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ON INDUSTRIAL PARTNERSHfPS, 153
be regulated ? He apprehended them m-t be a didion
between the profits of the merchant and those of the mmufacturer.
There must, in fact, be a difilerence of profit in
every business. In the cotton businea you could not 8
fair average on a term of less than ten years.
Mr. Applegarth believed that many of the good things
detailed by the lecturer were not entirely attributable to the
principle of industrial partnerships. All that could be said
in its favour, could also be said of the Nottingham stocking
weavers, both as regarded the establishment of peace and the
material advantage of increased wages. Tho lecturer had
spoken of the attempts of the unions to enforce a uniform
rate of wages throughout the trade, but they never had
attempted to do so. They fixed a minimum rate, and merely
said a skilled workman should receive this, but they did not
in any way prevent his obtaining more. Tho lecturer had prophesied
the bankruptcy of the unions, but he (Mr. Applegarth)
said they mould not break. He admitted tho ten years’ existence
of the Amalgamated Carpenters was not enough to justify
this assertion; perhaps the twenty years of tho Amalgamated
Engineers waa scarcely sufficient, bnt there mas the society
of the Ironfounders, which had existed for fifty-seven years
upon the same principles, and he thought this experience was
worth more than all the calculations of actuaries. He would
ask the lecturer to point out where working-men were earning
&lo0 a year. In the carpenters’ trade, which was ono of the
most skilled in the country, tho wages wcre 28s. per week, and
he thought that not one man in five had fifty-two weeks’ work
in the year. This brought the amount under &72 a year. Ho
admitted that their own vices and failings were accountable for
many of the grievances from which they suffered. It had been
said that a great dif€iculty arose from their want of knowledge;
but where did the practical knowledge come from for conducting
the industries of the country? All the skill in the building
trade had come from the bench side, and the masters in th
business had been working-men. Some years ago he had
been much in favour of industrial partnerships, because he
thought everything would be of value that would give the