75 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.