Plowed-Back Earnings 75 
ufacturing by 14.9 per cent; metals and mining by 
13.9 per cent; stores by 12.4 per cent; chemicals and 
drugs by 12.3 per cent; rubber by 11.3 per cent; 
tobacco.by 9.2 per cent; oils by 6.7 per cent; food 
and food products by 4.7 per cent. Class 1 railroads 
increased profits by 4.2 per cent in 1927, as com- 
pared with 1923. 
Moreover, dividend and interest payments 
increased by 7 per cent in average annual rate of 
change from 1922 to 1927, inclusive. The total 
dividend payments of street railways, industrial and 
miscellaneous corporations and steam railroads in- 
creased yearly in this period by 6.7 per cent, rang- 
ing from 4.5 per cent increase for steam railroads 
to 12.5 per cent for street railways, with a 6.8 per 
cent increase for industrial and miscellaneous. 
In the same period 1923 to 1927, inclusive, of 
expanding production and rising profits, the report on 
Recent Economic Changes says that while the num- 
ber of business failures increased by about 1 per 
cent a year, yet the liabilities of business failures de- 
clined at a rate in excess of ¢ per cent a year. 
“No-Net-Income” Corporations 
There remains to be considered the large per- 
centage of returns of corporations which show “no 
net income.” According to the analysis by the 
Bureau of Internal Revenue of the U. S. Treasury 
Department 54.7 per cent of all corporate tax re- 
turns are found to be companies with net incomes in 
1927. The remaining 45.3 per cent embrace corpo-