The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY,SEPTEMBER 1, 1881.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3955, 1 September 1881, Page 2

The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY,SEPTEMBER 1, 1881.

Much has been written on the relative positions of capital and labor, and attempts hare, been made to prove that the workman was in justice entitled to share in the profits made by the master, la many instance & plausible

case has been made out for the workman, but those who held opposite views appeared with arguments as strong in favor ©P the capitalist. Then the difficulty of getting employers of labor to consent to such an arrangement as would allow a division of a portion of the profits, prevented the advocates of the workmen from testing by actual experience the correctness of the views enunciated by (he them. This great difficulty, it appears, has been got over, and if we may judge by the revsults which have followed in one or more cases, the problem may be considered solved. In the May number of the Nineteenth Century an article appears .headed, "Profit sharing," which gives at length the experience of one or more employers of labor who adopted the principle of allowing their workpeople a small per centage of the net profit from their operations. One system is as follows, and is that adopted by M. Bord, the wellknown pianoforte maker of Paris, namely —after a deduction of 10 per cent, for interest on the capital embarked in the business, the remainder is divided into two parts, one proportional to the amount of interest on capital drawn by the proprietor, the other to the whole sum paid during the year in wages to the workmen. The former of these two parts go to the capitalist, and the latter is divided among all bis employes who can show six months continuous presence in the house up to the day of the annual distribution. The share obtained by each workman is proportional to the sum which he has earned as wages, paid at the full market rate during the year on which the division of profits is made. This system may be called the immediate possession ; but there is another diametrically opposite. This latter is followed by the Compagnie d'Assurances Generates of Paris, and is thus mainly described:— " Five per cent, on the yearly profits realised by the company is allotted to its staff, which numbers about 250 employes of all grades, whose fixed salaries are at least equal to those paid in non-partici-pating insurance offices at Paris. No part of this share in profits is handed over in annual dividends. Each successive payment is capitalised, and accumulates at 4 per cent, compound interest until the beneficiary has completed 25 years of work in the house, or 65 years of age. At the expiration of this period, he is at liberty either to sink the value of his account in the purchase of a life annuity in the office, or to invest it in French government or railway securities. Should he decide on the investment as against the life insurance, he is allowed to draw only the annual dividends arising from it, as the company retain the stock certificates, and not till after his death abandon their hold on the principal in favor of such persons as he may designate by will to receive it. M. de Courcy, managing director of this company, is well known as the ardent and eloquent ' advocate of this system of long-deferred, or even only testamentarily transmitted, possession. He insists on the large 1 sums which it has accumulated in comparatively short spaces of time, mentioning the instances of a simple book-keeper, hr whose name £480 stood to the good, after fourteen years of work; a sub-cashier with £800 at the end of twenty-five years, and a superior official with £2600 after a similar period. From the company's point of view, he alleges the increased permanence, steadiness, and assiduity which the deposit account has produced in its staff of employe's, and instances, in particular, the redoubled efforts which they willingly make at the seasons of heavy pressure of business."