by a manager, who is comparatively uninterested. A joint-stock trading company would even be more benefited than the individual trader, by adopting some course, if it were practicable, which would give the labourers a pecuniary interest in their work, for in this manner the energy and skill of the workmen might with greater certainty be secured. Joint-stock companies have always experienced the greatest obstacles in retail trades, where the transactions are numerous and small. The petty details of such businesses seem particularly to require the energy of individual management.
Special advantage of cooperative stores.The cooperative stores, however, which have assumed so much prominence all over the country, especially in London and in the north of England, are joint-stock companies; the capital is supplied by a large number of shareholders. Yet these societies have engaged with the most remarkable success in the ordinary retail trades, conducted by grocers, drapers, chemists, wine-merchants, coal-merchants, bakers, butchers, &c The success of these societies not only proves that the disadvantages of the joint-stock system have been much exaggerated, but also indicates how the most prominent of these disadvantages may be overcome. The prosperity of the cooperative stores is probably mainly due to the ready-money system which they invariably adopt; the smallest sum is consequently never lost in bad debts.
The extension of the joint-stock system desirable.It is in every respect advantageous to a country, that the joint-stock system should be encouraged; it greatly promotes the production of wealth. Small capital which, if separately applied, would do little towards the production of wealth, are brought together by joint-stock companies, and accomplish industrial works of the utmost importance. A thousand individuals who have saved lOOl. each, may not have the time, capacity, or inclination themselves to employ the money in any business. If each of these individuals subscribed his lOOl to one common fund, a capital would be created sufficient to work a large Manchester manufactory; they would become proprietors and promoters of a great commercial concern, annually producing a large amount of wealth, and annually employing many hundreds of labourers.
