DETAILED ACCOUNT OF VARIOUS SCHEMES. 
29 
(originally one-fifth), and those employed in the works, ware 
houses, &c., five-sixths (originally four-fifths). The participants 
are divided into classes according to the. importance of the 
work done hy each,* there being four classes, receiving 
respectively .1 share each, l\, and 3 (originally 1, 2, 3, and 4). 
All adult employees in the service of the company during the last 
eighteen months are entitled to participate in the Bonus Bund 
(distributed in cash), unless they have been absent, during 
the preceding twelve months, more than 60 early morning 
quarters or 240 hours in the aggregate,f except with the sanction 
in writing of a Managing Director: in case of absence due. to 
sickness or other unavoidable cause, however, the Managing 
Directors may grant an approximately proportionate amount of 
any gratuity to which the employee would otherwise have been 
entitled. + 
The number of persons employed by this firm in 1911 varied 
between 803 and 840, of whom some 600 were, on December 31, 
1911, entitled to participate in profits. The ratio which the bonus 
has borne to the wages of participants, taking an average of the 
bonuses distributed in the years 1886-1911 inclusive, has been 
3‘07 per cent. Although the scheme makes no provision for the 
investment of the bonus, a certain number of employees (64) have 
acquired ordinary shares of the company to the total (nominal) 
amount of £6,130, and these employee-shareholders possess be 
tween them T3 per cent, of the total votes that might be given 
at a shareholders’ meeting. With respect to the results obtained 
hy the adoption of their profit-sharing scheme, the company states 
that: “ We think that the scheme induces the men to take an 
increased interest; in their work, and that it does tend to promote 
a good feeling between employers and employed.” 
A system of participation in profits, which embraces not alone 
the ordinary employees of the business, but also the directors and 
other principal officials, and which presents several other features 
not be found in other profit-sharing schemes, is in force with 
the firm of Lever Brothers, Limited, soap manufacturers, of 
Port Sunlight, and with certain associated companies, under a 
scheme introduced in May, 1909, and altered and extended in 
June, 1910. § 
The whole of the ordinary shares in Lever Brothers, Limited, 
are held by Sir W. H. Lever and his son, and the scheme was 
introduced on the initiative of Sir W. H. Lever. The scheme is 
based upon the creation of a “ Co-partnership trust,” and upon 
the issue of certificates of two kinds, called respectively “ partner 
ship ” and “ preferential ” certificates. 
By the Articles of Association of the company provision is made 
whereby any moneys proposed to be distributed by way of divi 
dend after the payment of preference and ordinary dividends * * * § 
* Thus a mechanic takes “ 1J gratuities,” while a labourer takes “ 1 gratuity.” 
f Originally the disqualifying period of absence was 50 working days'in 
2 years ; then (after Nov., 1890) 24 working days in 12 months ; altered as in 
the text in 1898. 
+ This proviso was added in 1904. 
§ The scheme is described as at present in operation (as modified in 1910).