'SOCIAL PROBLEMS.'

Evening Star, Issue 7634, 9 June 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

'SOCIAL PROBLEMS.'

The Rev. R, Waddell> M.A., delivered on the 31st ult.- the second of his lectures on , * Social Problems,’ dealing with the questions of arbitration, profit-sharing, and cooperation. There was a large attendance, and Mr M, Cohen occupied the chair. The rev. lecturer remarked that under the present state of things the wage-earners of the world could hope for no amelioration of their condition. Wages could not rise beyond the limit necessary on the average to keep a family and allow of its propagation. This was Ricardo’s great law, which had been accepted substantially by Fawcett, Mill, and Cairuos, and it had been interpreted to working men by Lassale and other Socialists under the term of ‘ The Iron Law of Wages,’ and Was being woven into popular literature by such writers as Walter Besant in ‘The Children of Gibeon,’ who there called it ‘ The Law of the Lower Limit,’or ‘ The Law of Elevenpence ha’penny. ’ In hia previous lecture he had tried to explain what gave body and life to this law — competition—of which he had said Some hard words, which ho should Uko to qualify now by saying that genuine competition was a good thing, and would probably not be dropped out of practice as man progresses. Genuine competition presupposed some degree of equality amongst the competitors ; but that equality did not at present exist. Competition meant war, and the law of war was the triumph of the strongest. Now, the strongest in the industrial war was the possessor of wealth and the instruments of wealth—land, mines, and machinery—which were in the hands of a few. The vast majority-more than three-quarters of the whole population—wore dependent on these few for work, and so for Kfr. tree contract and competition was therefore out of the question. Competition created the Iron Law of wages; it tended to reduce wages to the lower limit —to that amount on which the workman could live and propagate. Wages would sometimes rise above that amount, but then prosperity led to marriages and the growth of families; ad this increase in the number of possible laborers made the supply greater than the demand, and so wages must deereas®. Sometimes they would fall below this amount, as in the case of strikes, or commercial or political crises; but both the rise and fall were only temporary events. The certain law is that wages tend to the law of the lower limit—to that amount necessary to sustain the family in existence. Thus, it was nonsense, under the present regime to talk of free contract and competition. There could be no such thing. It was simply a war, blind and cruel. Wealth, and the instruments of wealth, were monopolised in the hands of a few ; there was nothing to do far the many except to sell their labor commodity, which is all they they have, for what it will fetch, and what it will fetch is just the amount necessary for a bare subsistence. They have positively no other choice, a fact which is understood when one realises, as Walter Besant puts it, “ the constant pressure felt but not seen of a fury with serpents in her hair and an uplifted lash of scorpions in her hand, sometimes called Necessity and sometimes known as Hunger.” WHAT LEADS TO STRIKES. He had already said that competition meant war, blind and pitiless. War involved combinations—men massed together for protection and defence. Combinations of Capital and Labor constituted two great hostile armies, which were being concentrated in a few great centos. The Industrial army was massing in the Cities, with a constant growth of the unlit and worst types of men and women, and over and against this was the equally constant and consolidating growth of wealth and luxury. The tendency all the world over is to this massing of population in a few cities, And it leads to the rapid growth of hostile combinations in the camps of Capital and Labor. The present system of lame:; Join, of free contract and unlimited competition, had broken down, and left society in a chaos, in a state fostering rebellion. Was It to be peace or war? Was there no method of reuniting these Combatants in the industrial World—-no solvent that would fuse together into an Amicable unity these warring combinations of Capital and of Labor ? He would only refer to the suggested solutions that were of universal application. There were others that might be effectual, but these had only local application, and at best were temporary expedients. Of such were emigration and the effort to find new markets for our glutted manufactures. The first-mentioned of these applied only to congested countries; and the other was a mere flash in the pau. There would coon be no such thing as new markets ; and in this connection he drew attention to a remarkable article on the ‘ Breakdown of the present industrial system,’ by Prince Krapotkin, in the latest number of the * Nineteenth Century.’ STRIKES CONDEMNED; ARBITRATION OR COURTS OF CONCILIATION RECOMMENDED. Everybody was conversant with the terrible waste, distress, and misery created by strikes. Strikes were made possible by trade unions, and brought upon these institutions a great deal of unjust obloquy. It was, however, generally recognised now that in industrial warfare a strike was a perfectly legitimate weapon. If it be legitimate for a merchant, ora combination of merchants, to withhold their goods till they can secure a favorable market, it is no less legitimate for workmen, or a combination of •workmen, to withhold their commodity, which Is their labor, from the market till they can get a fair market price for it. Thu was the end of trade unions, and strikes Were one of the means essential to that end. But they were found to be costly and terrible, involving excessive waste and suffering ; and, what was worse, they were rarely successful. Hence they were regarded by nearly all labor unions, not as efficient helpers, but only as forlorn hopes. More and more both the workman and the employer were coming to see that strikes benefited nobody, but entailed waste and misery on everybody. As an illustration, it was computed that the Preston strike of 1854 involved a loss of wages equal to L 250,000, and in contributions in support of the strikers of L 97,000 a total of L 347.000 to which had to be added the sufferings and privations of the people, and then some notion would be gained of what a strike cost financially’ and humanely. Hence, people’s minds were turning to arbitration as a more sensible and certain method of solving industrial difficulties. In France, in Napoleon’s time, Courts of Conciliation were established, and from 30,000 to 45,000 cases of dispute were brought before these Courts every year. The Court consisted of an equal number of working men and employers. The dispute was submitted with the consent of both parties, and the decision was binding on both. No lawyers were permitted to appear, and 90 per cent, of the cases so brought were amicably settled. Voluntary arbitration in England dated from 1864, when Mr A. J. Mundolla, a partner in one of the largest hosiery firms in England, proposed to his workmen an Arbitration Board to settle any labor difficulties that might arise ; and since that time no strike has occurred. This method has been followed in other departments of labor, and the general testimony was that wherever it has been adopted strikes have entirely disappeared. It had been said “ that Boards of Arbitration have settled 90 per cent, of labor difficulties in France and England.” Dr Lyman Abbott, the successor of Henry Ward Beecher in New York, says that this is really the Christian method. He refers to the passage in Matthew, erroneously regarded as the law of church discipline, in which Christ tells His disciples how to settle disputes, and says that were the passage translated into modern language and applied to the settlement of a labor difficulty it would run thus : “ If you think your employer is wronging you—paying you inadequate wages—or demanding too many hours, or puttingon you needless or vexatious rules, appoint a Committee of candid and fair-minded men to wait upon him and state in a straightforward way your grievances. If he refuse to hear your Committee, x»r hears but gives no consideration, then bring the matter before two or three impartial citizens and ask them to investigate and report. If he will not hear them then appeal to the community, to the aid of an enlightened public opinion. If he be deaf to that, then have nothing more to do with him—in other words, strike. * i licit, accord*

ing to Dr L. Abbott, wa& Christ’s plan of settling a labor Possibly he is right; at ahy rate, the plan hitherto folfrved had been the reverse of that, viz., atiike first and arbitrate afterwards. This plan had signally failed. It might be well now to try the other one: to arbitrate first, and if that failed then strike. If it were true that arbitration had only failed in 10 per cent, of the cases in which it had been tried in England and France, experience eeemad to justify the adoption of that cohrse. But, after all, arbitration Mild not be the last word on this question ; it was limited in its operalion, and difficult in its working. It vv uld require many tribunals in ceaseless activity. At the best, it could only be a temporary expedient, for this reason : It concentrated the attention of the workers, not on the production, but on the distribution of profits. In the production of profits the interests of the employer and the employed were identical. T'he more profits, the wider the margin for wages. Where the antagonism arose was in the distribution. Any method of solving the problem would not be effective which did not constitute unity of interests, both in production and distribution. Arbitration, directing attention only to the latter, could never be more than a partial and temporary solution of the labor problem ; and this led to the consideration of the second expedient for reconciling the conflicts in the industrial world—vi*., PROFIT-SHARIN' 1 . The fatal defect cf Arbitration is the centring of the Workman’s mind on the distribution bf wages rather than on the production of profits. There was then practically no community of interests between a master and the man. The former was constantly trying to get as much work for as little wage as ho could, and the latter as much wage for as little work as he coul I. There was thus an endless see-saw going on, regulated by no principle of equity or law. There was no relation of morality Or justice between the earnings and the work done. Wages Were paid either by time or piecework. The Witc \Vas fixed by the varying vicissitudes of a never-ending struggle, in which one side strove to pay as little and the other to work as little as possible. The system - seemed as if deliberately planned to destroy the property of the employer and the highest motive for work in the employes. To remedy this grievance it had occurred to some to ask; Could not the workman be associated with his employer in cbtaining a share of the profits ? There were one or two isolated industries -as whaling—in which nothing but some such method as this would work. One of the earliest, the best known, and the most successful profit-sharing enterprises was that originated by Leclaire, a house painter of Paris, whose career the lecturer sketched. His system consisted of two institutions—the house or business undertaking and the Mutual Aid Society. The nhnual profits made by the former Were distributed as follows: The two managing partners received L 240 as salaries; interest at 4 per cent, was paid to them and to the society on their respective capitals ; of the remaining net profit, one-fourth went to the two managing partners and oneqharter to the funds of the society ; the remaining half was divided among the workmen in sums proportionate to their wages. The Mutual Aid Society is a benefit club. It bestows a retiring pension of L4B per annum on every member who has attained the age of fifty and has worked twenty years In the house, and it continues the payment of half this annuity to the wife if she become a widow. It further insures the life of every member for L4O at death. The entire sum paid out of profits from the commencement of participation in 1842 down to 1882, whether in cash bonuses or the Mutual Aid Society, was L 133,045. From 1870 to 1832 the averagerate of bonus to annual wages was over 16 per cent. In 1884 the ratio was 2‘i per cent. When Leclaire retired from the business he transferred it into a co-operative concern. As illustrating the minuteness with which the principle of profit-sharing was carried out under Leclaire’s system, he (the lecturer) mentioned that a man who had done but ten hours’ work received at the end of the year Is 3d as a bonus on his 5s earned as wages. Time would not permit of details being given; therefore hcwonld merely quote from Lcoiairc’s own opinion of the result cf the working of his scheme. He constantly insisted that it was better for him to earn LIOO and give LSO to his workmen than to earn L 25 and keep it all to himself. In 1865 he wrote: “ I maintain that if I had gone on in the beaten track of routine I could not have arrived, even by fraudulent means, at a position comparable to that which I have made for myself.” Yet his aim was philanthropic, not selfish. His desire was not so much to increase his own wealth as to enrich Others, ahd While aiming at the bittader, he won the narrower blessing as well. He was essentially religious, though not committed to the dogmas of any particular church. “ I believe in God,” he wrote when in sight of death, “ who has written in our hearts the law of duty, the law of progress, the law of sacrifice of one’s self for others, I submit myself to Hia will. 1 bow before the mysteries of His powers and of our destiny. I am the humble disciple of Him who has told us to do unto others what we would have others do to us, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.” Leclaire’s work was fruitful, not only for him and his but for others. Thus, Miss Mary H. Hart, borrowing her ideas from Leclaire, started a similar organisation in London for the benefit of house-painters, carpenters, etc., and it had steadily gained in influence and power. Lest it should be thought that Leclaire’s institution was on too extensive a scale to bo successfully initiated, the lecturer mentioned one or two cases of a much more unpretentious but not less beneficial profit-sharing. One of the simplest kind was that of M. Bord, the pianoforte manufacturer. Ho distributed the cash bonus without any condition as to its investment. His firm employed over 400 Workmen, had turned out over 50,000 instruments, and had paid away during the ten years ended 1882 over L 40.000 to the workman, representing an average ratio of bonus to annual wages of over 19 per cent. A directly opposite method was adopted by the General Insurance Company of I’aris, who allow 5 per cent, on the yearly profits to the stall', numbering 250 employes, whose wages are at least equal to those of other offices. But the money was not paid in cash. Each successive payment was capitalised, and accumulated at 4 per cent, compound interest, till the employe completed twenty-five years of work in the house, or reached sixty-five years of age. Then he could buy a life annuity in the office, or invest it in Government securities. A combination of both these systems was found in the establishment of Ballon and Isaac, manufacturers of musical boxes near Geneva; also in the great printing, publishing, and hook-selling firm of Chaix, who supply the railway bookstalls of France. The last-mentioned firm began profit-sharing in 1872, and during the succeeding ten years the head of the firm paid away nearly L 26,000, of which over L 6.000 was a cash bonus, and the remainder invested according to certain specified conditions. The great London publishing firm of Cassells had also adopted the principle of profit-sharing in their publishing department. The principle had also been adopted in some newspaper offices. In Bordeaux the leading newspaper ‘ La Gironde ’ was a profit-sharing concern, and in 1884 the proprietor announced to his employes an interest in the annual profits of the business at the rate of 15 per cent. Profit-sharing had been eminently successful in other branches of labor—notably agriculture. The lecturer next detailed the extraordinary success of the great Parisian establishment known as the Bon Marche, which was now one of the commercial wonders of the world. Ten years ago, its founder, M. Boucicault died, leaving his wife at the head of a business worth eight millions sterling, and when she died the other day she left a business with 3,200 employes, unique in its commercial and benevolent principles, and over L 20,000,000, partly to be invested in the business and partly to bo devoted to the educationof poor girls, to building a hospital, and to other charitable and benevolent purposes. Out of hundreds of kr own cases of the success of profit-sharing, he had selected a few typical ones ; but he had said enough to show that not only was this method practicable, hut that it was one of the best solvents for fusing together iu amity and respect employes and employers. He had

illustrated the economic and material advantages of i*-. The workman was made richer and the employer no poorer. He would sum up in a compressed form some of the beneficial results. Profit-sharing had shown clearly for the first time that the interests of employer and employed were identical. Under the wage system talk of this kind was possible, but absurd. It had made the workman more thrifty, more careful of his master’s goods and tools, more diligent in his work, and more anxious to do that work well, knowing that if he scamped it it was not only his master, but himself, who suffered, and was so much harm d me to his firm. It did away with superintendents and overseers, for each man became a superintendent of his fellow. It thus lessened the cost and increased the productiveness of labor, .and so allowed this increased margin for wages, It introduced a corporate feeling, and united high and low in one common aim. Besides, it reacted favorably on the outside public. A profit-sharing company find it to their interest to do the best work, and every workman sets himself to work as if the job were his own, as it really was. One of the principal objections raised against the scheme was that it gave the workman a share in the profits but not in the loss. The answer of Mr Taylor, an authority on the subject, to that was substantially thit it was not true. In semo hollses a reserve fund was created diit of profits to meet such occasions ; but even if not, the profits realised were due to the more careful and zealous energy of the worker. A part of this went into the employer’s pocket, the _ other into the workman’s; and, since it was exclusively produced by the latter, it might fairly’stand as their contribution to the loss of future years. Besides, if there be no profits, all the workman’s care and extra exertions go for hothing. A second objection inquired: How is this division of profits to be made ? Will not the workman insist on overhauling the books, and how can he be assured that the division was equitable The answer to this, and indeed, to all objections was simply experience. As Professor Biihmert, who is the highest living authority on this subject, Most of the judgments pronounced against profit-sharing are given by men of business who have never tried it, or who have tried it under wrong conditions. The objections from workmen originate in those who have had no actual experience. On the other hand, it is precisely those who have tried it longest and best whose teaching is strongly in its favor.” A hundred or a thousand persona could be got who would swear that profit-sharing was impracticable, but the evidence of the few who had tried it and proved It true, though numerically smaller than those who had not, was worth infinitely more. Profit-sharing was not a theory; it was ft solid artd proved fact. Every argument of experience, sustained it. “The principle,” says Mr Taylor, “has been introduced with good results into agriculture; into the administration of railways, banks, and insurance offices; into iron smelting, type-founding, and newspaper offices; into the manufacture of tools, paper, chemicals, lueifer matches, soap, cardboard, and cigarette papers; into printing, engraving, cabinet-making, housepainting, and plumbing ; into stock-broking, bookselling, and haberdashery. It has succeeded where success might least be expected—among the blouses of Paris and tiic untutored peasants of County Clare in Ireland. It is obvious that the principle will work best where hand labor and skilled labor arc required, and where the cost of superintendence is greatest. It will be least effective where machinery is the principal agency and where the unskilled workman can be easily superintended.” But profit-sharing, beneficial as it is, cannot ho the last word of the industrial ideal. That led him to an extensiou of the system known as 1 o-ol'kkAl It'x. About the end of the first quarter of the present century individualism began to give place to organisations—private corporations, companies, cities, or manufactories. The tendency of modern times was towards the growth of association in all productive enterprise. Each association was in itself a unit, and within this unit this process is visible. All the laborers comprising this unit wore hired ; they were serving an employer. “ The same ambition,” says Professor Clark, “ which prompts the apprentice to leave his master and start in business for himself is now prompting those organisations of employes to desire a similar promotion. Industrial organisms are seeking what individuals have long been encouraged to seek emancipation. It is the old struggle for personal independence transferred to a higher plane of organic life.” Co-operation wAs only an extension of profit-sharing. In profit-sharing the laborer remained a laborer still. He did not own capital or the instruments of capital, but was allowed to use them and share the profits. As J. G. Holyoake, the apostle as well as historian of eo-operation, puts it : “In industrial partnership capital employs labor ; in co • operation labor employs capital.” Co-operation seeks to raise the laborer from employe to employer; from the mere use of other men’s wealth to the production and use of wealth of his own. It was obvious that this system, if it could be carried out, tended to the abolition of classes ; to the obliteration of dividing lines ; and to the unity and solidarity of society. Every one had heaid of the FAMOUS ROCHDALE PIONEERS, and the work they accomplished. The story read like fiction. In 1814 twenty-eight Rochdale men collected in twopenny subscriptions L2B, and started a store on the principle of dividing profits on the amount of purchases, and making all purchasing members shareholders with a fixed interest on their capital. Gradually the thing grew. One department after another was added to it—grocery, drapery, butchery, milling, tailoring, etc. Beginning in 1844 with twenty-eight members and with a stock valued at Ll6 11s lid, it now numbers more than 11,000 members, and has paid in profits and interest up to 1882 no less a sum than L 47,605. SUCCESS El! I. CO OPERATION. Nor was the success of the Rochdale institution singular. There is a Co operative Society in Leeds with more than 20,000 members. The Halifax Society, and those scattered throughout Lancashire, had nearly all proved immense blessings to the working classes. During the years of the cotton famine they weathered the storm, and were an unmixed blessing to the poor. The same might be said of those on the Continent during the Franeo-Pnmsian war and the commercial crash whie.i followed in Germany. The growth of these associations bad been very remarkable. Lord Morley stated last year, atthcCo-operativeCongress, that “there wereß9,ooomembers, and their share capital exceeded L 8,000,000, and their sales L 30,000,000.” A good number of those who went under the name of co-opera-tive were really not co-operative in the strict sense of the word. The principle of cooperation, as applied to production, did not seem to have had much success in England, but it had on the Continent, especially in France and Belgium, where it had had a remarkable development. There co-operative institutions existed not simply for distributing goods, but for producing in many spheres of labor. Co-operative workshops of all kinds flourished ; workmen combined to build houses for themselves, and to establish loan societies and banka (these latter have had a remarkable success in Germany under the influence and leadership of Schulze-Delitzsch, and had proved an immense boon to the working classes); and also to provide amusements and recreations, ADVANTAGES OK CO-OPERATION, The advantages of co-operation were so certain and great that the solution it offered of the industrial problem was one of the most hopeful that coul i be looked for in the immediate future. In the case of cooperative stores the economic gain was so obvious as scarcely to need drawing out. Profits were made by abolishing all bad debts. The ordinary retail shop had to levy blackmail on all its paying customers in order to make up for those who fail to pay. The honest were mulcted for their honesty, in order to provide against the failure of the dishonest. Co-operation destroys that. Its system of cash payments did away wholly with bad debts. This security against loss enabled the price of the produce to be reduced, or if not that—if II ip co operative sells its goods at the same price as the retail store the amount which it saves by its cash

system is returned into the pockets of the purchasin'' shareholders, Then it makes enormous savings in other directions. It does away with managers and superintendents, Every shareholder becomes a superintendent. It abolishes the army of “drummers,” as they are irreverently called. It saves in rent, becadse t>, goodposition is of no consequence. A back street or a plain house serves its purpose well enough. Its customers will go to it no matter where it is situated, seeing that they are so largely interested in swelling its profits. All this increases its gain, and it is thus not compelled to cut its own throat with the knife of competition. Everyone knew that there were far more retail shops than were necessary to supply the demand. These could only live by extra charges, by “ doctoring ” the goods, or by the credit system, and thus the money necessary to keep up these unnecessary shops must be paid for out of the purchasers pockets. Co-operation saved all this. The truth was that the co-operative stores in England had now so many funds on their hands that they could not get them invested. There were thousands of pounds lying idle to the credit of these stores at their bankers. They could not find profitable investment for them. Mr Dyke-Ackland told the recent Industrial Remuneration Conference, held in London, that he knew of a store in an out of the way agricultural district, managed by farm laborers, which did a business of L 17.000 a-ycar, though the village where it was only had a population of 1,100. They had accumulated so much money that they did not know what to do with it. One man said he had L 6 a-year more (LI) a-ycar to an Mnglish agricultural l.vbortk* is no small sum), ndi made by himself, but by the society to which h* belonged ; and thus, added he, “he had eaten and clothed himself into a house.” What he meant, of course, was that ho had saved money in dividends on his purchases on food and clothing at the store, which had remained at this store at 5 per cent., with which lie had bought a house. Not only did co-operation open anew economic world for the workman, but it reacted with still more beneficial effects on jus mental and moral character. His handling of money awakes a new intellectual interest. It tended to thrift. When we had only a few shillings in our pockets we were reckless; but when the shillings became pounds we grew careful and prudent, This had been the result on the partners in co-operation. Forcing them to take a share in the business, it had stimulated their mental lethargy, and giving them profits to deal with had made them thrifty and economical. Furthermore, putting into their hands a stake in the country, it had made them less ready to listen to irresponsible demagogues. He (the lecturer) heard Professor Monro, of Cambridge, tell the British Association in Birmingham two years ago that Socialism could make no headway in the North of England ; and he attributed that to the fact that it was chiefly in that part of England that co-operation flourished. The present system of competition had pulverised society. Co-operation he (the lecturer) regarded as the only possible thing at present that would bind society together again. The co-operative store made people save in spite of themselves. As Mr Holyoake says : “ The store shows them that they can save without laying anything by, and accumulate money without paying anything out of their pockets, and save without living in any way poorer than they did, and without depriving themselves of a single article they had the means of purchasing.” That was the moral, social, and salutary discovery which co-operative societies had made. CONCLUSION. Four groat schemes for the better distribution of wealth were now on trial. The first was strikes ami lock-outs, the method of force and war, which Was being gradually left behind. Arbitration was coming to the front more and more ; but though we were advancing on the system of strikes, it was only a temporary and imperfect panacea. One step further brought them to profit-sharing. In this the interests of employer and employed became really identical, and the fusion of the two in the aim of a common good for both is effected. Still, even this was limited. It left the laborer still a laborer. Co-operation carried on the process to the highest point. It obliterated the lines between the two classes, and opened the door for the workman to step up out of his own level and become himself not only a user of the capital of others, hut a possessor of capital of his own. He looked to co-opcration as the great solvent that would fuse together the hostile Combinations of Capital and Labor. They are both organised into two great camps to-day. “ The solidarity of labor,” says Professor Clark, of Northampton, “ on the one hand, and of capital on the other, is the great economic fact of the hour ; and this growing solidarity is carrying us rapidly towards a condition in which all the labor in a particular trade, and all the capitalists in that trade, acting in each case as one man, will engage in a blind struggle, which, without arbitration, can only be decided by the crudest force and endurance. The strained relations of the parlies in the contest, the surliness and desperation, the threatenings of literal war, are already the phenomena of if,’ All over the world the working classes are coming together and taking their stand on a common platform, and in a united phalanx. The celerity of communication makes possible now what was only a dream before. We see before our very eyes an International Working Men’s Association, with its roots spreading into every corner of the civilised earth. We also see fronting this vast and threatening phalanx the organisation of capital. Capital holds the rod of empire, and has physical force at its command. But wc see here and there in the opposing lines a few stepping out of the embattled ranks, coming together, and saying to each other : “ Wc are brethren ; our interests are identical; let us unite ourselves in a common work and be sharers in the results thereof.” Is not this rational and human ? Surely it is ; and those few instances which he had cited illustrated the beneficial results of profitsharing and co-opcration. What were they hut the forcglcams of a better day? They arc like the cracks and fissures in the ice does, which tell us that the winter is passing and the frozen fields are breaking up, swimming into warmer seas, and fusing witli waters that wash fairer lands and coasts that keep the sun. Then lot us pray that, come what may— As enme it will for a’ thatThat sense and worth o’er a’ the earth May bear the grec and a’ that; For a’ that and a’ that, It’s coming yet for a’ that— That man to man the wor'd o’er Shall b itbers be (or a’ that. The Chaikman, in putting the vote of thanks, which was carried by acclamation, expressed the opinion that the Church Society in particular and the community in general were greatly indebted to Mr Waddell for giving them the benefit of his experience and earnest study of these important social problems. He might be pardoned for giving expression to his individual opinion that nothing but Mr Waddell’s love of retirement prevented him from taking that commanding position in the community that his talents and zeal in every good oause entitled him to take. As an advocate of women’s rights he was specially pleased to find so many ladies attending these lectures and taking an interest in such important questions. He was sanguine enough to believe that the day was not far distant when women would be called on to give a practical shape to many questions that vitally affected them socially and morally. In regard to profit-sharing, he was aware that the scheme had been tried by two firms in the City, and ho was authorised to say that results had proved alike satisfactory to the employer and employed.