The
growth of piecework and of sliding scales has effected something. But
the success of the Board of Conciliation and Arbitration in the
manufactured iron trade of the north of England has not yet led to much
successful imitation in other industries. Recent experience of formal
methods of conciliation and of sliding scales, especially in the mining,
engineering, and metal industries, as well as the failure of some of the
most important profit-sharing experiments, shows that we must be
satisfied with slow progress in these direct endeavours after
arbitration. The difficulty of finding an enduring scale of values which
will retain the adherence of both interests amidst industrial movements
which continually tend to upset the previously accepted "fair rates," is
the deeper economic cause which breaks down many of these attempts. The
direct fusion of the interests of employers and employed, and in some
measure of capital and labour, which is the object of the co-operative
movement, is a steadily growing force, whose successes may serve perhaps
better than any other landmark as a measure of the improving _morale_ of
the several grades of workers who show themselves able to adopt its
methods. But while co-operative distribution has thriven, the success of
co-operative workshops and mills has hitherto been extremely slow. A
considerable expansion of the productive work of the co-operative
wholesale societies within the last few years offers indeed more
encouragement.
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