Some of them have been working here for three generations.
They know as well as you and I and the books do when the mills are
making money. Now I wish that we could give them the ten per cent.
back again, but in view of the general depression perhaps we can't do
that except in the way I mean. I think that next year we're going to
have a very hard pull to get along, but if we can keep back three per
cent., or even two, of this dividend we can not only manage to get on
without a shut-down or touching our surplus, which is quite small
enough, but I can have some painting and repairing done in the
tenements. They've needed it for a long time--"
The old director sprang to his feet. "Aren't the stockholders going to
have any rights then?" he demanded. "Within fifteen years we have had
three years when we have passed our dividends, but the operatives
never can lose a single day's pay!"
"That was before my time," said the agent, quietly. "We have averaged
nearly six and a half per cent. a year taking the last twenty years
together, and if you go back farther the average is even larger. This
has always been a paying property; we've got our new machinery now,
and everything in the mills themselves is just where we want it. I
look for far better times after this next year, but the market is
glutted with goods of our kind, and nothing is going to be gained by
cut-downs and forcing lower-cost goods into it. Still, I can keep
things going one way and another, making yarn and so on," he said
pleadingly.
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