d me some such lodgings, as well as several bath-rooms
which the workmen are allowed to use on the payment of a very slight
fee. It is his experience that the workmen prefer to consider the bath
as a luxury, and to pay for it.

All the relations between the company and its workmen, indeed, seem to
me to be governed by a sensible avoidance on the part of the company of
everything like fussy paternalism; and to this, in some measure, I have
no doubt, must be attributed the remarkably smooth and easy working of
these relations through so long a course of years. The workmen are
treated, not like children, but like reasonable beings, who may be
expected to avail themselves of advantages which are offered them with
an eye at once to their own interests and to the interests of the
company.

The co-operative societies at St.-Gobain and at Chauny, for example,
were founded in 1866, not by the company, but by the employees of the
company under statutes carefully drawn up by M. Cochin, and the company
simply undertook to assist them; in the first place by leasing them, at
a low rent, the buildings necessary for the business, and in the next
place by taking charge gratuitously of their financial operations. The
goods supplied are sold only to members of the societies, as in the
co-operative stores in England. The transactions amount to about
1,500,000 francs a year, the goods are sold at prices below those
charged in the local shops, and the members divide an average annual
profit of from eight to ten per cent. The management is entirely in the
hands of the members.

The company has founded at St.-Gobain a kind of savings-bank in which
the workman may make deposits of from one franc to 400 francs, drawing
interest at the rate of 4 per cent. per annum, until the maximum is
reached, when the money is either paid back to the depositor or, if he
prefers, invested for him, without charge by the company, in the public
funds or in railway securities. In this way many of the workmen are
coming to be small capitalists. If they wish also to become house-owners
the company advances, at the lowest possible rate of interest, the
necessary funds for the purchase, and workmen in good standing with the
company find no difficulty in getting gratuitous advances of money
repayable in small fixed amounts, upon showing good reasons for the
advance. And in all the establishments of the company, except at
Montlucon, where there is a special fund to gi