Duncan Harley

Today brings news that the Scottish Government has rejected the advice of its own planning reporter and turned down a proposal by Mexican multi-national conglomerate Cemex to extend an existing aggregate quarry on land bordering the UNESCO listed Falls of Clyde upstream from New Lanark. New Lanark is best known as the site of a social experiment set up by Robert Owen.  Owen, a mill-owner come social reformer, had seen first hand the results of the abuse of the labour force in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution and formed the opinion that better conditions would improve production as well as improving the lives of the workers in the cotton mills. Robert Owen's big view was that a “permanent cause of distress was to be found in the competition of human labour with machinery and that the only effective remedy was the united action of men and the subordination of machinery.” Between 1799 and 1813 he improved the lot of the workforce at New Lanark. He introdu...