The National Register.
London, England, 1817-08-25 00:00:00

MR. GIVEYS ADJOURNED MEETING.

Thursday the adjourned Meeting for the purpose of considering
Mr. Owen's Plan lea the Relief of the l'oor, was held at the
IZity of Landon Tavern, Itishonsgate-street. The Meeting was very
munerously attended, so much so, that though the chair was not
taken till one o'clock, the rontn)vas crowded to excess at a little after
twelve. here were several respectable persons attended, among
whom were about twenty Ladies.
At one o'clock Mr. Owen entered &cram, inAtompany with seve-
ral friends, and proposed that Sir John Jackson, Hart. M.P. should
take the Chair. This being agreed to, Sir John took the Chair. ex •
pressed his thanks for the honour they had done him, and requested
attention to every Gentleman who should come forward to otter his
sentiments. Mr. Owen, he observed, would resume the discussion
which commeneedlast week. . .

Mr. Owen hagun by lamenting that so much confusion should have
taken place at/tie last meeting. Ile lamented this the snore, because
it was a proof that the system of political economy was little under-
stood. fie entered into an =goitre° shew that a reform in the re-
presentation would not produce the benefits belong contemplated;
and then proceeded to sliew that the principal cause of the present
distress was the prodigious encresse of machinery. He allowed that
the Cottage system was calculated to do much good, but it was ex-
pensive, and would not have the effect of 'moralizing the people ae-
cus:omed as they would still be to their old habits. They would,
moreover, while they remained individualized„te subject to famine
in bad seasons. Mr. Owen now proceeded teams. that his plan was
not yetmnderstood, nor, from his arguments could we find that he
understood it better himself. With an effrontery which we own sur-
prised us, lie avowed tile profession of a religious creed differing from
&II that hitherto ea Wed ; and that without the adoption of his creed
no happiness could be found. But he carefully abstained, however,
from aflOrding any information as to its nature. lie concluded his
speech which was of great length (delivered from a written pawn by
moving " a Committee be appointed to examine his Plan, and
that they report their proceedings at a meeting to be held inthe month
of May, ltst 8.
Before this question was seconded, a Gentleman rose to order, and
said, that as the meeting was a cominuation of a former one, the
Resolutions proposed and agreed to at the meeting should be read
before any thing else was done. This produced a very noisy discus-
sion on the point of order. Several persons gave their opinions, but it
was at length decided by the meeting, that the former Resolutions
aliould not be read.

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Mr. Bader row to second the resolution ; he did not wish it to he
understood that he approved of Mr. Ovien's plan, fir indeed he could
not comprehend it. but he wished it should undergo an attentive con-
sideration.

Major Torrens paid the highest compliments to Mr. Owen's dis-
interestedntsa and public spirit, but considered bini a visionary poli-
tician. He then went into a variety of stsuments. similar to those
of the last meeting, to prove the inineacticabiiity of Mr. Owen's plan;
and in conclusion moved that the meeting be adjourned to the month
ofJanuary next, in onler to give Mr. Owen time to redeem his volun-
tary Fledge that he could refute the principle. that population has a
tendency to increase in it geometrical ratio.
After Major Tureen's .tmeadnient was put and seconded, a per-
son of culour, who had before much disturbal the meeting by his at-
tempts to be heard, came into the mom, and having with some diffi-
culty 'breed his way through the crowd, gut at length upon the table
at which therhairman sat. His appearance,which was most wretched,
and the warmth and the force of gait= with which he expressed

NATIONAT. REGSTER

• .
himself, considerably alannel several of the Ladies who sat near, and
the impreesion was that the min was insane. When on the able he ,
was wuliout shoes, and hisstoskinga, if such they might be called,
but ill concealed his brawnq leg* and feet. He bogged to be heard
for only ten minutes. To getrid of him in some way this was agreed
te. Ile then said his nemeses, Hob. Wedderburn, that he was the
son ofJas. Wedderburn, Eq. of Jamaica, by Rosanna his slave.—
He derribed in strong terns the horrors of slavery, and contended
that die present Plan would is a refined Tories of slavery, for It would
destroy the independent spirt of freemen. Ile nett alluded to the
state of Ireland, which, he itheervod, had supplied all Europe with
provisions, but, that now that demand was done away with, the people
of that fertile country were actually starving. The cause was, the land
holders who did not reside at haste only caused their tenants to grow
as much provision as would suffice for themselves, and were tandem
about this rest of the world.—LAt this time the speaker was with his
face to the Chairman, but bring called upon to turn round so the
great body of the meeting, he apologized, and said he should have
known better, as he had been onces preacher, and was ia the habit of
addressing a large congregation. —He then went on in a very warm
address on the subject of Ireland. which, from the confusion which
he caused, we could not hear very distinctly. In conclusion, he thanked
the Meeting the their attention, and regretted (for the fifth time) that
any set of !working people should be without their four meals a day.
Mr. Stephens (the keeper of a spirits shop as we were informed)
next addressed the meeting. Ile went over all the arguments which
Lave been urged repeatedly against Mr. Owen's plan, minifying the
use of machinery, and contending that the cause of all our distress was
the want of an equal representation.
Here was a cry of order on the part of Mr. Swift, who stated that
the meeting was called to discus, Mr. Owen's plan and not to enter
into political questions.
Major Cartwright observed, that Mr. Stephens was in order, as the
plan under consideration was strictly a political one.
The Chairman thought differently, but the company not agreeing
with him Mr. Stephens proceeded. He said he should make no
mote allusion to politics than what he conceived to be absolutely ne-
cessary in point of argument. He would therefore endeavour to ab-
stain from polities as much as possible, and would proceed to the
plan. What was the complaint ? It was the want of employment :
it was the want of means of getting rid of the stock which the manu-
facturers had in hand. Would these villages increase the demand ?
Would they increase the customers because they worked cheap ? He
did not see that any of these things would be answered by the pro-
posed plan. We did not want to increase our manufactures, but the
great want was to increase the customers, and to enable our menu-
tactun.s, by a reduction of taxation, to meet the foreign markets.
Mr. Waithman, willing to give Mr. Owen every credit for his
exertions, could not help feeling that hie plan was built upon idle
theory. However impressed that gentleman might be, that his plan
had other considerations to recommend it, it was neither more nor
less than a political question. It was a political question, too, of the
greatest magnitude, and only as such ought i: to be treated. It was
a question on which a public meeting, like the present, could not de-
cide, and if it could be entertained at all, it should be only by the ad-
minivtration of the country. The worthy gentleman had addressed
the meeting with a written speech in his hands; he was not, there-
fore, liable to make those little slips to which the best extempore
speakers are ex cased ; but note ithstanding that advantaee, he had
dof liiimellinvolved in some of the strangestard most Obvious contra-
ictions. The great evil at pr Elea was, that persons could not find
employment, and yet by the plan proposed, persons were not only to
support themselves, but they were to erford a surplus labour, and by
means of that very labour with welch the country now superabound-
ed, they were to conteibute to the exigencies of the Government.—He
took the words down, perhaps lie might have mistaken a little in the
expression, but he thought he could not have very widely mistaken
the meaning. At present a man was guided by prudence, and re-
stricted himself front many of the comforts of life, under the consi-
deration that he was not able to maintain a family ; but by putting
people together in the way proposal, and taking from them all the
dread of future, the consequences must be such as had always been
foretold from a redundancy of pepulation, however excellent the
scheme may appear as applicable to a set of beings diflerently con-
structed from wain has been hitherto witnessed. But Providence has
thought proper to send into the world persons of different inclinations
and pursuit; ; and it is not by inclining them in tier..; of live hundred
or twelve hundred in each, that mankind can be ameliorated, or that
the world can be improved. 'fhb aas not to be eflircteel by getting
rid of all intelloinual advantages, by crushing the desire of fame and
all the noble meditate which distinguish mankind front all the in-
ferior
branches -of the creation. It was on this principle he also ob-
jected to the plan, for it appeared to him that either the proposer
of the plan was dreaming, or that he himself was dreaming. Ile had
heard many deliver their opinions upon it, but Ile should still reserve ,
to himself that tight which was indisputably belonging to him of do-
ciding fur hinuell, and lie could hardly hesitate in haying, that the
plan which the meeting was called upon to adopt, was one of the
wildest dreams which ever entered into the brain of an intellectual
being.-4 Mr. Witithman, after having referred to what he termed the
erroneous opinions respecting the National Debt, and the Funds being
comidered as national property, and increasing the general stock,
quoted a passage from the works of Mr. Justice Blackstone, in which
the Learned- Judge, who wrote at a time when thepublic debt was
only 130 millions, instead of being, as at present, upwards of a thou-
sand millions, declared that the public Funds could not be looked
upon as so much national wealth, for that whatever was received by
the fundhelder or public creditor, was actually drained from the peo-
ple in the shape of taxes.)--lf the business were to be carried to the
length Mr. Owen apparently designs it, it would be but carrying at
a little further if the government were to way, " We will find you in
food and raiment, and, having families, with more necessaries of
life, and we will take the rest among oistselvese" One of the gentlemen
who had favoured the meeting with these sentiments had been called
to orders as having mixed politics with the subject matter of the dis-
cuseion. That came while, very ill grace from a person who was, he
understood, himself a placental), and as such probably acting as the
organ of the Government. With regard to the morals of the lower
classes of the people, he would say that there were now less drunken-
ness. less immorality, than at any fonner period of his life. The
people, in tact, generally speaking. were never more morally inclined
than at present. Supposing that a wish had been appropriated to the
encouragement of labour, let any bunt be mentioned, but lie had
chanced to hit upon 14,0001. This sum, at its. per week, would
maintain 466 families for a whole year, reckoning four persons to each
family, the whole number of persons would be i sea. Would it not
have been better to liars bestowed such a sum of money in such a
way, then to have given it to George Canning to spend in a foreign
country. Mr. Waithman concluded with rerAng, as a part of his
speech, some resolutions which be intended to propose. Ihey were
to the following effect:—That while the meeting expresses its gra-
titude for the benevolent endeavours of Mr. Owen, they could not
but anxiously view the nature and extent of the misery before theta ;
that the cause of the evils under which the country was labituring,
was excessive taxation, and that there could be no effineuel remedy
short of a fair representation. •
Major Cartwright having been loudly called for, eagle
and in a speech of considerable length, fought with a/111.17:111
reforming doctemes, contended that nothing but reform was =
to restore happiness to the people. He was repeatedly in
by cries of "a:rffolf" and" No politics," and the Chairman expressed
an opinion that he was out of order. 'this was followed by Mona
of " No so," and " No partiality.," after which the MAKI
(seeded to read a string of Resolution ascribing the present asog •
to taxation, and a want of a proper n;presientation. and usitse4ho
necessity of reducing the one, and attaining the other.
Mr. Bowcrott rose to explain, that Mr. Owen had neidlidlebei
that the merits of his plan shindil be discussed on lb
occasion, but merely that & Committee should be appointed Io
into it.
Mr Tucker (a taylor, acame Rowan'. and
iii a beech of considerable refuted all Air.
Owes • arguments in favour

The calls for Mr.Woolsr. now became loud, and after some time
he presented himself. lle objected to the plan in strong terms, and
accused Mr. Owen of egotism and want of respect to the public. He
denied that the lower orders were demoralized, but insisted that the
higher orders were materially so. There was one thing to which be
(Mr. W.) would advise Mr. Owen, and in the execution of which he
should have his most hearty support—that was to shut himself up it
one of his projected communities, withall those with whoseservices Se.
ciely could dispense, or rather who were of no use to society at all.—(
laugh.)—That. indeed. would be a benefit. Let Min then ten*
them that religion which was never yet taught to man.—{Misrle
laughing.)—And after they had spent four or Kee and thirty years ie
that abode, if they came hack to society they may be able to give
such an account of the place as may induce others to support sr
—(A latrgli.)—On the whole he could not agree to the plan, for he
would rather see poverty with independence, than any private ate-(
fort with restricted liberty.
Mr. Gale Jones then addressed the Meeting. and contended, that
Mr. Owen's plan had to struggle with bigotry and prejudice, and
that these alone hindered its being fairly considered. M.. 1. was pro-
ceeding, when he was interrupted by the cries of, "Oil; off." and the
confusion which ensued between those who were anxious to hear him,
and those who called for the Question, was so great, that not a word
more could be heard from him.
We have seldom witnessed a greater scene of uproar than followed
this. The most respectable part of the Meeting, anxioih to avoid ir
riot, left the room in disgust. Mr. Owen, at length. begged to be
heard, and for that purpose went along the table in the centre; he
was attended to, but only for a very short time, and, at last, WAS
obliged to retire. While things were in this state.
Dr. Watson (of Spitalfields) got on the table and wished to be
heard, but he was totally disregarded. The cries of "Question ;" were
so loud as to drown every thing he said, and those who were next
him could not distinctly hear one-word of what fell from him. Find-
ing his efforts fruitless, lie retired. Ths Question was again called
for, and Major Torrens's amendment was put and negatived. Mr.
Waithinan's amendments were next put and carried by a small ma-
jority. The shouting which accompanied this was absolutely deaf-
ening. A vote of thanks to the Chairman was then moved, which,
however, was not put before an individual wished to carry a resale's
thin expressive of theirross partiality with which Mr. Owen's oppo-
nents were treated. This was negatived, and the resolutionof thanks.
was carried. The Meeting then broke up at a quarter pest saves,