270 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



in what way he applied the principle. However, we have more 

 recent examples. 



But perhaps it will be well, before proceeding further, to arrive 

 at a clear understanding as to what profit-sharing really means. 

 For there are some curious misconceptions afloat about it. It has 

 not by any means, as the evidence offered by those who have prac- 

 tised it shows, deprived employers of a stiver of their income, nor 

 yet of their full right of conducting their own business according to 

 their own ideas. 



Profit-sharing, being simply profit-sharing, and not co-partnership, 

 of itself gives the worker no vote in the management of the business, 

 and in this respect makes no inroad whatever upon the employer's 

 prerogative. In co-partnership things are different, because the 

 workers are there partners, and as such have a right, not indeed to 

 meddle at their own pleasure, but to cast their vote in respect of 

 questions of management. If the profit-sharing employer chooses 

 to allow his workmen a voice with regard to certain administrative 

 regulations which do not affect his policy of management, he is free to 

 do so. However, that is a different question altogether. As for 

 income, so far from in any wise lessening the share which goes to the 

 employer, it has directly increased it. " Here you see me," so said to 

 me, some twenty-five years ago, the late M. Goffinon, a partner in a 

 well-known French profit-sharing firm, " a wealthy man. Well, it is 

 profit-sharing which has made me so. It has been worth money to 

 me, while at the same time benefiting my employees." 



Profit-sharing is now sometimes confounded with what the French 

 call metayage, and the Italians mezzadria, and what in either case 

 is a modern adaptation of the ancient Roman medietas, a primitive 

 method of employing land, but of letting it in consideration of rent 

 payable in kind, under which the landlord, in the first place, assists 

 the, for the most part poor and ignorant, tenants ; in the second, 

 ensures generally fair farming and secures himself against default 

 — in the same way in which our landlords secure themselves 

 by " covenants " and " landlord's distress " — by keeping the 

 direction of the management of the holding under his own control. 

 To what large extent this method came to be adopted on the ground 

 of its advantages under primitive circumstances appears plainly 

 from the fact that in many parts of France it is very common to 

 speak of any farm as a metairie. Metayage has its distinct merits. 

 During the period of bad harvests in the past century, which 

 has come to be known as the time of " agricultural depression," it 

 was noticed, alike in France and in Italy, that those districts suffered 



