Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/222

 200 Thus, in the tabulated list of profit-sharing societies given on p. 25 of the report there can be found, for instance, no mention of the Scottish Wholesale Co-operative Society, which has expended £50,000 in laying down admirable workshops for the manufacture of goods consumed by its members. The principle of profit-sharing has been practised by this society since 1870, and, in certain proportions the profit upon its productions has been divided between capital, labour, and consumption, each of these elements being considered agents in its realization. The share paid to labour in 1889 was equal to 8½d. in the £ on wages. Nor does this list include the well-known Hebden Bridge Society, in which the fustian-makers and tailors are paid a share of profits; this share in 1889 being 9d. in the £ on their wages. The Leicester Boot and Shoe-Makers, who paid 1s. 6½d. in the £ on wages, is not referred to, nor are the Northamptonshire and Raunds Societies of the same trade, who in 1889 paid a share of profits of labour of 2s. 3d. and 3s. in the £ respectively. The Manchester Printing Society may also be specially named, which in 1889 divided £395 among its workpeople as their share of profit. In fact from a list of 106 productive societies existing in 1889, 23 may be selected as profit-sharing concerns, and these divided among their workers during the year in this way £4,760.

Statistical information about all these societies is published annually in the reports of the Co-operative Union, which are easily obtainable. The co-operative camp, it is true, is divided into two sections on this subject, but still it cannot be expected that a report on profit-sharing, which makes no reference to these concerns, should be satisfactory to the disciples of a movement from the main principle of which the system of profit-sharing may be said to he an off-shoot.

As a short general sketch, however, of an important industrial development, the report may be of much service, and may help just now to call attention to the system it describes, even if it does not induce employers of labour to carry it more generally into practice. It may be objected that the subject is treated too exclusively from the employers' point of view, and that sufficient account is not taken of the feelings and opinions of workmen in respect to it. Nor does it make adequate reference to the many tailures which have taken place in attempts to work out the principle, whether in profit-sharing concerns pure and simple, or in others, in which the element of industrial partnership has been combined. This is a question on which further and more explicit evidence is much needed.

On the other hand it is to be said that the summary of the constitution and practical operation of the system as applied generally, and in special cases at home and abroad, is clear and interesting. Perhaps the most important tact brought out by the report is, that in many of the firms in which profitshsring has been established, a considerable increase of profit has accompanied the development of the system. It is asserted by its advocates, such as M. Leclaire, and M. Laroche-Joubert, that the proportion of profit paid to labour is no mere transfer of cash from the pocket of the employer to that of the employee, but comes