﻿GENJiUAL SUMMARY.

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measure of control over tlie management of the undertakings by
which they are employed. At the same time, the opinions of
employers quoted or summarised in the following pages show
that the methods of Profit-sharing and Co-partnership are in
numerous instances considered hy practical men, who base their
judgment upon actual experience, to produce excellent results
in the direction both of developing a higher degree of efficiency
on the part of the employees, and of bringing about more
harmonious relations between employers and employed.

In comparing the details set forth in the present Iteport with
those stated in its predecessor, the fact that conies most pro-
minently to light is the marked increase in those forms of Profit-
sharing in which the method adopted is either to invest the
whole or part of the bonus in shares in the undertaking—shares
which generally though not always confer voting rights—or in
other ways to secure that the employees shall possess a direct
financial stake in the capital of the business. The idea of
making arrangements of this nature is not novel, but there has
been a considerable development of such systems within the last
few years; and it is to this form of Profit-sharing that public
attention is at the present moment principally directed.

A review of the facts shows that schemes involving investment
by employees in the capital of their employers’ businesses have
met with a large measure of success; but great caution is necessary
in drawing inferences of a general character from these results.
In the first place it is necessary to point out that in the great
majority of cases the experiments are of such comparatively
recent date tliatsit may be somewhat premature to found upon
the results which appear to have been attained in these instances
any very positive conclusions with regard to the general applica-
bility of the Co-partnership method.

Secondly, the fact that a large number of these experiments
have taken place in a single industry, and that this industry
(gas making) is carried on under very special circumstances and
enjoys exceptional advantages, must impose a certain degree of
caution in drawing deductions as to the applicability of such
systems to businesses of all kinds. Certainly, the Gras Com-
panies afford a field exceptionally favourable for the applica-
tion of co-partnership methods. The absence of bonus, caused
by insufficiency of profits, which in ordinary business not seldom
occurs, is practically unknown in Gas Companies. Their shares
and stock are often classed as “ gilt-edged securities,” and the
chance that employee-investors will lose their savings by the
liquidation of the company is so small as to be almost negligible.

1 hirdly, there is the point that the issue of shares to employees
means an addition to capital account, and this is not always
possible or desirable. Writing to the editor of Labour Co-
partnership, tlie organ of the Labour Co-partnership Association,
on November 1st, 190G, Mr. Alexander Horn (one of the
Managing Directors of Messrs. Clarke, Nickolls & Coombs,
Limited, who have in the last 22 years paid to their workpeople