The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14. PROFIT-SHARING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 210, 14 December 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14. PROFIT-SHARING.

Our recent contention that the wealthy trader rarely becomes philanthropic until he has so much money that its possession gets on his nerves is evidenced by a recent cablegram. One of the Pier-pont-Morgan gang of multi-millionaires has retired from active participation in the coercion of the United States in order to confine his philanthropic attention to ''profit-sharing." George Perkins, although he is an American, is not the first iauihan being to lay down the principle that the worker who creates the master's wealth—the master having , created the job—should participate in the profits, and in some English firms the principle has been hard at work for a decade. The average method of profit-sharing is to induce workers to allow an infinitesimal portion of their weekly wage to remain with the firm for use in the business. It i 3 a very reasonable proposition, too, especially as most workers cannot find a better investment i for minute sums than in the business they put their brains l and muscles into. The worker, however, has of .late years got into the habit of thinking a good ; - deal and of employing bright brains to think for him. A few months ago we heard that in a certain English firm the principle of profit-sharing was annoying a portion of the workers engaged. It appears that generally in these firms it is optional with the worker whether he shares profits or not. In the firm, mentioned there was a larger proportion of men who had put in their cash and shared the profits. These men were, of course, those who were of a careful and business-like disposition, and the portion who were not careful and ■ business-like had' serious objections 'to their comrades' behaviour in trying to 1 make money. The profit-sharing idea is not solely a philanthropic move on the part of masters, because if workers are "partners" the workers naturally put more weight into the collar in order to achieve bigger dividends. In the case referred to, the non-partner found that he had to push as hard as the profitsharer and received no dividend, and the . scheme fell through. This American millionaire of whom tie cable speaks has been struck philanthropic after "he has made a huge fortune." It will be noted that his thoughts never turned to the amelioration of the horny-handed until his "sock" was- bloated out of all proportion to bis desserts. In fact, he can afford to indulge in a mania and to pose as a high-roller of philanthropy. To re- ' vert to the English case of profit-shar-ing for a moment, it is interesting to remember that the non-contributing workers disagreed with the scheme mainly because it cut off their chance to strike, or to disagree with their fellowworkers who were "partners" in the business. The American millionaire has thought out his scheme in order to make industrial disagreements impossible. There is not yet in any country on earth, as far as we are aware, any law which compels a worker to quit spending his wages on beer or theatres, horse-racing or baseball in order to invest it for himself with his employers. In every enterprise where men are engaged there is a proportion of. workers who are improvident. Perhaps a majority of folk of all ranks are improvident, and unless they are coerced into providing for old age, invalidity or death, they meander along more or less happily until the undertaker arrives. If the profitsharing business is to grow and is to provide the means for the discontinu ; Unce of all disputes between master and man, coercion will be found necessary. The American millionaire might enlist only in his service those who promised to put their spare dollars into his banking accounts. Governments do this kind of thing to provide superannuation funds for their servants, and there is really no reason why perfectly respectable millionaires should not be allowed like privileges, provided the Government spy system was adequate to watch them. Pro-fit-sharing is a fairly satisfactory method of conducting a big enterprise, because a firm employing the idea might reasonably be supposed to recruit the best and most steady class of workers. It would be of particular service to an established firm which did not intend to sell out to somebody else to-morrow, because most established firms like permanent servants, and most servants like permanent '■bosses." In the average business, it would have to be proved to the owners that in admitting workers as profitsharers, the profits of the owners would be augmented, and therefore it is unlikely that such a system could be established hi the colonics, where the idea of permitting a firm to gather the fruits of its enterprise is gall to the worker, even though he benefits too. It must occur to masses of workers banded together in the common cause of obtaining increased wages—a perfectly legitimate form of enterprise —that if great capitalists take workers as partners, partners of workers might achieve big results even without the assistance of the capitalist. - We lately had an illustration of the copartnership of workers, who had cut adrift from the hated "boss" and succeed-

would be cheap. Unfortunately, the spirit of the monopolist soon raged in the bosoms of the worker bread trust, and the band of philanthropists bumped the price of the loaf higher than it had ever been in t<he history of tho town. It is probable that if it had been possible to corner the wheat crop of the State those gentle unionists would have cornered it. The same spirit of grab sometimes animates the millionaire and the milkman, and that is the chief reason why it is impossible to claim for any class, Labor, Liberal, Tory or Socialist, a monopoly of virtue or social perfection. The ideal state of society would be that in Which none over lacked anything he needed, but the idealists sometimes forget that no conditions, no opportunities, no legislation can ever alter human nature or vary it. One doesn't, for instance, expect Lloyd-George, even though he weeps for the poverty of the people, to abandon Ihis £SOOO a year in sympathy, or 'for that great Socialist, G. B. Shaw, to hand out any of his £20,000 a year to the starvelings of the Thames Embankment. And one can conceive the impossibility of raking, in all and sundry, including "unemployables," into economic partnership. Whatever happens, "the weak will go to the wall," and the millionaires will never become social- amelio■raters until they have "lost their dash."