A REAL SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY: THE principle of participation by workmen in the profits of employers, which was first tentatively put into operation by the Parisian housedecorator Leclaire, in 1842, has since that time made signal progress. According to the most recent information upwards of forty-six industrial establishments in France, Alsace, and Switzerland alone are now working upon this principle. The material advantages accruing both to employers and employed from systems of participation have been distinctly recognised by English writers on political economyBabbage, Mill, Fawcett, and others-but the intellectual and moral benefits which attach to the best existing methods of applying the principle have not, in this country at least, as yet attracted a degree of public attention at all commensurate with their importance. A lecture 2 addressed to an audience of working men in Cambridge on the 9th of December, 1879, by Mr. W. H. Hall, contains, in a biographical form, an excellent sketch of the development of Leclaire's institution, and faithfully reflects the spirit which animates it. From this lecturethe only existing English source for the facts which it communicatesI received a strong impulse to make a personal examination, on the actual scene of Leclaire's labours, into the most recent results there attained. On making my wish known, through Mr. Hall, to the present heads of Leclaire's house, I received from them a most cordial invitation coupled with an offer to place their time and information unreservedly at my disposal. When I presented myself to these gentlemen in Paris, they proved in every respect as good as their word. I was allowed free access to the accounts of the establishment and to every source of information for which I chose to ask; my long string of questions, too, were answered with thorough-going fulness and unwearied patience. It is entirely owing to the kindness of MM. Redouly et Marquot, managing partners of the house of Leclaire, and of M. Charles Robert, president of the mutual aid society connected with it, that I am enabled to make known, in the most authentic shape, the present condition of perhaps the most beneficent industrial foundation now extant. To M. Marquot, who received me 1 Bulletin de la Participation. Paris, Chaix et ie., 1879. Pp. 107-112. Reported in full in the Cambridge Independent Press of the 13th of December, 1879, and since republished as a pamphlet by the Central Cooperative Board. in the absence of his senior colleague, and to M. Charles Robert, my heartiest thanks are due for considerate attention and unfailing courtesy. As a condition of understanding the present working of Leclaire's institution, some preliminary study must be devoted to the facts of its historical development. These, again, are inextricably interwoven with the incidents of Leclaire's life. I have accordingly found it indispensable, before describing his establishment as it actually exists, to narrate those facts of his life which bear most directly on the development of participation. In doing this I have, with the author's express permission, made full, and in places direct translational, use of the excellent French biography of Leclaire 3 written by his ardent admirer and disciple, M. Charles Robert. English readers will find interesting details, which I am obliged to pass over here, in Mr. Hall's lecture already referred to. Edme-Jean Leclaire was born on the 14th of May, 1801. The son of a poor village shoemaker, he was removed from school at ten years old, with the scantiest knowledge even of reading and writing, and put to work, first in the fields, and next as a mason's apprentice. At seventeen, having arrived, penniless and unfriended, at Paris, he apprenticed himself to a house-painter. After three years passed amidst much privation under a hard master, Leclaire became a journeyman, and after seven more, when only twenty-six years of age, took the bold. step of setting up in business on his own account. Extraordinary capacity, energy, and daring enabled him to force his way with signal success and celerity. Within three years' time he had attracted the notice of architects by the excellence of the work done under his direction, and was already employed on considerable undertakings. In 1834 he was called on to execute works at the Bank of France and on the buildings of several railway companies: in fact by this time his success as an employer of labour was definitively assured. Even had Leclaire done nothing more than this, he would have deserved a high place among the heroes of self-help,' who, though destitute of all extraneous aid, have by innate force and indomitable perseverance fought their way from penury to posts of industrial command. But Leclaire was far indeed from contenting himself with the part of a mere exploiteur of other men's labour. No sooner was his own position as an industrial chief assured, than, with rare width and generosity of view, he threw himself into plans and efforts for raising the condition of his own workmen, and, ultimately, of the wage-earning class in general. I have said that the scope of this article permits me to dwell only on those steps taken by Leclaire which directly forwarded the principle of participation; it is, however, impossible to pass over without incidental notice an innovation of his in a different field which has permanently benefited a whole Leclaire, Biographie d'un Homme Utile. Paris, Sandoz & Fischbacher, 1878. group of workers-the substitution, in the painting trade, of white of zinc for white of lead. Leclaire, having convinced himself that, as long as an active poison formed an ingredient in the paints employed, the ravages which it inflicted on the workmen of his house could only be palliated, never effectually counteracted, resolved to make search for some innocuous substitute for white of lead. Though totally ignorant of chemistry, he succeeded, with the help of experts whom he called to his aid, in discovering how to utilise white of zinc for this purpose, i.e. how to procure it sufficiently cheap, and make it dry with sufficient rapidity. Armed with these results he entirely suppressed the use of white of lead in his establishment, and thereby, as far as his own workmen were concerned, put a stop for the future to 'painter's colic' and all its train of attendant and consequent miseries. I am assured by M. Marquot that the white of zinc now exclusively used by the house is not only perfectly innocuous to the health of the painters, but that work executed with it is both fresher and more durable than that done with the old deleterious ingredient. Decisively efficacious as was the sympathy which Leclaire felt for the physical sufferings of his workmen, it was the precariousness of the tenure under which they gained their livelihood that caused him the most poignant solicitude. His attention was early fixed on the calamitous effect which the sale of a business has upon the old hands who have been employed under it, when the new master dismisses without mercy every workman whose appearance indicates a diminishing capacity for labour. A dismissal of this kind,' wrote Leclaire in 1865, inflicts a terrible blow on the workman who undergoes it. From this fatal day he acquires the sad conviction that, go where he may to ask for work, the conclusion will be instantly drawn from his face and bearing that he is too old to do the work well.' 6 Knowing that a workman with children or infirm relatives to maintain could not make the least saving for the time of old age, and perfectly aware of the fate which, on his own retirement, would overtake many of those whose labour had contributed to place him in a position to pass his old days happily, Leclaire centred his attention on schemes for supplying the more providently disposed among his workmen with the means of an assured future. The first impulse in the direction which his plan ultimately took came from a M. Frégier, who, in 1835, told Leclaire that he saw no way to get rid of the antagonism which existed between workman and master except the participation of the workman in the profits of the master. From this time forward Leclaire was constantly 'cudgelling his brains' (se frapper le front) to find the best means of bringing this idea into practical operation. In 1842 he prepared the ground for his first experiment by a very remarkable proceeding. Frauds were at that time numerous in the painting trade, and Leclaire foresaw that his scheme of participa tion would be set down as an attempt to enlist the cupidity of workmen by the prospect of illicit gain. Accordingly he proceeded to publish several pamphlets, exposing in the most unreserved manner the secrets of dozens of ways in which high pay could be got for bad work even on orders secured by enormous reductions in price. By these publications Leclaire, to use his own words, 'compelled people to be honest,' and made it next to impossible for his workmen to swerve from the rule which he constantly impressed upon them—that the most complete honesty should characterise all their relations with the customers of the house. On the 15th of February, 1842, Leclaire announced his intention of dividing among a certain number of his ouvriers and employés a part of the profits produced by the work done. The police, who saw in this nothing but a deeply-laid scheme for enticing workmen away from other masters, did their best to thwart Leclaire's presumed designs by prohibiting a meeting of his workmen which he had asked permission to hold for the purpose of explaining the advantages attaching to his plan of participation. The meeting was of course abandoned, but Leclaire gave notice that the division of profits for the year 1841 would take place in accordance with his previous announcement. A section of his workmen had from the first distrusted his offers, and they were supported in that attitude by a newspaper, L'Atelier, which accused him of manoeuvring in this fashion in order to reduce wages. When, however, Leclaire, after collecting his participants, 44 in number, threw upon the table a bag of gold containing 11,886 francs (475l.), and then and there distributed to each his share, averaging over 10l. per man, it was found impossible to withstand the object-lesson' thus given. All hesitation vanished, and was replaced by unbounded confidence. On the profits of the succeeding years larger sums were divided among increasing numbers of participants. Thus, during the six years from 1842 to 1847 inclusive, an average of 750l. was annually divided among an average of 80 persons. The share assigned to each participant was proportional to the sum which he had earned in the shape of wages during the year for which the assessment was made. There were, accordingly, wide differences in the amounts of the bonuses severally received, but the average, for the period above named, came to a little over 91. a year per head. In 1838 Leclaire had established a 'Mutual Aid Society' for the workmen and employés of his house, which was supported by monthly subscriptions from its members and offered the advantages of an ordinary benefit club. Its statutes provided that a division of the funds of the society might be demanded at the end of fifteen years from the date of its establishment. Accordingly a liquidation took place in 1853, and the society was, in the following year, reconstituted on an entirely new basis. Subscriptions from the members ceased, and VOL. VIII.--No. 43. CC the resources of the Society were thenceforth to consist in a share of profits to be freely given by the house at its annual stock-taking. In 1860 Leclaire, bent on realising his idea of a provision for workmen in their old age, proposed to the members of the Mutual Aid Society that they should relinquish their right to a future division of its funds, and consent to the establishment of retiring pensions. He now found himself in presence of a determined opposition. A capital of about 1,600l. had accumulated since 1854, and the persons interested in a division declined to forego the considerable sums which it would bring them. The issue was exceedingly critical, for, had the funds of the Society been again dissipated, the most characteristic feature of Leclaire's scheme could hardly have been developed. He had committed a most serious oversight in allowing the right to a subsequent division of funds to remain on the statutes of the Society after its reconstitution in 1854, and he seemed now on the point of being worsted in the decisive battle of his campaign. Fortunately, for the best interests of his opponents even more than for his own, he had reserved to himself the means of victory. He pointed out that, though the members of the Society undoubtedly possessed the right of compelling a division of its funds, the statutes had conferred on himself an unlimited power of introducing new members who would be entitled to full shares in the division. By threatening to make a swamping use of this constitutional weapon, and also to withhold the annual subvention hitherto paid by the house, Leclaire induced the recalcitrant members of the Society to give way and consent to the creation of a permanent association and the establishment of retiring pensions. The next step was to confer on the Society thus reorganised an independent legal status, and, at the same time, to link its interests indissolubly with those of the house from which it sprang. It was registered as an incorporated society, and made a perpetual sleeping partner (commanditaire) in the firm of Leclaire et Compagnie.' The words of the founder on handing over the new statutes to the members in 1864 are well worthy of citation here:- The members of the Mutual Aid Society are no longer mere journeymen who act like machines and quit their work before the clock has sounded its last stroke. All have become partners working on their own account: in virtue of this nothing in the workshop ought to be indifferent to them-all should attend to the preservation of the tools and materials as if they were the special keepers of them. If wish that I should leave this world with a contented heart, it is necessary you that you should have realised the dream of my whole life; it is necessary that, after regular conduct and assiduous labour, a workman and his wife should have the wherewithal to live in peace without being a burden upon any one.' Les membres de la Société de secours mutuels ne sont plus de simples journaliers qui agissent machinalement et qui quittent l'ouvrage avant que l'horloge ait frappé son dernier coup de marteau. Tous sont devenus des associés qui travaillent pour leur propre compte; à ce titre rien dans l'atelier ne doit leur être indifférent : tous doivent veiller au soin des outils et des marchandises comme s'ils en étaient |