418 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
attitude of an employer toward those associated with him in an enterprise, is profit-sharing to be valued. Many other forms of wel- fare institutions secure these ends quite as well some of them much better.
Mr. Gilman has not materially modified the position taken in his former works on the same subject a position similar to that taken by John Stuart Mill in his study of economic conditions ; namely, that all variations of the wage system are tending toward profit-sharing as an ultimate goal, and that profit-sharing will constitute a stage in indus- trial development comparable to the wage system itself. Mr. Mill's long unfulfilled prophecy has not deterred others from expecting quite as much from that which in its present form can be only a makeshift. The failure of Mr. Oilman's prevision of eleven years ago will cause others to be more cautious in accepting profit-sharing as a solution, or even a panacea, for industrial maladjustments. The reviewer does not contend that profit-sharing has no value, nor that encouragement should be. withheld from such experiments. Quite the contrary. But it is believed that injury does come from exaggerating its merits or overestimating its success. Mr. Gilman criticises severely the writer's investigation, the results of which were published in the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY for May, 1896. In this discussion it was shown that of fifty American firms that had adopted profit-sharing, only twelve retained it at that time. It is true that in some few cases there were reasons for its abandonment aside from the merits of the plan ; and that in others the experience was very brief. But in most of the cases a fair trial has been made and judgment has been pronounced upon the merits of the case. The conclusion of the investigation was simply a statement of fact, that " of the fifty firms that have adopted the system, twelve continue it, five have abandoned it indefinitely, and thirty-three have abandoned it permanently." The popular report that " in two cases out of three in the United States profit-sharing has proved a failure " was not the investigator's, though Mr. Gilman holds him responsible for it. It is submitted, however, whether such a con- clusion is not as accurate as that of Mr. Gilman, in his criticism of that summary. Mr. Gilman's argument reduces to the following: (i) no experiment of less than three years' duration is to be considered, for no trial can have been made ; (2) any trial of three years' duration demonstrates that the scheme is a success; (3) profit-sharing in the United States is a success. Subsequent experience has not modified the general conclusion reached through the investigation of four years
