PROFIT SHARING.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3226, 1 November 1881, Page 3

PROFIT SHARING.

A recent number of the " Nineteenth Century" -contains an interesting article on " Profit Sharing,-" by Mr Sedley Taylor—or the methods adopted on the Continent of giving .the laborer a joint interest with the capitalist |in the success of the particular industrial or commercial establishments in which both are concerned. The principle to have been first carried out to a successful and legitimate issue by M. Leclaire, of Paris, who grouped a series of associated institutions around this central principle, that the workmen should participate in the profits of enterprise. In "other parts of the Continent the same method is being adopted in a large number of industrial and commercial establishments, and producing satisfactory results. M. Bord, of Paris, the pinaoforte maker, adopted it after a strike in 1855. He receives 10 per cent, before any division takes place, and he has paid over since that date out of surplus profits £39,300. The effects of the system '■ is attaching the workmen to the house, and its influence -on their relations towards their employer are excellent. The Compagnie d'Assurances Generales' adopts another method: Five per cent., of the yearly profits is allotted to the staff, on the ratio of pay. The amount is not paid over, but capitalised, and accumulates at 4 per cent, compound interest, until the officer is twenty-five years at work in the house, or sixty-five years of age. He can then sink the.value of his account in the purchase of a life annuity in the office, or invest it in French Government or railway securities. A number of the participating houses distribute a part of the work-people's share of profits in cash bonuses, and invest the remainder for purposes of saving. This is done by the firm of Billow and Isaac, a joint-stock company, manufacturing musical boxes at Geneva, and the profits thus distributed in the past ten years range from 28£ per cent, to 4 per cent, in nine years. The establishment of M. Laroche Joubert, at Angouleme, with 1500 workmen, and that of M. Lenoir, Paris, with 400 house painters, are worked similarly. It is found that the workman takes a greater, interest in his work, both as to speed and excellence, while the good feeling promoted between employer and employed is invaluable. Some English firms have already adopted the principle, and a special society is now being formed in England to collate information from the best foreign sources, and other trustworthy information on participation in profits, in order to the extension of the principle to other undertakings.