The Daily News. SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1912. PROFIT SHARING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 215, 9 March 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1912. PROFIT SHARING.

The conflict between Labor on the one side and Capital on the other seems to be interminable. The whole world seems to be seething with unrest. What is going ,to be the upshot ? This is a question which thinking people must be asking themselves. The conflict is confined to no particular country (though of course the cables tell us more of what is going on in England and Australia than in the rest of the world); it is almost universal. Arbitration, compulsory and otherwise, has been tried, with more or less success. Our system has seen its day. Only of late years, when the Arbitration Courts have not given the concessions desired, has the system been' put to the test, and it has been found wanting, for the simple reason that no body of men, when they are determined upon a course of action, care a snap of the fingers about legal formula if it interferes with the gaining of their desires. No one wants a more striking instance of this than the recent behaviour of the Wellington tramwaymen. On the other hand, the employers have to obey the mandates of the Court, whether they like them or not. Such an arrangement is illogical and unsound at the base, and is foredoomed to failure, whatever patch- * work may be attempted. Turning from the labor turmoil that is now such a conspicuous feature of the horizon, it is refreshing to notice that in some places afld in some trades a better feeling prevails between the employed and employers. We read in the Home papers I that the gas workers of London, have, at their own cost, erected a monument to i the memory of Sir George Livesey, which was unvailed with proper formality by Lord Grey. The man whom the workers of the South London Metropolitan Gas Company delighted to honor was for many years the chairman of that huge corporation, and was a benevolent autocrat as well as a great philanthropist. His active love for his fellows seems to have been an impulse derived from his father, one of the Seven Men of Preston, and a great temperance pioneer. The life of a gas worker obviously is not an ideal one, and its disabilities so excited Sir George Livesey's sympathies that he dei termined to ameliorate them by raising . the status of all the employees. He met ' at first with opposition from the men | themselves, and experienced not a little i lack of sympathy in his board room, s Thus was the light begun IS years ngo, 1 but to-day the employees own shares in ! the company to the value of £327,000, they elect three out of the nine direc-

tors, and have vastly improved their position as workers. No man liveth to himself at any time, still less so in these days, when industrial and social life is as closely interwoven as warp and wool. The benefite of profit sharing were so clearly demonstrated by Sir George Livesey that the three great London gas companies are at the present time working under these conditions; the workers j own close on £BOO,OOO, accumulated capital in the works that employ them, and the scheme has been adopted by the majority of gasworks in Great Britain. The case cited is by no means an isolated •one, but, without quoting ancient history, it may be found recorded that Edme-Jean Leclaire, a Parisian house .painter, employing 300 men, is claimed to be the father of what is now known as the system of profit sharing. The definition of the term, as laid down by the International Conference in 1889, is 'an" agreement fairly entered into by which the employed: receives d share ofprofits determined in advance." Leclaire's belief was that the carrying out of his scheme would furnish a "powerful means of morallsation, and a living course in public law/' or, in other words, to get rid of the antagonism between Capital and Labor. He hoped, (and'the result'proved that his anticipations wete well founded) thaft under the profitSharing stimulus men would show greater zeal and intelligence in their work, that there would be less waste of material, and that employees would not necessarily b& harder worked. The scheme was eminently successful, 'and provided that, after allowing 5 per cent, for capital invested, and a small sun as salaries to the managing partners, the remaining profits should be divided into four parts, two of which were to be given to the employees as dividends.