Nothing in this conclusion is meant to imply that the wage earners should not be free to enter into wage agreements calling for more than the standard wage. Or that profit sharing arrangements should not be permitted--on the contrary, such arrangements should be encouraged, provided the standard wage and the right of the wage earners' organization to be fully represented in such arrangements are not brought into question. The conclusion just reached is meant to apply also in the opposite case--that is, in the case of the profits of particular enterprises falling below the level defined as just and sound industry as a whole. The wages of the workers engaged in these enterprises should not, for that reason, be reduced. This conclusion, it is believed, is amply explained by what has been written in various other connections. Secondly: Even if almost all or all of the enterprises engaged in a particular industry should be in receipt of profits considerably in excess of what is conceived to be a fair profit return for industry as a whole, no attempt should be made to transfer the extra profits to the wage earners engaged in it by increasing their wages. Or to state the matter so as to include both this case and its opposite, the wages in any particular industry should not be adjusted by reference to the profits in that industry. It is clear that here we are upon difficult and very hotly disputed ground. At present, wages in different industries or occupations are not settled in accordance with any principle which includes them all and which is the basis of an ordered scheme of wage relationship. The existence of a very high profits return throughout a particular industry is an almost prima facie justification for a wage demand on the part of the wage earners employed in it. So too in the opposite case. And as long as wages are settled, as at present, it must be so; for the wage earners in each industry or occupation are dependent upon their own activity to make good their claims as against the other participants in distribution. It is this very state of affairs, however, that it is sought to supersede. In an earlier chapter it was argued that in order to maintain industrial peace, wages in different industries and occupations will have to be brought into relation with each other, which relation should rest upon defined principle. It is plain that, if any other principle were also to be adopted, under which wages in particular industries were adjusted by reference to the profits return in these industries, that scheme of relationship would be constantly disturbed. If wages in particular industries were adjusted with reference to the profits return in those industries, the result would be a series of uncoordinated wage movements in different parts of the industrial field, and the re-creation of a state of affairs not much different from the present.