Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/474

ÆT. 48] could gain an almost imperceptible richness of tone by doing so; he would condemn piece after piece of his manufacture that did not satisfy his own severe judgment. And in his relations to his workmen he had adopted the principle of the living wage, and even of profit-sharing, before he began to study such questions from a larger point of view. He could hardly ever be induced to discharge a workman even for habitual negligence or, in some cases which could be quoted, for actual dishonesty. Of the feelings of his social inferiors—or indeed of his social equals—he was sometimes strangely inconsiderate; but towards their weaknesses he was habitually indulgent.

So far did he carry this interest in producing the best work regardless of expense and this careless confidence in the honesty of his workmen, that without some other responsible business manager Merton Abbey would have wrecked the fortunes of the firm. It was encumbered with old or incompetent workmen paid by time, while the more skilled hands were put on piece-work; and similarly in the office the inferior clerks had fixed salaries for so many hours' work a day and no more, while the upper clerks were to a certain extent profit-sharers in the proceeds of the business. This system of profit-sharing was, even during the later years at Queen Square, in process of extension among the higher grades of the workmen. The result of this mingled generosity and slackness was that in the staple product of printed cottons the Staffordshire manufacturers, with their keen eye to profit and machine-like organization, could supply goods, purporting at least to be the same in quality, forty per cent. cheaper than they were turned out at Merton: and till the works were put under more stringent management, the profits of Oxford Street were almost wholly