are naturally not as well satisfied with an even distribution according to previous salaries as they would be by varying it and recognizing the value of each in a special way, by increasing the salary when they deserve it, and I am at a loss today to know which is the safest basis on which to proceed. One has to recognize the varying deserts of employés and it brings in a complex element, for one cannot both raise the salary and give an extra allowance at the same time. If all would be content to continue to receive the same salary of the previous year and allow the distribution of extra dividends to be made pro rata on the salaries received, it would be very simple. That was the basis of our former allowance.
This reveals some of the difficulties of the plan when applied to a business not homogeneous.
Pomeroy Brothers, Manufacturing Chemists, of Newark, N. J., divided profits for two or three years previous to the recent business depression. Workmen who had been with the firm for more than six months and less than two years did or did not share in the dividend as the employers might decide; those who had been with the firm for more than two years shared in proportion to their wages. The readoption of the plan depends upon the attitude of new members of the corporation as well as a revival of business. The position of the president of the company is unequivocal. He writes:
If I can see my way clear to it, I would like to extend the profit sharing so that finally a committee chosen by the older and the best employés should have a large share in the management of the business, and perhaps finally the complete mangement of it, and that all the employés should share to a much larger extent than they do now in the profits, perhaps in all the profits instead of in a small part of them after the salaries are paid and the interest on the capital. But that is in the future and must be slowly worked out.
The Golden Pressed and Fire Brick Company, of Denver, Col, adopted the plan in 1891. After paying 5 per cent, on the capital stock of the company, no salaries allowed for superintendence, half of the profits were to go to stockholders and half to the employés, including all in the employ of the company for the previous six months. The basis of the division was the ratio
