GENJiUAL SUMMARY. 
11 
measure of control over tlie management of the undertakings by 
which they are employed. At the same time, the opinions of 
employers quoted or summarised in the following pages show 
that the methods of Profit-sharing and Co-partnership are in 
numerous instances considered hy practical men, who base their 
judgment upon actual experience, to produce excellent results 
in the direction both of developing a higher degree of efficiency 
on the part of the employees, and of bringing about more 
harmonious relations between employers and employed. 
In comparing the details set forth in the present Iteport with 
those stated in its predecessor, the fact that conies most pro 
minently to light is the marked increase in those forms of Profit- 
sharing in which the method adopted is either to invest the 
whole or part of the bonus in shares in the undertaking—shares 
which generally though not always confer voting rights—or in 
other ways to secure that the employees shall possess a direct 
financial stake in the capital of the business. The idea of 
making arrangements of this nature is not novel, but there has 
been a considerable development of such systems within the last 
few years; and it is to this form of Profit-sharing that public 
attention is at the present moment principally directed. 
A review of the facts shows that schemes involving investment 
by employees in the capital of their employers’ businesses have 
met with a large measure of success; but great caution is necessary 
in drawing inferences of a general character from these results. 
In the first place it is necessary to point out that in the great 
majority of cases the experiments are of such comparatively 
recent date tliatsit may be somewhat premature to found upon 
the results which appear to have been attained in these instances 
any very positive conclusions with regard to the general applica 
bility of the Co-partnership method. 
Secondly, the fact that a large number of these experiments 
have taken place in a single industry, and that this industry 
(gas making) is carried on under very special circumstances and 
enjoys exceptional advantages, must impose a certain degree of 
caution in drawing deductions as to the applicability of such 
systems to businesses of all kinds. Certainly, the Gras Com 
panies afford a field exceptionally favourable for the applica 
tion of co-partnership methods. The absence of bonus, caused 
by insufficiency of profits, which in ordinary business not seldom 
occurs, is practically unknown in Gas Companies. Their shares 
and stock are often classed as “ gilt-edged securities,” and the 
chance that employee-investors will lose their savings by the 
liquidation of the company is so small as to be almost negligible. 
1 hirdly, there is the point that the issue of shares to employees 
means an addition to capital account, and this is not always 
possible or desirable. Writing to the editor of Labour Co 
partnership, tlie organ of the Labour Co-partnership Association, 
on November 1st, 190G, Mr. Alexander Horn (one of the 
Managing Directors of Messrs. Clarke, Nickolls & Coombs, 
Limited, who have in the last 22 years paid to their workpeople