opportunity to conduct a large amount of personal correspondence with a great many manufacturers and central stations during the past year, and, while most of this correspondence has been semi-confidential, a summary of the general facts obtained forms a basis for committee work for another year and will be presented orally at the Chicago meeting.

Educational Situation

The three purposes of the Transportation Engineering Committee have been touched upon in this report: First, to gather comparative data from manufacturers on costs, a part of the committee work which has been broadened by the Comparative Data Committee. Second, to take an inventory of service and methods used by different central stations in promoting the electric vehicle locally. Third, to continue the survey of educational institutions for the object of bringing before them various ways in which electricity serves in motor transport. In the educational field it is worth recording that the Yale University, since the last report, has definitely committed itself to a chair of transportation engineering,

and that such a chair has been established under the bequest of Lord Strathcona.

În concluding this report the Transportation Engineering Committee would suggest that next year the following information be actively solicited as a basis for forwarding local transportation engineering work:

(1). Tabulate the following material:

(a) How many central stations now have elec-
tric vehicle bureaus?

(b) How many have special charging rate?
(c) What is the rate?

(d) What have local companies done to help
manufacturers furnish service?

(e)

(f)

CHAIRMAN MANSFIELD: This is a very interesting report, and something very important. There will be a great deal of good come from that in the years to come. We are very nearly at the expiration of our time, and I am not going to use up any more, because the other gentlemen have been very generous to us, allowing us the use of the noon hour. This is the first year that the Electric Vehicle Bureau has been a part of the Commercial Section, and I want all of our electric vehicle men to give as much support as possible to the Commercial Section as well as the N. E. L. A., to make them feel that you are interested in their work, as well as expecting them to be interested in ours. That is the proper sort of co-operation.

There are some interesting papers coming. The next one on "Compensation of Salesmen" is just as interesting to electric vehicle men as to central stations, and I want Mr. Goodwin to have a good audience when he speaks.

MR. FAGAN: I cannot help but take this opportunity of making a motion. I think most of you gentlemen attended the luncheon today, and I want to make a motion that this body give a rising

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vote of thanks and congratulation to Mr. Mansfield and Mr. Seelman for the excellent showing that was made today, and I assure you gentlemen it was brought about through a lot of hard work on their part.

(The members in attendance stood.)

(At this point Chairman Seelman resumed the Chair.)

THE CHAIRMAN: There is no necessity to put the motion. I see it is carried without being put.

MR. MANSFIELD: Mr. Chairman, that is very gratifying, but what we are looking for is results, not bouquets.

THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Chairman of the Electric Vehicle Bureau, in spite of what you just said, I cannot help in all fairness handing you another bouquet. I want to tell you that we appreciate very highly these two things: first of all, the way you have handled the Electric Vehicle Bureau this year, the first year of its connection with the Commercial Section, the efficiency and value that have accrued from your work as shown in these

It also provides for the payment of a smaller commission on "successor" contracts limited to one within a definite period.

It is interesting to note that in the case of house wiring contracts a larger commission is paid on all floor or chair rail receptacles, than on lighting outlets, when they are in addition to the regular lighting outlets in the same room.

Ninety per cent of the commission is paid to the salesman and 10 per cent to the supervisor in charge. It further provides for the imposing of penalties for discontinued business upon which commissions have been paid.

The Committee finds that the industry has lost to other lines of business a large number of its salesmen in the past on account of the higher compensation offered in other lines of trade and the class of services offered by salesmen identified with the Central Station industry.

It is the opinion of the Committee that the salesmen in this industry should be compensated, at least, to such an extent that they will remain with the industry, other conditions being equal, and not be attracted away from the industry solely by reason of larger compensation offered by other lines of business.

It is recommended by the Committee, with the view of increasing the earning capacity of the salesmen, where it is desired to secure any special class of business-in short wherever it is desirable to intensively promote the sale of any particular class of service or appliance-that the member companies resort to a commission in addition to a salary to stimulate, encourage and further compensate the salesman, thus enabling the companies to attain the desired results with more and greater success at a lower total cost than they could hope to secure on a regular straight salary basis.

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THE CHAIRMAN: Gentlemen, you have heard this interesting report of the Compensation of Salesmen Committee. It is brief, but it represents considerable research work during the past year and is of considerable significance. Is there anybody who has anything to add to that or would like to discuss it? If so we will be very glad to hear from him.

H. P. GOULD: Mr. Chairman, has the industry considered paying the salesmen on the basis of how hard it is to get business in the territory in which they work, and also on the basis of whether the business itself is profitable to the company? That is important, but you will find that the salesmen will take the line of least resistance, most of them.

THE CHAIRMAN: It usually happens that the line of least resistance and of profit to the company are not synchronous. They diverge widely; in other words, the profitable business is usually the most difficult busines to get.

MR. GOULD: And pays the most.

THE CHAIRMAN: And the line of recommendation of this Committee is that it has been found profitable, wherever it has been tried, in addition to a straight salary to give salesmen a commission based on the desirability and profitability of the

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business, just the same as, in a shoe store if there is one particular line of shoes that the proprietor wants to move, he may offer a little premium to the salesmen for moving those shoes; if there is a particular line of work in a lighting company that they desire to develop, be it the electrical vehicle business or the sale of vacuum cleaners in some particular month, or the sale of a type of power business, or a particular type of lighting business, possibly the intensification of the lighting in factories, the salesman is offered a commission on all that particular kind of business that he brings in; so we can consider that this is an important report. It places the committee on record. The members of the committee hitherto have been afraid to go on record as favoring any special type of compensation. Does that answer your question?

MR. GOULD: Except for one point-take two men working in two different territories, one man has very easy picking and the other man has difficult picking; I heard some sales managers discussing that very point, and they brought out 36 different bonus plans. A good many of them were based on the productivity of the territory.

THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hogue, could you answer that as to the methods the Commonwealth Edison Company employes?

MR. HOGUE: Mr. Chairman, a central station. salesman's functions differ from those of the average salesman. He has to carry the good will policy of the Company; he also has to take care of complaints, as well as canvass for business. Central station customers are permanent customers. We do not sell them today, and come back next year and take another order; and come back the next year and say we have something better; but we have to continue from day to day to keep them our friends. Consequently a salesman should be compensated for taking care of the company's interests and for keeping the good will of the company before the customer at all times.

Conditions have somewhat changed in recent years. In the early days, under normal conditions, the average central station figured that most any kind of business would do. Then we came to the war period, when manufacturers were unable to furnish machinery; we were short on capacity; we wanted to build up our valley load, and we had to figure some method whereby the salesman would secure the business that would be profitable and at the same time would not add to our peak load.

It has been the Commonwealth Edison Company's custom to classify the various businesses and to pay the commission to the salesmen in ratio to the value to the Company of the specific business. During the war period our available central station capacity was low, and we found it necessary to concentrate our efforts on valley load, and on business that would pay us the largest return per kwh. In talking to other central station commercial representatives, it developed that they had the same idea,

and were seeking a plan that would interest the salesmen to secure this class of business.

I believe you will be interested in our change in compensating our salesmen for selling housewiring. This business amounted to approximately $200,000 a year, and the salesmen were compensated on the basis of salary and commission. We called a conference of the housewiring salesmen, and asked them if they would be willing to work on a straight commission basis of eight per cent on the gross amount of business secured, including wiring, but not fixtures, and five per cent on fixtures. They heartily agreed, and increased their earning capacity two or three times. We in turn built up our business to about a million and a half dollars a year.

For many years we have discussed the question of compensation to salesmen, and I do not believe that there are two central station men who have the same idea in that regard. I have never been at a meeting where they were unanimous on any one idea for paying salesmen. We have had reports from year to year, and they always cite the methods used by some companies, but up to the present time there is no set policy.

THE CHAIRMAN: Is there any further comment on this report? If not, we will pass to the next report, which is the report of the Commercial Service and Relations with Customers Committee. Mr. L. A. Coleman, Chairman of that Committee, was unable to be here, and I am going to ask his first lieutenant on the committee, Mr. Harold Wright, of the Commonwealth Company, to present that report.

The scope of this Committee, as defined, is "to formulate efficient methods of conducting relations between customer and the supplying company, from the application for service to the disconnection of service; including such matters as application forms, order routine, inquiries and complaints, meter reading, collections and credits."

The Committee, this year, has devoted itself to a continuation of the effort made in previous years to bring more forcibly to the attention of the industry, the matter of service to the customer and what it means in ultimate results to the Companies.

The field of work and inquiry covers the routine of the application for service, the billing, meter reading and collection of accounts and the matter of complaints.

In previous years, a large amount of data was obtained by means of questionnaires, and definite recommendations were made to member companies concerning these various matters. No record is available as to what the results of these recommendations have been, but it is fair to assume that they bore considerable fruit.

That part of the work being practically completed, the attention of the Committee since that time has

been devoted to what may be termed propaganda, this consisting of articles written by members of the Committee on various phases of service work and published through the pages of the Bulletin and trade press.

The Committee, this year, continued this policy to a certain extent and calls attention to the following articles in connection with this work, both of which appeared in the N. E. L. A. Bulletin: "Executives and Employes Should Cooperate in Good-Will Campaign" by L. A. Coleman, March, 1921, Bulletin, page 168; an article by F. F. Kellogg, April, 1921, Bulletin, page 235; and "Selection and Training of Bookkeeping and Meter Reading Personnel," by W. J. Lockhart and R. F. Bonsall, April, 1921, Bulletin, page 237.

At the outset of our work this year, considerable thought was given to a plan of establishing a model routine covering this entire subject, with the hope that this could be placed before the chief executives of the companies and a definite result obtained toward our goal of uniformity of practice.

The past year, however, has been a burdensome one in our industry, and it was found that time did