tions, at first, excluded piece-work, and gave equal wages whether the work done was more or less. Almost all have abandoned this system, and after allowing to every one a fixed minimum, sufficient for subsistence, they apportion all further remuneration according to the work done: most of them even dividing the profits at the end of the year, in the same proportion as the earnings.[1]
It is the declared principle of most of these associations, that they do not exist for the mere private benefit of the individual members, but for the promotion of the co-operative cause. With every extension, therefore, of their business, they take in additional members, not (when they remain faithful
- ↑ Even the association founded by M. Louis Blanc, that of the tailors of Clichy, after eighteen months' trial of this system, adopted piece-work. One of the reasons given by them for abandoning the original system is well worth
Huber (one of the most ardent and high-principled apostles of this kind of co-operation), shows the rapidly progressive growth in prosperity of the Masons' Association up to 1858:—
| Year. | Amount of business done. fr. |
Profits realized. fr. |
| 1852 | 45,530 | 1,000 |
| 1853 | 297,208 | 7,000 |
| 1854 | 344,240 | 20,000 |
| 1855 | 614,694 | 46,000 |
| 1856 | 998,240 | 80,000 |
| 1857 | 1,330,000 | 100,000 |
| 1858 | 1,231,461 | 130,000 |
"Sur ce dernier dividende," adds M. Cherbuliez, "30,000 francs ont été prélevés pour le fonds de réserve, et les 100,000 francs restant, partagés entre les associés, ont donné pour chacun de 500 à 1500 francs, outre leur salaire, et leur part dans la propriété commune en immeubles et en matériel d'exploitation."
Of the management of the associations generally, M. Villiaumé says, "J'ai pu me convainure par moi-même de l'habileté des gérants et des conseils d'administration des associations ouvrières. Ces gérants sont bien supérieurs pour l'intelligence, le zèle, et même pour la politesse, à la plupart des patrons ou entrepreneurs particuliers. Et chez les ouvriers associés, les funestes habitudes d'intempérance disparaissent peu à peu, avec la grossièreté et la rudesse qui sont la conséquence de la trop incomplète education de leur classe."
