27 MAY 1865, Page 2

The Working Men's Club and Institute Union are giving a

series of social meetings at Exeter Hall, to enable the working classes to discuss with the thinking mien in other classes the various problems bearing on the organization of labour. They appear to be very succesoful. Last Tuesday the dise- ussioa turned on a plan for co-operation and partnership between masters and men in a Yorkshire Colliery,—that of the Messrs. Briggs, proprietors of the Whitwood and Methley Colliery, near Normanton, Yorkshire. These gentlemen had put their fixed capital eider the control of a limited company, reserving to themselves two-thirds of the shares, and giving the preference to their own workmen in the re- mainder, and providing that whenever the profits should exceed 10 per cent. on the capital embarked, all the clerks and employes should have one-half such excess profit divided between them as bonus, in proportion to their earnings. This plan for identifying the interests of labour with capital, and yet securing the pre- dominant influence of experienced capitalists, excited much interest among the working men present, and received the approbation of Lord Lyttelton, who was in the chair.