employed by it productively to any share in the profits,' only 199 societies sent any reply, of which only 61 possessed 'productive' departments. Out of these 61 societies 10 orly claimed to practise Profit-sharing; but the claim of 3 must be disallowed (2 cases of commission on sales, 1 of sur-salaire not contingent on profits), while 3 more give no details as to the method which they practise. The remaining 4 are alone clear cases of Profit- sharing; though the amount of the share allotted to the work- men employed in these 'productive' departments is indicated in 2 only of these cases[1], being in each of these cases at the same rate as that paid to the customers as 'dividend on purchase.'
Such being the only statistics available on this point, it must suffice to say that a certain proportion, probably a somewhat small proportion, of our 1,418 ' distributive' co-operative societies practise Profit-sharing in regard to the persons employed in their 'productive' departments, the ratio of bonus to wages being in many, if not in most, cases the same as that of the 'dividend' on the purchases of a customer, say usually from five to ten per cent, but sometimes considerably higher. Here, again, as in the case of the shop assistants, comes in the doubt whether some part or the whole of this bonus is not in lieu of, rather than in addition to, the normal rate of wages. Without attaching too much importance to the accusation of paying low wages made against the co-operators at, and to a large extent endorsed by the action of, successive Trade Union Congresses, it is yet difficult to feel convinced that the workmen employed by these stores are in no case induced by the promise of bonus to submit to receive a lower rate of wages than they could and would otherwise obtain. Certainly, the assumption that bonus is accepted in lieu of wages is much more likely to be correct in the case of a co- operative store owned and managed by working-men than in that of an ordinary business. For in the latter case Profit-sharing is a novelty, and one regarded with much suspicion by the working classes; while the promise of a bonus averaging, say, seven and half per cent. on wages, possesses great force and attractiveness for persons accustomed to the announcement year after year of the 'dividend on purchase' of 1s. 6d. in the pound declared by the local co-operative society, and familiar with the details of its
balance-sheets, the publicity given to which provides an ample
- ↑ The two societies remarkable for the explicit character of their replies are two baking societies, which were up to 1889 considered to be 'distributive,' but which appear as ' productive' societies in the Returns for 1889 and 1890, and are therefore included in Table V. post.
