EARNINGS: Green Fingers

EARNINGS Green Fingers Westinghouse Electric Corp.'s President Gwilym A. Price reported with a grin last week that although his company's sales had dropped last year from $970 million to $945 million, his net had risen to a new alltime peak of $67 million, a thumping 18% above 1948. Price's explanation: "More efficient manufacturing facilities . . . operating economies, and excellent teamwork."

A onetime lawyer and banker, Price went to Westinghouse in 1943 to handle the company's war contracts, devised so simple a method for terminating them at war's end that it became an industry model. Impressed, the directors made him president in 1946. Price set his sights on three main goals: cut costs, step up productivity, and boost sales. He worked out an incentive plan whereby foremen get bonuses for every cost-cutting or production-boosting idea. In three years Westinghouse's net has jumped 40%. Last week, Price was just as confident about the future.

Business was also good in Wilmington, Del. E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. reported 1949 earnings of $4.52 a share ($1.24 more than in 1948), an alltime record. The boost was due largely to bigger dividends from General Motors Corp., of which Du Pont owns 22.6%. Du Pont directors declared a 75¢ quarterly dividend, up 20% from 1949's first quarter.