cost the community in cash little more than half the amount that must otherwise have been paid away in wage. The dividends that they received in coupons, representing the equitable distribution of the entire earnings of their own store, constituted comparative wealth laid up for them in course of years.
As head became silvered, or children grew up, the store employee of the city might purchase, by merely a transference of accounts in the books, without a penny passing, one of the garden-retreats at Lilydale, or a home on one of the ever-extending settlements beyond Mimosa Vale and on the Silverbourne.
By degrees factories at Brunswick and West Melbourne fell into the hands of the settlement folk. A share of the inter-colonial and ocean steam-ship trade was secured. In South Australia a vast tract was acquired. The Southerners were shown how to farm the plains, well watered now, at a profit.
Later on, powers were taken from the Government, and a trunk line of railway run to Port Darwin. The day of railway commissioners and octopus bills passed away. The three classes, duly represented, managed and worked their own lines for their own benefit, in conjunction with fleets and factories, settlements and cities of labourers associated with them. All along the line, Co-operation triumphed over Competition.
"What is to hinder," asked Tom Lord of Travers, as, in the early days, they discussed the marvellous developments of their enterprises, "the inevitable disintegration and falling apart of the allied industries? Your several stores and banks and insurance offices in town are bound to become independent."
"If it suit them to go alone, they are welcome to do
