In the commandite partnerships, however, the restriction of liability does not apply to all the shareholders, as in the case of our great joint-stock companies.  Full responsibility alights only on those partners who take it upon them, who have an interest in the profits measured by their responsibility, and who are known to the world to be so responsible.  With regard to those whose responsibility is said to be limited, it would be more accurate to say, that they have no responsibility at all:  there is a fixed sum which they have invested in the concern—­they may lose it, but it is there already; and there is nothing for which they have, properly speaking, to be responsible.  The method adopted in France may be described thus:—­There is a private act or contract, in which are given the names of the partners, and the sums contributed by them.  The names of the gerants, or those who, as ostensible conductors of the business, are to be responsible to the whole extent of their property, are then published.  With regard to those who put in money without incurring farther responsibility, it is only necessary to publish the sums contributed by them:  no farther information regarding them would be of any use, unless to their fellow-partners, who would perhaps like to know if the concern is patronised by men of sense, and they may satisfy themselves by looking at the deed of partnership.  Now, there is perfect fairness in all this.  The public know the persons who agree to take the full responsibility; they know also the amount of money put into their hands by other parties.  In deciding whether they shall deal or not with this body, they are not perplexed by mysterious visions of possible rich unknowns who may be brought in for the company’s obligations.  We cannot see that such an arrangement is in the least unfair, and we are convinced that it would be productive of great good.  The subscribers with limited responsibility, or commanditaires, as they are called, are not cut off from all control over the management of their funds:  it is their own fault if they join a commandite company where they are not allowed to inspect the books, and check rashness or extravagance.

It seems to be frequently the case, that a set of able workmen, in the kind of artistic manufactures for which France is celebrated, become the gerants of such companies.  This, we believe, is a form in which whatever element of good may happen to lie in the co-operative theories of a recent school of Socialists will be found.  The commercial witnesses before the select committee, spoke of ribbons and other ornamental manufactures, which were only produced in perfection in establishments where the energies of the designers were roused by the possession of a share in the business, and in its management, as gerants.  Coinciding with these practical witnesses, the theorists on political economy who were consulted on the occasion—­such as Mr Babbage and Mr J.S.  Mill—­held that many inventions that might be patented and used, and many ingenious discoveries made by men of the operative class, were lost to the world by the defective state of the law.  They would often get those who, richer than themselves, have reliance on their judgment, to aid them in carrying out their inventions or improvements, were it not for the law of unlimited responsibility.