PROFIT-SHARING. SOME forty years ago Channing delivered to a Boston audience a course of lectures On the Elevation of the Working Classes.' These lectures possess many conspicuous excellences of thought, feeling, and expression, but pre-eminent even among these are the piercing clearness of vision with which the remote goal for a workman's best efforts is descried, and the energetic precision with which it is pointed out. There is (writes Channing) but one elevation for a labourer and for all other men. There are not different kinds of dignity for different orders of men, but one and the same for all. The only elevation of a human being consists in the exercise, growth, energy of the higher principles and powers of his soul. A bird may be shot upwards to the skies by a foreign power; but it rises, in the true sense of the word, only when it spreads its own wings and soars by its own living power. So a man may be thrust upward into a conspicuous place by outward accidents; but he rises only in so far as he exerts himself and expands his best faculties and ascends by a free effort to a nobler region of thought and action. Such is the elevation I desire for the labourer, and I desire no other. This elevation is, indeed, to be aided by an improvement in his outward condition, and in turn it greatly improves his outward lot; and, thus connected, outward good is real and great; but supposing it to exist in separation from inward growth and life, it would be nothing worth, nor would I raise a finger to promote it. While, however, Channing saw thus clearly wherein consisted the only real elevation of the working classes, and also recognised the powerful influence exerted by their outward condition on their inner life, he was unable to perceive, save vaguely and dimly, the agencies by which a genuine rise in the labourer's condition was to be brought about. He hoped much from increased temperance, economy, hygienic knowledge, education, reading and clearer development of Christian principle, but how these vital influences were to be organised as direct consequences of changed industrial relations was a problem the very statement of which would probably have appeared to him visionary and futile. By a remarkable coincidence, at the very time when Channing was defining in America the spiritual aim to be set before the working classes, Leclaire in Paris was preparing an industrial revolution, which, though based at first on purely economic considerations, was destined in his master hand to bring in its train precisely that moral renova tion to which Channing looked forward. I refer of course to the principle of participation by workmen in the profits of enterprise. In the Nineteenth Century for September 1880, I gave a somewhat detailed account of the remarkable chain of associated institutions grouped by Leclaire around this central principle. They constitute a permanent industrial Foundation, unique both in the nature of its organisation and in the extent of the benefits, material and moral, which it bestows on its members. This uniqueness, however, while it attracts public attention in an eminent degree to the Maison Leclaire, is calculated to discourage with equal force all imitation of an establishment so elaborately and munificently organised, founded too by an exceptionally situated man of unquestionable genius. The very completeness of the organisation thus tends to obscure the merits of the principle on which it is based. I hope, therefore, to do service by showing that participation in profits, organised on a much less extensive scale and on simpler plans in a large number of industrial and commercial establishments on the Continent, is producing results of the same kind, though not so far-reaching, as those attained by the Maison Leclaire. In the present article, after indicating the principal sources of information in regard to these establishments, I shall describe selected instances of the main types on which participation has been organised in them. The results obtained shall be characterised, as far as practicable, in the words of those who have experienced them. cursory survey of the ground already covered by participatory operations abroad will then lead to a few closing remarks on the applicability of similar methods in this country. Of published works on participation by far the most important is that of Dr. Victor Böhmert,' director of the Royal Statistical Bureau, and Professor of Political Economy at the Polytechnicum at Dresden. It rests on an international investigation of the most extensive kind, carried out with extraordinary industry and perseverance. In describing the systems adopted by individual houses, extracts from regulations, statements of account, indeed all kinds of first-hand information, are abundantly supplied, and the results flowing from the methods adopted are often stated in direct communications made by the masters, and, in a few important cases, also by the men employed. For the results in Paris alone, the chief authority is a volume by M. Fougerousse, which includes a number of cases not described by Böhmert. A further source of trustworthy information is the periodical Bulletin, published by a French society formed in 1879 in order to 1 Die Gewinnbetheiligung. Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1878. 2 Patrons et Ouvriers de Paris. Paris, Chaix, 1880. • Bulletin de la Société de la Participation aux Bénéfices. Paris, Chaix, PROFIT-SHARING. SOME forty years ago Channing delivered to a Boston audience a course of lectures 'On the Elevation of the Working Classes.' These lectures possess many conspicuous excellences of thought, feeling, and expression, but pre-eminent even among these are the piercing clearness of vision with which the remote goal for a workman's best efforts is descried, and the energetic precision with which it is pointed out. There is (writes Channing) but one elevation for a labourer and for all other men. There are not different kinds of dignity for different orders of men, but one and the same for all. The only elevation of a human being consists in the exercise, growth, energy of the higher principles and powers of his soul. A bird may be shot upwards to the skies by a foreign power; but it rises, in the true sense of the word, only when it spreads its own wings and soars by its own living power. So a man may be thrust upward into a conspicuous place by outward accidents; but he rises only in so far as he exerts himself and expands his best faculties and ascends by a free effort to a nobler region of thought and action. Such is the elevation I desire for the labourer, and I desire no other. This elevation is, indeed, to be aided by an improvement in his outward condition, and in turn it greatly improves his outward lot; and, thus connected, outward good is real and great; but supposing it to exist in separation from inward growth and life, it would be nothing worth, nor would I raise a finger to promote it. While, however, Channing saw thus clearly wherein consisted the only real elevation of the working classes, and also recognised the powerful influence exerted by their outward condition on their inner life, he was unable to perceive, save vaguely and dimly, the agencies by which a genuine rise in the labourer's condition was to be brought about. He hoped much from increased temperance, economy, hygienic knowledge, education, reading and clearer development of Christian principle, but how these vital influences were to be organised as direct consequences of changed industrial relations was a problem the very statement of which would probably have appeared to him visionary and futile. By a remarkable coincidence, at the very time when Channing was defining in America the spiritual aim to be set before the working classes, Leclaire in Paris was preparing an industrial revolution, which, though based at first on purely economic considerations, was destined in his master hand to bring in its train precisely that moral renova tion to which Channing looked forward. I refer of course to the principle of participation by workmen in the profits of enterprise. In the Nineteenth Century for September 1880, I gave a somewhat detailed account of the remarkable chain of associated institutions grouped by Leclaire around this central principle. They constitute a permanent industrial Foundation, unique both in the nature of its organisation and in the extent of the benefits, material and moral, which it bestows on its members. This uniqueness, however, while it attracts public attention in an eminent degree to the Maison Leclaire, is calculated to discourage with equal force all imitation of an establishment so elaborately and munificently organised, founded too by an exceptionally situated man of unquestionable genius. The very completeness of the organisation thus tends to obscure the merits of the principle on which it is based. I hope, therefore, to do service by showing that participation in profits, organised on a much less extensive scale and on simpler plans in a large number of industrial and commercial establishments on the Continent, is producing results of the same kind, though not so far-reaching, as those attained by the Maison Leclaire. In the present article, after indicating the principal sources of information in regard to these establishments, I shall describe selected instances of the main types on which participation has been organised in them. The results obtained shall be characterised, as far as practicable, in the words of those who have experienced them. A cursory survey of the ground already covered by participatory operations abroad will then lead to a few closing remarks on the applicability of similar methods in this country. Of published works on participation by far the most important is that of Dr. Victor Böhmert,' director of the Royal Statistical Bureau, and Professor of Political Economy at the Polytechnicum at Dresden. It rests on an international investigation of the most extensive kind, carried out with extraordinary industry and perseverance. In describing the systems adopted by individual houses, extracts from regulations, statements of account, indeed all kinds of first-hand information, are abundantly supplied, and the results flowing from the methods adopted are often stated in direct communications made by the masters, and, in a few important cases, also by the men employed. 2 For the results in Paris alone, the chief authority is a volume by M. Fougerousse, which includes a number of cases not described by Böhmert. A further source of trustworthy information is the periodical Bulletin,3 published by a French society formed in 1879 in order to 1 Die Gewinnbetheiligung. Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1878. 2 Patrons et Ouvriers de Paris. Paris, Chaix, 1880. • Bulletin de la Société de la Participation aux Bénéfices. Paris, Chaix. ascertain and make known the different modes of participation actually employed in industry.' It will be readily understood that, besides these general works, there exists a great mass of separate publications dealing with the organisation of individual houses. These are far too numerous for specification save in a catalogue raisonné of such literature. In selecting the types of participation to be described in this article, I have followed the mode of classification introduced by M. Fougerousse, based on the manner in which the workpeople's share in profits is made over to them. The simplest system is that which distributes this share in ready money at the close of each year's account without making any conditions as to the disposal of the sums so paid over. This mode of proceeding is adopted by but a very limited group of firms, the most important among which is the pianoforte-making establishment of M. Bord, rue des Poissonniers, Paris. Participation was introduced in 1865, in consequence of a strike, on the following basis. After deduction from the net profits of interest at 10 per cent. on M. Bord's capital embarked in the business, the remainder is divided into two parts, one proportional to the amount of interest on capital drawn by M. Bord, the other to the whole sum paid during the year in wages to the workmen. The former of these two parts goes to M. Bord, the latter is divided among all his employés who can show six months' continuous presence in the house up to the day of the annual distribution. The share obtained by each workman is proportional to the sum which he has earned in wages, paid at the full market rate during the year on which the division of profits is made. The number of M. Bord's employés was, at the beginning of 1878, a little over 400, and the sums he has paid in labour-dividends during the last three years are, as he has been kind enough to inform me, 3,7847., 2,874l. and 3,5481., which represent 15 per cent., 12 per cent., and 16 per cent. respectively on the men's earnings in wages during those years. The total amount thus paid, exclusively out of profits, since the introduction of this system in 1865 is 39,300l. M. Bord has satisfied himself that a good and thrifty employment is made of these annual labour-dividends, and he considers that the effect of the system in attaching the workmen to the house, and its influence on their relations towards their employer, are excellent. From the system of immediate possession, I pass to the diametrically opposite procedure introduced thirty years ago, under the auspices of M. Alfred de Courcy, into one of the most important insurance companies of Paris, the Compagnie d' Assurances Générales. Five per cent. on the yearly profits realised by the company is allotted to its staff, which numbers about 250 employés of all grades, whose fixed |