738 REPORT— 1897. 



soups, pressed tinware, rope, salt, soaps, starches, spikes, shovels, sugars, tobaccos, 

 Tarnishes, wire, wire nails. 



The manufacture of cotton goods, cigarettes, glass goods, watch cases, agri- 

 cultural implements, sugar, and other goods, is influenced by the existence of 

 monopolies fornaed by the union of producers, in which the individual interests are 

 merged in a common undertaking. The rebate plan is the method by which most 

 of the combinations attempt to enforce their objects. It is alleged on behalf of 

 the combination of independent producers, with some degree of truth, that they 

 have developed trade in foreign markets, improved the quality of the goods, and 

 prevented speculation. Against them it is urged they have increased the costs of 

 goods to consumers, and discriminated against the trade interests of certain dis- 

 tricts. The ' trust ' method is the more economical, and in several instances 

 businesses which were, previous to the formation of the ' trust,' almost bankrupt, 

 have been placed on a paying basis without an advance in the cost of goods to the 

 consumers. 



2. Recent Aspects of Profit Sharing} By Professor N. P. Gilmax, 

 Meadville Theological School. 



1. The reasonableness of giving a dividend to labour is shown when we con- 

 sider that human nature is tbe same in the working man as in the employer. If 

 a share in the variable profits of business is held out as an inducement, the wage- 

 earner will be very apt to take more, interest in his work, and will help to make a 

 larger profit than under the usual conditions. 



2. Experience has shown that this reasoning is borne out by facts of record. 

 The case of the Bourne Cotton Mills at Fall Run, Mass., was taken to illustrate 

 the working of profit-sharing under unfavourable conditions. In the eight years 

 1889-97 the Bourne Mills paid bonuses amounting to 54 per cent, on wages, and 

 there was a great improvement in the quantity of the work done. 



3. There are now some 120 cases of proiit-sharing houses in France, 20 in 

 Germany, 100 in the British Empire, 50 in other parts of Europe, and 30 in the 

 U.S.A., making some 320 in all. 



4. This method is not to be recommended as a finality or a panacea, but, as the 

 treasurer of the Bourne Mills says, ' it is worthy of a trial by any fair-minded 

 business man as a modest attempt to improve upon the present wages system.' 



3. A Consideration of an EuroiJean Monopoly as a Contribution to the 

 Theory of State Industries. By S. M. Wickett, Ph.D., Toronto University. 



The great Austrian tobacco monopoly Is the oldest of all existing tobacco 

 monopolies, and as regards the population to which it applies and the number of 

 its employes also the largest. Dating from 1670, it nets the Government at present 

 about 5,000,000/. yearly, or 14 per cent, of the total budget. 



This form of taxation has become very popular in Europe, for eight out of the 

 seventeen European countries, embracing 38 per cent, of the population of Europe, 

 have incorporated it into their financial system. Financial writers, too, have 

 supported it, e.ff. Lorenz von Stein, Wagner, Roscher, and Leroy-Beaulieu. 



The first point to consider is the effects of concentration on the general condi- 

 tions of labom\ The very satisfactory conditions of labour in the Austrian tobacco 

 factories, notwithstanding the great labour concentration there (on the average 

 1,181 in each factory) ; and, on the other hand, the highly unsatisfactory conditions 

 under a system of scattered manufacture, as in Germany, point to the conclusion 

 that a monopoly, in so far as it controls or reforms these latter, confers wide 

 benefits. 



As to incentives to an economic administration imder State control, the 

 Austro-Hungarian administrative system is suggestive. For by its administrative 

 unification under one central authority — the Ministry of Finance — it excludes 



' Published in The Christian Register, Boston, Novcmb3r 11, 1897. 



