The co-operative manufacturing companies of Lancashire are doing a very
remarkable sort of business. A large crop of these enterprises, owned in £10 or £.5' shares, chiefly by the workmen to whom they give employment, has sprung up all through the central and eastern districts of Lancashire. In Oldham alone there are some eighty of such establishments, principally engaged in the cotton manufacture. Up to the present the profits appear to be both large and secure, but whether these concerns would weather the storm if another period of disaster were to operrfor the trade has been questioned. These enterprises, at any rate, have added enormously to the income as well as to the inde- pendence of the working-man, and the dividends are asitonish- ingly large. The way in which these dividends are obtained is simple. A number of workmen take 230,000 worth of shares and the remainder of the necessary capital, say 2.60,000, is borrowed on loan at 5 per cent., other co-operative societies being always ready to lend the money. If 15 per cent. profit be made upon the whole capital and 5 per cent, only paid on the loan, the shareholders can divide 35 per cent. The risk that darkens this agreeable prospect is that much of the loan capital is held at call, or at very short notice, and in a time of panic would be suddenly withdrawn, to the ruin of the concern. The workmen ought to arrange for increasing the proportion of shares and for extending the notice of their loans, even if they have to give up some part of their profits.
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