Profit-Sharing. 



29 



that over one hundred continental firms are now working on a similar 

 participatory basis. The principle has been introduced with good re- 

 sults into agriculture; into the administration of railways, banks and 

 insurance offices; into iron-smelting, type-founding and cotton-spin- 

 ning; into the manufacture of tools, paper, chemicals, matches, soap, 

 cardboard and cigarette papers; into printing, engraving, cabinet- 

 making and plumbing; into stockbroking, bookselling, the wine trade 

 and haberdashery. The establishments differ in size and importance 

 as much as they do in the character of the industries they pursue, 

 from the paper-mills of M. Laroche-Joubert, at Angouleme, with 

 their one thousand five hundred workmen, to the establishment of 

 M. Le Noir, at Paris, with its forty house-painters. 



The most notable scheme of profit-sharing recently tried in England 

 is that of the South Metropolitan (las Company of London, one of the 

 large corporations threatened with a strike, as' a sort of secpience to 

 the successful campaign of the dock laborers. The company proposes 

 to pay an annual bonus, based upon a sliding scale, etc., regulated by 

 the price paid for gas by the public. At the present price the bonus 

 would amount to five per cent on the wages of the twelve months end- 

 ing on the 30th of June, 1890. In addition, to give the system a 

 start, and in order that the workmen shall derive a substantial benefit 

 at once, the bonuses are to be calculated for three years back. The 

 men who have been in the regular employ of the company for the past 

 three years will thus have sums varying from $25 to $30 placed to 

 their credit at once. It is stated that if all the workmen take advan- 

 tage of this offer it will cost the company about $60,000 a year, all of 

 which is a clear gain to the men over and above their regular rate of 

 pay. And yet, strange to say, the offer has not been accepted, although 

 there are, perhaps, more than one thousand men ready and anxious 

 to accept it; but they are prevented from doing so by the tyranny of 

 their union, which, confident in its strength, wishes to dictate even 

 better terms. 



Another late example comes from a factory of wood-pulp in Nor- 

 way, where about sixty men are employed. The gross profits of the 

 first year amounted to about $70,000, from which $3,000 was taken 

 out for interest on the capital, and $15,000 for working expenses. 

 The remainder has been distributed to the men. Nearly all of them 

 have used the money in buying houses for themselves, thus leading 

 to contentment and industry. 



In the United States, profit-sharing dates from the time when the 

 whaling ships of New England first started out "upon shares" to all 



