Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/292

258 6. Another advantage, of no small importance, would be the total removal of all real or imaginary causes for combinations. The workmen and the capitalist would so shade into each other,would so evidently have a common interest, and their difficulties and distresses would be mutually so well understood, that, instead of combining to oppress one another, the only combination which could exist would be a most powerful union between both parties to overcome their common difficulties.

(314.) One of the difficulties attending such a system is, that capitalists would at first fear to embark in it, imagining that the workmen would receive too large a share of the profits: and it is quite true that the workmen would have a larger share than at present: but, at the same time, it is presumed the effect of the whole system would be, that the total profits of the establishment being much increased, the smaller proportion allowed to capital under this system would yet be greater in actual amount, than that which results to it from the larger share in the system now existing.

(315.) It is possible that the present laws relating to partnerships might interfere with factories so conducted. If this interference could not be obviated by confining their purchases under the proposed system to ready money, it would be desirable to consider what changes in the law would be necessary to its existence:and this furnishes another reason for entering into the question of limited partnerships.

(316.) A difficulty would occur also in discharging workmen who behaved ill, or who were not competent