"This is, as we are persuaded, the only way whereby labor can receive justice. If a hundred dollars in money is invested in our stock, we issue certificates for that amount, and why must we not do the same with an investment of a hundred dollars' worth of labor? The claim in the latter case seems to us even more imperative than in the former. The dividend of each year ought, as we are convinced, to be made with reference solely to the difference between its gains on the one hand, and its expenditures and losses on the other.
"The earlier losses of the establishment must be regarded as the price of much valuable experience, and as inevitable in starting such an institution. Almost every business fails to pay its expenses at the commencement--it always costs something to set the wheels in operation; this is not, however, to be regarded as absolute loss. This is the view which is to be taken of the condition of the Association at the beginning of the present year.
"The true value of any property is precisely the sum on which, in the use for which it was designed or which it may be put to, it pays the requisite interest. The price of railroad stock, for example, is not regulated, either by its original cost or by the present intrinsic worth of the property it represents, but by the dividend it pays and by the condition and durability of the railroad. For any other use than as a railroad the property of the road is of course comparatively worthless, but that consideration has no effect upon its value.
"The case is entirely the same with the property of this Association. As long as it is able, in the use and under the management of the Association, to pay the stipulated interest--five per cent per annum--upon the stock shares by which it is represented, so long those stock shares will be worth par, whatever may be the nominal cost of the property, or its value for any other purposes than those of the Association.
"In accordance with these views and for other considerations which we shall hereafter allude to, this Direction is altogether of opinion that the results of this year's industry ought to be divided irrespective of the results of former years, and certificates of stock issued to those persons who are entitled to such dividends.