Home -> James H. Barry Press -> Eurasia -> Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII. 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 he 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.