The Methodist 'class-leader,' for example, reappears in a modified form in the zélateurs and zélatrices of the Harmel Clubs and fraternities. These are members, working-men and working-women, who are willing to devote themselves to promoting religious sentiments and practices among their comrades, and who hold regular meetings to consider and work out the best and most practical way of doing this.
It is not surprising that in many cases the curés should have looked with a little uneasiness upon the development of such a system until it had been fully considered and formally approved by the highest authority in the Church. Of its efficacy from the point of view of M. Harmel there can be no doubt.
Something not wholly unlike the 'exclusive dealing' which contributes so much to the strength of Methodism in America has also been established for the benefit of the members of M. Harmel's Christian Corporation. This is 'exclusive dealing 'of an honest and honourable sort, and must not be confounded with the rascally 'exclusive dealing' known in Ireland as 'boycotting.' It combines a system of 'privileged purveyors' with an accumulative savings fund.
The firm of Harmel Brothers, acting for the Corporation, makes contracts with tradesmen at Val-des-Bois—grocers, butchers, bakers, and the like—by which the tradesmen bind themselves to sell certain wares to members of the Christian Corporations, and to them only, at a fixed discount below the lowest current rate of prices—the wares to be of the best quality, under a penalty—and the lowest current rate to be fixed by an average taken from the current rates as given to Harmel Brothers by four dealers in such wares in the city of Reims, of whom two are to be named by them and two by the 'privileged purveyor.' Each member of the Corporation receives certificates, of one franc, ten sous, or ten centimes in value, from the office of Harmel Brothers, and these are taken by the 'privileged purveyor' in payment at their face value.
For him they are each week cashed in money at the office of Harmel Brothers. If the members prefer to pay the 'privileged purveyor' in cash, or in orders upon their wages, the sums so paid are inscribed on the account of the Corporation. When the weekly or fortnightly accounts are made up, a certain percentage of the differences between the current market-price of the purchases made and the actual price so paid by the purchasers goes to what is called the 'Corporation profit,' the residue of the difference being paid over to the member with his or her wages. The 'Corporation profit' is a savings fund. Each member has a book showing—with his or her number, and with the full name of the head of the family to which he or she may belong—the amount of this fund standing each quarter to his or her credit, with interest at 5 per cent.
This can only be drawn out by the member, on leaving the employment of the firm, in case of illness or incapacity, or at the age of fifty years.
An actuary's estimate shows that the share of the Corporation profit accruing to each member in twenty-five years on an annual estimated average Corporation profit of 70 francs a member, with five per cent. interest, would be 3,300 francs. And this, be it observed, will have cost the member nothing, being simply a result of the union of employer and employed in a corporate dealing with the purveyors. In 1879 the annual budget of a hundred families at Val-des-Bois, earning among them 249,242 francs, showed an actual 'Corporation profit' of 91,319.05 francs, which ought to have been much larger had Val-des-Bois then possessed more than one butcher, baker, grocer, and tailor. These hundred families comprised 496 members, 279 of them employed in the factory and 217 occupied at home.
During the last ten years, and especially since the passage of the law of March 1884, the scope of these Christian Corporations, not only at Val-des-Bois and at Reims, but all over France, has been considerably extended. Many of them have now the character of true guilds, as at Poitiers, for example, where there is a Corporation of the Builders under the invocation of St-Radegonda, another—Our Lady of the Keys—founded upon a syndicate of clothiers, and a third, of St.-Honoré, founded upon a syndicate of provision-dealers. At Lille I found a typical Corporation, that of the spinners and weavers, known as the Christian Corporation of St.-Nicholas. This was founded in May 1885. This Corporation admits workmen and workwomen, employees and manufacturers, belonging, either by residence or by connexion with the industry named, to the commune of Lille or to one of the adjoining communes. It had last year a membership of 887 persons, of whom 26 were master manufacturers and 37 employees, the rest being workmen and workwomen. Five large firms were represented in it. The Syndical Council was made up of a syndic employer, a syndic employee, and a syndic workman from each of these firms, and of a syndic workman, M. Courtecuisse, representing the members who were employed in other establishments. The directing bureau consisted of seven members, including the chaplain. It was presided over by one of the great manufacturers of Lille, M. Féron-Vrau, and the two vice-presidents were M. Edouard Bontry, of the house of Bontry-Droullers, and M. Courtecuisse already named.
This Corporation, under the law of 1884, can own the buildings necessary for its meetings, its libraries, and its lecture-courses; it can establish among its members special savings funds, mutual assistance and pension funds; found and conduct offices for information bearing on the business of its members, and it may be consulted, under Article 6 of the Law of 1884, on 'all difficulties and misunderstandings and questions arising out of its specialty.' This provision—specially intended by the authors of the law to arm the 'strikers' of France against French employers—may thus, it will be seen, be turned quite as effectually to purposes of concord and harmony as to purposes of discontent and strife. The Corporation of St.-Nicholas may receive gifts and legacies in aid of its Corporation funds and purposes, and generally take an active part, like all these Corporations, as was pointed out by Leo XIII. in his 'Encyclical of April 20, 1884,' in protecting, under the 'guidance of the Faith, both the interests and the morals of the people.'
It already has within its sphere of action a Confraternity of Our Lady of the Factory, comprising 548 members, a Mutual Aid Society with 218 members, an Assistance Fund with 409 members; and a Domestic Economy Fund, the principle of which is that certain dealers make a discount on their wares to members of the Corporation which is certified to by them in counters of different values. These counters are receivable by the Corporation in payment of the assessments and subscriptions of the members.