remain on the land. We
state in our literature, as does all state literature, that the
first two or three years contain hardships, and mean some working
out to earn money, provided the settler comes without any funds
whatever. The survey of all our settlers shows that while they have
worked in the city ten to fifteen years, their entire savings have
amounted to from $200 to $1,000. In the colonies, due to clearing,
increased value of land, and earnings on their new farms, they have
made from $500 to $1,000 a year. Surely this entails some hardship
and some hard work.

The statement that some of them hired out to the company at less
wages than are paid in industrial centers I'll agree was true
during war times. We could not hope to compete with the wages paid
in the munition factories of the East. The company does, however,
pay standard wages, as high as are paid anywhere for the same class
of labor.

The statement that the company claims that it sells the necessities
at cost is not correct, for the company sells nothing. We have an
iron-bound practice that in no case do we enter into the store or
sales business. We furnish the original house, barn, tools, live
stock, with the land. After that we sell nothing. We have often
stated that if we would enter into the store business or selling
business, it would drive others out, and it was poor practice for
the company to engage in any business outside of colonization, for
it involved too much detail and was a separate business.
Colonization is a game all of itself, and if we divided our
energies with other industries we could not succeed.

Some time ago a charge similar to this was made by some of the
settlers, stating that the company was making profits on buildings.
We immediately offered to have any lumber company agree to put up
those buildings for the same price that we did. We asked for a
large number of bids, and the nearest bid was one hundred and
twenty-five dollars more than the price we were charging the
settlers. We did not ask them to bid on only one house, but on one
hundred houses a year. The reason we have been able to construct
these buildings at such a low rate is that we have our own timber.
When the price of lumber went up during war times, we did not
increase our price