EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED IN FRANCE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 365, 8 February 1879, Page 22

EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED IN FRANCE.

(From the Sydney Mail.) Since 1848 and 1870 the French workman's mind has ceased to be socialistic ; he now lights his pipe with any printed bunkum about labor theories, and studies whatever is presented to him as experience and facts, bearing upon the relations between employer and employed. He admits at last that labor is, divested of all poetry, a common marketable commodity. It is in this proper sense plan of approaching earnings that the ouvrier viewß the profits of the employer ; while the latter on the other hand is commencing to discover that a skilled workman in being paid his exact pound of flesh has a further value—that of making him interested in his labor in his employer. The system is extending in France of employer and employed mutually participating in the profits of work, and the case of the establishment Leclaire, occupied with house painting and decoration, is typical, and can be studied in class IS, at the exhibition. M. Leclaire was a common housepainter, but endued with remarkable tact and business powers of a high order. From a simple workman he rose to become a master. He was aware that when the overseer turned the workman enjoyed his ease, and that this evil was not corrected even by increased pay. The latter only rendered the men less inclined to change. In 1842, M. Leclaire resolved to divide his profits with the men, deducting 5 per cent, for interest on capital, and a salary of 6000 francs for his superintendence. The effect was magical; the men executed double the amount of work in a superior style, and at the end of the year their salaries represented an increase of 50 per cent. The establishment at the end of 1876, consisted of 5000 members, who are affiliated according to seniority, and paid following their skill. There is no " equal division of unequal earnings," or nonsense of that character. There is a governing body, or " kernel," of the best workmen elected by ballot, who in return nominate two cliefs, with salaries equal to that enjoyed by the late M. Leclaire. The capital —the result of savings—of the association is represented by one-quarter of a million of francs, the provident fund by the sum of a million. At fifty years a member can claim an annual pension of 1000 francs. Such are the outlines of one of the solutions of the labor question. The railway printers, Chaix and Co., divide 15 per cent, of their profits among their staff; one-third yearly in cash, one-third to the provident fund, and a similar sum to the annuity account. But Messrs. Chaix and Co. retain the direction of their office. In the Leclaire combination the associates elect the directors, but the latter exercise the fullest powers, as if sole governors; it is a democracy tempered with aristocracy; and it is the matured opinion of practical men in France that no co-operative movement can succeed unless the members are prepared to willingly submit to an experienced director. — Cardiff Mail.