Company D is an engineering firm. The balance-sheet is dated 1904. The issued capital is £3,500,000 and there are £1,500,000 of 4 per cent. debentures. The net profits for the year were £636,000, which sufficed, after paying debenture interest, preference dividend, directors' fees, etc., to give the ordinary shareholders 15 per cent. It is not probable that the wages paid in a year are greater than the £636,000 of net profit, but if they amount to £1,000,000, which is unlikely, the workers of the Company gain little more than the shareholders.
Company E is a restaurant company. Date of balance-sheet 1903. The issued capital is £325,000 and in addition there are £100,000 of debentures. The profits for the year amounted to £52,000. After paying debenture interest, and preference dividend, the ordinary shareholders got 16 per cent. The amount of wages paid is not known, but it is probably under £20,000. To take this liberal estimate, the workers get £20,000; the sleeping partners £52,000.
Company F is an engineering concern; the balance-sheet is for 1903. The issued capital is £5,000,000 and there are debentures for £2,250,000. The net profits for the year amounted to £556,000. After paying debenture interest and preference dividend, 10 per cent. was paid to the ordinary shareholders. Again it is impossible to state with accuracy the amount of wages paid, but it is improbable that they exceed the amount of the net profit. 5,000 men at £80 per annum would come to £400,000.
Company G is engaged in manufacturing cotton. Its capital is £10,000,000 and there are debentures for over £1,000,000. The net profit (the balance-sheet is for 1903) amounted to £2,684,000, which is a return of 25 per cent. on the entire capital. I do not know the wages bill, but if the company employed 5,000 people at £100 a year each, and 10,000 more at £50 a year each the total wages would be £1,000,000. Such employment would still leave the sleeping partners with nearly three times as much increment as the workpeople!
Company H is a restaurant company, which fortunately gives us a profit and loss account. The balance-sheet is for 1904. The issued capital is £570,000 and in addition there are £300,000 of 4 per cent. debentures. The profit and loss account shows the following figures:
| Gross Profit on Trading | £474,000 |
| Salaries, wages, rents, rates, repairs, horsekeep, maintenance and other expenses | 327,000 |
| Profit | £147,000 |
Here we have the statement that included in the £327,000 of total expenses is a certain sum which was paid in salaries and wages. What was it? We do not know, but the company had 90 restaurants at each of which about 10 persons were engaged. That means 900 employees. If they were paid £40 a year each (as a matter of fact they were paid less than that) the wages would amount to £36,000. If, in addition, at headquarters, etc., 100 more people were employed at £100 each, that would mean another £10,000 a year or a total wages bill of £46,000. The net profits were £147,000. Therefore the investors got at least four times as much as those who worked to make the profits! As for the landlord's share, a glance at the figures shows that it must have been very small in proportion to that taken by the sleeping partners. Yet again the business is done upon some of the most valuable sites in the whole country. The business, indeed, is only valuable because of the sites, yet the capitalist and not the landlord takes the lion's share of the unearned increment .
Company I is a manufacturing firm in an important trade. The balance-sheet is for 1903 and the directors complain of "depression of trade." The issued capital is £500,000 and there are debentures for £300,000. The net profit made was £70,000 which, after paying debenture interest, sufficed to provide 10 per cent. for the shareholders. If the company "finds work" for 1,000 men at an average of £70 per man, the profits, even in depression, are more than is paid to the workmen who make the profits.
Company J works a great monopoly service under licence from the State.[29] The issued capital amounts to £5,500,000 and in addition there is Debenture Stock amounting to £3,570,000. In 1904 the income amounted to over £2,019,000 and the outlay, including rents, wages, materials, management, etc., to £1,155,000, leaving a net profit of £864,000. Of this the State took £186,000 for royalties, leaving a balance of £678,000 for the share and debenture holders. Thus the sleeping partners took far more than the entire earnings of managers, clerks, operators, and workmen. The number of individuals employed by this concern in 1904 was 30,000. As illustration of a fact already referred to, viz. that a great business needs but a small base, it may be added that the year's rents (building plus land rents), taxes and insurance came to only £77,000. Thus, while the landlords of most valuable sites took something much less than £77,000, the capitalists took £864,000 out of the business done upon the sites.
I have thus described the earning and distribution of a very considerable amount of income by 10 large industrial joint-stock companies. It should be observed that the profits made were won in a period of trade depression and falling wages, when short time and unemployment slew their thousands.