GENJiUAL  SUMMARY.

11

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  prominently ­
  to  light  is  the  marked  increase  in  those  forms  of  Profitsharing
  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  applicability ­
  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  Companies ­
  afford  a  field  exceptionally  favourable  for  the  application ­
  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  Copartnership, ­
  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