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probable that it will not fluctuate much. Suppose it to be agreed that the capital of £800 shall receive the wages of one workman. At the end of each week, every workman is to receive one pound as wages, and one pound is to be divided amongst the owners of the capital. After a few weeks the returns will begin to come in; and they will soon become nearly uniform. Accurate accounts should be kept of every expense and of all the sales; and at the end of each week the profit should be divided. A certain portion should be laid aside as a reserved fund, another portion for repair of the tools, and the remainder being divided into thirteen parts, one of these parts would be divided amongst the capitalists, and one belong to each workman. Thus each man would, in ordinary circumstances, make up his usual wages of two pounds weekly. If the factory went on prosperously, the wages of the men would increase; if the sales fell off, they would be diminished. It is important that every person employed in the establishment, whatever might be the amount paid for his services, whether he act as laborer or porter, or as the clerk who keeps the accounts, or as book-keeper employed for a few hours once a week to superintend them, should receive one half of what his service is worth in fixed salary, the other part varying with the success of the undertaking.

"The result of such arrangements in a factory would be,

"1. That every person engaged in it would have a direct interest in its prosperity; since the effect of any success, or falling off, would almost immediately produce a corresponding change in his own weekly receipts.

"2. Every person concerned in the factory would have an immediate interest in preventing any waste or mismanagement in all the departments.

"3. The talents of all connected with it would be strongly directed to improvement in every department.

"4. None but workmen of high character and qualifications could obtain admission into such establishments, because when any additional hands were required, it would be the common interest of all to admit only the most respectable and skilful, and it would be far less easy to impose upon a dozen workmen than upon the single proprietor of a factory.

"5. When any circumstance produced a glut in the market, more skill would be directed to diminishing the cost of production; and a portion of the time of the men might then be occupied in repairing and improving their tools, for which a reserved fund would pay, thus checking present, and at the same time facilitating future production.

"6. Another advantage, of no small importance, would be the total removal of all real or imaginary causes for combinations. The workmen and the capitalist would so shade into each other-would so evidently have a common interest, and their difficulties and distresses would be mutually so well understood, that instead of combining to oppress one another, the only combination which could exist would be a most powerful union between both parties to overcome their common difficulties.

"One of the difficulties attending such a system is, that capitalists would at first fear to embark in it, imagining that the workmen would receive too large a share of the profits; and it is quite true that the workmen would have a larger share than at present; but, at the same time, it is presumed the effect of the whole system would be, that the total profits of the establishment being much increased, the smaller proportion allowed to capital under this system would yet be greater in actual amount, than that which results to it from the larger share in the system now existing.

"A difficulty would occur also in discharging workmen who behaved ill, or who were not competent to their work; this would arise from their having a certain interest in the

reserved fund, and perhaps from their possessing a certain portion of the capital employed; but without entering into detail, it may be observed, that such cases might be determined on by meetings of the whole establishment; and that if the policy of the laws favored such establishments, it would scarcely be more difficult to enforce just regulations than it now is to enforce some which are unjust, by means of combinations either amongst the masters or the men."

In this imaginary case, it is supposed that each laborer brings some small portion of capital into the concern; but the principle is equally applicable to the ordinary case, in which the whole capital belongs to an individual capitalist. An application of it to such a case is actually in progress, by a Paris tradesman, a house-painter, M. Leclaire.* The intelligent author of this meritorious experiment published a pamphlet in the year 1842, descriptive of his system of operations; to which attention was first directed by M. Duveyrier, in his Lettres Politiques, and a full abstract of which has been published in Chambers' Journal.† M. Leclaire employs on an average two hundred workmen, whom he pays in the usual manner, by fixed wages or salaries. He assigns to himself, beside interest for his capital, a fixed allowance for his labor and responsibility as manager. At the end of the year, the surplus profits are divided among the whole body, himself included, in the proportion of their fixed salaries. The reasons by which M. Leclaire was led to adopt this system are interesting and instructive. Finding the conduct of his workmen unsatisfactory, he first tried the effect of giving higher wages, and by this he managed to obtain a body of excellent workmen, who would not quit his service for any other. "Having thus

His establishment is (or was) 11, Rue Saint Georges. † For September 27, 1845.

succeeded," (I quote from the abstract in Chambers' Journal,) "in producing some sort of stability in the arrangements of his establishment, M. Leclaire expected, he says, to enjoy greater peace of mind. In this, however, he was disappointed. So long as he was able to superintend everything himself, from the general concerns of his business down to its minutest details, he did enjoy a certain satisfaction; but from the moment that, owing to the increase of his business, he found that he could be nothing more than the centre from which orders were issued, and to which reports were brought in, his former anxiety and discomfort returned upon him." He speaks lightly of the other sources of anxiety to which a tradesman is subject, but describes as an incessant cause of vexation the losses arising from the misconduct of workmen. An employer "will find workmen whose indifference to his interests is such that they do not perform two thirds of the amount of work which they are capable of; hence the continual fretting of masters, who, seeing their interests neglected, believe themselves entitled to suppose that workmen are constantly conspiring to ruin those from whom they derive their livelihood. If the journeyman were sure of constant employment, his position would in some respects be more enviable than that of the master, because he is assured of a certain amount of day's wages, which he will get whether he works much or little. He runs no risk, and has no other motive to stimulate him to do his best than his own sense of duty. The master, on the other hand, depends greatly on chance for his returns; his position is one of continual irritation and anxiety. This would no longer be the case to the same extent, if the interests of the master and those of the workmen were bound up with each other, connected by some bond of mutual security, such as that which would be obtained by the plan of a yearly division of profits."

It is to be regretted that we are only in possession of the result of M. Leclaire's experiment in the first year during which it was in complete operation. Already, however, the success has been remarkable. Not one of his journeymen who worked as many as three hundred days, earned in that year less than 1500 francs, and some considerably more, his highest rate of daily wages being four francs, or 1200 francs for 300 days, the remaining 300 francs or £12 must have been the smallest amount which any journeyman, who worked that number of days, obtained as his proportion of the surplus profit. M. Leclaire describes in strong terms the improvement which was already manifest in the habits and demeanor of his workmen, not merely when at work, and in their relations with their employer, but at other times and in other relations, showing increased respect both for others and for themselves.

Under this system as well as under that recommended by Mr. Babbage, the laborers are, in reality, taken into partnership with their employer. Bringing nothing into the common concern but their labor, while he brings not only his labor of direction and superintendence but his capital also, they have justly a smaller share of the profits; this, however, is a matter of private arrangement in all partnerships; one partner has a large, another a small share, according to their agreement, grounded on the equivalent which is given by each. The essence, however, of a partnership is obtained, since each benefits by all things that are beneficial to the concern, and loses by all which are injurious. It is, in the fullest sense, the common concern of all.

6. To this principle, in whatever form embodied, it seems to me that futurity has to look for obtaining the benefits of coöperation, without constituting the numerical majority of the coöperators an inferior caste. The objections that apply to a "coöperative society," in the Com

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