DIFFICULTIES TO BE MET 133 



some. Therefore a means would have to be 

 devised of safeguarding the business, while 

 leaving to the workmen their undoubted right 

 to move on at pleasure. 



There are two ways in which this might be 

 done. It might be made compulsory to give 

 adequate notice of intention to withdraw capital 

 from a business in this manner, and, on the ex- 

 piring of the notice, the shares to be priced at 

 their market value and bought in from the reserve 

 fund ; or the business might be protected against 

 the inconvenience by insurance, just as the shares 

 of the workmen are protected. 



But a workman, instead of desiring to leave a 

 particular business, might make a habit of being 

 idle ; or he might often absent himself from work. 

 It is not the business at present of industrious 

 workmen to take any notice of the idle ; but that 

 would not be the case when the future of the 

 workmen as a body, and the future of the con- 

 cern, had become one. Therefore it is not prob- 

 able that the workmen who wished to succeed 

 would long tolerate in their midst a drone, nor 

 that they would share their advantages with the 

 habitual holiday-maker. 



It is supposed by some that co-operation can 

 never be general, since it is inapplicable to the 

 case of any new undertaking. The reason as- 

 signed for this is that new undertakings are 

 competitive, and must therefore meet the deter- 

 mined hostility of existing undertakings in the 

 same line. Such large sums are required to 

 overcome this hostility that no new undertaking 



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