CO -OPERATIVE SYSTEMS. There seems to be a longing iu modern society for the dis covery of some new mode of remunerating the workman for the skill and labour which he bestows on manufacturing operations. Under the usual arrangements the employer agrees with the workman for a certain money pay ment, determined either on the quantity of work done or on the number of hours engaged : in other words, by piece-work' or by day work.' The relative supply and demand of work to be done and of persons to do the work, is almost the only condition which de termines the amount of wages to be paid. for labour. It is wished at the present day, and it has often been wished in former periods. that some mode could be devised by which the workman would have a deeper persona] interest in the success of the firm for which he works, than he now has ; that some sort of partnership system could be introduced, which would make the workman a partner on a hum ble scale, and yet leave to the capitalist and to the skilled superintendent a proper degree of liberty and of remuneration. Something of
this kind is observable in the system on which the Cornish miners work ; and many earnest persons are endeavouring to test the practica bility of applying a similar system to manu factures generally.
If any clear and undoubted result had yet developed itself, we would. briefly review the subject in this place ; but the attempts hitherto made are too much in their infancy for us to do more than point out a few sources where the reader can obtain information on both sides of the question. Among the works we would name are Mr. Babbage's " Economy of Machinery and Manufactures"; Mr. Mill's "Political Economy ;" "Companion to the British Almanac," for 1851; "Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on the Savings of the Middle and Working Classes," in 1850; "Edinburgh. Review," January 1851; and the Reports of various co-operative asso ciations.