SHARING THE PROFITS.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1942, 27 December 1913, Page 9

SHARING THE PROFITS.

■ AND THE LABOUR' UMIKST. In a paper read before tho Manchester Statistical Society recently Air. Theodore Gregory advocated labour copartnership as a remedy for the existing labour unrest. He quoted a return of tho Board of Trade showing that between 1905 and 1912 there was a marked increase in retail prices of food in all tho towns studied, tho moan of the change of prices in 88 towns amounting to IS per cent., and the greatest mean increase —J. 0.8 per cent. —being in Lancashire and Cheshire. The greatest mean increase of the cost of living—that is, tho cost of rents and prices together— was also, Air. Gregory showed, greatest in Lancashire and Cheshire, whero it was 13.3 per cent. Tho highest mean increase in wages, on tho other hand, was 5.5 per cent, in the engineering trade. There might not bo tho glamour about profit-sharing, Mr. Gregory said, that thero was about thoso schemes which aimed at benefiting the worker by destroying private monopoly, but thero was more possibility of tho present gen'pration.: receiving tho benefit, nnd it Vvoifld at any rato'do to bo going on with, oven though-it might be regarded ■W'-apihei'cf,y:-,itompoi-ai'.y/ii)alliati'jeiiiiv>[cf, f stated ! 'tho 'objections of employers'■■- to' the scheme on tho one hand, that it Would not lead to increased profits and freedom from strikes ; and, on the other hand, tho objections of trado unionists, that it was inconsistent with tho solidarity of labour; and showed what was to bo said with regard to thoso objections. The best answer to tho employers, ho said, was tho fact that profit-sharing had been adopted by 133 firms in this country, up to the beginning of August, 1912, among them such firms ns Armstrong Whitworth's, Hazoll, Watson, and Viney, Spillers and Bakers, Lever I Brothers, tho South Metropolitan Gas I Company, and the Gas Light and Coke j Company; as well as by a groat mimj ber of firms on the' Continent of Europo j and in the United States of America. The trade union objection, on its part, if it wore pushed to the fullest extent, would appear to apply to, and to condemn, all those cases whero employers gave- to their workpeople any wages or privileges in excess of tho conditions of work and wages secured to them by their trado union. There was the case of omployers who gave privileges in tho shape of shorter hours of work, better houses, free doctors and nurses, with an allowance for wages in case of sickness, and facilities for recreation ■ and holidays; or the case of municipalities who wero. continually urged to adopt a minimum wage, higher than that given by tho average employer and with improved conditions of service, on tho plea that they ought to bo model employers, to set an example which shall show other employers how they ought to treat their workpeople. In what wav w*nr....cortai*tnersliip a greater breach in the solidarity of tho worker than these cases? In all of them tho workers received tho union rate of wages—and something more; tho conditions of labour wero such as are required by the i unions—and something more.