54 Co-operative Societies. Copartnership 



seemed to threaten our commercial greatness as a 

 nation. Strikes are the result of distrust between 

 employers and employed, and represent an effort on 

 the part of the labourers to improve their condition. 

 Strikes will not be prevented by discouraging trade 

 unions, but they may be avoided by co-partnership. 



There are combinations among employers as well as 

 among men, and a "lock-out" is really a strike of the 

 masters. There comes a time when the men make some 

 demand for shorter hours or for higher wages, which 

 the employers refuse to grant. If the men persist in 

 their demand, the employers throughout that district 

 discharge all their workmen. Their gates are closed, 

 and work is at an end, until one or other of the parties 

 gives way, or until some compromise is agreed to by 

 both parties. 



Co-partnership has been of great value in overcoming 

 this antagonism between capital and labour, and every 

 employer who has given it a fair trial in his own business 

 finds that it brings him greater profits. In one instance 

 a colliery company had suffered great loss owing to 

 frequent strikes, and it was resolved to try a partnership 

 between capital and labour. The proprietors converted 

 their business into a joint-stock company, in which 

 they kept two -thirds of the shares, offering the 

 remaining one -third to the men employed in the mines. 

 These shares were quickly taken up, and thus a work- 

 man, even if he owned only one share, was a partner 

 in the business. The company was managed by 

 directors, one of whom was a workman. When the 

 profits on capital were over 10 per cent, it was agreed 

 that half the balance should be distributed as a bonus, 

 each workman receiving a sum in proportion to the 



