urs long--counting the possible
workers of the family as three, and the labor day as twelve hours
long--we have in the aggregate, say eleven thousand weary hours of this
nerve depressing labor. A labor often performed in the midst of the most
repulsive and unsanitary conditions; to which the toilers were
constantly goaded by the cruel spur of necessity. This is a picture of
the living expenses and daily working life of a family of the superior
class, far above the average among the workers under the competitive
system.

"To illustrate what the co-operative system can do, let us transfer the
account of this family, to a co-operative agricultural colony like this.
On the basis of three hundred days of labor annually, we should have
daily for the two adults--the children being in school--six hours of
productive labor and two hours of educative labor, an aggregate of four
thousand, eight hundred hours, of work for the year. This work would be
separated by such generous periods of rest and recreation, and performed
amidst such pleasant surroundings, that the worker could truthfully
count them as so many hours spent in necessary healthful exercise.

"As a result of this labor, we could place the annual income of the
family at $1,800. All available, for providing the very best of food,
shelter, clothing, heat, light, laundry, hospital service, medical
attendance, medicine, education and amusement. Also superior social
surroundings, with increased facilities for being well born; with
educative advantages, embracing a higher order of intellectual
amusements, art-culture, musical training, and industrial skill.

"In addition, the family would enjoy a savings account of generous
proportions, represented by the constantly increasing value of the farm,
its stock, crops, buildings, store and goods, material, machinery,
industrial plants, orchards, vineyards and forests.

"Still better! They would have savings in the sinking fund, providing
land, and homes for their children and grand-children in a long line of
future generations.

"Best of all! This family would have savings in the insurance fund,
providing for an old age of ease and comfort, free from care, sweetened
and brightened by leisure, travel and the refinements of study, art and
music!

"In striking a balance between these two accounts, we discover a
difference in favor of the co-operative system, with its magical
insurance, which is wider, deeper and more startling