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III—PROFIT-SHARING AND CO-PARTNERSHIP IN 
CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES. 
Co-operative Societies may be divided into four main groups, 
viz. (i.) Industrial, (ii.) Agricultural, (iii.) Banking, Credit 
and Insurance, (iv.) Housing and Building Societies. The last 
two classes of Co-operative Societies, from tlie nature of the 
operations which they carry on, employ only a very small number 
of persons,* and since in regard to such organisations the ques 
tion of Profit-sharing and Labour Co-partnership may be 
considered to possess relatively less importance, this part of the 
Report will be concerned exclusively with (a) Industrial and 
(b) Agricultural Co-operative Societies. Moreover, as the present 
Report is solely concerned with the relations between employers 
and workpeople, those classes of Co-operative Societies which 
employ a relatively in significant number of workpeople are not 
here considered. 
The extent to which the methods in question are in operation 
in the different types of associations of which these two groups 
are composed varies greatly; and for this reason each type will, 
in the account which follows, be treated separately. 
A.—INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES. 
(1.) Associations or Consumers. 
(«) Retail Distributive (Store) Societies. 
Profit-sharing with Employees. 
The number of the Co-operative Retail Distributive (Store) 
Societies at the end of 1910 was 1,421, of which only 195, or 
approximately one in seven, gave any share in profits to any of 
their employees. In regard to those Store Societies which have 
given a share in their profits to their employees, the addition 
* It should be explained that by “ Housing and Building Societies ” is meant 
Societies which provide houses or facilitate the acquirement of houses, but do 
not, as a rule, themselves carry out building operations. A full account of 
Co-operative Societies of all types will be found in the Report on Co-operative 
Societies, issued by the Department in 1912 [Cd. 6045] ; see also Board of Trade 
Labour Gazette, May, 1912, pp. 172, 173, and August, 1912, pp. 333, 334.