﻿90	IV.—CONVERSION OF ORDINARY BUSINESSES INTO

CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES.

out of the Assurance and Pension Fund, a sum of £5, and if not
less than ten years, £10.

It would appear that the position occupied hy the workpeople
of Wm. Thomson & Sons, Limited, is of such a nature that they
identify themselves to a remarkable extent with the interests
of the business. The very considerable sums contributed out of
their wages by the workpeople in order that the shareholders
should not receive less than their usual return of 5 per cent, have
already been mentioned. As further exemplifying the feelings
entertained by the workpeople it may be observed that, as was
reported in 1890, one of the workmen having invented a great
improvement in weaving, instead of patenting it for his. own
benefit, presented his invention to the Society.

From the point of view of the management, the fact that the
workpeople are directly interested in the business is found to
result in their exhibiting increased application and avoiding
waste; it also makes the management much less costly, because,
as Mr. Thomson has said, “ each man and woman becomes his
or her own manager.” At the same time the services rendered
by Mr. Thomson as head of the business are so highly appreciated
that his original salary of £500 a year was, within a few years
after the formation of the Society, increased by the Committee to
a very considerable extent. In 1891 Mr. Thomson informed the
annual meeting that he was prepared to have the rule requiring
a five-sixths majority before he could be removed from the
management modified so that a smaller proportion would be
required in order to depose him; but “ it was unanimously
proposed not to alter the system, because, as it was then, they
were perfectly satisfied with it.” Mr. Thomson also offered to
give up the autocratic authority reserved to him as manager by
the rules; but, although this offer was repeated in 1892 and
again in 1893, on no occasion was the desire expressed that his
position should be altered.

BROWNFIELD’S GUILD POTTERY SOCIETY, LTD.

The second of the three cases in which an ordinary business has
been turned into a Co-operative Society is that of Brownfield’s
Guild Pottery Society, Limited. Mr. Arthur Brownfield, the
owner of the old-established pottery works of Messrs. William
Brownfield and Sons, at Cobridge, in Staffordshire, determined, in
consequence of the lock-out which took place in the pottery in-
dustry in 1891, but in which his firm was in no way concerned,
to place this undertaking upon a new footing by transferring it
to a Co-operative Society, which was registered under the Indus-
trial and Provident Societies Act in October, 1892, and commenced
to manufacture in January, 1893. The following account of the
start of the Society, reprinted from the Report on Profit-sharing
published by the Board of Trade in 1894 (C.—7458), shows the
history of this experiment up to that date : —

The share in the assets of the late firm, which belonged to Mr. Arthur
Brownfield, the founder of the society, is represented by £6,000 deferred
stock carrying interest at 5 per cent., which “ shall not confer a right to
demand payment of the principal from the society so long as any claim