WHAT IS MEANT BY LABOUR CO-PARTNERSHIP. 
9 
receive, in partial remuneration of tlieir labour, and in addition 
to their wages, a share, fixed beforehand, in the profits realised by 
the undertaking to which the profit-sharing scheme relates. 
What is meant by “ Labour Co-partnership.” 
The sense in which the term “Labour Oo-partnersliip" is 
employed may be explained by quoting the words recently used 
by some distinguished advocates of the system. In a Memoran 
dum on “ Co-partnership and Labour Unrest,” issued in October, 
1911,* it is stated that: — 
“ The Co-partnership of Labour with Capital is capable of many 
modifications according to the needs of varying industries, and in 
some one of them it is applicable to almost every industry where 
labour is employed. In its simplest form, taking the case of a man 
employed by a great Limited Liability Company, it involves: — 
1. That the worker should receive, in addition to the standard 
wages of the trade, some share in the final profit of the 
business, or the economy of production. 
2. That the worker should accumulate his share of profit, or 
part thereof, in the capital of the business employing 
him, thus gaining the ordinary rights and responsi 
bilities of a shareholder.” 
Profit-sharing and Labour Co-partnership exist in two fairly 
distinct forms, these methods being applied, on the one hand, in 
Co-operative Societies (associations mainly or entirely composed of 
and managed by workmen, or in the case of Agricultural 
Societies, by small farmers), and, on the other hand, in ordinary 
non-co-operative businesses. It will be convenient to treat of 
these two different kinds of industrial organisations in separate 
parts of this Report. Profit-sharing in private firms and com 
panies is dealt with first, as this is probably the aspect which has 
received most general attention. 
c This Memorandum was signed by Lord Courtney of Penwith, the Right 
Hon. Thomas Burt, M.P., the Right Hon. C. Fenwick, M.P., the late 
J. M. Ludlow, C.B., Sir W. H. Lever, Bart., Sir B. C. Browne, Dr. Alfred 
Marshall,-and Messrs. W. IT. Hadow, T. C. Taylor, M.P., George Thomson, 
Corbet Woodall, Chas. Carpenter, and E. O. Greening ; also, on behalf of the 
Executive of the Labour Co-partnership Association, by Mr. Amos Mann, its 
President, Mr. Aneurin Williams, then Hon. Treasurer, and Mr. Henry Vivian, 
then Hon. Secretary of the Association.