8 I.—SCOPE OP INQUIRY. his labour. If, however, the company issues shares to its work men gratuitously or at a price below their market value, or otherwise upon specially favourable terms, thus making (to the extent of these concessions) a gift to those among its employees to whom these shares are issued, then this is a kind of Profit- sharing ; for, in a case like this, the dividends received by the shareholding employees are, in whole or in part, received in respect of this gift and as a reward of their labour supplemental to their wages. So, again, if a firm makes special arrangements by which it receives, by way of loan from its employees, sums entitled to a rate of interest varying with the profits, this may also be considered to be a kind of Profit-sharing. The report of the special Committee referred to above proceeds as follows: — “ Having explained what they understand by a 1 share in profits,’ the Committee direct attention to the requirements contained in the Congress resolution (i.e., the resolution of the 1889 Congress on Profit-sharing) that the share shall be ‘ fixed in advance.’ It is not necessary that the employees shall know all the details of the basis upon which the amount of their share is fixed; thus an employer may agree to give his employees one-half of all his profits in excess of a certain ‘ Reserved Limit,’ that limit being communicated only to an accountant who certifies what is due to the employees; this would he a case of Profit-sharing. On the other hand, if the share given to the employees is indeterminate, i.e., if the employer at the end of the year determines whether he shall give one- tenth or one-fifth, or some other fraction of his profits, to his employees, at his absolute discretion and not upon any pre-arranged basis—this is not Profit-sharing. “ The next question is, supposing the total amount which an employer is to give to his employees as a body to be fixed upon a pre-determined basis, must the share of each individual participant be similarly fixed? Or may the employer distribute this amount at his unfettered discretion among the dif ferent employees, according to his opinion of their merit or otherwise? In strictness, cases of the latter type might well be held not to fulfil our defini tion; but the Committee, on careful consideration, are not prepared to declare such cases inadmissible as instances of Profit-sharing, provided that in any event the whole of the employees’ share be distributed among all or some of the employees, except such as shall have forfeited their share by failure to comply with precise reasonable conditions of participation, but so that in.no case shall any part go back to the employer. “ It is important to inquire how far a distribution of profits must extend in order to constitute a case of Profit-sharing. If the distribution be confined to managers, foremen, and leading hands, or to any of such classes of employees, this, in the opinion of the Committee, is not Profit-sharing. A profit-sharing distribution may exclude persons who are not adults, or who have not been in the service of the employers for some reasonable qualifying period, but must, in order to come within the definition of Profit-sharing, include in any case a large proportion, which the Com mittee consider should not be less than 75 per cent.* of the total number of the adult employees who have been in the service of the employer for at least one year.” For the purposes of the present Report, the term “Profit- sharing ” has accordingly been used as applying to those cases in which an employer agrees with his employees that they shall While the general principle here laid down is accepted, it has not appeared proper to draw in this Report any such hard and fast line as to the irreducible minimum proportion of employees who must be participants.