[Footnote 1:  Reports of the Paris Universal Exhibition, 1867, vol. vi., pp. 119—­141.]

One of the most promising of co-operative undertakings established by employers for the benefit of their workpeople, was that of the Messrs. Briggs and Son, of Whitwood collieries, near Wakefield.  The collieries were converted into a limited company in 1865.  The working colliers were made partners in the prosperity of the concern to this extent,—­that whenever the divisible profits accruing from the business in any year, after making allowance for depreciation, exceeded ten per cent, on the capital embarked, all those employed by the company were to receive one-half of such excess profit as a bonus, to be distributed amongst them in proportion to their respective earnings during the year.  The object of the owners was to put an end to strikes, which had sometimes placed them in peril of their lives, and also to enable them to live on better terms with their workpeople.  The colliers were invited to become shareholders, and thus to take a personal interest in the prosperity of the concern.

The project was received with great favour by the friends of co-operation.  Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his Principles of Political Economy, announced that “the Messrs. Briggs had taken the first step; and that it was highly honourable on the part of those employers of labour to have initiated a system so full of benefit both to the operatives employed and to the general interests of social improvement.”  Mr. Hughes, M.P., after visiting the collieries, expressed his surprise at the great success achieved in the first year of working the collieries as a partnership of industry.  “I believe,” he said to the owners, “that in taking this step you have done a great work for England, and one which will be gratefully recognized before long by the country.”  The promoters also claimed a reward from the Paris Universal Exhibition, for having been “the first large employers in England who have allowed all their workpeople, whether co-shareholders with them or not, to participate in all divisible profits beyond a fixed percentage on the paid-up capital of the company.”

Only a few years have passed, and already this promising partnership of industry has come to an end.  It has not been brought to an end by the masters, but by the men.  The masters were satisfied with the profits made during the recent high prices of coal; but the men were not satisfied with the wages.  Had they been as free as the Welsh colliers, they would have insisted on being paid as highly; but it would have been, as it was in Wales, ruinous to the masters.  The system of industrial partnership had at length to be abandoned, and the men now work for wages instead of for part-profits.  The truth is, the colliers were not sufficiently educated to appreciate the advantages of the industrial scheme.  Though some of the Whitwood workmen have been stimulated by thrift, to build and furnish houses of their own, the greater number of them, during the recent flush of prosperity, squandered their wages on frivolity, extravagance, and intemperance.