The taxes in Colymbia are all of the nature of income-tax and are only levied on those having a certain minimum income. The daily, weekly or monthly wages of the labouring classes are exempt from taxation; hence their hearty approval of a freely-spending government. As there are no imports or exports there is of course no source of revenue from customs.
The building operations below water are very extensive and are constantly going on. The facility with which the workmen move about the largest blocks of coral-rock seems wonderful. This is owing to the weight of bodies in water, as compared with the same bodies in air, being so much less by the difference between the weight of air and of water. Thus it may readily happen that a body may weigh hundreds of pounds in air and not above an ounce or two in water; it may of course even be lighter than the water.
One advantage attending the building of houses in Colymbia is that accidents to the workmen are almost impossible. Of course it is obvious that if they fall off the top of a house, they will not practically fall at all, nor yet rise, their equilibrium with the water being maintained by their weight-belts. If a mass of the building material fall on a workman, its specific gravity being but little greater than that of water, it will fall on him as gently as a feather-bed in air, and he has no difficulty in extricating himself. Labour is thus comparatively light, and free from the risks attending it in air. And yet the hours of labour are shorter in Colymbia than they are with us. The law has rigidly fixed eight hours as the limit of working hours for hired labour. No overtime is
