It is justly claimed that in many instances the wage-earners would not be benefited by a distribution in cash of a percentage of the profits, that they would fritter it away either foolishly or with lack of discretion. There is nothing to which the average family can adjust itself so easily and with such alacrity as to an increase in income. Could we but save the wastes of carelessness, the losses from strikes and lock-outs, and to these add the enlarged profits resulting from a broader co-operation and greater physical ability to produce, then capitalize and conserve all of these for the benefit of those who in each case have contributed their proportion—either in capital, brains or labor—to the enlarged success of the enterprise, we would have placed within reach better homes, better clothing, better food, better schools, and have taken a step forward which should inspire individuals of both classes with higher ambitions for a larger and better life. “Prosperity sharing,” strictly speaking, does not go, far enough, because it limits the amount awarded to labor to a small percentage of the real profits. The share must be small because “adversity sharing” does not accompany profit-sharing. In all fairness the share of labor in the margins of the business should be of such proportions that justice to all would make it alike a sharer in losses as well as in gains. By this we do not mean to say, when losses occur, that labor should contribute actual money to make good any portion of the impairment. Such a proposition would be impracticable and impossible. The share of labor in the surplus profits—that is, after the payment of standard wages and a just return to capital for its simple use—should be upon a most liberal basis, and any and all impairments suffered in years of adversity should be made good out of subsequent surplus earnings (in which, except for such impairment, labor would have been a sharer) before wages shall again be entitled to any further dividends. Amongst the various schemes that have been put into operation in those concerns which have endeavored to make their employees sharers in the profits of the business, the most familiar plan is that of offering to wages a dividend on the total amount thereof, at the same rate of percentage as is paid on the par value of the capital stock. This proposition is unfair, since in most industries the capital stock amounts to several times the total of the annual pay-roll. After the first adjustment upon that basis, the incentive to labor to strive for larger results is almost insignificant, since the share of wages in the subsequent increased earnings would, where the capital is equal to say four times the annual pay-roll, amount to only one-fifth of the increase in net earnings, the other four-fifths thereof going to capital.