7 8 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



absolutely vital, and which they fear may deprive them of help at time 

 of need. The danger is, however, more imaginary than real, for no 

 one will deny the right of a corporation, or any employer contracting 

 for labor, to impose such conditions as a precedent to employment as 

 its interests and judgment dictate, and to select preferably those will- 

 ing to help protect themselves and dependents from the effects of a 

 hazardous service. The great success of the Baltimore and Ohio Em- 

 ployes' Relief Association lies in the fact that the managers of that 

 company " had the courage of their convictions," and made it a con- 

 dition precedent to employment in its service that the men should sign 

 an agreement to protect themselves and families against the vicissi- 

 tudes of a hazardous service. 



The proverbial conservatism and timidity of capital make it slow 

 to realize the logical sequence of experiments which have a vital bear- 

 ing on its invested interests. The uniform success and increased pros- 

 perity which have attended industrial partnerships between capitalists 

 and their workmen practiced more extensively on the Continent of 

 Europe than in England, and little or not at all with us show to the 

 disinterested, thoughtful mind that herein, more than in efforts in all 

 other directions combined, excellent though their effect may be, lies 

 the true solution of the gravest and most important question pending 

 before the world i. e., how to equitably adjust the relations between 

 capital and labor. Probably the serious contemplation of a division, 

 no matter how minute, of their profits with those whose labor made 

 them, would incite in the minds of our railway share and bond holders 

 such alarm and opposition as would displace any management advanc- 

 ing such a proposition ; yet on one or more of the most important rail- 

 ways in France judicious action in this direction has resulted in the 

 employes becoming the majority owners of the securities of the prop- 

 erties they operate, and those corporations and firms in whose profits 

 their workmen are allowed to participate have experienced increased 

 prosperity and decreased migration and irregularity in attendance of 

 the workmen, whose general standard of efficiency has been raised by 

 the competition to share such benefits, and this unity of interests has 

 entirely isolated them from the effects of labor agitations and tur- 

 moils. That the managers of such great interests as those of our rail- 

 roads and mammoth manufacturing establishments who pioneer a re- 

 form of this character must possess great nerve and resolution as well 

 as influence, goes without saying ; but the constant strife and compe- 

 tition now prevailing, necessitating most rigid economies, which almost 

 always result in curtailment of wages and in strikes, must of themselves 

 gradually force corporations to concert measures for securing perma- 

 nent control of their forces, and none can be so effective as those 

 that look to a community of financial interests. The manager who 

 first succeeds in applying to his service the principle of industrial part- 

 nership will prove a Napoleon in the railroad world and a dictator to 



