140 president's address — SECTION F. 



societies. Of these only 119 are classed as productive. 

 Referring to these societies, Miss Potter remarks : — " Asso- 

 ciations of producers, on the other hand, start up at all places 

 and at all times, arise and disappear like crops of mushrooms 

 with perplexing rapidity, and frequently without trace." 

 Miss Potter gives the history of the Christian Socialists' efforts 

 in a few words : " Within a few years all the London and 

 south country associations of producers, promoted or aided by 

 the Christian socialists, had either dissolved without trace or 

 degenerated into the profit-making undertakings of small 

 masters." Singular to relate, however, the system of pro- 

 ductive co-operation has been fairly successful on the continent 

 of Europe. The pioneer of the system there, and perhaps 

 the most successful experimenter, was the Parisian house- 

 painter, Leelaine. Full particulars of his scheme, as of those 

 of some 50 or 60 others, will be found in Mr. Sedley Taylor's 

 work on " Profit-sharing." The experiment, however, as we 

 have seen, has not found a congenial soil in English-speaking 

 countries, and one is naturally curious to know why. In the 

 first place there is a demand on the confidence of the great 

 body of the workers in the skill and honesty of that small 

 number to whom the general direction must necessarily be 

 entrusted ; there is the obligation of obedience on the part of 

 the mass towards the few who are in the same class as that 

 mass ; and these are qualities which, to-day, are conspicuous 

 by their absence among that great body which we invidiously 

 style the working classes, subject as they are to the influence 

 of professional agitators, who will not be hkely to sit quietly 

 by while their occupation is being taken from them. It is in 

 the mutual distrust which the labouring classes have of one 

 another — the indisposition to see one of themselves in a 

 position of authority over them — that the greatest obstacle to 

 productive co-operation is to be found. What I maintain is, 

 that the greatest difficulty in the way of harmonising the 

 relations of labour and capital lies in the fact that labourers 

 and capitalists have both been taught to believe that their 

 respective interests are opposed to one another. Generation 

 after generation has been nurtured in this fallacy, and until 

 it is exposed there can be no hope of a reconciliation ; there 

 may be a temporary truce, but never a lasting peace. 

 Political economists are largely to blame for the existing mis- 

 conception, and it is the duty of economic thinkers to remove 

 it. Now, I say, both the Ricardian and Georgian schools 

 are wrong in their definitions of profit and wages. I hold 



