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Manual of Political Economy.
of the individual trader or manufacturer. With one or two exceptions there are no individuals who have capital enough for the construction and maintenance of such works as railways, docks and canals; and therefore such undertakings must be carried out by joint-stock companies. But if a joint-stock company conducts some ordinary business, it is often placed in a comparatively disadvantageous position, because the energy and watchfulness are wanting which an individual exercises when a business is his own. If competition is active, a business cannot be successful unless all its operations are conducted with energy, and unless economy is secured by constant vigilance. In a joint-stock company all depends upon the manager or agent.
owing to the want of interest on the part of the managers.The individual shareholders are not sufficiently interested to take any part in the management of the concern. Men can very rarely be found who are as careful with other people's property as they would be with their own. The manager of a company may do nothing which is in the slightest degree dishonest; it may be impossible to single out any particular instance in which he has neglected to do his duty, yet the position in which he is placed will not probably call forth those qualities which not only distinguish the good man of business, but which also cause the success of commercial undertakings. If however the manager is partly remunerated by a share of the profits realised, he will no doubt be stimulated to much greater exertion; in fact he will be made to feel the same kind of interest in the success of the business as if it were his own, and many of the disadvantages to which we have just referred as impeding the success of joint-stock companies will be removed. Joint-stock trading companies have frequently failed, because those concerned m their management have not a sufficiently strong pecuniary interest in their success. There can be no doubt that individual employers suffer most serious losses from the listlessness and apathy of their workmen, although such employers have the strongest motives to prevent neglect of work by their labourers; the losses however which are thus incurred will be still more serious in the case of a trading company, when the labourers are only watched
