;
From his daily labour come
In a neat and happy home.
Science and poetry and thought
Are thy lamps ; they make the lot
Of a dweller in a cot
So serene he heeds it not.
Meanwhile, quite independently of the poets, who were mostly
without honour, on a dozen different sides men of affairs were busy.
Cobbett was at work, and Lovett, Hunt, and Hetherington. Francis
Place was organising for the repeal of the combination la\\s.
Shaftesbury was soon to enter Parhament. Sadler and Oastler
and Fielden were beginning their labours for the children. The
different societies founded by Bell and Lancaster were forwarding
the popular education which commenced with Raikes. And (what is
especially to our point) Robert Owen, with the laurels of his great
work at New Lanark still upon him, was everywhere putting before
the minds of men the possibilities of united action for the common
good.
The methods of the communistic co-operators whom Owen called
into being were radically different from those of the co-operators of
to-day; but Owenite accounts of general aims still wear a very
modern aspect. A statement of articles of agreement for a com-
munity "within fifty miles of London," issued before 1830 by a
" London Co-operative Society " at 36, Pved Lion Square,^ began by
proposing, " in lieu of the existing system of individual competition,
a system of modem co-operation in the production of wealth, and of
equality in its distribution." " This," said the society, " would
remove the greater portion of the evils under which society at present
'Thia statement was adopted by the third Co-operative Congress, sitting in London,
tu April, 1832.