the compilation being very short, whether or not any form of betterment institution, on the lines referred to above, is at this time established in your works for the benefit of employes. If there is any such, please send, using enclosed addressed envelope for that purpose, a brief outline of the plan, on receipt of which blanks for the fuller information desired will be at once sent to you from this office. Trusting you will second our efforts to make known, in this way, the best side of industrial life in New Jersey, we are Very respectfully yours, BUREAU OF STATISTICS OF NEW JERSEY, From the two thousand copies of this circular which were mailed to as many firms or corporations controlling manufacturing establishments, five hundred and ten replies were received. Of this number, seventy-five came from firms who were in a position to give interesting and valuable details relating to some one or more of the features for the betterment of factory life, as to the existence of which the inquiry was made. Further correspondence with these firms brought out the information relating to betterment work which forms the subject-matter of this pamphlet. Each establishment appears by name in alphabetical order, with a full description of the benefit system reported as being in operation there. A large number of these, it will be found, are associations to guarantee operatives against a total loss of wages through disability, and to provide a burial fund in case of death. In some instances these societies are supported and managed altogether by the workmen themselves; in others, assistance on some well-defined plan is given by the employers, while the expenses of many, and among them those on the most generous and extensive scale, are borne entirely by the latter. In all these various enterprises, no matter what the particular plan may be on which each one is operated, the practical control and direction of the work they are intended to accomplish, is entirely in the hands of the workingmen. Nowhere does the record show an employer belittling the value of his gifts by assuming a patronizing attitude to those on whom they are bestowed, and, without exception, all concerned express the highest degree of satisfaction with the results thus far accomplished. About one hundred of the replies received were limited in contents to a simple statement of the fact that, nothing of the character indicated in the circular letter was then in operation at their respective works. Among the remaining answers, about three hundred and thirty in number, were many from employers who expressed in most earnest terms a desire to know what others are doing on the lines of betterment evolution, with a view to the adoption of some plan for the benefit of their own employes that has been approved by the experience of others. A large number of these letters are written in terms of the most cordial approval of the bureau's undertaking in bringing this important subject to the front, and express the belief that, like themselves, many other employers stand ready, when they know the first steps that should be taken, to meet their workmen more than half way in the adoption of measures for harmonizing the interests of capital and labor, and binding together in bonds of mutual interest and good will, the men whose work enriches the State, and the employer who directs their labor and converts its product into wages. To bring the facts relating to this new departure in the management of industry before the public, and especially to point a promising way to industrial peace for those employers and workmen who may be in danger of drifting apart for want of the encouragement to get together, which, it is hoped, will be found in the experience of those who have had the courage and enterprise to establish the improved relations between capital and labor which are described in these pages, is what was aimed at when the work of investigating and describing these betterment institutions was taken up. If a perusal of the contents of this pamphlet should lead to that much-desired result in only a few instances―although a much wider influence is hoped for-the labor ex pended in bringing the interesting economic experiments herein described to the attention of employers and workmen throughout the State, will have been well repaid. The Chief of the bureau takes pleasure in acknowledging the value of the assistance rendered by the manufacturers of the State in the prosecution of the work, and avails himself of this opportunity to thank them jointly and severally for the same. The courteous readiness to help in every possible way, and the interest which they displayed in every detail of the inquiry, very greatly encouraged those who were engaged in the work, and helped materially toward bringing it to a successful conclusion. WINTON C. GARRISON, Chief. |