Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1875-03-17
WE MUST WORK FOR TT
Hard FIsted Common Sense Talk
AbOut Currency.
C1art-s-f1Ia ChronicIa

More currency Is the universal cry
In the South, for carrying on its COM
merce and developing its resources.
Every one admits the great need of
money, but very few seem to remem-
Der that the products of the farm and
the workshop viii buy money as readi-
" as money will purchase those pro-
ducts; and fewer still remember that
money can not be kept In any locality
which does not supply itself with all
such articles as make up the convent
ences and comforts of life. How long
the proceeds of a big crop of tobacco
or cotton will remain among those who
produce them, Is annually illustrated
by the continued poverty and depend
ence Of the South upon the looms and
workshops of its OppressOrs In the
North. The annual income of the
South is virtually mortgaged. IN adj
vance of its receipt, to the Northwest
for food for man and beast, and to the
Northeast for the clothes we wear and
the brushes to clean them; for the i'm
plements we use in farming and in all
the other industrial vocations which
exc out a precarious existence in our
midst-fOr anything, In short, which
smacks of convenience or luxury-not
emitting the constantly changing fash
ions which makes wives and daughters
a costly luxury to the more successful,
and anything but a blessing to the
hard-working.
With such abject dependence upon
the energy, skill and capital of the
North, is it any wonder that money is
scarce and poverty abundant in the
South? Nothing but the worldwide
demand for its great staples saves it
from absolute want, and nothing but
reversal of It's suicidal policy can Sc
cure for it the wealth and power, the
means for which nature has so lavishly
bestowed upon it. To bring about this
indispensable change, planters must
create an abundance of food for man
and beast-relying upon cotton and to-
bacco only for clear gains and the the
certain increase of their pecuniary
prosperity; and the capitalists must in
vest In more machinery, and less IN
United States bonds.
All cotton or tobacco, may bring IN
big pile of currency, but 1t profits the
planter nothing if he pays usurious in
terest upon advances of bread and
meat, grain and hay, as well as the ex-
tortions of railroads and middle men.
So far from beng prosperous under
such policy, he is lucky if he saves
enough from his big pile to pay hire
and taxes-leaving ont the list of
losses, his more impoverished fields and
the general wear and tear and dilapida-
ton which follow time and needless
usage.
Is it any wonder that money is scarce
where this policy prevails? Or that
the little they do get will not stay
with them? Instead of clamoring for
more money, they ought to pray for
sense to manage their own affairs and
to develope the rich resources with
which the South abOunds; for the wis
dom and manly pride to adopt policy
which hold out the certain means of
neutralizing, if not hurting back, the
curses heaped upon US by brutal Sec
tional despotism. Such policy is the
great need of the South, and until it is
adopted, there is little chance for poll
teal justice, and still less for that
abundance of currency for which there
is so much clamor with so little justice