absolutely vital, and which they fear may deprive them of help at time of need. The danger is, however, more imaginary than real, for no one will deny the right of a corporation, or any employer contracting for labor, to impose such conditions as a precedent to employment as its interests and judgment dictate, and to select preferably those willing to help protect themselves and dependents from the effects of a hazardous service. The great success of the Baltimore and Ohio Employés' Relief Association lies in the fact that the managers of that company "had the courage of their convictions," and made it a condition precedent to employment in its service that the men should sign an agreement to protect themselves and families against the vicissitudes of a hazardous service.
The proverbial conservatism and timidity of capital make it slow to realize the logical sequence of experiments which have a vital bearing on its invested interests. The uniform success and increased prosperity which have attended industrial partnerships between capitalists and their workmen—practiced more extensively on the Continent of Europe than in England, and little or not at all with us—show to the disinterested, thoughtful mind that herein, more than in efforts in all other directions combined, excellent though their effect may be, lies the true solution of the gravest and most important question pending before the world—i. e., how to equitably adjust the relations between capital and labor. Probably the serious contemplation of a division, no matter how minute, of their profits with those whose labor made them, would incite in the minds of our railway share and bond holders such alarm and opposition as would displace any management advancing such a proposition; yet on one or more of the most important railways in France judicious action in this direction has resulted in the employés becoming the majority owners of the securities of the properties they operate, and those corporations and firms in whose profits their workmen are allowed to participate have experienced increased prosperity and decreased migration and irregularity in attendance of the workmen, whose general standard of efficiency has been raised by the competition to share such benefits, and this unity of interests has entirely isolated them from the effects of labor agitations and turmoils. That the managers of such great interests as those of our railroads and mammoth manufacturing establishments who pioneer a reform of this character must possess great nerve and resolution as well as influence, goes without saying; but the constant strife and competition now prevailing, necessitating most rigid economies, which almost always result in curtailment of wages and in strikes, must of themselves gradually force corporations to concert measures for securing permanent control of their forces, and none can be so effective as those that look to a community of financial interests. The manager who first succeeds in applying to his service the principle of industrial partnership will prove a Napoleon in the railroad world and a dictator to
