The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-03-04

price of beef and the price of cattle e an indication Of profits is well shown by the fact that the true average mar gin between the live cost of all cattle killed by the Armour. Swift, Schwarse- child c sulxberser Companiss at their leading plants for the year 1so3 was 8 cents per hundred pounds greater than during the preceding twelve months 31-1o as compared with &1-Oz. Al . matter of fact, the computations of the bureau showed that there was virtually no -changs in the profita Of the business between these two peri ods. the pront being 13.l cents per
 hundred sounds of dressed beef in
 1902-05 and 13.5 cents in ie03-04.
 As. already stated. the. bureau has made its computations from the rec ords of the companies. The bureau
 has had access to all the price records of the leading packing companies and also to all the accounts and rcords,
 excepting car lines accounts. which de-
 termine the profits of the packers on
 beef ani it's by-products.
 < The computations made covered ten plants killing upward of 100000 cat- tie and was based on the total number
 of cattle killed. the absolute figures of live weight and the live cost of all dressed beef cattle( together with . moderate number of inferior gradss.l The actual cost of operation and ad- ministraticn of the various departments was ascertained from the book keep
 ing records and actual quantities and values were taken for the leading-by
 products.
 Not Over-CapitalissA.
 AS stated. the result of the Bureaus
 investigation indicated that the larger packing companies, especially consid- cred .are not over-capitaltzed Pre-.
 sumptive evidence in favor of fair capi- talization Is found in the very concen- trated holdings of the stocks of these oompanies, nearly all of which with the exception of Swift and Company are held by the packers themselves and their families. In the case of Swift and Company the entire $s5,ooo,oo0 cap ital stock and s5,ooo.o0o bonds were paid in in cash and at par.
 The conclusion of the report in re- gard to the operation of private car lines were approximate. The bureau | arrives at an average cost for a re- frigerator car of $1.000, an average yearly cost of maintenance of s1i5 per
 car and a net profit from the mileage | alone as already stated of from 14 per
 cent to about 17 per cent.
 4 statement submitted, by one conn pany-the Cudahy Packing Company nnoWS dh actudi ucI proAlt ou the oEi8i- nal investment in its ease of 22 per cent. In 1909, of 20 per cent. in 1S0s | and of TIT per cent, in 1904 These profits are entirely derived from the milage allowed owners of private cara
 by railroad companies. For refrigera- tor cars this milage Is generally three | fourths of cent but for a consider able section of the country Is one cent | per mile travelled.
 | The National Paoking Company men 1 tioned above as one fthe big six is ! "a merger of various packing plants particularly the so-oalled Hammond
 and Fowler properties. and is controlled | by Armour. Swift and Morris interests who constitute its board of directors Except for the National Packing Com pany, however. there appears to be
 practically no general inter-ownership
 of stock among the six principal com | panies.