DEPARTMENT OF MANUFACTURES.
The Government derived its revenues from the sale of liquors, drugs,
chemicals, tobacco, coffee, tea, sugar, salt, coal, oil, stone,
charcoal, iron, steel, copper, lead and the precious metals. The
greatest revenue was derived from liquors. Every commodity produced or
manufactured by the Government was sold in lots or packages at one
dollar a lot or package. The Government made and sold wine in three
grades, The first-grade wine was put up in quart bottles at one dollar
a quart, the second-grade wine in half-gallon bottles at one dollar a
bottle, and the third-grade wine in gallon bottles at one dollar a
gallon; alcohol in half-gallon bottles at one dollar a bottle, and
brandy in the same way and sold at the same price. There were no grades
in brandy. All brandies were sold at one dollar for half a gallon.
Whisky, of which there was only manufactured one grade, but out of
different cereals or vegetables, was put up in one-gallon bottles and
sold at one dollar a gallon. Beer was sold in five-gallon kegs at one
dollar a keg, but the purchaser of beer had to pay in addition for the
keg, which was refunded when he returned the keg in good condition. The
Government manufactured pure liquors and no foreign liquors were
admitted into Eurasia.
In the chemical factories every drug required by the Medical
Pharmacopoeia and every chemical required in the arts and manufactures
was made, but no drugs were sold except on a medical prescription, or
chemicals except to responsible parties. The voters of any district
could by a majority vote prohibit the use of any or all liquors or
drugs in the district, and on receiving official notice of the law
enacted by the district the Minister of Manufactures issued an order
withdrawing from the district any or all liquors or drugs prohibited,
and any person bringing into the district any prohibited drug or
liquor, unless under a prescription from a Government physician, was
punished by six months at hard labor within the district.
At every Government warehouse where drugs and chemicals were sold the
Government employed a competent physician, on a salary fixed by law, to
superintend their sale, and he could prescribe and the Government
furnished the medicine free to those who were sick and did not have the
money to pay for it.
Tobacco was manufactured and sold in three grades, viz., cigars, which
were sold in packages twenty cigars for a dollar, and smoking tobacco
and chewing at one dollar a package. No cigarettes were manufactured or
sold by the Government or admitted into Eurasia, as it was recognized
by all intelligent people who took a warm interest in human progress
that the use of tobacco in the form of cigarettes had an injurious
effect on the young, through the pernicious habit of inhaling the
smoke. Coffee and tea were put up in three grades at one dollar a
package, the packages weighing in proportion to grade, and sugar was
made and sold in two grades, viz., common sugar and refined. The common
was put up in twenty-five-pound sacks and sold for one dollar a sack,
and the refined sugar in twenty-pound sacks and sold at one dollar a
sack. Salt was put up in one-hundred-pound sacks and five sacks of
common salt were sold for one dollar and four sacks of refined salt for
one dollar, or at the rate of four dollars a ton for rock salt and five
dollars a ton for refined salt.
The Government manufactured charcoal on a large scale in fireproof
brick kilns, that turned out ten thousand bushels of charcoal to the
kiln, with elevated railroad tracks running between the rows of kilns,
so that the wood was unloaded from the cars into the kilns and on the
outside of the kilns were sunken railroad tracks so that the charcoal
when drawn from the kilns could be loaded into the cars with the least,
amount of labor, enabling the Government to sell charcoal in
one-hundred-pound sacks at one dollar for two hundred pounds, or at the
rate of ten dollars a ton. The Government reserved for its own use all
anthracite coal, but sold bituminous coal in two-hundred-pound sacks
for a dollar, at the rate of five dollars a ton. The Government
reserved for its own use crude petroleum, but refined it as coal oil
and sold it at ten cents a gallon in dollar lots.
Pig iron and bar steel were sold by the Government at a price yielding
a profit of twenty per cent. over cost of production; lead and copper
at the same rate of profit, and all the gold and silver mined or
brought into Eurasia was coined and went into circulation. Every
commodity produced or manufactured by the Government in the above list
was sold at the same price, whether the Government warehouse where the
goods were sold was in the most populous city of Eurasia or at a lonely
fishing-station in the icy regions of the Arctic or in the torrid
deserts of the Tropics.
Every person buying a commodity in a Government store was required by
law to register his name in the Government account book opposite the
list of articles purchased, which was always open to the public for
inspection, so that any intelligent person could see who was addicted
to the use of intoxicating liquors, and the manager of the warehouse
was compelled by law on the complaint of a wife or mother to deny
liquor to the husband or son that was complained against and to publish
the name in the district newspaper of largest circulation as well as
posting it on the bulletin board on the front of the warehouse, and any
person who gave liquor directly or indirectly to the person prohibited
was sentenced, on conviction thereof, to six months' imprisonment at
hard labor. The Magistrate was forbidden by law to release on probation
any person over the age of fifteen years convicted of this offense, and
a child under the age of fifteen violating this law was sent to the
reform school, of which there was one in every district.
No credit was allowed in the purchase of goods from the Government and
the manager of the warehouse had discretionary power to limit the sale
of any commodity so as to treat rich and poor alike and to prevent
speculation. As every purchaser could buy a dollar's worth of any
commodity for sale by the Government and as no rebate was granted no
matter what the amount purchased, it placed every purchaser on an
equality in dealing with the Government. No liquor was allowed to be
drunk on or about the premises where it was sold, neither could it be
sold by any private party directly or indirectly to any person.