Le Creusot
During the industrial revolution of the 19th century, Joseph Eugene Schneider and his brother transformed a failing 18th-century foundry into the modern industrial complex of Le Creusot. This description of the result was published in England by Chambers Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, February 1, 1868. The author describes the extent of the investment by the Schneiders in the community and the well-being of the company’s workforce.
The enlightened practices described have their roots in the management of textile mills in the American northeast, particularly by the mills founded Francis Cabot Lowell in Massachusetts in the early part of the century, and in the republican ideals that France carried over from the 1789 Revolution. Indeed, Lowell was visiting France around the time of the Revolution, and he could not have avoided being affected by the spirit of that time.
LE CREUSOT
Who or what is it? Is it our Gallic neighbours name for the hero of Defoe [Robinson Crusoe]? Is it something to eat, or a new game. Let us consult the dictionary. Creux a hollow; creuset a crucible; neither of these words throws much light on the subject.
No; Le Creusot is a town in France, one of the most remarkable in Europe, yet mentioned in no English atlas or guide book, yet to our knowledge published. Add to this that it possesses a population of close upon 30,000 souls, being numerically the capital of its department, yet is virtually the property of one engineering firm Schneider and Co., who have raised it in thirty years from a village of 2700 to its present condition, and that it possesses the pre-eminent honour of having been awarded, at the Exposition Universelle (1867), the grand medal for excellence of social organisation, and we trust that some interest may have been raised in the following condensed account of its institutions.
Le Creusot is situated about 250 miles from Paris, in the department of the Saone and Loire, and on the water-shed between these rivers, with which latter it is indirectly connected by the central canal and by a private railway.
In 1780 it was a mere group of huts, remote from any road, whose inhabitants subsisted upon the sale of the coal which cropped out on the barren surface. About this date a sugar crystalliser was founde, under the patronage of Marie Antoinette, which subsisted till 1832. In 1781, Perrier Beltanger and Co. established a foundry, which in 1818, passed to Messrs Chagot, and in 1826 to an English company, Manby-Wilson; these failed in 1834, and Le Creusot was transferred to Schneider Brothers and Co. in 1837, since which time the industrial operations have progressed without one month’s cessation.
The works at present occupy more than 300 acres, of which more than 50 acres are covered by workshops, &c. The establishment comprehends two mines, one colliery, two lime-kilns, brickfields, 15 blast furnaces, 160 coke ovens, 150 puddling furnaces, 30 steam hammers, countless machine rooms, carpentries, smithies, and model rooms, besides two churches, schools, a hospital, and gas works. The horse power employed is 9950, divided among about 120 separate steam engines. The number of hands employed is by a strange coincidence exactly the same — namely, 9950 — that is about one third of the entire population of the town.
These industries are dispersed around the town at various distances, and are united by a net-work of telegraphs and railways of a total length of 44 miles. The latter are in turn united with and constructed on the type of the Lyon line; they are served daily by an average of 152 trains, consisting of 500 wagons, impelled by 15 locomotives. About 1,410,000 tons French pass annually through the central station of Le Creusot, of which the principal items contributed are — from the iron mines of Change and Mazenay, 300,000 tons; the colliery, 250,000 tons; blast furnaces, 130,000 tons; forges 110,000 tons.
The products of the engineering workshops are worth annually about 560,000 pounds. The first locomotive constructed in France was manufactured here in 1838, since which time 1100 have been furnished for home and foreign use; during the same period 168 marine engines also, and 630 stationary, have been built. In the pavilion or shed devoted specially to this firm at the great Paris Exposition was exhibited a splendid express locomotive (weight 29 tons, speed 56 miles per hour, with 27 carriages attached) destined for the Great Eastern Railway of England, and a marine engine of 950 horse-power nominal (3800 real), intended for the armour clad ship l’Océan, both of which have doubtless attracted the notice of some of our scientific readers. The worth of the entire traffic exceeds annually 2,000,000 pounds, and has secured for the proprietors a dividend which has never, even at the periods of greatest prime outlay, been less than 8 per cent per annum upon the capital invested.
Meanwhile the salaries of the employees have continuously advanced 30 per cent in the last sixteen years. The average age of the workmen is twenty-four (this mean includes youths and children), and their total salaries last year were nearly 400,000 pounds; that is more than 40 pounds per head. Remuneration is not proportioned to day-work, rarely even to task-work, but is fixed ordinarily by a peculiar and equitable system, virtually that of percentages on the profits of the work accomplished; this scheme takes account both of the quantity and quality of the workman’s production, as well as of the consumption of raw material, and is patent to all. An able artisan can earn as much as 6s. 6d. a day in the workshops, and 9s. at the forge; a child starts with a minimum of 7 1/2d. per day. The last consists of 11 or 12 working hours; the month averages 24 working-days. Sunday is rigorously observed as a day of rest.
Le Creusot contains 1870 houses (including a capacious Working-man’s Home) well built and arranged in broad salubrious streets; the rooms afford to each individual on an average 1100 cubic feet of air. These structures are now chiefly raised by individual enterprise on selected ground furnished chiefly by the firm. The latter have relinquished in a great measure their original plan of providing residences for their men; 700 families, however, recommended by long and faithful service, continue to receive accommodation at half-price, and 700 gardens are allotted at a nominal rent to industrious applicants.
The town is well paved and supplied with water, and will shortly be entirely gas-lit; it possesses a complete development of institutions -.viz., a daily market, two churches, principal and subsidiary schools, evening-classes, a library, a provident fund, hospital and dispensary, charitable society, bank of deposits and savings, and a relief fund, each of which deserves a special notice did space permit; but we must content ourselves with remarking that they have been mainly built or organised, and are largely supported, by the liberality of this philanthropic firm. Thus, six clergy, two physicians, a sanitary officer, and eight midwives are continually employed gratuitously for the benefit of the towns-people, who can also obtain legal or architectural advice free, together with materials for building, and coals at a greatly reduced price.
But perhaps the most remarkable institution in this thriving community are the schools. From their first arrival in the country, the Messrs Schneider imposed upon themselves as a primary obligation the providing for the moral and intellectual destiny of the population, perceiving that this was the best preparative for the economic interests of their workshops. The schools, partly for boys, partly for girls, partly free partly subsidised, contained in 1866 altogether 4065 scholars; indeed, scarce thirty children eligible by age did not partake of the instruction. The boys number 2259, and vary between the ages of seven and sixteen; those taught at the central school are arranged in nine classes under twelve masters. Their education is special, and designed to adapt them for the works; thus, to the ordinary discipline and information of primary schools is adjoined drawing, descriptive geometry, mechanics, physics, and chemistry. The free scholars are not numerous. Exemption from the payment of the school-fees is granted only in peculiar cases; the children of workmen paying 7 1/2d. per month, of strangers double this amount.
Instruction is not obligatory, but no child can be employed in the workshops before he can read and write, and according to the proficiency of the scholars is the character of the appointments which they receive. The intelligent have been advanced to the highest places in the counting-houses, or have even been appointed engineers. Every proficient may expect some suitable employment, and none are refused except those dismissed from the schools for ill-conduct; such cases of misbehaviour have only amounted to three in twenty six years. This system, while it produces a surprising stimulus to merit and discouragement to idleness, has almost swept away distinctions of birth or family.
As an illustration of the intellectual impulse given to Le Creusot, we may state that of the conscripts levied during the last six years who were born in this town, the proportion of illiterate was nine per cent, while the corresponding proportion for the rest of France was thirty-seven per cent. But the most triumphant proof of the policy of this education is found in the regime of the workshops. There are few undertakings that the working-man of Le Creusot cannot soon comprehend and execute with an aptitude and facility which worthily recompense his instructors; no staff of operatives is more efficient. As many as 128 engineers and skilled servants have been drawn from the boys’ schools; while there is an almost entire freedom from those miserable blunders which are at once so costly and disastrous in their effects.
Of a similar utility, though regulated with a different aim, are the girls’ schools and those for adults. Correspondent with these efforts for the moral and social advancement of the people is their material prosperity; in 1866, 100,000 pounds was deposited in the savings banks by the workmen; while it is computed, on a rigorous calculation, that the wealth sunk by them in the same time upon houses, furniture, and fixed possessions amounted at selling price to four times that sum.
The use of white bread, meat, and wine is general; marriages are numerous; the excess births over deaths is four and a half times as high a fraction of the whole population as in the rest France. In fact, we learn the surprising truth, that last year the births numbered 1127; while the deaths were only 501. Illegitimate births have a low proportionate average; drunkenness hardly exists.
Finally, in Le Creusot, there is no juge de paix, no sheriff’s officer, no gens-d’armes; the commissioner of police of the canton, seconded by two agents, suffices for the regulation of the town. No similar population affords a parallel example.
The continuity and certainty of employment have engendered in the operatives a confidence, tranquillity, and love of their employers and home, which has the happiest influence upon their religious life and domestic harmony, and has, moreover, established that thorough entente cordiale between capital and labour, which, alas, is too much wanting in our land of strikes and trade unions. Political changes and new dynasties have agitated the rest of France, but Le Creusot has remained undisturbed in its fidelity to employers, who, by their personal and daily association with their men, have patiently learned their needs and earned their respect, and who, by boldly grasping the fundamental ideas of progress and civilisation, have won a well-deserved and unique prosperity for themselves and their dependents.
The writer, who has gathered many of his data from personal observation, and the rest from the official figures, may perhaps be permitted to draw a few conclusions from his text.
The Britannic government, convinced of the importance of raising the standard of artistic taste and scientific knowledge among the working-classes of England, has organised under the direction of the Committee of the Council of Education, a department for the encouragement of science and art, which has its head-quarters at South Kensington.
This institution (if we exclude its allied but distinct branches, the National Art Training School, and the Royal Schools of Naval Architecture and Mining) confines its operations chiefly — 1) To storing its public museums with instructive specimens, and supplying these at reduced prices to local classes organised under its directions, for the improvement of artisans. 2) To examining students attending these classes, and rewarding the deserving by various forms of prizes. 3) To examining men suitable for teachers, and certifying their efficiency; and to encouraging them by a pecuniary grant when any of their pupils drawn from the industrial classes, prove on examination to have been well taught.
Thus, it will appear that the department has directed its ultimate efforts mainly towards soundly educating the working-man, believing that the upper and middle classes were able to provide for themselves; and further than endeavouring to enlist the sympathies of the latter by suggesting that they should add their personal influence to the movement by joining the local committees school management, it has hardly presumed to suggest to the capitalist or manufacturer the obligation or the policy of informing himself of his part in the social alliance; and yet it is almost unanimously confessed that the readiest road towards the elevation of the working masses is through the co-operation of their employers.
Why, we may venture to hint (as hints have been frankly courted by the department from its dependents), should government not reward by some conspicuous indication the employers or the institutions who can give evidence of the greatest intellectual or social advance in their dependents? The data in the former case at least will be readily furnished by the admirably methodised schedules published in the annual Directory of the department. And why, again we may inquire, should not the department circulate, by means of its local centres, among employers of labour a few such heart-kindling stories as are to be extracted from the statistics of such firms as Crossley of Halifax, as Chance of Birmingham, as Price of Vauxhall, as the mills of Lowell, U.S., or as Schneider and Co. of Le Creusot? It is good to be reminded that liberality and unselfishness have their reward even in this commercial world.
