BOTH SIDES OF PROFIT-SHARING. 405 



no security whatever in such a case ; therefore, the losses must 

 come upon the employers in the end. It is this fact, more than 

 any other, that hurts the prospects of profit-sharing. Such an ar- 

 rangement can not be in the natnre of a true partnership, because, 

 as noted above, there is a partnership so far as the gains are con- 

 cerned, but the partnership ceases when there are losses. Hence, 

 as at present tried, the system of profit-sharing is really a gratu- 

 ity on the part of the employers, most of them having taken the 

 ground that they must average their good years with their poor 

 years in order to keep their men employed uniformly. 



The machinery of profit-sharing is not complete without some 

 provision for a contingent fund to tide the employer over his bad 

 years ; and even then it is a question whether the profits should 

 not be disposed of on a basis of piecework instead of time. In a 

 bad year the capitalist should accept a smaller percentage on his 

 investment; and the workman, a smaller compensation for his 

 labor. It may be hard for the employer to send his children to 

 cheaper schools, but it is no harder than it is for the employee to 

 go without butter and other necessaries of life. 



Even with the instances of profit-sharing that have been tried 

 there has been little gain in bringing about a true sympathy be- 

 tween the employers and their men. Without such sympathy, it 

 is impossible for capital and labor properly to understand each 

 other, or to work in harmony. A careful study of the instances 

 in which profit-sharing has been a success shows that the em- 

 ployers who have succeeded were the small employers of a genera- 

 tion ago, before the advent of the great corporations. There could 

 be no greater enemy to the cause of the workingmen than the 

 prevailing idea of to-day to combine everything in the shape of 

 trusts. Edward Bellamy and other writers carry more' truth in 

 their predictions than will be admitted by those who have made 

 no study of the facts. Some day there may be a revulsion of feel- 

 ing against such combinations that may lead to the more simple 

 and direct methods of employment in practice two generations 

 ago, when strikes were almost unknown. The present tendency 

 toward trusts is wholly away from any form of profit-sharing, 

 and this is one of the worst signs of the times. 



We are led irresistibly to the conclusion that neither profit- 

 sharing nor any other device will improve the present situation, 

 so long as there is a lack of sympathy in either side toward the 

 other. The employers and the holders of great wealth should re- 

 gard themselves not as mere irresponsible giants of finance, but 

 as sacredly responsible to society for the large interests that have 

 been intrusted to them. The too frequent want of such a broad 

 idea of his functions has led the public to believe that the capi- 

 talist is a man who absorbs all the toil of the laboring man, leav- 



