Page:Melbourne Riots (Andrade, 1892).djvu/68

62 the first pioneers had arrived at Lake Boga, leaving 4,900 comrades behind them. The directors had started the month with £2,000 in hand, and the settlers had sent down their usual monthly supply of 250,000 fowls, 30,000lbs. of butter, 1,000 tons of vegetables and fruits, besides a large supply of preserves and sundry products from the two settlements. These, after deducting all expenses, had realized £13,000; and the monthly call from the 500 Pioneers had amounted to a modest £62, making a grand total of £15,062 in the hands of the directors. With this they sent up the remaining members, on the first day of the following month of June at a total cost of £12,000. Thus the Social Pioneers had, in exactly three years, settled the whole of their 5,000 members on 10,600 acres of land, upon which they had erected 1,250 cottages besides their public hall and factories; they had cultivated and irrigated those lands by means of the best labor saving machinery; and, besides their 1,200 head of cattle, they had their pretty little colonies literally packed with live stock and vegetation capable of sustaining in comfort every one of them and thousands more besides. And yet the total capital paid up by all the members was only £17,746!

Now that all the members were settled, the society held a general meeting of its members at the Hall of Freedom, when the whole wealth of the community was calculated and the members were formally freed of their dependance upon its direction, and their accumulated wealth individualized. This was very simple. The 10,600 acres of land, which under the property system of other towns, would have been estimated at about £4,000,000 was utterly valueless in a mercantile sense, owing to the society's Constitution making it not a saleable commodity; so it was left entirely out of account in their calculations. All the cottages, factories, machinery, irrigating works, agricultural implements, live stock, fruit trees, vegetable products, besides the steam plough, public hall, &c., were carefully valued—everything movable, in fact, except the personal belongings that the settlers had brought with them, with the result that the aggregate wealth was estimated at £500,000. This equalled £100 to each individual; and the society accordingly issued labor notes to the full amount, giving each individual £100 worth of them, with which he could then, or at any other time, purchase from the directors the equivalent from any of the wealth in the possession of the society.

These notes were very simply arranged so as to fit in with the prevailing outside system, and be easy of adoption by the Pioneers. The £1 labor note was made the standard so as to fit in with the £1 in outside sterling currency which it equalled in purchasing power, although it was not professedly redeemable in coin, but could readily he exchanged for it when anyone desired it. On the basis of this £1 the decimal system was adopted. The lowest denomination was a cent (equal to about 1/4d), 10 cents made a mark (equal to about 21/2d.), 10 marks made an hour (which was the average hourly value of labor or product in the communities, and which equalled 2s.), and ten hours made a pound. Each one selected what he desired to purchase with his money, some retaining the balance in their own possession and a number depositing it in the mutual bank.