PROFIT SHARING ON THE FARM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8767, 6 January 1892, Page 5

PROFIT SHARING ON THE FARM.

— ---«►- ——— Trials of the profit-sharing system in farming have nob generally proved successful, partly because it has been difficult in recent years to obtain any profit to share, and partly because a manager acting for others is not usually as efficient in "business as a farmer working for himself is. Mr. Albert Grey, however, claims a moderate degree of success for a venture of the kind referred to, which he has conducted during the last five years. In an address delivered the other day to the labourers of East Learmonth Farm, Tweedside, where the undertaking has been carried on, Mr. Grey gave a history of it. In May, ISS6, the tenant of the farm declined to continue to pay the reduced rent of 32s lid an acre, and Mr. Grey induced his relative, Earl Grey, to let him take the farm in hand, in order to show that such a rent could be paid on so good a farm even in bad times, as well as to give the labourers a greater interest in their work and better returns for it, if possible. The system pursued was that of first paying the rent and interest at 5 per cent, on the capital, next taking 25 per cent, of the profits for a reserve fund, and 25 per cent, for management, and, lastly, dividing the residue between capitalist and ordinary workmen, the latter sharing in proportion to their earnings during the year. The first harvest belonged to the outgoing tenant, and, therefore, the year ending May 12, 18S8, was the first in which the scheme came into operation. There was then profit enough to allow la in the £1 on each labourer's earnings, after the 25 per cent, for management had been divided between the manager, who had two-thirds of it, and the steward and shepherd, who shared the remainder equally. In the second year of the trial the profit, only £29, was added to the reserve fund; while in the third and fourth years the bonuses to labourers were Is 1-Jd and Is 3d in the £1. Altogether the profits on the farm of 1500 acres, during five years, were apparently a little under £500, even supposing that there was no loss in the first year, before the scheme came into operation. It can hardly be said, then, that Mr. Grey has proved that the rent could be paid by a tenant making his living out of the farm, as there was only a profit of £100 a year in addition to 5 per cent, interest on capital. Such success as he has secured (says the Standard) Mi*. Grey attributes mainly to the sagacity and skill of the manager, the steward, and the shepherd. Nothing is said of the ordinary labourers having made special efforts to make the farm pay, under the inducement of a share in the profits. Yet, if they did not make special efforts, the premiums they received were simply froe gifts from Mr. Grey, which an ordinary farmer could not afford. Mr. Grey is also carrying on a farm of a thousand acres at Hawick on the profitsharing system ; bub there the results are less satisfactory than at East Learmouth.