﻿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.