But with the defeat of the Bill of Pains and Penalties the popular feeling subsided. Ministers had imagined themselves to be faced with a conspiracy between the Queen and the populace like that which had placed Catherine II on the throne of Russia. But the death of the Queen removed the {149} leader, and good harvests, by bringing down the cost of living, reduced the sufferings of the people. The Tories remained in office for another ten years. An attempt at economic reform was made at this time of crisis which deserves some notice. On the 16th December, 1819, Sir William de Crespigny moved that a Select Committee of the Commons be appointed to inquire into Robert Owen's scheme of co-operative production in New Lanark. Owen's experiment eventually failed. But as an experiment it was immensely valuable, and afforded abundant proof of the value of education, of the reduction of child labour, of a short working day, and of good conditions of housing and factory administration. Parliament could not have failed to profit by the study of such an excellent model. During the debate on Crespigny's motion, many professions of sympathy with distressed workmen were made, and not a few compliments were paid to the owner of the New Lanark mills. But Owen had made two dangerous blunders. As a Socialist he had spoken against private property, and his religious opinions were unorthodox. His scheme was therefore "subversive of the religion and government of the country," and Tories like Castlereagh, Pietists like Wilberforce, and individualist economists like Ricardo joined in denouncing it. The argument of Wilberforce shows with what conscientious frivolity these governors studied the condition of their subjects. If Owen's plan, he said, "proceeded upon a system of morals founded upon no religion whatever, but rather upon considerations of moral rectitude of conduct only, he was of opinion that it behoved the House to be cautious how it gave its sanction to an institution which did not acknowledge as one of its essential features that doctrine on whose truth and piety it was not for him now to enlarge."[187] Upon such barriers the motion was shipwrecked. It was lost by 141 votes to 16, and the working classes were left to the tender mercies of competition.