Great Bignesses.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 11776, 26 September 1901, Page 1

Great Bignesses.

THE MAGIC RISE OF THE I LEVERS, i - (By Robert Donald, in the Daily | Mail.) i Fifteen years ago a Warrington gro ' cor turned i llS thoughts to soap I His little capital of £4000 he inves ■ ted in a factory; he employed twelvi i people and produced twenty tons o , soap a week. I The successor of this small factory lias to-day a capital of £4,000.000 X™ \ s an aimual Profit of £300,000. In England alone it finds em- . ployment for over 3200 people, who | turn out as many tons a week; it has subsidiary works in foreign countries —in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and America — its branches embrace the " Lady of the Snows," and its outposts •stretch to the islands of the Southern Seas. The Wtirrington grocer who formed this world-wide business is Mr W. 11. Lever. A Lancashire man, who can speak the dialect in all its native purity, and has always its echo in his voice, Mr Lever is of medium height, clean-shaven. with ruddy complexion, blight, keen eyes, fair hair, not yet tinged with grey — a man who carries his fifty years as if he were little raon tru<n forty. Mr Leve>\ ""besides possessing wonderful organising capacity, has a conscientious anxiety to be just, which has coloured his career and permeated his relations with his workpeople. When, after being two or three years in the soap business, he woke one morning to find a fortune of £50,000 made in a year, he was genuinely perturbed. He did not know how he had earned it; did not feel that he was entitled to it. He then determined that at his new works he would give the workmen something more than wages — something which would not introduce pampering patronage or carry with it demoralising influences. The outcome of these ideas is the model works of Port Sunlight, where the men labour eight hours a day for nine hours' pay, where the women have a workday of seven hours and a half, and where all may live in a model village upon whic] the firm have spent £350,000 without seeking any other return on the capital than the improved health and happiness of the workpeople. CREATING AN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS. When he turned his thoughts to soap Mr Lever first sought a name that would stick, and finally fixed on " Sunlight " as the watchword, which proved an open sesame to his prosperity. He spent six months and sank most of his capital in making a household soap which was worth a name. Then he went ahead The capacity of the Warrington works was soon overtaxed, and MiLever tramped down both sides of the Mersey to find a new site. He pitched on a site by the banks of a tidal tributary of the great river, convenient for communication by both land and sea, and there on the marshland created a model township round his new factories. There is nothing new about soapmaking. It is not a highly skilled and technical industry, but Messrs Lever laid their business on comprehensive lines which led to developments in several ways; in securing the control of raw materials, reducing the number of middlemen, utilising bye-products, and in starting kindred, but not conflicting, industries. They have oil mills in America, they draw supplies of cot-ton-seed from Egypt, they get cocoamits from Samoa, which are crushed at their factories at Sydney, where the coprah-oil is refined and sent home, and the residue — oil-cake — sold to Australian farmers. In these and other ways they get their raw material at bottom prices. They have added one article after another to their products, reducing the cost of production and distribution. SCALING TARIFF WALLS. The banks of the Mersey are the cheapest place in the world for the manufacture of soap. There the raw material is cheapest — the tallow, oil, salt, coal, etc. The means of transit inland and by the sea are unequalled, but where the tariff is higher than the difference of cost of production and freight Messrs Lever have built foreign factories. They have got behind the tariff walls. Thus they have works at Boston and Philadelphia for the American market, at Toronto for Canada, at Sydney for Australasia, at Olten for Switzerland, at Mannheim for Germany, at Brussels for Belgium. They will soon have a factory at Cape Town for South Africa, while they have selling branches all over the United Kingdom and in other countries. Two years ago they absorbed the American business of Benjamin Brooke and Company, supplying the English market with their soap—" Monkey Brand "— from Port Sunlight,"" and continuing the works in America. Messrs Lever now turn out six or seven kinds of soap, besides manufacturing glycerine, cake, and other articles. They have always been alive to the advantages of advertising. To a large extent the factory at Port Sunlight has been made selfcontained, and there are no fewer than sixty trades and occupations represented among the employees. The company has established railways to connect it with the mainsystems, it has its own fleet of ships and barges for carrying its goods, and subsidiary departments, such as printing and bookbinding, for supplying its needds in the works. "PROSPERIPY SHARING." In resolving to give his workpeople something more than wages Mr Lever did not want to become a philanthropist. He also wisely avoided profit - sharing schemes. Most of them have been short-lived ; none have been altogether successful. The profit-sharing, or bonus system, regardless of ndividual merit, means a premium on inefficiency, which leads to dissatisfaction. In years when there are no profits it causes disappointment. Sometimes it is regarded as an artful scheme to bind workmen to a firm and deprive them of complete freedom of action. Mr Lever, therefore, invented prosperity sharing. First the workmen had a model factory. All the latest electrical equipments and , labour-saving machinery, including moving platforms and benches, were introduced. They had the use of a comfortable hall for meals, the hours were short, the wages good. When the girls work overtime they are given tea ; so are the clerks, who are paid their overtime once a year —opportunely just before the holidays. Rewards are distributed for suggestions which .lead to impro\ements. Every year the employee-;, their wives and families, ha\c a holiday at the expense of the Jinn. This year the heads of departments and foremen will spend a week a I the Glasgow Exhibition at the Company's expense. Last year it spent £5000 in sending 1600 employees to Paris. But the greatest achievement of all been the building of the model Milage of Port Sunlight. A MODEL VILLAGE. The model village of Port Sunlight is the best organised community of its kind in the world. It is model in every way. The houses well built in quaint old English style, give a pleasing variety and picturesqueness. The red.tyled, irregular roofs, the latticed windows, graceful traceries of woodwork, redbrick walls covered with ivy and creepers, make the little houses as pretty without as they are comfortable within. Thoy arc surrounded by well-kept lawns and gardens, the neat and clean streets are lined with trees. Prizes are given for the best kept gardens. Messrs Lever keep the whole village in trust for the people, locking up -their £350,000 capital. Only sufficient rent is charged to pay for the maintenance of the houses and village institutions. If the tenants ore reckless and run up repairs

tenants pay thoir rates direct so as ' 'Vot",,^ 1 ' interest as citizens. «itt,,?,r smallest cottage contains a sitting-room, two bed-rooms, and kitchen, and the rent is 2S2 S 6d per £X a ™ stringent regulations limiting or prohibiting lodgers according to the number in the family, but some workpeople are so given over to this petty landlordism ot lodger-keeping that they have been known to gne up their model horn« in Port Sunlight for the luxury of taking in lodgers m the slums of Liverpool. The village institutions include an excellent school and church, institutes for social and educational purposes, a hall used as a restaurant, conceit hall, a post oflice, and co-operative stores managed by the people, a temperance public house, billiard and reading rooms, bowling greens, quoit ground and other attractions. Jn doing all this Mr .Lever lias not posed as a philanthropist. His social philosophy has been to surround thje workmen with conditions which will tend to educate and clu\ate them. His generous impulse, which led to the establishment of the model village, has had its indirect reward in. helping to make the m-me of Port Sunlight known throughout the world, and in so do imv extending the popularity of its products. This policy of social betterment leaves its greatest impress on the characters of the 700 children who attend its schools and lead an enjoyable life in its healthy atmosphere! During the phenomenal progress of of his business ?Jr .Lever has never found any lack of young and enerpetic men to help him. lie has sought men who were honest in the widest sense — trustworthy, loyal, and reliable — and given them opportunities for showing their powers. He believes that we are passing through a transition yjeriod, and tha/t as our colleges form a closer link with commerce, and as workmen appreciate more the ultimate ' value ,to •'Lh.emselves of labour-sav- • ing Diichiiitii ;> and increasing outl put, English trade will hold its own. ■ in the twentieth century. That there j are new fields to conquer the success , of Port Sunlight shows.