hout incurring farther responsibility, it
is only necessary to publish the sums contributed by them: no farther
information regarding them would be of any use, unless to their
fellow-partners, who would perhaps like to know if the concern is
patronised by men of sense, and they may satisfy themselves by looking
at the deed of partnership. Now, there is perfect fairness in all
this. The public know the persons who agree to take the full
responsibility; they know also the amount of money put into their
hands by other parties. In deciding whether they shall deal or not
with this body, they are not perplexed by mysterious visions of
possible rich unknowns who may be brought in for the company's
obligations. We cannot see that such an arrangement is in the least
unfair, and we are convinced that it would be productive of great
good. The subscribers with limited responsibility, or
_commanditaires_, as they are called, are not cut off from all control
over the management of their funds: it is their own fault if they join
a commandite company where they are not allowed to inspect the books,
and check rashness or extravagance.

It seems to be frequently the case, that a set of able workmen, in the
kind of artistic manufactures for which France is celebrated, become
the _gerants_ of such companies. This, we believe, is a form in which
whatever element of good may happen to lie in the co-operative
theories of a recent school of Socialists will be found. The
commercial witnesses before the select committee, spoke of ribbons and
other ornamental manufactures, which were only produced in perfection
in establishments where the energies of the designers were roused by
the possession of a share in the business, and in its management, as
_gerants_. Coinciding with these practical witnesses, the theorists on
political economy who were consulted on the occasion--such as Mr
Babbage and Mr J.S. Mill--held that many inventions that might be
patented and used, and many ingenious discoveries made by men of the
operative class, were lost to the world by the defective state of the
law. They would often get those who, richer than themselves, have
reliance on their judgment, to aid them in carrying out their
inventions or improvements, were it not for the law of unlimited
responsibility.

We can even anticipate, from anything that will facilitate fruitful
investment by the working-classes, a still wider--we might say, a
political effect. The chi