INDUSTRIAL CO-PARTNERSHIP

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1408, 8 April 1912, Page 4

INDUSTRIAL CO-PARTNERSHIP

At a time like the present people are naturally turning to examine the merits of various plans for removing, or at least mitigating, industrial unrest. It was therefore not surprising that the principle of industrial co-partnership has lately received a good deal of attention both in the House of Commons and in the English newspapers. Nobody, of course, contends that co-partner-ship is a remedy for all economic ills, but experience has certainly proved that it can be so applied to the working of great productive enterprises as to benefit both capital and labour. It is in the gas companies of many English cities and towns that the co-partnership system has been most strikingly dcveloned and most thoroughly tested. The late Sir George Livesay started it in the South Metropolitan Gas Company nearly a quarter of a ccntmry ago. "He brought lasting peace and goodwill to a huge business," says a writer in the Westminster Gazette, "and showed the way to that desired end in others. Year after year he was able to claim that, owing to the economical production resulting from tho spirit of co-operation, his company was able to pay their employees a higher wage than that received by any other gas-workers in tho country, to pay a higher dividend to the shareholders than was received from any other metropolitan company, and, further, to sell gas more cheaply." Thirty-four British gas companies, having a total capital of £50,000,000—which is more than half the total paid-up capital of all the gas companies in Britain —are now working on co-partner-ship lines. The twenty-nine companies which had adopted the system up to the end of 1910 had IfI.SOO employees, whose share of the profits for (he preceding twelve mouths anuninlcd to JJrtH.Sfirt. The tolal for tin- whole series of years during which tlie gas companies had had the. system in operation was ,C(iß7,-8-Sti, and five-sixths of this sum represented capital invested in the companies in the names of the workers. The co-partnership schemes adopted by various companies differ in detail, but the payment of the standard wage is a condition of nil of thorn. Upon tlwf baala uomo com-

lion of their profits in the form of a. liuiuis on wages. In others these bonuses ;u'f reinvested in the businesses in tie: names of (.lie employees, hi some I lii' employe's must bjar losses (if any) on their capital, as well as profit:;. In others a dividend is guaranteed them, hut it fluctuates according to Ihe profits of the business. Thus (he employees of the great engineering linn ol Armstrong, Whilwurth, and Co. receive upon their ii!:!7,Sfd of invested capital a minimum dividend of -\ per cent., which may rise in good years to ( ; per cent. The ordinary wages of tlie employees are, of course, in all eases the first charge. The outside shareholders come next, receiving in some instances 5 per cent., and in others (J per cent,, and then sharing the halance of the profits with the work-people. A very interesting example of co-partnership in its fullest sense is that of Messrs. Leveii Brothers, of Port Sunlight. AVc fpiote again from the Westminster: "In the three years since the scheme | was introduced the employees have received in respect of past services partnership certificates representing nominal capital of £298,731, and ai : together half a million pounds' worth are to he distributed according to the. wages earned. The company's shares—thai is. capital—first receive 5 per cent.,, and then stand on the same basis as the partnership certificates in sharing the remainder of the profit earned. This year the co-partners received a dividend of 10 per cent.,' amounting to £28,702." Co-partnership is also in successful operation in several instances in_lhe cloth manufacturing, shipbuilding, confectionery, printing, Mom-milling, and bootmaking trades. Lonn Funxess's co-partnership scheme, by the way, seems to be going on satisfactorily, notwithstanding the opposition shown at the outset by certain trades unionist leaders, for tho employees .recently received a dividend of 9 per cent. The application of co-partnership principles to coal mining has been advocated, and the idea, has the approval of the veteran mining leader, Mr. Thomas Burt, M.P. Of course, such proposals arc sure to be mistrusted by those who thrive upon inculcating' the fallacy that' the interests of employer and employee are necessarily hostile, hut its record of success,' the economies which result from, unity and contentment, and the solid benefits it lias already conferred upon all concerned will certainly cause it to be more widely adopted.