| dc.description.abstract | I apprehend it will be admitted by all our members that few other
subjects than the one which I have chosen are more important in
their nature, or more in accordance with the purposes for which our
Association was founded. An improvement in the condition of our
working classes claims a prominent place in our discussions; and is
a subject calculated, whenever it is brought under our notice, to call
forth our warmest sympathies on behalf of a large number of our
fellow men, from whose labor those who are in the possession of the
comforts of life derive most of their means of enjoyment; while the
producers of these comforts are themselves, in too many cases, subjected
to great privations, from which, under the existing relations
of society, they are, by their own unaided efforts, unable to free
themselves. Many of these privations are no doubt caused by their
own improvidence and intemperance. Perhaps such evils have
always had to be borne by large numbers, in all countries, who depend
for their subsistence on their daily labor; but they are not, on
that account, the more endurable; nor is it, therefore, less the duty
of the intelligent portions of the community, to strive by all legitimate
means to establish a better and a happier state of social existence.
Whether or not the co-operative system, which, not many
years since, took hold on- the minds of some of the more intelligent
of the working men in the United Kingdom, and which has more
recently engaged the attention, and gained the active support, of some
capitalists in England, be a wise means for effecting this worthy and
desirable object, is now upon trial; and it is the subject to which I
am desirous of drawing the attention of the members of this Society. | en |
