  Now, what does the substitution of such conditions for the conditions generally prevailing to-day in England mean for our country? Who shall estimate the difference between the value of willing and unwilling service? The Board of Trade will tell you that a man paid by piecework is generally from 30 to 50 per cent. more effective than a man paid by time. If the co-partnership principle, which is better than piecework, because it tends to produce identity of interest between capital and labor were to increase the efficiency of time-paid workers from 30 to 50 per cent., just think of the result; and yet the fact that co-partnership might add from 30 to 50 per cent. to the efficiency of the worker is urged by many trade unionists as a reason against co-partnership. They seem to fear that the result of making men co-partners will be to cause them to give 25 per cent. better labor and to receive only 50 per cent. more wage. No system can be right which is based on the assumption that self-interest calls for a man to give his worst instead of his best. When I compare Canada with England I am struck by the fact, that, whereas Canada’s greatest undeveloped asset is her natural resources, England’s greatest undeveloped asset is man himself. How to get each man to do his best is the problem before England to-day. It is because co-partnership harnesses to industry not only the muscle but the heart and the intelligence of the worker that we are justified in regarding it with reverence and enthusiasm as the principle of the future. [Transcriber's Note: The following have been identified as possible typographical errors in the original: hands over the to-morrow |
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