Samuel Smiles：Thrift, Excerpt 460

Only a few years have passed, and already this promising partnership of industry has come to an end. It has not been brought to an end by the masters, but by the men. The masters were satisfied with the profits made during the recent high prices of coal; but the men were not satisfied with the wages. Had they been as free as the Welsh colliers, they would have insisted on being paid as highly; but it would have been, as it was in Wales, ruinous to the masters. The system of industrial partnership had at length to be abandoned, and the men now work for wages instead of for part-profits. The truth is, the colliers were not sufficiently educated to appreciate the advantages of the industrial scheme. Though some of the Whitwood workmen have been stimulated by thrift, to build and furnish houses of their own, the greater number of them, during the recent flush of prosperity, squandered their wages on frivolity, extravagance, and intemperance.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14418
Locator：Excerpt 460 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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