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308 the necessaries of life, and were afforded an opportunity of purchasing an interest in the enterprise, and a holding on the agricultural settlements.

The accounts of the special industries were kept distinct. If, owing to no fault of the workers, any enterprise happened to continue unprofitable, it might, if deemed worth preserving, be subsidized by the central Parliament, until it should become self-supporting. On this principle costly machinery was, when necessary, erected and paid for by the workers in course of years.

Conspicuous among the ever-multiplying factories were the flour-mills. The "Co-ops." had bought out the large wheat-growers that lay between Mimosa Vale and Gum ford. Fruit- and meat-preserving, cheese and butter factories, together with saw-mills, ship-building yards, iron-works, brick-yards, woollen and leather factories—on the cottage-and-garden principle—tanneries and workshops of almost all kinds, were established.

In the metropolis, and later in Sydney, Adelaide, London, and New York, colossal Emporiums were located. Direct from the spot where the produce was grown or wrought, it went to the vast stores without intervention on the part of any cream-skimming middleman. Each vessel and store, as factory or settlement, was credited with its own work done or money earned. This was apportioned in dividends to the three classes that manned every vessel and ran every store.

In the case of the five-storied Melbourne store, that eventually covered two acres of ground, all hands were allotted rooms in the Labour Palace adjoining, or cottages in the suburban "village" at Blackburn. All received the necessaries of life as their friends in the country did, membership of their clubs, etc., and wanted for little else. They were virtually catered for wholesale, and