PROFIT-SHARING.
ITO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."1
SIR,—In your valuable and opportune article on co-partner ship in the Spectator of March 23rd you refer to the large proportion of failures in the application of the profit-sharing system. Presumably your remarks have reference to this country only. It may be useful at this time to direct atten- tion to French experience in this matter, which has been much more uniformly successful. It is an interesting and important question to what cause, or causes, this difference in results is due. Any one who has given attention to the history of the movement in the two countries can have little doubt that the chief reason for the difference lies in the much more systematic and thorough way in which the subject has from the first been studied out by the French. To many of your readers it may not be known that there has existed in France for more than thirty years a society for the practical study of profit-sharing (la Societe pour I'lhude pratique de is Participation du Personnel dans les Benefices, 20 Rue Berem, Paris). This society has collected and systematized in a unique manner a vast mass of information relative to profit-sharing and the experience of profit-sharing firms which should be of the greatest possible value, especially at a time like the present, when the subject is coming so much to the front and when, no doubt, many firms are seeking for reliable information based on actual experience of the system. The society is composed chiefly of profit-sharing employers in France, but there are also some foreign members : they represent a great variety of businesses both as to kind and size; they deprecate controversy, believe firmly in the logic of facts, and set forth as their object "the making known to all that which has been achieved by some" (faire connaitre a toms cc Qui a eftO• realise par qu,elgues-uns) ; and they hold with absolute conviction—the result of personal experience in their own businesses—that the system they practise and advocate is one which, when wisely applied and administered, not only " pays " both master and man, but tends in a marked degree to raise and ennoble the whole spirit and tone of the industry in which it is adopted. This society has been recognized in a decree of the French Government as being of public utility on account of its influence in the cause of social peace and concord. It has for its President a former Minister of Com- merce. It issues a quarterly " Bulletin," in which its opera- tions and transactions are recorded and general information is given on profit-sharing as carried on in Franco and throughout the world. This " Bulletin " is fascinating reading and is a great contrast to the reports on "labour affairs " in our newspapers, with their endless and depressing accounts of wasteful strife and discord. It opens up a new view of the industrial world and its possi- bilitiee, which is exceedingly attractive and gives food for thought.
It is a significant fact that those of the French profit- sharing firms which have practised the system longest are among the most enthusiastic upholders of it and the most convinced believers in the practical advantages to be derived from it. Further, this French society appears to have effectually disposed of the idea that the principle is only applic- able to certain kinds of businesses. It is able to show that the system has been worked with complete success in industries differing as widely as those of house painting and ironworks, railways and insurance companies. As one who has had con- siderable experience, on both side of the border, in dealing with workmen and their wages, I would express my firm and ever-increasing conviction that the system of wages pure and simple is becoming out of date and unsuited to the social con- ditions now prevailing. I believe it is largely responsible for the troubles which are besetting us in the labour world. When it is considered that, caeteris paribus, the lower the wages of the man the larger are the profits of the master, and vice versa, and that in general the employee has no means of know- ing what profits his employer is making, and usually takes an altogether exaggerated view of this, one is tempted to wonder whether anything could be devised more calculated to cause friction, distrust, and enmity than the prevailing wages system. What is urgently wanted is something that will (1) make the men feel that they are associates in the work and not mere hired machines or tools ; and (2) demonstrate to them what they cannot see at present—although it is probably, on the whole, the case—that they are receiving a fair share of the wealth they are helping to create. These ends, at least, will surely be attained by giving the men a definite share in the ultimate results of the work, and it is difficult to see how they can be secured by any other means.
If the competitive system of bare wages tends, as un- doubtedly it does, to separate master and man, the intro- duction of the co-operative principle (for which profit-sharing is but another name) must in the nature of things tend to draw them together and to foster a spirit of sympathy, con- fidence, and mutual helpfulness. It is this humanizing and harmonizing influence which is above all things needed in modern industry, and which profit-sharing, if carried out in an unselfish spirit on the part of the employer, can hardly fail to exert. But it cannot be pretended that it is a panacea for all industrial ills, and much will depend on. the mode of its application and on the spirit in which it is administered- am, Sir, &c.,
AN EMPLOYER FOR THIRTY YEARS.
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