214 HISTORY OF THE WHEEL AND ALLIANCE. 



Chester, was attended by over a thousand representatives 

 from the various distributive societies of the kingdom. 

 L,ast year the congress was held at Carlisle, and dele- 

 gates from Wales, Scotland, France and the United States 

 participated in the proceedings. In France, owing to the 

 heroic efforts and examples of Godin and Leclaire, the 

 system of profit sharing is gaining ground. The largest 

 and most successful store in Paris, the Bon Marche, divides 

 profits with every employe in the establishment. The 

 shares of profits are conditioned upon the sales, and the 

 shares are not, as with lyeclaire and Godin, converted into 

 shares of stock. It is simply a system of profit sharing 

 with no attempt at industrial partnership. 



u David Dudley Field, in an article in the North 

 American Review upon the relations of capital and labor, 

 says, 'Is there any reason why corporations created for 

 profit, that heretofore have been the aggregations of capital 

 only, should not be made also aggregation of capital and 

 labor. Suppose a manufacturing corporation to be formed 

 with a capital of half a million dollars, divided into shares 

 of five dollars each, three-fifths of. them payable in cash and 

 the other two-fifths in prospective labor; the former to be 

 invested in lands, buildings, machinery, materials for 

 manufacture and supplies for the consumption for the 

 working shareholders; one hundred workmen to be received 

 as members of the corporation, the skilled workmen to be 

 allowed wages, say $3 a day, the others 1.50, and each one 

 to be inscribed on the books for four hundred shares. If 

 the earnings were 6 per cent, on the capital, each skilled 

 workman would be credited in twelve months with about 

 $900 for wages and $120 for profit. Deducting say $500 

 for food, clothing and lodging, there would be a net balance 

 to his credit at the end of the year of $520, which would 

 pay for 104 shares of the stock. In less than four years 

 he would pay for all the 400 shares of marketable stock. 



