It has been a source of regret and some disappointment to us that notwithstanding our endeavour to place our plan before you in the clearest light, and to arrange the working of the company on principles the fairest and moat advantageous to you as workmen, we have not been able to induce very many of you to take advantage of the great and unprecedented opportunity offered to you. This must have arisen in great measure from your having failed thoroughly to understand our proposal. I therefore now address to you some remarks on the subject, in such a form that each of you may at his leisure read over, study, and thoroughly understand the plan we have resolved to adopt.
As we have already stated in our prospectus, we intend to admit as shareholders in the company—first, any or all of those employed by us, and secondly, any or all of those who are accustomed to buy produce of our collieries. In fact, we wish to adopt a principal of working so thoroughly co-operative, that if fully carried out the strikes and locks-out now so prevalent in all trades, and which all respectable workmen and kind-hearted employers must alike deplore, will be rendered impossible for the future. In order to do this, we not only allow our workmen to become shareholders in our undertaking on the same terms, in proportion to the relative amounts of capital, as ourselves, but we recommend that whenever the divisible profits of the business shall (after making due allowance for restoration of capital, andother legitimate purposes) exceed 10 per cant upon the capital embarked, all those employed by the company, whether as managers, agents, or workmen, shall receive one-half of excess of profits, as a percentage on the amount of their earnings during the year in which the profit shall have arisen. This proposal having been duly laid before a meeting of working shareholders held at Methley Junction on the 22nd of March 1865, it was then agreed to try the plan for the year ending June 30th, 1866, upon the conditions laid down in the following rules. You will observe that it has with justice been considered as but fair that those workmen who have by taking shares joined in some degree in the risks of the undertaking, should receive some preference in the distribution of the hoped-for bonus over those who have not thought proper in any degree to identify themselves with the project.
