Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/812

 79 2 THE A M ERICA N JO URN A L OF SOCIO LOG Y

being presumably either indifferent or antagonistic to the reso- lution accepted with fervor by the majority of their delegates. Of these 274 societies were prepared to 'use their influence' in favor of profit-sharing, while only 180 societies were willing to consider the adoption of profit-sharing in their own establish- ments The 180 faithful societies were requested to state,

after the lapse of a year, whether they had embodied the prin- ciples of profit-sharing in their rules, or whether they intended to recommend its immediate adoption. Of these only 35 replied; 14 being associations of producers. Out of the 21 stores, 12 habitually paid a bonus to labor (though this is not profit- and loss-sharing, still less the creation of a self-governing workshop), 4 were prepared to recommend a bonus system to their members, while the remaining 5 refused to consider the question. The 274 societies willing to 'use their influence' proved even more refractory: only 19 of these vouchsafed an answer; 14, while 'fully sympathizing with the idea of profit- sharing,' deemed themselves incompetent to suggest 'any plan upon which profit-sharing should be worked in a federal institu- tion ; ' while the 5 societies with the courage of their convictions elaborated five mutually exclusive schemes, which they were prepared to recommend to the federal institutions."' At the Huddersfield congress in 1895 a similar agreement in theory resulted quite similarly in practice.

Many cooperators, especially those interested in the larger societies, are opposed to profit-sharing in principle as well as by reason of the practical difficulties. At the Woolwich congress in 1896 the committee on conciliation reported:

1. That the object of cooperation is to utilize the capital of cooperators by employing it in cooperative industry for the production and distribution of all the requirements of cooperative societies and the public generally under equitable conditions as regards labor and remuneration.

2. That in connection with all cooperative enterprises, whether distribu- tive or productive, there should be set apart some portion of the profits as they arise, for the purpose of making some provision for the workers over and above such remuneration as they would receive in ordinary competitive workshops.

'Beatrice Potter, The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain, pp. 178, 179.