1 To the Secretary of the Board of Trade. Sir, I have the honour to present herewith the accompanying Report on Profit-sharing and Labour Co-partnership in the United Kingdom, which has been prepared in this Department. The work of investigation was at the outset entrusted to Mr. David F. Schloss, who was eminently qualified to undertake this duty. When, however, his work was nearing completion he was unfortunately compelled to relinquish it owing to an illness which, to the great regret of all who worked with him, ended in his death a few weeks ago. The last detailed Report issued by the Department on the sub ject of Profit-sharing was also compiled by Mr. Schloss, and was published in 1894. The Department has endeavoured, by annual enquiries, to keep up to date the information contained in that Report, and has published the results of these enquiries in the Board of Trade Labour Gazette and in the Abstracts of Labour Statistics; but it is clear that the time has now come for another general survey of the whole subject. In this Report, as in the previous one, Profit-sharing is under stood to involve an agreement between an employer and his workpeople under which the latter receive, in addition to their wages, a share, fixed beforehand, in the profits of the undertaking. A grant or bonus, therefore, made at the absolute discretion of an employer, and not upon any pre-arranged basis, is not a case of profit-sharing for the present purpose. It may further be remarked that, without a special inquiry, it would be difficult to determine in the less well-organised trades in which many of the profit-sharing schemes have been started, whether the wages paid are the full current district rates. Labour Co-partnership is an extension of Profit-sharing, enabling the worker to accumulate his share of profit in the capital of the business employing him, thus gaining the rights and responsi bilities of a shareholder. A still further stage is found in some co-partnership schemes which provide for a direct share in the management as well as a share in the profits, one or more seats on the board of directors being expressly reserved for representatives of the workpeople. The present investigation has brought to light a large number of profit-sharing schemes in private firms and companies which were not mentioned in the 1894 Report, and the number of schemes now known to be in operation is 133, the number of workpeople employed by the firms having such schemes being about 106,000. These 133 schemes are the survivors of nearly 300 profit-sharing arrangements of which 163 have been abandoned. (245 8—4.) Wt. 7032—3889. 2500 & 90. 11/12. D & 8, A