sets, which, in spite of goodwill and patents having been
written off, looks as though they were fully valued at L179,765. The
shares are a fair industrial speculation.

12. _The Manchester Guardian_, June 19, 1916:

While everybody knows that the immense disbursements on the War have led
to a greater demand for labour than it is possible to meet at present
and that employers have done well, in spite of their difficulties, it is
perhaps not generally known how greatly the profits of nearly all the
public companies have increased during the last year. They have had to
pay higher wages in many cases, though not in all, their materials have
been much more costly, and their foreign trade has been hampered by
restrictions, in furtherance of the policy of preventing the enemy from
getting goods which he requires and which it is in our power to control.
Many, however, have done a large business for Allied Governments as well
as our own, especially in army equipment, and the demand for coal has
been greater than our power of supplying it. All our production has
commanded high prices, and profit margins have in most cases been very
large. It is a way that chairmen of companies have to take big profits
as being in the natural order of things, and dwell mostly on the
difficulties which have prevented them from showing even better results.
If this has obscured the real state of affairs it is desirable that the
other side of the picture should be clearly presented, for it is
impossible to understand the economic side of the War without a thorough
comprehension of its industrial effects.

We give below a tabular statement of profits which have been declared
this year, with the figures for two preceding years added so as to show
their true significance. Some are gross and others net profits, but in
this we have simply followed the methods adopted by the directors in
their reports, that being in practice the only way of showing how the
comparison stands. In some cases the capital has been increased during
the three years, but the extent to which that has occurred does not
affect the tables if they are regarded comprehensively. Some did very
badly in the first few months of the war, and the profits they declared
in 1915 look very small in comparison with those in the first column of
the tables. In those cases the third column will act as a corrective,
for in the main it shows the companies' normal earnings. It will be
noticed that s