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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Personal Volume

Advocates Profit-Sharing

Advocates Profit-Sharing.

Another matter that will have to be considered is whether there could not be some arrangement made between Capital and Labor to give Labor some share in the profits that are made in any industry in which Labor is engaged. This system of sharing profits has been tried in France, in some other Contimental countries, and in England, and where they have had judicious employers and judicious employees it has been a success. It will not succeed, however, unless there is a spirit of loyalty to a great end—the brotherhood of men— page 14 operating in carrying it out. I believe we will also have to constitute a court to fix not only the wages but the prices of goods, and our people seem favorable to such a court being tried. There is no use, however, in creating tribunals if we do not realise that, there can be no progress without order, and unless there is obedience to the law we ourselves have made. There must be civic peace. Those who engage in strikes and violate the orders of a court are not good citizens. If there were no courts having jurisdiction to settle disputes a strike might in some instances be justifiable; but where we have a tribunal with due representation of both Capital and Labor there is no excuse whatever for setting aside the decrees of such a court, nor for a party to the proceedings in a court to fix, without regard to the other party, the wages and conditions of Labor. Every strike is a blow struck at true democracy—at the brotherhood of men. Some of our people demand the fixing of prices and of profits, and that, may have to come in the near future. But what is the use of fixing prices of goods if the owners can set the rate at defiance? Now, a strike against the rate of wages, or of the conditions of labor, is civil war. It is flouting the law, and it is doing more: it is showing that the Stale ought not to fix the price of anything—of labor, or labor products. No man who justifies a strike can justify the fixing of prices of goods or profits. There is yet another industrial problem demanding solution, and that is