PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOON'S. The Times. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1919. Share the Profits.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 8, Issue 486, 2 December 1919, Page 2

PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOON'S.

The Times. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1919. Share the Profits.

'Wt not haw extenuate, nor tel down auoht in malice."

Profit - SHARING, copartnership, co-operation and kindred terms are becoming very familiar now-a-days in every ! civilized and progressive conntry. Whether we like to admit i it or net there is no doubt that 'the wage system, whereby the employees receive fixed wages and the employers varying degrees of profit: or loss, as the case may he, is rapidly breaking down. When published balance sheets show huge profits of this or that company, the employees naturally desire a share of these profits, and the way they go about getting their share is to demand increased wages, which increases are only passed on to the consumers. Inevitably, under this system the cost of living soars higher and higher, and we move round in a vicious circle where all is strife, animosity and friction of various kinds. 1 n order to extricate themselves from this neverending vortex of disturbances, employers are everywhere seriously considering the adoption of measures whereby the employees may be made shareholders, partners, or profitsharers in the business. As with all innovations, initial difficulties have to be overcome, but it is satisfactory to find that in such well-known instances as that of Lever Bros., of Port Sunlight, the scheme of giving employees an interest in the concern works satisfactorily. Of course, professional labour agitators do not like anv of the systems mentioned above, because once the employees become satisfied with their conditions, nrul are lovai to the business, then the labour agitator's job is gone. Also, it is death to the ultra-radical's dream of State socialism, with fat billets for all the loudmouthed demagogues. But the

wisdom of giving employees an interest in th« business, and a fixed share of profits, over and above the minimum wage, is now fairly widely recognised, and will vapidly be given a more general application.