Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1872-09-19
Agrifnltnral department.
From the Rural CarOlinian.
THE CREDIT SYSTEM AND ITS EFFECTS

You have in your August number, on page
6O3, an article headed: 1.-THE Bane and the
Antidote" What your friend from Canton,
Miss, says is applicable to the whole State of
Mississippi and most of the cotton-raising
States. The agricultural papers Of the South
abound in similar complaints.
All writer's on the subject agree that the
cause of all this trouble is the credit system,
as carried on, but they fail to give the true
remedy. How can people expect to be pros
porous, who 60 and pledge and eat and drink,
and wear out a crop before it is grown ?
Here is the bottom of our troubles. 1t is our
laws inaugurated since the war, by our wise
Solons, by which only the credit-giving mer-
chant is protected. Our laws encourage the
credit system, whereas, it ought to be the re-
verse.
We all know that during the war spirit
of speculation developed itself in our people.
This spirit ought to be checked at once by
passing laws, which make it a legal ofense to
pledge any produce before nature and art
have made it marketable article.
The laws throughout the South protecting
the merchants for furnished supplies, have
transformed most of our so-called merchants
into pawn-brokers of the worst kind. South
ern people, insist on your lawmakers having
all these bad laws revoked, and you will see
in less than three years that there will be
enough provisions raised in the South to sup
ply our wants and more, and the present cred
it system will be broken at once.
That enough corn and small grains can be
raised here is no question at all. Did we not
do it during the war and feed large bodies of
invaders besides?
The effects of the present credit system are
really fearful. To see this in its most alarm
ing aspect, we have to 60 to the County Re.
corder's Offices, and there see how many
farms have passed from the farmers into the
hands of so-called merchants and spectators.
Then 60 and see what this gentry does with
the acquired farm, and you will soon find out
that the white man who owned it is gradually
persuaded off from his old home with his fam
lily, and replaced by negroes because it is
easier, as they say, to trade with the negro
he is easier managed.
If the present system is carried on for ten
years, more than three-fourths of the land
and farms will be held principally by peddler-
lneTcnauCS, anu Systeu VI leuuallSM iuauS
urated worse than that which the middle
ages of Europe ever saw it.
Now, ye lawmakers Of our Sunny South,
did you look into these things during the last
four or FIVE years, and will you give us rad
ical remedy, or force US to emigration, and to
leave this, the finest of all countries, to the
pawn-broker merchants, and their serfs, the
negroes?
The present credit system is nothing less
than high-handed game of gambling 1t is
selling and using what does not yet exist. Go
and see now the accounts of most Of the farm.
ers with the merchants, and you will find
that the incurred Indebtedness at This date is,
by far more than the best cotton crop at good
prices will bring.
The remedies mentioned by you in the
above-recited article, are no doubt very good i;
but they do not cover the whole ground, and
will be of benefit to a few only, simply be-
cause the smallest class of farmers read the
agricultural papers and follow their good
teachings. The fact is, most of our farmers
get their information over the counters of
their merchants, and this is taken, as it seems,
with more faith than the gospel.
PINE STUMP.
Summit, Pike county, Mss.