Page:Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne.djvu/22

8 alternative; namely, between a system in which profits shall be divided in due proportion among all; and the present one, in which the workman is paid the least wages he will take, under the pressure of competition in the labour-market. But an intermediate method is conceivable; a method which appears to me more prudent, and in its ultimate results more just, than the co-operative one. An arrangement may be supposed, and I have good hope also may one day be effected, by which every subordinate shall be paid sufficient and regular wages, according to his rank; by which due provision shall be made out of the profits of the business for sick and super-annuated workers; and by which the master, being held responsible, as a minor king or governor, for the conduct as well as the comfort of all those under his rule, shall, on that condition, be permitted to retain to his own use the surplus profits of the business which the fact of his being its master may be assumed to prove that he has organised by superior intellect and energy. And I think this principle of regular wage-paying, whether it be in the abstract more just, or not, is at all