Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/914

832 years ago by the Industrial Society of Upper Alsace brought to light several enterprises of this character, inspired by a philanthropic feeling, and yet giving a modest indemnification for the capital invested in them. Among them are societies of Popular Credit, of which Schulze-Delitsch and Raiffeisen have described admirable types, consumers' co-operative societies, workingmen's insurance under a variety of forms, baths and lavatories for workingmen or for the small middle class, workingmen's lodgings, cheap dining houses, and other establishments of similar character. All these organizations that concern the people are usually despised by professional speculators and by capitalists.

Wealthy men might well apply a part of their disposable revenues to enterprises of this sort, not as alms, but on the score of general utility; and there would be no impropriety in their deriving a modest interest from them. Many organizations of this kind have been formed during the past quarter of a century in England, the United States, and France, and have demonstrated the applicability of the method. Associations formed for such objects should rigorously maintain the self-supporting principle, or aim to pay their own way.

Besides the numerous examples furnished by Alsace since 1850, there are many others in demonstration of the practicability of the plan we have sketched. Some, in the shape of dwelling houses for men of small means, have been described by M. Arthur Raffalovich, in his book, Le Logement du Pauvre (The Housing of the Poor Man). Some very successful enterprises which might have come under this head have been carried out in the United States, England, and France. There are in England 2,372 building societies, the most of which are based on this principle, which comprised 587,856 members at the end of 1892, and had the disposal of £40,641,000, of which £24,729,000 were paid in by shareholders and £14,911,000 by depositors. Their profits amounted to £1,897,000, or five per cent of the capital devoted to the construction of convenient dwelling houses for the poor. In a very successful experiment made by a number of practical philanthropists at Lyons, France, ninety houses, containing a thousand simple but convenient and healthful suites, returned a profit of five and a half per cent, of which the investors received four per cent, the statutory maximum, while the rest went to increase the reserves. The objections which have been alleged against these enterprises are not really of great importance. It does not follow that because they are not of advantage to every one or to the poorest class they are not useful to a very considerable class of workmen and small clerks. And while there is danger that in the course of time—say after fifty or seventy-five years—they will deteriorate or become corrupt, we have no right to conclude that