PROFIT SHARING. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9045, 21 February 1891, Page 6 (Supplement)

PROFIT SHARING. TO THE EDITOR.

Sin,—An excellent article on "Profit Sharing," and a sensible lotter on " Tha Social Evil "— both socialistic questions—appsar in to-day's Times.

The Messrs Duthie are adopting a modified system of socialism, as old as Robert Owen—and you have citt d French examples, of the application of similar principles, referred to by J. S. Mill in bis political economy ; but the socialist, a? you leave to be inferred, believes that profit sharing or unionism can neither of them prove a laiting and permanent panacea for tha ills at present existing in society, and which according to Cardinal Newman and other writers in a reeeafc number of tho Contemporary Review, threaten society with revolution or dissolution.

Profit shailng—when there is any to share—is certainly in many instances an improvement for the men when compared with the system more generally in vogue—when administered by fairminded men; but wero all employers to follow this course competition would ultimately t :come as cut-throat ns ever; acd although it answered well in Owen's days, because the profits of cotton spinning were then enormous, it would not answer now, when these profits are cut so <me with international competition that there is ssarcely any profit to divide; ■ and unless the Slate tskc3 factories Into its own hand to be worked for tho iDsefit of the people at large, capitals >t3 will transport their manufactories to India—which they are now doing—where 10 hours' labour cm be had for 2J3—a pries which defies European competition.

That the Messrs Duthie have done a wise and humane thing Ido not doubt; bat were every firm of Dunedin carriers to follow their example, the consequences would follow which always follow keen competition in its last stag s— prices, profits, wages, and the standard of living would all be encroached upon, until finally the last state of a Eociety living on profit sharing would ba worse than its first.

Again, how many employers and capitalists think a man has a right to work a.3 long as the man like?, which really mease for as long as he is asked to work, irrespective of the conditions of health or of the workman's physical ability to work long hours.

I myself, while employed as an engine fitter, and while a member of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, have, for six months continuously been paid for working nearly 100 hours per week. Had I objected—the tinits were bad (1861)— I could have gone to the gate. I bad no choice, and anyone knows, who has been an engine fitter, that 10 hours a day is fully F-S much as a man can do with honesty to himself or to his employer.

Unionism ib, I hope, ODly a temporary but rude expedient to accomplish a very necessary end. Unliko Socialism, it has recently attempted to exclude all bnt unionists from its advantages. Adam Smith showed masters how to unite, and while they do so, and as long as a capitalistic civilisation lasts, it will also bs necessary for workmen to protect themselves with unions; although, unfortunately, i:s Champion remarks, the lions are too often led by £«acs, with the terrible consequences attendant upon too maDy strikes. mo:jt of which common sense would in reaoy instances have anticipated.

" Scientific Meliorist" traces the existence of the social evil to poverty, and I dare say it is a rare thing to find an heiress one of tha claes. But poverty has also much to do with other forms of vice — drunkenne'.s, thieving, &s. "Junins" wrote, his publisher Woodfall said, that it w?s almost impossible to be honest in the highest sense unless a man was independent financially.

Have you ever thought o£ tho potentialities of two separate, living, but unconscious, protoplasmic molecules? —tho one, when daly developed, possibly heiring £1,000,000 sterling, with further possibilities when it attains to tho age of 21; the other—the difference not disueznible microscopically—boru to a life of hunger, misery, and beggary. Survival of the fittest! whom the unanticipated command of cash only may have made tho fittest. Profit sharing—where there ore profits and not losses to share—and unionism will each have its day; but I live in the hope that Socialism will coon and of necessity succeed coth.—l am, &c, Socialist.

February 18.